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This Book List Sectory 13
Page 09
The great duchy founded three hundred years before on the colonization of the Northmen, always one of the mightiest of the feudal states of France, all the dominions which the counts of Anjou had struggled to bring together through so many generations, the disputed claims on Maine and Britanny recognized now for a long time as going with Normandy, a part even of the splendid possessions of the dukes of Aquitaine;--all these in little more than two years Philip had transferred from the possession of the king of England to his own, and all except Britanny to the royal domain. If we consider the resources with which he began to reign, we must pronounce it an achievement equalled by few kings. For the king of England it was a corresponding loss in prestige and brilliancy of position. John has been made to bear the responsibility of this disaster, and morally with justice; but it must not be forgotten that, as the modern nations were beginning to take shape and to become conscious of themselves, the connexion with England would be felt to be unnatural, and that it was certain to be broken. For England the loss of these possessions was no disaster; it was indeed as great a blessing as to France. The chief gain was that it cut off many diverting interests from the barons of England, just at a time when they were learning to be jealous of their rights at home and were about to enter upon a struggle with the king to compel him to regard the law in his government of the country, a struggle which determined the whole future history of the nation.
The constitution of the _Comitia Centuriata_, as established by Servius Tullius,[45] had undergone a great change between the time of the Licinian Rogations and the Punic Wars, but both the exact time and nature of this change are unknown. It appears, however, that its object was to give more power and influence to the popular element in the state. For this purpose the 35 tribes were taken as the basis of the new Constitution of the Centuries. Each tribe was probably divided into five property Classes, and each Classis was subdivided into two Centuries, one of Seniores and the other of Juniores. Each tribe would thus contain 10 Centuries, and, consequently, the 35 tribes would have 350 Centuries, so that, with the 18 Centuries of the Knights, the total number of the Centuries would be 368.
As the river seemed to describe a big loop, I had left it three days before, seeing plainly by the conformation of the country that we should strike it again sooner or later. We were marching once more by compass. My men, who had no faith whatever in the magnetic needle, were again almost paralysed with fear that we might not encounter the stream again. A thousand times a day they accused me of foolishness in leaving the river, as they said it would have been better to follow its tortuous course--notwithstanding the trouble we had in following it, owing to the dense vegetation near the water--rather than strike once more across country. They were beginning to lose heart altogether, when I told them I could see by the vegetation that we were once more near the water. Anybody accustomed as I am to marching through the forest could tell easily by the appearance of the vegetation some miles before actually getting to a stream.
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