It is scarcely necessary to observe that society was at that epoch in a state of deplorable disorder, and a prey to continual violence. Society had in itself no means of successfully grappling with this shocking condition, or of regaining any regularity or unity. The feudal institutions, those baronial parliaments and seignorial courts, all those forms under which feudalism has been portrayed in modern times, as a systematic and well-ordered regime, were absolutely null and powerless, possessing nothing which could at all conduce to the re-establishment of order and justice; so that, in the midst of this social desolation, none knew to whom recourse might be had to get reparation for wrong, or to apply a remedy to crying evils--in a word, to constitute a state to however small an extent. The name of king still remained, borne by one of the chiefs; some addressed themselves to him. The various titles by which royalty had previously been recommended were not quite eradicated from all minds, although they had long ceased to exercise any great sway; yet on some occasions they were adduced. It often happened that recourse was had to the king to repress some scandalous course of violence, or to establish some degree of order, in a locality approximate to his own residence, or to terminate a long-standing dispute, so that he was called upon to interfere in affairs that were not strictly his own; and in these interventions he came forward as the protector of public order, as an arbiter, and as a redresser of wrongs. The moral authority which still lingered around his name gradually drew to him this power. {165} Such was the character that royalty began to assume under Louis the Fat, and under the administration of Suger. Then, for the first time, we perceive arising in the minds of men an idea, although still imperfect, confused, and feeble, of a public power superior to the local powers which had possession of society, invested with authority to render justice to those who could not obtain it by ordinary means, and capable of establishing, or at least of commanding, order; the idea of a great magistracy, whose essential province was to maintain peace, to protect the weak, and to decide differences which none other could terminate. This was the perfectly new character under which royalty presented itself in Europe, and especially France, dating from the twelfth century. It was not in the light either of a barbarian, religious, or imperial royalty, that it exercised its empire; the power it possessed was very limited, imperfect, and occasional; the power, in some degree (I know not any expression more exact), of a great justice of the peace for the whole country.