He establishes himself in an isolated and elevated locality, which he takes care to render sure and strong; he builds there what we shall call his castle. With whom does he establish himself? With his wife and children: perhaps some free men, who are not proprietors, are attached to his person, and continue to live with him and frequent his table. These are the occupiers of the interior of the castle. Around its base is grouped a small population of colonists and serfs, who cultivate the domain of the owner of the fief. In the midst of this inferior population religion erects a chapel, which attracts a priest. In ordinary cases, during the first period of the feudal government, this priest was at once the chaplain of the castle and the curate of the village; in time these two characters were separated, and each village had its minister, who dwelt beside his church. Such was the elementary, the atomic state (so to speak), of the feudal society. This is the condition that we have first to examine; and we will subject it to the double question that it is expedient for us to address to all facts--What resulted from it towards the development, 1_st_, of man himself, 2_d_, of society? We are strictly correct in submitting this narrow society to the double analysation, and in relying on the result, for it is the faithful type and image of the feudal society in its full extent. The lord, the people of his domains, and the priest, represent feudalism on the large scale as well as on the small, when it is severed from royalty and the towns, which were distinct and foreign elements. {76}