The memories of ancient Rome and of the power of the Cæsars were always present to their imagination. One of the greatest errors of their policy was turning their views towards Italy; they encountered on their way thither the popes, who declared a war of extermination against them; two families of emperors succumbed beneath the thunders of Rome; they were never able to reign over Italy, and whilst they exhausted themselves in vain efforts to establish their domination there, they completed the loss of their influence in Germany. It is a consoling remark for humanity, that most of the conquerors of the middle ages weakened themselves by their undertakings, victory itself only serving to bring about the ruin of their power. The kings of France of this period evinced, perhaps, less talent and genius than the emperors of Germany; but their policy was wiser and more fortunate; they confined themselves to conquering their own kingdom; their conquests only tended to unite the scattered members of a large family; and their authority became more popular in proportion with their being considered as a natural tie between the French of all the provinces. The glory which the emperors of Germany acquired by their conquests was but a personal glory, and did not at all interest the German people. This manifestation of their power had nothing in common with the nations of which they were the head. As soon as this power was no longer a bond or a support for the people, they separated themselves from it, and every one sought his safety or his aggrandizement in his own strength. A state of things arose from this which was, perhaps, more fatal to Germany than the absolute authority of the emperors; upon the ruins of the imperial grandeur arose a crowd of states, opposed to each other by diversity of laws and the spirit of rivalry. All those ecclesiastical and secular principalities in which the spirit of monarchy prevailed; those cities in which the spirit of liberty fermented; that nobility animated by the pretensions of aristocracy, could not possibly have the same interests or the same policy to direct their efforts towards one common and salutary aim. The popes, after having weakened the power of the emperors, wished to dispose of the broken sceptre of Charlemagne, and offered it to all who appeared likely to promote their scheme of vengeance. A crowd of princes then started up as pretenders to the empire thus held out by the popes, and the greater the number of these, the more rapidly the empire declined. Amidst civil discords, Germany completed the loss of its political unity, and at last its religious unity.