We now clearly understand why nations and sovereigns, at the end of the thirteenth and in the fourteenth century, were indifferent about crusades. They had no longer any occasion or inclination for them; they had been thrown into them by the impulse of a religious spirit, and by the exclusive dominion held by religious ideas over the entirety of their existence; this dominion was on the wane, its energy was gone. The crusades had been recommended to them also by the novelty, extent, and variety of the scenes they opened up, and they began to find in Europe itself, in the progress of social relations, a life possessing all such characteristics. It was at this epoch that the career of political aggrandisement opened to kings. Why go in search of kingdoms in Asia, when they had them to conquer at their thresholds? Philip Augustus went to the crusades much against his inclination; his unwillingness was quite natural, for he had yet to make himself king of France. The people were affected in the same manner. The career of wealth was laid open before them, and they renounced romance for labour. Political affairs were substituted by sovereigns for adventures, and extended industry by the people. One class only of society continued to keep up a taste for adventures, namely, that portion of the feudal nobility which, being on too low a scale to pretend to political aggrandisement, and despising labour, preserved its old position and its ancient manners. It therefore continued to rush to the crusades, and to endeavour their revival. Such, according to my conception, were the great and veritable effects of the crusades; on the one hand, expansion of ideas, enfranchisement of opinion; on the other, the aggrandisement of particular powers, and a wider sphere opened to all sorts of activity. They produced, at one and the same time, an increase to individual liberty and to political unity. They conduced to the independence of man and to the centralisation of society.