volume one

HISTORY or THE CETJSADES. 37
was nowliere sufficiently strong to arrest tlie progress of
anarcliy and the abuses of feudalism. At the same time
that Europe was full of soldiers, and covered with strong
castles, the states themselves were without support against
their enemies, and had not an army to defend them. In the
midst of general confusion, there was no seciu'ity but in
camps and fortresses, by turns the safeguards and the terror
of the towns and the country. The largest cities held out no
asylum to liberty, and the life of man Avas reckoned so trifling
an object, that impunity for murder could be purchased with a
few pieces of money. Frequently, to detect crime, the judges
had recourse to water, fire, and iron ; upon the blmd and
dumb evidence of the elements, victims were condemned to
death ; it was sword in hand that justice was invoked ; it was
by the sword that the reparation of wrongs and injuries was
to be obtained. No one would then have been understood
who would have spoken of the rights of nature, or the rights
of man ; the language of the barons and the lords comprised
only such words as treated of ivar ; war was the only science,
the only policy of either princes or states.
Nevertheless, this barbarism of the nations of the West \
did not at all resemble that of the Turks, whose religion •
and manners repelled every species of civilization or cultiva-
tion, nor that of the Greeks, who were nothing but a corrupted
and degenerated people. Whilst the one exhibited
all the vices of a state almost savage, and the other aE the
corruption of decay ; something heroical and generous was
mingled with the barbarous manners of the Franks, which
resembled the passions of youth, and gave promise of a
better future. The Turks were governed by a gross barbarism,
which made them despise all that was noble or great;
the Greeks were possessed by a learned and polished barbarism,
M'hich filled them with disdain for heroism or the
military virtues. The Eranks were as brave as the Tin-ks,
and set a higlier value on glory tlian any other people. The
principle of lionour, which gave birth to chivalry in Europe,
directed their bravery, and sometimes assumed the guise of
justice and virtue.
The Christian religion, which the Greeks had reduced to
little formulae and the vain practices of superstition, was,
with them, incapable of inspiring either great designs or