A few years ago the Institute of France proposed a question, by which they invited the learned to point out all the advantages society had derived from the crusades; and if we may judge by the memorials which obtained the prize in this learned contest,[94] the holy wars brought more benefits for posterity in their train, than they produced calamities for the generations contemporary with them. Thus, opinions upon the crusades had changed several times in less than two centuries; a great lesson for those who pronounce with so much assurance upon the revolutions which we have seen begin, but which we shall not see end; when there is so much difficulty in judging of revolutions long ago accomplished, and whose results are all before our eyes! Perhaps we are arrived at the favourable moment for appreciating with some truth the influence of the crusades, and the opinions of those who have reflected upon them before us: we may say, that the revolutions of the present age are for us a torch which enlightens the history of past times; none of the lessons which are afforded by great political concussions have been wanting for the present generation, and on that account, no doubt, our age will some day merit the title of the age of enlightenment. We may safely say, that that which the crusades were deficient in, in order to have found more indulgent judges, was success; let us suppose for a moment that the crusades had succeeded, as they who undertook them hoped they would, and let us see, in that case, what would have been their results. Egypt, Syria, and Greece would have become Christian colonies; the nations of the East and the West would have pursued together the great march of civilization; the languages of the Franks would have penetrated to the extremes of Asia; the Barbary coast, now inhabited by pirates, would have received the morals and the laws of Europe; and the interior of Africa would not have been for a long time a land impenetrable to the relations of commerce and the researches of learned men and travellers. In order to judge what nations under the same laws and the same religion would have gained by this union, we have but to remember the state of the Roman world under the successors of Augustus, forming, as it were, one people, living under the same law, speaking the same language. All the seas were free, and the most distant provinces communicated with each other by easy and commodious routes; cities exchanged the objects of their arts and their industry, climates their various productions, nations their knowledge. If the crusades had subdued the East to Christianity, it is fair to believe that this grand spectacle, which the human race had only once beheld, would have been repeated in modern times, and opinions would not now be divided as to the advantages of the holy wars. Unfortunately, the Crusaders were unable to extend or preserve their conquests. The results of the crusades are thus more difficult to