Vavasours subdivide again to vassals, exchanging land and cattle, human or otherwise, against fealty, and so the iron chain of a military hierarchy, forged of mutually interdependent links, is stretched over each little province.

Impregnable castles, here more numerous than in any other part of Christendom, dot the level surface of the country.

Mail-clad knights, with their followers, encamp permanently upon the soil.

The fortunate fable of divine right is invented to sanction the system; superstition and ignorance give currency to the delusion.

Thus the grace of God, having conferred the property in a vast portion of Europe upon a certain idiot in France, makes him competent to sell large fragments of his estate, and to give a divine, and, therefore, most satisfactory title along with them.