France; and the arts and sciences claim a long list of renowned Frenchmen. As in England, however, there has been a decline in the educational standard in recent years, markedly since the first revolution; and, barring noticeable exceptions, the rage now is for frivolous and undignified mediocrity. The greatest superiority of France over other countries is in her refinement and civilisation, in both of which the post of honour is still her own.

The whole world now wishes a stable government for France. No confidence is anywhere felt in the extraordinary provisional government which has been set up, which is represented by a tottering Executive tethered to a vacillating Assembly. A government on the English or American plan will never work in the country, for the ideas, tastes, and habits required for working it do not exist in France, and sooner or later Imperialism must therefore be restored to it. It is believed that this is also the view entertained by the present President himself, who is secretly desirous of reviving the Empire. His seven years' authority, he says, he will maintain ; but it is more than probable that he will play his cards intermediately so effectually as to allow of the Prince Imperial ascending his father's throne, in 1880, without a massacre or even a coerced election.

CHAPTER VI.

GERMANY.

THOSE who are familiar with the pages of Gibbon will not require any detailed description of the state of Germany prior to the dissolution of the Roman empire. It will be enough to state that the country so named, from which all the civilised nations of modern Europe derive their descent, was anciently inhabited by a race of hardy barbarians, differently named in different places, but all classed under the general designation of Goths, who, when they united for a common purpose, assumed the name of Alemanni or Germannen, from which that of Germany is derived. They were distinguished by their huge stature, fair complexion, and light-blue eyes, the several subdivisions of the race being variously known as Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Suevi, Gepidæ, Marcomanni, &c., with outlying tribes called Saxons, Franks, and Burgundians. Some authorities make out that all these nations came originally from Asia, probably from the east of the Caspian; while others, with greater reason, assert that they were born in the forests of Germany, whence they migrated eastwards, but were again brought back by the rushing hordes that burst upon Europe from Tartary.

They were not all of them savages, but the tribes who pressed on them from the East-the Huns, Alans, Bulgars, &c.—were. Of the German tribes

it is said that they had all the virtues of which barbarians are susceptible: the men being valiant, courteous, and hospitable, and the women chaste, meriting the confidence and esteem in which they were generally held. On the other hand, all the tribes were fierce, easily provoked, and always at war, though what they were principally distinguished for was their unconquerable love of liberty, the authority of kings being acknowledged by certain tribes only, while all reserved to themselves the rights of men. The bravest warriors were selected to lead their respective clans in time of war; and, similarly, princes were chosen in time of peace administer justice and settle differences among them; but neither leader nor prince had the power to punish with death, or to imprison, or to strike.

to

It has been stated in the last chapter how, on the disruption of the Roman empire, the Franks and Burgundians passed over into Gaul and occupied. it. Simultaneously with that movement the Visigoths passed into Spain and Italy, and the Saxons. into Britain, while the remaining races, including such of the Franks and Saxons as were left behind, settled themselves in Germany, or the country contained within the Rhine, the Baltic, the Vistula, the northern mountains of Bohemia, and the river Maine. Christianity was established among these chiefly by Anglo-Saxon missionaries, of whom Winifred was the first; so that the debt which England owed Germany for stocking her with the Anglo-Saxon race was, even at this early period, fully repaid. Then followed the conquests of Charles Martel, when each

rude tribe, as it was subjugated, was invited to receive the religion of Rome, so that the sword and the Gospel went hand in hand in Germany, as the sword and the Koran had done previously in Asia, though not exactly in the same sense. The AngloSaxon missionaries also collected the people into towns, and introduced the elements of civilisation among them, and they founded those monasteries which became asylums of peace during the violent convulsions that disturbed the country during the middle ages.

The

In the eighth century, the Franks, having become a great power under Charlemagne, were able to bring the races of Germany under subjection, the only people who gave them trouble being the Saxon remnants who had not been converted, who were not overcome till after a long and bloody war. empire of Charlemagne was thus extended from the Ebro to the Elbe, and from the ocean to the Vistula, the Theiss, and the Save. Intermediately the Papal See had found means to secure a jurisdiction, both temporal and spiritual, over the defunct empire of the West; and, being sorely troubled by the Lombards, who had established themselves in Italy, Adrian I. applied to Charlemagne for aid against them, upon which Lombardy was conquered and Charlemagne crowned king of Italy. After this, the Pope, to secure continued protection from the conqueror, declared him emperor, reviving the Western empire'; and it was agreed between them that the Pontiff should reside at Rome, and the temporal Cæsar beyond the Alps-nearer to the centre of his territories. From this time till the reign of Charles the Simple, the affairs of Germany are interwoven with those of France, and the history of

The

the two countries is necessarily the same. succession to the empire being destined by Charlemagne for his son, he made him king of Italy to begin with, upon which that appellation became. equivalent to the old designation of Cæsar; and, as many emperors contented themselves with the lower title till they were actually crowned at Rome, the inference was established that the sovereign was not qualified to act as emperor till after his consecration by the Pope. Adrian IV., in writing to Frederick Barbarossa on the subject, laid down the premises in the following words: "The Roman empire was translated from the Greeks to the Germans; but the king of the Teutons was not called emperor before he was crowned by the apostolic power. Before his consecration he was king; after it he became emperor. Of whom, then, but of us, doth he hold the empire? From the election of his own princes he enjoys the name of king; from our consecration he derives the appellation of emperor, Augustus, and Cæsar: therefore through us he Whatever he hath as emperor, he hath from us; for as Zacharias transferred the empire from the Greeks to the Germans, so can we transfer it from the Germans to the Greeks."

governs.

The successors of Charlemagne possessed the empire by hereditary right, and exercised full regal powers, as he had done, throughout the entire extent of their dominions. But the effeminacy of some of these rulers disgusted the Germans, and when the Normans were bought off by the French, the provocation became insufferable, and the principal nations of Germany-the Franks, Suabians, Bavarians, Saxons, and Thuringians-assembled in full diet and elected a separate emperor for them