Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 07.djvu/208

188 began in France as to equality and brotherhood, on the same grounds, against the same class in power, with this difference, that the latter lost the power which the people gained, while their cause drew its claims to justice, not from the Bible, but from philosophy. The feudalistic and hierarchic institutions which Charlemagne had founded in his vast realm, and which had developed themselves in many forms in the realms which spread forth from it, had struck root most powerfully in France, flourished bravely for centuries, and, like all things in this world, at last lost their strength. The kings of France, vexed at their dependence on the nobility and clergy—the first of whom considered themselves as the equals of their monarch, while the latter ruled the people more than they did—gradually contrived to weaken their power, and this great work was completed by Louis XIV. Instead of a warlike feudal nobility, which had at once governed and guarded their kings, there now crept to the steps of the throne a weakly court nobility, whose prestige was derived not from its castles and retainers, but from the number of its ancestors; instead of stiff and stern priests, who terrified kings with confessional and excommunication (Beicht' und Bann) while they kept the multitude in check, there was now a Gallican or, so to speak, a mediatised Church, whose posts or offices were surreptitiously obtained in the œil de