Whilst the empire of the East approached near to its fall, and appeared sapped by time and corruption, the institutions of the West were in their infancy. The empire and the laws of Charlemagne no longer existed. Nations had no relations with each other, and mistaking their political interests, made wars without considering their consequences or their dangers, and concluded peace, without being at all aware whether it was advantageous or not. Royal authority was nowhere sufficiently strong to arrest the progress of anarchy and the abuses of feudalism. At the same time that Europe was full of soldiers, and covered with strong castles, the states themselves were without support against their enemies, and had not an army to defend them. In the midst of general confusion, there was no security but in camps and fortresses, by turns the safeguards and the terror of the towns and the country. The largest cities held out no asylum to liberty, and the life of man was reckoned so trifling an object, that impunity for murder could be purchased with a few pieces of money. Frequently, to detect crime, the judges had recourse to water, fire, and iron; upon the blind and dumb evidence of the elements, victims were condemned to death; it was sword in hand that justice was invoked; it was by the sword that the reparation of wrongs and injuries was to be obtained. No one would then have been understood who would have spoken of the rights of nature, or the rights of man; the language of the barons and the lords comprised only such words as treated of _war_; war was the only science, the only policy of either princes or states. Nevertheless, this barbarism of the nations of the West did not at all resemble that of the Turks, whose religion and manners repelled every species of civilization or cultivation, nor that of the Greeks, who were nothing but a corrupted and degenerated people. Whilst the one exhibited all the vices of a state almost savage, and the other all the corruption of decay; something heroical and generous was mingled with the barbarous manners of the Franks, which resembled the passions of youth, and gave promise of a better future. The Turks were governed by a gross barbarism, which made them despise all that was noble or great; the Greeks were possessed by a learned and polished barbarism, which filled them with disdain for heroism or the military virtues. The Franks were as brave as the Turks, and set a higher value on glory than any other people. The principle of _honour_, which gave birth to chivalry in Europe, directed their bravery, and sometimes assumed the guise of justice and virtue.