rate and independent nations, but because its several
provinces had, prior to their conquest by the Roman arms, been
independent nations or tribes, and more especially because the
conquerors themselves were divided into several distinct nations or
confederacies. If the barbarians had been united in a single nation or
state, the Roman empire most likely would have changed masters, indeed,
but have retained its unity and its constitution, for the Germanic
nations that finally seated themselves on its ruins had no wish to
destroy its name or nationality, for they were themselves more than
half Romanized before conquering Rome. But the new nations into which
the empire has been divided have never been, at any moment, without
political or governmental organization, continued from the constitution
of the conquering tribe or nation, modified more or less by what was
retained from the empire.

It is not pretended that the constitutions of states cannot be altered,
or that every people starts with a constitution fully developed, as
would seem to be the doctrine of De Maistre. The constitution of the
family is rather economical than political, and the tribe is far from
being a fully developed state. Strictly speaking, the state, the modern
equivalent for the city of the Greeks and Romans, was not fully formed
till men began to build and live in cities, and became fixed to a
national territory. But in the first place, the eldest born of the
human race, we are told, built a city, and even in cities we find
traces of the family and tribal organization long after their municipal
existence--in Athens down to the Macedonian conquest, and in Rome down
to the establishment of the Empire; and, in the second place, the
pastoral nations, though they have not precisely the city or state
organization, yet have a national organization, and obey a national
authority. Strictly speaking, no pastoral nation has a civil or
political constitution, but they have what in our modern tongues can be
expressed by no other term. The feudal regime, which was in full vigor
even in Europe from the tenth to the close of the fourteenth century,
had nothing to do with cities, and really recognized no state proper;
yet who hesitates to speak of it as a civil or political system, though
a very imperfect one?

The civil order, as it now exists, was not fully developed in the early
ages. For a long time the national organizations bore unmistakable
traces of