SECTION I.

A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY

VOLUME VII

By

VOLTAIRE

EDITION DE LA PACIFICATION

THE WORKS OF VOLTAIRE

A CONTEMPORARY VERSION

With Notes by Tobias Smollett, Revised and Modernized

New Translations by William F. Fleming, and an

Introduction by Oliver H.G. Leigh

A CRITIQUE AND BIOGRAPHY

BY

THE RT. HON. JOHN MORLEY

FORTY-THREE VOLUMES

One hundred and sixty-eight designs, comprising reproductions

of rare old engravings, steel plates, photogravures,

and curious fac-similes

VOLUME XI

E.R. DuMONT

PARIS--LONDON--NEW YORK--CHICAGO

1901

_The WORKS of VOLTAIRE_

_ "Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen hundred

years apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say it

with a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED.

Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the

sweetness of the present civilization."_

_VICTOR HUGO_.

LIST OF PLATES--Vol. VII

OLD ROUEN--frontispiece

MONTESQUIEU

THE DREAM OF HUMAN LIFE

ANCIENT ROME

[Illustration: Old Rouen.]

* * * * *

VOLTAIRE

A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY.

IN TEN VOLUMES

VOL. VII

JOSEPH-MISSION

* * * * *

JOSEPH.

The history of Joseph, considering it merely as an object of curiosity

and literature, is one of the most precious monuments of antiquity which

has reached us. It appears to be the model of all the Oriental writers;

it is more affecting than the "Odyssey"; for a hero who pardons is more

touching than one who avenges.

We regard the Arabs as the first authors of these ingenious fictions,

which have passed into all languages; but I see among them no adventures

comparable to those of Joseph. Almost all in it is wonderful, and the

termination exacts tears of tenderness. He was a young man of sixteen

years of age, of whom his brothers were jealous; he is sold by them to a

caravan of Ishmaelite merchants, conducted into Egypt, and bought by a

eunuch of the king. This eunuch had a wife, which is not at all

extraordinary; the kislar aga, a perfect eunuch, has a seraglio at this

day at Constantinople; they left him some of his senses, and nature in

consequence is not altogether extinguished. No matter; the wife of

Potiphar falls in love with the young Joseph, who, faithful to his

master and benefactor, rejects the advances of this woman. She is

irritated at it, and accuses Joseph of attempting to seduce her. Such is

the history of Hippolytus and Phædra, of Bellerophon and Zenobia, of

Hebrus and Damasippa, of Myrtilus and Hippodamia, etc.

It is difficult to know which is the original of all these histories;

but among the ancient Arabian authors there is a tract relating to the

adventure of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, which is very ingenious. The

author supposes that Potiphar, uncertain between the assertions of his

wife and Joseph, regarded not Joseph's tunic, which his wife had torn as

a proof of the young man's outrage. There was a child in a cradle in his

wife's chamber; and Joseph said that she seized and tore his tunic in

the presence of this infant. Potiphar consulted the child, whose mind

was very advanced for its age. The child said to Potiphar: "See if the

tunic is torn behind or before; if before, it is a proof that Joseph

would embrace your wife by force, and that she defended herself; if

behind, it is a proof that your wife detained Joseph." Potiphar, thanks

to the genius of the child, recognized the innocence of his slave. It is

thus that this adventure is related in the Koran, after the Arabian

author. It informs us not to whom the infant belonged, who judged with

so much wit. If it was not a son of Potiphar, Joseph was not the first

whom this woman had seduced.

However that may be, according to Genesis, Joseph is put in prison,

where he finds himself in company with the butler and baker of the king

of Egypt. These two prisoners of state both dreamed one night. Joseph

explains their dreams; he predicted that in three days the butler would

be received again into favor, and that the baker would be hanged; which

failed not to happen.

Two years afterwards the king of Egypt also dreams, and his butler tells

him that there is a young Jew in prison who is the first man in the

world for the interpretation of dreams. The king causes the young man to

be brought to him, who foretells seven years of abundance and seven of

sterility.

Let us here interrupt the thread of the history to remark, of what

prodigious antiquity is the interpretation of dreams. Jacob saw in a

dream the mysterious ladder at the top of which was God Himself. In a

dream he learned a method of multiplying his flocks, a method which

never succeeded with any but himself. Joseph himself had learned by a

dream that he should one day govern his brethren. Abimelech, a long time

before, had been warned in a dream, that Sarah was the wife of Abraham.

