the general demonstrations by which the historians demonstrate the
development of the wealthy classes, by the aid and support of which
alone the letters and the arts arise and flourish. In the earliest
stages of society, the struggle for life absorbs all possible energy; a
little comfort and security, and consequent leisure, bring in the arts.
The half-starved hunting-dog follows the game steadily, stealthily,
without a superfluous sign or motion; _after_ the chase, and the
subsequent feast and the subsequent luxurious slumber, he awakes to
indulge in unpractical gambols and barkings around his master,--it is
the dance; Art is invented! The three superior social classes, the king,
the clergy, and the nobles, which were definitely established in France
at the outbreak of the Revolution, were the legitimate development of
the feudal system, and had, apparently, legitimately conquered their
position. They had been the protectors of the people even before the
Carlovingian epoch, and when the people finally arose and overturned
them, it was only because they had completely forgotten their high
mission through a long course of years.

To Stendhal's observation, that, in the tenth century, a man considered
himself lucky if he were not killed, and had a good leathern jacket for
winter, Taine adds, and a woman, if she were not violated by a whole
band of ruffians. In those truly Dark Ages the peasant accepted quite
willingly the hardest feudal obligations as a harbor of refuge from the
ills that menaced him on every side. The sixth and seventh centuries of
our era are considered to have been among the worst that the world has
seen; it was declared that it was not with water, but with His tears,
that God moistened the earth out of which He made man. After the fall of
the Romans, it was the Church alone that saved human society from "a
Mongol anarchy;" in the last years of the Empire, the cities, illy
defended by their natural protectors, gave to their bishops, with the
title of _defensor civitatis_, the principal municipal authority. The
Church alone retained any influence over the conquering barbarian;
before the shaven monk or the mitred abbot, the wolfish and ignorant
chief, long-haired, filthy, and half-clad in furs, hesitated, listened
to his words in the council, stooped before his altars,--"like Saint
Lupicin before the Burgonde king Chilperic, Saint Karileff before the
king Childebert." In his moments of repose, after the