Although the insurrection was in a sense general, it was in no way concerted—­it was not a rising of the combined citizens against the combined feudal aristocracy.  All the towns found themselves exposed to much the same evils, and rescued themselves in much the same manner.  But each town acted for itself—­did not go to the help of any other town.  Hence these detached communities had no ambitions, no aspirations to national importance; their outlook was limited to themselves.  But at the same time the emancipation of the towns created a new class, a class of citizens engaged in the same pursuits, with the same interests and the same modes of life; a class that would in time unite and assert itself, and prevent the domination of a single order of society that has been the curse of Asia.

Although it may be broadly asserted that the emancipation did not alter the relations of the citizens with the general government, that assertion must be modified in one respect.  A link was established between the citizens and the king.  Sometimes they appealed for his aid against their lord, sometimes the lord invoked him as judge; in one way or another a relation was established between the king and the towns, and the citizens thus came into touch with the centre of the State.

V.—­The Crusades

From the fifth to the twelfth century, society, as we have seen, contained kings, a lay aristocracy, a clergy, citizens, peasantry, the germs, in fact, of all that goes to make a nation and a government; yet—­no government, no nation.  We have come across a multitude of particular forces, of local institutions, but nothing general, nothing public, nothing properly speaking political.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, on the contrary, all the classes and the particular forces have taken a secondary place, are shadowy and almost effaced; the stage of the world is occupied by two great figures, government and people.

Here, if I am not mistaken, is the essential distinction between primitive Europe and modern Europe.  Here is the change that was accomplished in the period extending from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century.  Viewed by itself, that period seems a characterless one of confusion without cause, of movement without direction, of agitation without result.  Yet, in relation to the period that followed, this period had a tendency and a progress of its own; it slowly accomplished a vast work.  It was the second period of European civilisation—­the period of attempt and experiment, succeeding that of origins and formation, and preparing the way for that of development properly so called.