burning frontier, sleeps with his hand on his weapon, like an American
lieutenant among the Sioux behind a western stockade. His dwelling is
simply a camp and a refuge. Straw and heaps of leaves cover the
pavement of the great hall, here he rests with his troopers, taking
off a spur if he has a chance to sleep. The loopholes in the wall
scarcely allow daylight to enter; the main thing is not to be shot
with arrows. Every taste, every sentiment is subordinated to military
service; there are certain places on the European frontier where a
child of fourteen is required to march, and where the widow up to
sixty is required to remarry. Men to fill up the ranks, men to mount
guard, is the call, which at this moment issues from all institutions
like the summons of a brazen horn. - Thanks to these braves, the
peasant(villanus) enjoys protection. He is no longer to be
slaughtered, no longer to be led captive with his family, in herds,
with his neck in the yoke. He ventures to plow and to sow, and to
reply upon his crops; in case of danger he knows that he can find an
asylum for himself, and for his grain and cattle, in the circle of
palisades at the base of the fortress. By degrees necessity
establishes a tacit contract between the military chieftain of the
donjon and the early settlers of the open country, and this becomes a
recognized custom. They work for him, cultivate his ground, do his
carting, pay him quittances, so much for house, so much per head for
cattle, so much to inherit or to sell; he is compelled to support his
troop. But when these rights are discharged he errs if, through pride
or greed, he takes more than his due. - As to the vagabonds, the
wretched, who, in the universal disorder and devastation, seek refuge
under his guardianship, their condition is harder. The soil belongs to
the lord because without him it would be uninhabitable. If he assigns
them a plot of ground, if he permits them merely to encamp on it, if
he sets them to work or furnishes them with seeds it is on conditions,