liberty; the lower classes in slavery, the middle classes ruined, the upper classes depreciated.  Amongst the barbarians society was scarcely commencing; with the subjects of the Roman empire it no longer existed; Charlemagne’s attempt to reconstruct it by rallying beneath a new empire both victors and vanquished was a failure; feudal anarchy was the first and the necessary step out of barbaric anarchy and towards a renewal of social order.

It was not so in England, when, in the eleventh century, William transported thither his government and his army.  A people but lately come out of barbarism, conquered, on that occasion, a people still half barbarous.  Their primitive origin was the same; their institutions were, if not similar, at any rate analogous; there was no fundamental antagonism in their habits; the English chieftains lived in their domains an idle, hunting life, surrounded by their liegemen, just as the Norman barons lived.  Society, amongst both the former and the latter, was founded, however unrefined and irregular it still was; and neither the former nor the latter had lost the flavor and the usages of their ancient liberties.  A certain superiority, in point of organization and social discipline, belonged to the Norman conquerors; but the conquered Anglo-Saxons were neither in a temper to allow themselves to be enslaved nor out of condition for defending themselves.  The conquest was destined to entail cruel evils, a long oppression, but it could not bring about either the dissolution of the two peoples into petty lawless groups, or the permanent humiliation of one in presence of the other.  There were, at one and the same time, elements of government and resistance, causes of fusion and unity in the very midst of the struggle.

We are now about to anticipate ages, and get a glimpse, in their development, of the consequences which attended this difference, so profound, in the position of France and of England, at the time of the formation of the two states.

In England, immediately after the Norman conquest, two general forces are confronted, those, to wit, of the two peoples.  The Anglo-Saxon people is attached to its ancient institutions, a mixture of feudalism and liberty, which become its security.  The Norman army assumes organization on English soil according to the feudal system which had been its own in Normandy.  A principle of authority and a principle of resistance thus exist, from the very first, in the community and in the government.  Before long the principle of resistance gets displaced; the strife between the peoples continues; but a new struggle arises between the Norman king and his barons.  The Norman kingship, strong in its growth, would fain become tyrannical; but its tyranny encounters a resistance, also strong, since the necessity for defending themselves against the Anglo-Saxons has caused the Norman barons to take up the practice of acting in concert, and has not permitted them to set