The policy of our kings was no doubt seconded by the great events of the crusades; it was natural that the nation which took the greatest share in these events should profit more than others by it, in the increase of its power and the amelioration of its social condition. The glory which the French arms acquired beyond the seas gave a new lustre to the monarchy; royal authority profited equally by the exploits and the reverses of the numerous warriors whom the holy wars attracted into Asia; the absence, the death, or the ruin of the great vassals permitted royalty to rise from the bosom of feudal anarchy, and establish order in the kingdom. More than a century before the first crusade, the barons and prelates had ceased to meet in general assembly to regulate the forms of justice, and lend to the acts of royal authority the support of their political influence. At the second crusade, there were several assemblies of the great men of the kingdom, in which preparations for the expedition, and measures for the maintenance of public order and the execution of the laws during the absence of Louis VII., were deliberated upon. In these meetings, which were very numerous, the French might trace at least a faint image of those assemblies, so celebrated under the first races, in which the kings and their subjects deliberated together upon the means of securing the independence of the nation and the safety of the throne. Thus the crusades aided the kings of France in resuming their legislative power, and the most enlightened part of the nation, in recovering those ancient prerogatives which they had exercised under the children of Clovis and Charlemagne.