23.24. 24. The Changes which happened in Europe with regard to the Number
of the Inhabitants.
In the state Europe was in one would not imagine it
possible for it to be retrieved, especially when under Charlemagne it
formed only one vast empire. But by the nature of government at that
time it became divided into an infinite number of petty sovereignties,
and as the lord or sovereign, who resided in his village or city, was
neither great, rich, powerful, nor even safe but by the number of his
subjects, every one employed himself with a singular attention to make
his little country flourish. This succeeded in such a manner that
notwithstanding the irregularities of government, the want of that
knowledge which has since been acquired in commerce, and the numerous
wars and disorders incessantly arising, most countries of Europe were
better peopled in those clays than they are even at present.
I have not time to treat fully of this subject, but I shall cite the
prodigious armies engaged in the Crusades, composed of men of all
countries. Puffendorf says that in the reign of Charles IX there were in
France twenty millions of men.
It is the perpetual reunion of many little states that has produced
this diminution. Formerly, every village of France was a capital; there
is at present only one large one. Every part of the state was a centre
of power; at present all has a relation to one centre, and this centre
is in some measure the state itself.
