In a word, it seems as if for the great feudatories there could be no worse misfortune than a formal rupture with their sovereign. In this connexion nothing is more characteristic than the attitude of perhaps the most powerful vassal of Robert the Pious, the celebrated Count of Blois, Odo II, when in about 1022 a dispute arose between him and the king touching the succession in Champagne. Finding what he considers his right attacked by the king, Odo defends himself with a strong hand. On this account Robert considers him guilty of forfeiture, and seeks to have his fiefs declared escheated. At once Odo is terrified, and writes his sovereign a letter full of respect and deference, expressing astonishment only at the measure which the king demands. "For if birth be considered, it is clear, thanks be to God, that I am capable of inheriting the fief; if the nature of the fief which thou hast given me be considered, it is certain that it forms part, not of thy fisc, but of the property which, under thy favour, comes to me from my ancestors by hereditary right; if the value of my services be considered, thou knowest how, as long as I was in favour with thee, I served thee at thy court, in the ost and on foreign soil. And if, since thou hast turned away thy favour from me, and hast attempted to take from me the fief which thou gavest me, I have committed towards thee, in defence of myself and of my fief, acts of a nature to displease thee, I have done so when harassed by insults and compelled by necessity. How, in fact, could I fail to defend my fief? I protest by God and my own soul, that I should prefer death to being deprived of my fief. And if thou wilt refrain from seeking to strip me of it, there is nothing in the world which I shall more desire than to enjoy and to deserve thy favour. For the conflict between us, at the same time that it is grievous to me, takes from thee, lord, that which constitutes the root and the fruit of thy office, I mean justice and peace. Thus I appeal to that clemency which is natural to thee, and evil counsels alone can deprive thee of, imploring thee to desist from persecuting me, and to allow me to be reconciled to thee, either through thy familiars, or by the mediation of princes." Such a letter proves, better than any reasonings, how great was the power which respect for royalty and for the obligations of a vassal to his lord, still exercised over minds imbued with tradition.
Moreover, none of the great feudatories who shared the government of the kingdom among them would have been strong enough to overthrow the Capetian dynasty. Independently of the rivalries between great houses, in which their strength was exhausted, the princes found. themselves, from the middle of the eleventh century, a little sooner or a little later according to the province they ruled, involved in a struggle with internal difficulties which often paralysed their efforts.
One of the feudal states for which the history is the best known is the
