There is need of no great reflection to recognize the true character of these assemblies:  it is clearly imprinted upon the sketch drawn by Hincmar.  The figure of Charlemagne alone fills the picture:  he is the centre-piece of it and the soul of everything.  ’Tis he who wills that the national assemblies should meet and deliberate; ’tis he who inquires into the state of the country; ’tis he who proposes and approves of, or rejects the laws; with him rest will and motive, initiative and decision.  He has a mind sufficiently judicious, unshackled, and elevated to understand that the nation ought not to be left in darkness about its affairs and that he himself has need of communicating with it, of gathering information from it, and of learning its opinions.  But we have here no exhibition of great political liberties, no people discussing its interests and its business, interfering effectually in the adoption of resolutions, and, in fact, taking in its government so active and decisive a part as to have a right to say that it is self-governing, or, in other words, a free people.  It is Charlemagne and he alone who governs; it is absolute government marked by prudence, ability, and grandeur.

When the mind dwells upon the state of Gallo-Frankish society in the eighth century, there is nothing astonishing in such a fact.  Whether it be civilized or barbarian, that which every society needs, that which it seeks or demands first of all in its government, is a certain degree of good sense and strong will, of intelligence and innate influence, so far as the public interests are concerned; qualities, in fact, which suffice to keep social order maintained or make it realized, and to promote respect for individual rights and the progress of the general well-being.  This is the essential aim of every community of men; and the institutions and guarantees of free government are the means of attaining it.  It is clear that, in the eighth century, on the ruins of the Roman and beneath the blows of the barbaric world, the Gallo-Frankish nation, vast and without cohesion, brutish and ignorant, was incapable of bringing forth, so to speak, from its own womb, with the aid of its own wisdom and virtue, a government of the kind.  A host of different forces, without enlightenment and without restraint, were everywhere and incessantly struggling for dominion, or, in other words, were ever troubling and endangering the social condition.  Let there but arise, in the midst of this chaos of unruly forces and selfish passions, a great man, one of those elevated minds and strong characters that can understand the essential aim of society, and then urge it forward, and at the same time keep it well in hand on the roads that lead thereto, and such a man will soon seize and exercise the personal power almost of a despot, and people will not only make him welcome, but even celebrate his praises, for they do not quit the substance for the shadow, or sacrifice the end to the means.