and they have cost us in many respects so dear, that they have become objects of partial distrust. We prefer to appeal to facts, to special circumstances, and to the tests of application. {73} Nor is this matter for regret: it is a fresh advance, a great step towards the knowledge and empire of truth; taking care, nevertheless, that we avoid being carried too far by this disposition, and provided we always bear in mind that truth alone has a prerogative to reign in the world, and that facts have no merit but as they give it expression, and take form upon its model; that all true greatness springs from thought, and is indebted to it for fruitfulness. The civilisation of our country has this peculiar character, that it has never been wanting in intellectual grandeur: it has always been rich in ideas: the influence of the human understanding has been great in French society, perhaps greater than anywhere else. It must not lose this glorious feature, it must not fall into that somewhat subordinate and material state which characterises other societies. Intellect and thought must still hold in France at least the place that they have hitherto occupied. We shall therefore on no account shun general and philosophical questions; we shall not beat about in search of them, but when facts bring us on them, we shall face them without hesitation or embarrassment. More than one occasion for this hardihood will present itself, on considering the feudal system in its relation to the history of European civilisation. That the feudal system was necessary, and the only possible social state, in the tenth century, is proved by the universality of its establishment. Wherever barbarism ceased, everything took the feudal form. At the first moment, men saw in it only the last stage of chaos. All unity and general civilisation seemed finally prorogued; society was seen dismembered on all sides, and a multitude of petty, obscure, isolated, and incohesive societies, to arise. This appeared to contemporaries the dissolution of all things, a universal anarchy. Both the poets and chroniclers of the era believed the end of the world at hand. Yet this feudal society was so necessary and inevitable, so completely the only possible consequence of the anterior state, that all entered into it, all adopted its form. Even elements the most foreign to the system--the church, municipalities, royalty--were constrained to accommodate themselves to it: churches became superiors and vassals, towns had lords and vassals, and royalty was hid under the mask of paramount lordship. All things were given as fiefs-- not only lands, but certain rights, as those of cutting in forests, and of fishing: churches gave their casualties to be held in fief, revenues from baptisms, and the churchings of women. And in the same manner that all the general elements of society entered into the feudal frame, the minor details and circumstances of common life became its objects. {74}