wherever a disturbance or a danger became manifest, he principally asked what were its motives or occasion."

I shall have no need of long reflections in order to make you recognize the true character of these assemblies; it is clearly shown in the picture which has been traced by Hincmar. Charlemagne alone fills it; he is the centre and soul of all things; it is he who says that the assemblies shall meet, that they shall deliberate; it is he who occupies himself about the state of the country, who proposes and sanctions laws; in him reside the will and impulsion; it is from him that all emanated, in order to return to him. There was there no great national liberty, no true public activity; but there was a vast means of government.2

This means was by no means sterile. Independently of the force which Charlemagne drew from it for current affairs, you have seen that it was there that the capitularies were generally drawn up and decreed. In our next lecture I shall occupy you more especially with this celebrated legislation. I desire at present merely to give you an idea of it.

While waiting for more details, here is a table of the capitularies of Charlemagne, with their number, their extent, and their object:

Table of the Capitularies of Charlemagne.

1 Hincm. App. de Ordine Palatii, vol. ii., pp. 201-215. 2 See my Essais sur l'Histoire de France, pp. 315-344.

Domestic and Rural Legislation. This is the capitulary De Villis.

2 Political Legislation.

Division of States.

Surely such a table gives evidence of great legislative activity; and yet it says nothing of the revision which Charlemagne caused to be made of the ancient barbarous laws, especially the Salic and Lombard laws. In fact, activity, an universal indefatigable activity, the desire to think of everything, of introducing everywhere at once animation and rule, is the true, the great characteristic of the government of Charlemagne-the character which he himself, and he alone, impressed on his times. I am about to place before you a new proof of this. This was not a time (allow me the expression) for much writing and scribbling; of a surety, the multitude of official acts drawn up under a reign would not prove any great things in favor of the genius of a monarch in the present day. It was different with those of Charlemagne. There can be no doubt but that the large number of public acts of all kinds which have come down to us from it, is an incontestible testimony of the immense and contagious activity, which was, perhaps, his greatest superiority and his surest power. The following is a table and classification of those acts-of those, at least, which have been printed in learned collections. Many others are doubtless lost; others, perhaps, remain in manuscript, and unknown.

Table of the Principal Diplomas, Documents, Letters, and Various Acts emanated from Charlemagne or other great men, Lay or Ecclesiastical, under his Reign.

Table of the Principal Diplomas, &c.—continued.

NOTE.--The elements of this table are taken from the 66 History of the Germanic Empire" of Count Bünau, vol. ii., pp. 872-930; Leipzick, 1732.

Such are the facts—at least, such are the frames in which they are placed. Now, I here reproduce the question which I raised just now concerning the wars of Charlemagne. Is it true, is it possible, that of this government, so active and vigorous, nothing remained-that all disappeared with Charlemagne-that he founded nothing for the internal consolidation of society?

What fell with Charlemagne, what rested upon him alone, and could not survive him, was the central government. After continuing some time under Louis le Debonnaire and Charles le Chauve, but with less and less energy and influence, the general assemblies, the missi dominici, the whole machinery of the central and sovereign administration, disappeared. Not so the local government, the dukes, counts, vicaires, centeniers, beneficiaries, vassals, who held authority in their several neighborhoods under the rule of Charlemagne. Before his time, the disorder had been as great in each locality as in the commonwealth generally; landed properties, magistracies were incessantly changing hands; no