Let us cast a glance upon the general history of feudalism from the tenth to the thirteenth century. It is impossible to be blind to the fact, that it exercised a great and salutary influence upon the individual development of man, of his sentiments, character, and ideas. We cannot open the histories of that period without meeting a crowd of noble sentiments, of great actions, and agreeable developments of humanity, evidently springing from the inward temper of the feudal manners. It is true, chivalry does not resemble feudalism, yet it is its daughter. It was from feudalism that the first notions of those lofty, generous, and faithful sentiments came. Again, in another point of view, the first burst of the European imagination, the first essays at poetry and literature, the first intellectual pleasures that Europe tasted after shaking off barbarism, were encouraged and fostered by the feudal spirit, and were brought forth in the recesses of the castles. For this sort of development of humanity, a movement in the mind and in life, leisure, a thousand conditions are required, which cannot be met with in the toilsome, sad, and boorish existence of the common people. Hence it is with the feudal times in France, England, and Germany, that the first literary recollections, the first intellectual enjoyments of Europe, are associated. In return, if we investigate history as to the social influence of feudalism, it will tell us, agreeably to our conjectures, that it has been everywhere opposed, as well to the establishment of general order, as to the extension of general liberty. In whatever quarter we consider the progress of society, we shall find the feudal system standing as an obstacle. {86} From the first period of its existence, we perceive the two forces that have been the great levers in the development of order and liberty, the monarchical power on the one hand, and popular power on the other, royalty and the people attack it, and struggle unceasingly against it. Some attempts were made at various eras to give it regularity, to bring it to a state somewhat legal and general; as in England by William the Conqueror and his sons, in France by St. Louis, and in Germany by several of the emperors. But all the trials and attempts failed, for the very nature of the feudal society was repugnant to order and legality. In modern times, some ingenious men have endeavoured to dress up feudalism as a social system, and to give it a legal, regular, and progressive form: they have made a golden age of it. But if they are asked to adduce their proofs, to assign a locality or a time for this Utopia, they are unable to do so; for they would represent a drama, for which neither theatre nor actors are to be found in the past. The cause of this error is easy of discovery, and it is one which equally explains the contrary mistake of those who cannot entertain the idea of the feudal system without absolute execration. Both parties have