I do not mean to state that even in the fifth century this quality had not been somewhat modified, or that other elements had not been introduced into royalty. The different tribes had had their chiefs for a certain time; some families had raised themselves to more consideration, trust, and wealth than others. This gave a beginning to the hereditary principle; the chief was no longer elected out of particular families. This was the first circumstance of a different order which became associated to the predominant principle of election. {160} Another idea or element had also previously been infused into the barbarian royalty, springing from religious feelings. We find amongst some of the barbarian nations--for example, amongst the Goths--the conviction that the families of their kings were descended from their gods, or from the heroes whom they had made gods--from Odin, for instance. It is the situation of the kings of Homer, who had sprung from gods or demigods, and under that title were the objects of a sort of religious veneration, notwithstanding the narrow limits of their power. Such was barbarian royalty in the fifth century, already exhibiting different and fluctuating characteristics, although its primitive principle still prevailed. Now I take the Roman or imperial royalty, and find it perfectly distinct. It was the impersonation of the state, the inheritor of the sovereignty and majesty of the Roman people. In the royalty of Augustus and Tiberius, the emperor was the representative of the senate, of the comitiæ, of the entire republic; them he succeeded, and combined in his own person. The modest pretensions of the first emperors, of those at least who were men of sense, and understood their position, give proof of this fact. They felt themselves before the people so lately supreme, and who had abdicated in their favour; they addressed them as their representatives and ministers. But in reality they exercised the whole power of the people, and in the most formidable intensity. Such a phenomenon is easy for us to comprehend, as we have ourselves witnessed it: in the history of Napoleon we have seen the sovereignty pass from the people into the hands of one man. He also was the impersonation of the sovereign people, as he perpetually said. 'Who ever was elected, like me, by eighteen millions of men! Who is so perfect a representative of the people as I!' he was accustomed to exclaim. And when we read on his coins, 'The French republic' on one side, and 'Napoleon, emperor,' on the reverse, does it not prove the fact as I describe it, the people merged into a king?