and
sensuality, that inglorious rest and pleasure, which, as everybody
concedes, prepared the way for violence.

And hence Charlemagne's empire went to pieces as soon as he was dead.
There was nothing permanent in his conquests, except those made against
barbarism. He was raised up to erect barriers against fresh inroads of
barbarians. His whole empire was finally split up into petty
sovereignties. In one sense he founded States, "since he founded the
States which sprang up from the dismemberment of his empire. The
kingdoms of Germany, Italy, France, Burgundy, Lorraine, Navarre, all
date to his memorable reign." But these mediaeval kingdoms were feudal;
the power of the kings was nominal. Government passed from imperialism
into the hands of nobles. The government of Europe in the Middle Ages
was a military aristocracy, only powerful as the interests of the people
were considered. Kings and princes did not make much show, except in the
trappings of royalty,--in gorgeous dresses of purple and gold, to suit a
barbaric taste,--in the insignia of power without its reality. The power
was among the aristocracy, who, it must be confessed, ground down the
people by a hard feudal rule, but who did not grind the souls out of
them, like the imperialism of absolute monarchies, with their standing
armies. Under them the feudal nobles of Europe at length recuperated.
Virtues were born everywhere,--in England, in France, in Germany, in
Holland,--which were a savor of life unto life: loyalty, self-respect,
fidelity to covenants, chivalry, sympathy with human misery, love of
home, rural sports, a glorious rural life, which gave stamina to
character,--a material which Christianity could work upon, and kindle
the latent fires of freedom, and the impulses of a generous enthusiasm.
It was under the fostering influences of small, independent chieftains
that manly strength and organized social institutions arose once
more,--the reserved power of unconquerable nations. Nobody hates
feudalism--in its corruptions, in its oppressions--more than I do. But
it was the transition stage from the anarchy which the collapse of
imperialism produced to the constitutional governments of our times, if
we could forget the absolute monarchies which flourished on the breaking
up of feudalism, when it became a tyranny and a mockery, but which
absolute monarchies flourished only one or two hundred years,--a sort of
necessity in the development of nations to chec