exactly what had elsewhere been done by Theodoric and Dagobert, in causing the barbaric laws to be digested for their Frank subjects. As the Salic and Ripuarian laws set forth ancient customs, already ill suited to the new state of the German people, so the Breviarium of Alaric and the Papiani Responsum collected laws already old, and partly inapplicable. By the fall of the Empire and by the invasion, the whole social order was entirely changed; the relations between men were different, and another system of property commenced; the Roman political institutions could not subsist; facts of all sorts were renewed over the whole face of the land. And what laws were given to this rising society, so disordered and yet so fertile? Two ancient laws: the ancient barbarous customs and the ancient Roman legislation. It is evident that neither could be suitable; both must be modified, must be profoundly metamorphosed, in order to be adapted to the new facts.

When, therefore, we say that at the sixth century the Roman law still lasted, and that the barbarous laws were written; when we find in posterior centuries always the same words, Roman law, and barbaric laws, it must not be supposed that the same laws are spoken of. In perpetuating itself, the Roman law altered; after having been written, the barbaric laws were perverted. Both are among the number of the essential elements of modern society; but as elements entering into a new combination, which will arise after a long fermentation, and in the breast of which they will only appear transformed.

It is this successive transformation that I shall attempt to present to you; historians do not speak of it; unvarying phrases hide it; it is an internal work, a profoundly secret spectacle; and at which one can only arrive by piercing many inclosures, and guarding against the illusion caused by the similitude of forms and names.

We now find ourselves at the end of our researches concerning the state of civil society in Gaul, from the sixth to the middle of the eighth century. In our next lecture, we shall study the changes which happened in the religious society at the same epoch, that is to say, the state and constitution of the church.

TWELFTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture-State of the church in Gaul, from the sixth to the middle of the eighth century-Analogy between the primitive state of the religious society and the civil society-The unity of the church or the spiritual society-Two elements or conditions of spiritual society; 1st. Unity of truth, that is to say, of absolute reason; 2d. Liberty of minds, or individual reason-State of these two ideas in the Christian church, from the sixth to the eighth century -She adopts one and rejects the other-Unity of the church in legislation General councils-Difference between the eastern and the western church as regards the persecution of heretics-Relations of the church with the state, from the sixth to the eighth century: 1st, in the eastern empire; 2d, in the west, especially in Frankish Gaul-Interference of the temporal power in the affairs of the church-Of the spiritual power in the affairs of the state-Recapitulation.

WE re-enter a route over which we have already gone; we again take up a thread which we have once held: we have to occupy ourselves with the history of the Christian church in Gaul, from the completion of the invasion to the fall of the Merovingian kings, that is to say, from the sixth to the middle of the eighth century.

The determination of this epoch is not arbitrary; the accession of the Carlovingian kings marked a crisis in religious society as well as in civil society. It is a date which constitutes an era, and at which it is advisable to pause.

Recall the picture which I have traced of the state of the religious society in Gaul, before the decisive fall of the Roman empire, that is to say, at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century. We have considered the church under two points of view: 1st, in her external situation, in her relations with the state; 2d, in her internal constitution, in her social and political organization. Around these two fundamental problems we have seen that all the particular questions, all the facts collect.

This two-fold examination has enabled us to see, in the first five centuries of the church, the germ of all the solutions of the two problems, some example of all the forms, and trials of all the combinations. There is no system, whether in re

gard to the external relations of the church, or her internal organization, which may not be traced to this epoch, and there find some authority. Independence, obedience, sovereignty, the compromises of the church with the state, presbyterianism or episcopacy, the complete absence of the clergy, or its almost exclusive domination, we have found all these.

We have just examined the state of civil society after the invasion, in the sixth and seventh centuries, and we have arrived at the same result. There, likewise, we have found the germ, the example of all the systems of social organization, and of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; the assemblies of free men; the patronage of the chief of the land towards his warriors, of the great proprietor towards the inferior proprietor, royalty, absolute and impotent, elective and hereditary, barbarous, imperial, and religious: all the principles, in a word, which have been developed in the life of modern Europe, at that time simultaneously appeared to us.

There is a remarkable similarity in the origin and primitive state of the two societies: wealth and confusion are alike in them; all things are there; none in its place and proportion; order will come with development; in being developed, the various elements will be disengaged and distinguished; each will display its pretensions and its own powers, first in order to combat, and afterwards to become reconciled. Such will be the progressive work of ages and of man.

