13 blood ef the worker, and how little by little it ·has conquered the whole world. The same story, concerning the gene.sis and development of law has yet to be told. As usual, the popular intelligence has stolen a march upon men of books. It has al- / ready put together the phil-0sophy of this history, and is busy laying down its essential la-ndmarks. Law, in its quality of guarantee of the results of pilJage, slavery and exploitation, has followed the same phrases of development as capital; twin brother and sister, they have adva.nced hand in hand, sustaining one another with the suffering_ of mankind. In every country in Eur-0pe their history is ap- - proximately the same. It has differed only. in detail; the main · facts are alike ; and to glance at the development of law in France or Germany is to know its essential traits, it.,; phases of development, in moot of the European nations. In the first instance, law was .a, national part or contract. Such a contract was agreed upon between the legions and people at the Champs do Mars,* a relic of the same period, is prese_rved even yet in the Field of May of the primitive Swiss cantons despite the altera-tions effected by the interferen~ of centralising and middle-dass civilisation. It is true that this contract was not always freely accepted. Even in those early days the rich and strong were imposing their will upon the reat. But at all events they encountered an obstacle to their encroachments· in the mass of the people, who often made them feel their power in return. But ·as the Church on one side and the nobles on the other, succeeded in enthralling the people, the right of law-making escaped from the hands of the nation and passed into those of the privileged orders. Fortified by the wealth accumula.ting in her coffers, the Church extended her authority; she tampered more and more with privat-e life, and under pretext of saving souls, she seized upon the labour of her serfs, she gathered taxes from every class, she increased her jurisdiction, she multiplied penalties, and enriched herself in proportion to the· number_ of ' • '.!.'heannual assembly of $he ea'rly Franks, originally held in !.\Tnrch,lhere tLe first mon~h of ,he yeai:. Biblioteca Gino Bianco
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