Feudality was everywhere breaking down, and in France, as in England, a strong monarchy was being erected on its ruins.
Feudality in itself was only a method of owning land; but it was always threatening to pass into a method of government.
The casting-off of the chains of feudality was the labor of six centuries.
Of the reign of Stephen, Sir James Mackintosh has said, "It perhaps contains the most perfect condensation of all the ills of feudality to be found in history.
That which has no doubt tended to exaggerate the influence of feudality in all that raises and ennobles women, is a fact that appears very evidently at that period, and is dazzling at first sight.
Feudality was the principle of division, chivalry that of fraternity; and these remodelled society.
Of this new empire, feudalityand chivalry were the opposite elements.
Yet nascent feudality was but one remove from anarchy; and the tendency to isolation and diversity continued, despite the efforts of the Church and the Carolingian princes, to be all-powerful in Western Europe.
It is instructive to compare the results of the system of feudality in the three chief countries of modern Europe.
And the one spot in Otto's empire on which feudality had never fixed its grasp, and where therefore he was forced to rule merely as emperor, and not also as king, was that in which he and his successors were never safe from insult and revolt.
Having always fine horses in his stable, he raised some, and ruled the fashion in equestrianism.
The spirit of independence engendered by this system of feudality and unresisted oppression could only lead to one result--viz.
Barere is for the parliaments on the Monday and against the parliaments on the Tuesday, for feudality in the morning and against feudality in the afternoon.
After the fall of the Bastille he said: "The nonsense of feudality can never be revived.
The administration of justice {65} and feudality cannot again go together.
Barère is for the Parliaments on the Monday and against the Parliaments on the Tuesday, for feudality in the morning and against feudality in the afternoon.
In general the nobles of Auvergne, tho' great sticklers for feudality and for their privileges, and tho' they disliked the Revolution, had the good sense not to emigrate.
By virtue of this charter, nobility in all future times will only command the respect of the people as surrounded by proofs of honour and glory, which the recollections of feudality will not have the power of tarnishing.
Unquestionably it is a fact that the feudality in France ceased only with the passing of Louis XI, and the change in the Pyrenean states was contemporary.
The feudality of these parts centred around the Chateau de Fenouillet, now a miserable ruin on the road to Carcassonne, a few kilometres distant.
Throughout all this ancient principality of Bidache the spirit of feudality has been effaced in these later Republican days, a thing the kings of France and Navarre and the parlement de Pau could not accomplish.
Thus once more feudality was defeated in a fresh struggle with civic freedom.
The peace which now reigned in Europe allowed the United Provinces to direct their whole efforts toward the reform of those internal abuses resulting from feudality and fanaticism.
Nevertheless, and no matter how valuable his knowledge might be, he never obtained over the government of Normandy, in whom was the ferocity of religious warfare, as much influence as feudality exercised over that rugged nature.
We would caution those who now raise the cry of feudality and aristocracy, to have a care of what they are about.
The last would be apt to raise a pretty cry of tyranny and feudality in America!
