AND LOWER EGYPT. 79 



their jurisdiction, was by no means oppressive. If 

 the statelincss of some of its members presented a 

 singular contrast with their state of nothingness, 

 and of dissimilitude to their predecessors, it could 

 affect only the intolerant pride of priests. The 

 most useful class, that of husbandmen, was pro- 

 tected. It was called to recollection through what 

 efforts they succeeded in covering, with the riches 

 of fruitful seasons, a soil which nature seemed to 

 have condemned to barrenness ; the sweat of their 

 brow was respected, and they gathered in peace- 

 ably, free from participation as well as from im- 

 posts, the fruits of their labours. Prosperity can- 

 not but smile at an exercise of authority so rare. 



It was undoubtedly a strange policy, that of a 

 perpetual declaration of war, of which difference 

 in religious opinions was the apparent motive : these 

 were, in reality, merely the pretext. Charles V. 

 in permitting the establishment of the knights of 

 St. John of Jerusalem, in the islands of Malta and 

 Gozzi, exacted of them alliance with him in this 

 state of constant hostility. But the propagation of 

 the Christian religion was far from being the object 

 which he had in view. The Turks had rendered 

 themselves at that time formidable; they had pushed 

 their conquests in a manner alarming to the powers 

 of Europe, and the monarch found, in an associa- 

 tion of warriors accustomed to make head against 



the 



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