ch were silently abolished; and the nation was
separated, and almost dissolved, by the conquest of Gaul. [120] The
monarchy was left without any regular establishment of justice, of arms,
or of revenue. The successors of Clovis wanted resolution to assume, or
strength to exercise, the legislative and executive powers, which the
people had abdicated: the royal prerogative was distinguished only by a
more ample privilege of rapine and murder; and the love of freedom, so
often invigorated and disgraced by private ambition, was reduced, among
the licentious Franks, to the contempt of order, and the desire of
impunity. Seventy-five years after the death of Clovis, his grandson,
Gontran, king of Burgundy, sent an army to invade the Gothic possessions
of Septimania, or Languedoc. The troops of Burgundy, Berry, Auvergne,
and the adjacent territories, were excited by the hopes of spoil. They
marched, without discipline, under the banners of German, or Gallic,
counts: their attack was feeble and unsuccessful; but the friendly
and hostile provinces were desolated with indiscriminate rage. The
cornfields, the villages, the churches themselves, were consumed by
fire: the inhabitants were massacred, or dragged into captivity; and,
in the disorderly retreat, five thousand of these inhuman savages
were destroyed by hunger or intestine discord. When the pious Gontran
reproached the guilt or neglect of their leaders, and threatened to
inflict, not a legal sentence, but instant and arbitrary execution, they
accused the universal and incurable corruption of the people. "No one,"
they said, "any longer fears or respects his king, his duke, or his
count. Each man loves to do evil, and freely indulges his criminal
inclinations. The most gentle correction provokes an immediate tumult,
and the rash magistrate, who presumes to censure or restrain his
seditious subjects, seldom escapes alive from their revenge." [121] It
has been reserved for the same nation to expose, by their intemperate
vices, the most odious abuse of freedom; and to supply its loss by the
spirit of honor and humanity, which now alleviates and dignifies their
obedience to an absolute sovereign. [1211]

[Footnote 119: Ce beau systeme a ete trouve dans les bois. Montesquieu,
Esprit des Loix, l. xi. c. 6.]

[Footnote 120: See the Abbe de Mably. Observations, &c., tom. i. p.
34-56. It should seem that the institution of national assemblies, which
are with the French nation, has n