The inhabitant of the country, abandoned to his own resources, did not aspire to independence; the only good he could pretend to was the choice of slavery. As the Church inspired more confidence than the nobles, a crowd of unfortunate beings took refuge, in a manner, at the foot of the altars, and devoted their liberty and that of their children to this church or that monastery, to which they looked for protection. Nothing is more curious than the formulæ by which the clergy received this sacrifice of individual liberty. They congratulated the new serfs with having preferred “the domination of Jesus Christ to the liberty of the age;” they added, that “to serve God was to reign,” and that “a holy servitude was true independence.” These words must have been in harmony with the manners and ideas of the times, since a multitude of men and women were seen every day flocking to the monasteries, and conjuring the Church to admit them among “the serfs of Jesus Christ.” That they should believe themselves, on that account, much more free than other men, we may at the present day be astonished; but was there not a sort of liberty in wearing chains they had chosen, and with which they had fettered themselves? Some free cities of Germany contributed to the enfranchisement of the peasants of their territory. The same thing happened in Italy and in Spain, where the territory of cities was considerable; in England, the peasantry waited a long time for any amelioration of their fate. But nothing is more difficult than to ascertain with certainty the destiny which, during many ages, this multitude of men who covered the plains of Europe underwent; in the darkness of the middle ages, numberless generations of serfs passed over the earth, without leaving any traces in history. We can with difficulty catch, in old chronicles and acts of administration, here and there a few scattered gleams to throw a light upon our researches. In France, it is not till the commencement of the fourteenth century that any ordinances of the kings upon the enfranchisement of the serfs are to be found. In an ordinance of 1315, Louis X. made use of these remarkable words: “Many persons among our common people are enchained in the bonds of servitude, which displeases us greatly.... Our kingdom,” he added, “is called and named the kingdom of the Franks; we are desirous that the thing should in truth be in accordance with its name,” &c. In this ordinance, made only for the royal domains, the king of France pressed the nobles to follow his example. “We are in possession of a letter-patent of the same king, by which commissaries were commanded to transport themselves to the bailiwick of Senlis, and “to give freedom to all who required it,” on condition, nevertheless, of paying a sum for the rights of servitude, which reverted to the crown.