Surely such a table gives evidence of great legislative activity; and yet it says nothing of the revision which Charlemagne caused to be made of the ancient barbarous laws, especially the Salic and Lombard laws. In fact, activity, an universal, indefatigable activity, the desire to think of everything, of introducing everywhere at once animation and rule, is the true, the great characteristic of the government of Charlemagnethe character which he himself, and he alone, impressed on his times. I am about to place before you a new proof of this. This was not a time (allow me the expression) for much writing and scribbling; of a surety, the multitude of official acts drawn up under a reign would not prove any great things in favour of the genius of a monarch in the present day. It was different with those of Charlemagne. There can be no doubt but that the large number of public acts of all kinds which have come down to us from it, is an incontestable testimony of the immense and contagious activity, which was, perhaps, his greatest superiority and his surest power. The following is a table and classification of those acts-of those, at least, which have been printed in learned collections. Many others are doubtless lost; others, perhaps, remain in manuscript, and unknown.

Table of the Principal Diplomas, Documents, Letters, and various Acts emanated from Charlemagne or other great men, Lay or Ecclesiastical, under his Reign.

NOTE-The elements of this table are taken from the "History of the Germanic Empire" of Count Bünau, vol. ii. p. 872-930; Leipzick, 1782

Such are the facts—at least, such are the frames in which they are placed. Now, I here reproduce the question which I raised just now concerning the wars of Charlemagne. Is it true, is it possible, that of this government, so active and vigorous, nothing remained-that all disappeared with Charlemagne-that he founded nothing for the internal consolidation of society?

What fell with Charlemagne, what rested upon him alone, and could not survive him, was the central government. After continuing some time under Louis le Debonnaire and Charles le Chauve, but with less and less energy and influence, the general assemblies, the missi dominici, the whole machinery of the central and sovereign administration, disappeared. Not so the local government, the dukes, counts, vicaires, centeniers, beneficiaries, vassals, who held authority in their several neighbourhoods under the rule of Charlemagne. Before his time, the disorder had been as great in each locality as in the commonwealth generally; landed properties, magistracies were incessantly changing hands; no local positions or influences possessed any steadiness or permanence. During the forty-six years of his government, these influences had time to become rooted in the same soil, in the same families; they had acquired stability, the first condition of the progress which was destined to render them independent and hereditary, and make them the elements of the feudal regime. Nothing, certainly, less resembles feudalism than the sovereign unity which Charlemagne aspired to establish; yet he is the true founder of feudal society! it was he who, by arresting the external invasions, and repressing, to a certain extent, the intestine disorders, gave to local situations, fortunes, influences, sufficient time to take real possession of the country. After him, his general government perished like his conquests; his unity of authority like his extended empire; but as the empire was broken into separate states, which acquired a vigorous and durable life, so the central sovereignty of Charlemagne resolved itself into a multitude of local sovereignties, to which a portion of the strength of his government had been imparted, and which had acquired under its shelter the conditions requisite for reality and durability; so that in this second point of view,

in his civil as well as military capacity, if we look beyond first appearances, he accomplished and founded much.

I might show him to you accomplishing and leaving analogous results in the church; there also he arrested dissolution, until his time always increasing: there also he gave society time to rest, to acquire some consistency and to enter upon new paths. But time presses: I have yet at present to speak of the influence of Charlemagne in the intellectual order, and of the place occupied by his reign in the history of the human mind; scarcely shall I be able to point out the principal features.

It is more difficult here than anywhere else to sum up facts and present them in a table. The acts of Charlemagne in favour of moral civilization form no entirety, manifest no systematic form; they are isolated, scattered acts; at times the foundation of certain schools, at times measures taken for the improvement of ecclesiastical offices, and the progress of the knowledge which depends on them; also general recommendations for the instruction of priests and laymen; but most frequently an eager protection of distinguished men, and a particular care to surround himself with them. There is nothing systematic, nothing that can be estimated by the mere juxtaposition of figures and words. I wish, however, with a touch, and without entering into details, to place before you some facts which may give you an idea of that kind of action of Charlemagne, of which more is said than is known. It appears to me that a table of the celebrated men who were born and died under his reign-that is, of the celebrated men whom he employed, and those whom he made-would tend efficiently towards this end; this body of names and of works may be taken as a decided proof, and even as a correct estimato of the influence of Charlemagne over minds