It is at this work that we have hereafter to be present; we have seen in the cradle of the two societies all the material elements, and all the rational principles of modern civilization; we are about to follow them in their struggles, negotiations, amalgamations, and in all the vicissitudes both of their special and their common destiny This, properly speaking, is the history of civilization; we have as yet only arrived at the theatre of this history, and named its actors.

You will not be surprised that in entering upon a new era we should first encounter the religious society: it was, as you are aware, the most advanced and the strongest; whether in the Roman municipality, in the palace of the barbarous kings, or in the hierarchy of the conquerors now become proprietors, we have everywhere recognized the presence and influence of the heads of the church. From the fourth to the thirteenth century, it was the church that took the lead in the

career of civilization. It is natural, then, that, during this period, every time that we have made a halt, and again moved forward, it should be with her that we recommence.

We shall study her history from the sixth to the eighth century, under the two points of view already indicated; 1st, in her relations with the state; 2dly, in her peculiar and internal constitution.

But before approaching either of these questions, and the facts which are attached thereto, I must call your attention to a fact which dominates over all, which characterizes the Christian church in general, and has, as it were, decided her destiny.

This fact is the unity of the church, the unity of the Christian society, despite all the diversities of time, place, domination, language, or origin.

Singular phenomenon! It was at the very time that the Roman empire fell to pieces and disappeared, that the Christian church rallied, and definitively formed herself. Political unity perished, religious unity arose. I know not how many nations, of various origins, manners, language, and destiny, are thrown upon the scene; all becomes partial and local; every extended idea, every general institution, every great social combination vanishes; and at this very moment the Christian church proclaims the unity of her doctrine, the universality of her right.

This is a glorious and powerful fact, and one which, from the fifth to the thirteenth century, has rendered immense services to humanity. The mere fact of the unity of the church, maintained some tie between countries and nations that everything else tended to separate; under its influence, some general notions, some sentiments of a vast sympathy continued to be developed; and from the very heart of the most frightful political confusion that the world has ever known, arose perhaps the most extensive and the purest idea that has ever rallied mankind, the idea of spiritual society; for that is the philosophical name of the church, the type which she wished to realize.

What sense did men, at this period, attach to these words, and what progress had they already made in this path? What was actually, in minds and in facts, this spiritual society, the object of their ambition and respect? How was it conceived and practised? These questions must be answered in order to know what is meant when we speak of the unity

of the church, and what ought to be thought of its principles and results.

A common conviction, that is to say, an identical idea, acknowledged and received as true, is the fundamental basis, the secret tie of human society. One may stop at the most confined and the most simple association, or elevate oneself to the most complicated and extensive; we may examine what passes between three or four barbarians united for a hunting expedition, or in the midst of an assembly convoked to treat of the affairs of a great nation; everywhere, and under all circumstances, it is in the adhesion of individuals to the same thought, that the fact of association essentially consists so long as they do not comprehend one another, they are mere isolated beings, placed by the side of one another, but not holding together. A similar sentiment and doctrine, whatever may be its nature or object, is the first condition of the social state; it is in the midst of truth only, or in what they take for truth, that men become united, and that society takes birth. And in this sense, a modern philosopher' was right in saying that there is no society except between intellects; that society only subsists upon points and within limits, where the union of intellects is accomplished; that where intellects have nothing in common, there is no society; in other words, that intellectual society is the only society, the necessary element, and, as it were, the foundation of all external and visible associations.

Now, the essential element of truth, and precisely what is, in fact, the social tie, par excellence, is unity. Truth is one, therefore the men who have acknowledged and accepted it are united; a union which has in it nothing accidental nor arbitrary, for truth neither depends upon the accidents of things, nor upon the uncertainties of men; nothing transitory, for truth is eternal; nothing confined, for truth is complete and infinite. As of truth, unity then will be the essential characteristic of the society which shall have truth alone for its object, that is to say, of the purely religious society. There is not, there cannot be, two spiritual societies; it is, from its nature, sole and universal.

Thus did the church take birth: hence that unity which she proclaims as her principle, that universality which has

1 M. l'Abbé de Lamennais.