To return to Joseph: after explaining the dream of Pharaoh, he was made

first minister on the spot. We doubt if at present a king could be

found, even in Asia, who would bestow such an office in return for an

interpreted dream. Pharaoh espoused Joseph to a daughter of Potiphar. It

is said that this Potiphar was high-priest of Heliopolis; he was not

therefore the eunuch, his first master; or if it was the latter, he had

another title besides that of high-priest; and his wife had been a

mother more than once.

However, the famine happened, as Joseph had foretold; and Joseph, to

merit the good graces of his king, forced all the people to sell their

land to Pharaoh, and all the nation became slaves to procure corn. This

is apparently the origin of despotic power. It must be confessed, that

never king made a better bargain; but the people also should no less

bless the prime minister.

Finally, the father and brothers of Joseph had also need of corn, for

"the famine was sore in all lands." It is scarcely necessary to relate

here how Joseph received his brethren; how he pardoned and enriched

them. In this history is found all that constitutes an interesting epic

poem--exposition, plot, recognition, adventures, and the marvellous;

nothing is more strongly marked with the stamp of Oriental genius.

What the good man Jacob, the father of Joseph, answered to Pharaoh,

ought to strike all those who know how to read. "How old art thou?" said

the king to him. "The days of the years of my pilgrimage," said the old

man, "are an hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of the

years of my life been."

JUDÆA.

I never was in Judæa, thank God! and I never will go there. I have met

with men of all nations who have returned from it, and they have all of

them told me that the situation of Jerusalem is horrible; that all the

land round it is stony; that the mountains are bare; that the famous

river Jordan is not more than forty feet wide; that the only good spot

in the country is Jericho; in short, they all spoke of it as St. Jerome

did, who resided a long time in Bethlehem, and describes the country as

the refuse and rubbish of nature. He says that in summer the inhabitants

cannot get even water to drink. This country, however, must have

appeared to the Jews luxuriant and delightful, in comparison with the

deserts in which they originated. Were the wretched inhabitants of the

Landes to quit them for some of the mountains of Lampourdan, how would

they exult and delight in the change; and how would they hope eventually

to penetrate into the fine and fruitful districts of Languedoc, which

would be to them the land of promise!

Such is precisely the history of the Jews. Jericho and Jerusalem are

Toulouse and Montpellier, and the desert of Sinai is the country between

Bordeaux and Bayonne.

But if the God who conducted the Israelites wished to bestow upon them a

pleasant and fruitful land; if these wretched people had in fact dwelt

in Egypt, why did he not permit them to remain in Egypt? To this we are

answered only in the usual language of theology.

Judæa, it is said, was the promised land. God said to Abraham: "I will

give thee all the country between the river of Egypt and the Euphrates."

Alas! my friends, you never have had possession of those fertile banks

of the Euphrates and the Nile. You have only been duped and made fools

of. You have almost always been slaves. To promise and to perform, my

poor unfortunate fellows, are different things. There was an old rabbi

once among you, who, when reading your shrewd and sagacious prophecies,

announcing for you a land of milk and honey, remarked that you had been

promised more butter than bread. Be assured that were the great Turk

this very day to offer me the lordship (seigneurie) of Jerusalem, I

would positively decline it.

Frederick III., when he saw this detestable country, said, loudly enough

to be distinctly heard, that Moses must have been very ill-advised to

conduct his tribe of lepers to such a place as that. "Why," says

Frederick, did he not go to Naples? Adieu, my dear Jews; I am extremely

sorry that the promised land is the lost land.

By the Baron de Broukans.

JULIAN.

SECTION I.

Justice is often done at last. Two or three authors, either venal or

fanatical, eulogize the cruel and effeminate Constantine as if he had

been a god, and treat as an absolute miscreant the just, the wise, and

the great Julian. All other authors, copying from these, repeat both the

flattery and the calumny. They become almost an article of faith. At

length the age of sound criticism arrives; and at the end of fourteen

hundred years, enlightened men revise the cause which had been decided

by ignorance. In Constantine we see a man of successful ambition,

internally scoffing at things divine as well as human. He has the

insolence to pretend that God sent him a standard in the air to assure

him of victory. He imbrues himself in the blood of all his relations,

and is lulled to sleep in all the effeminacy of luxury; but he is a

Christian--he is canonized.

Julian is sober, chaste, disinterested, brave, and clement; but he is

not a Christian--he has long been considered a monster.

At the present day--after having compared facts, memorials and records,

the writings of Julian and those of his enemies--we are compelled to

acknowledge that, if he was not partial to Christianity, he was somewhat

excusable in hating a sect stained with the blood of all his family; and

that although he had been persecuted, imprisoned, exiled, and threatened

with death by the Galileans, under the reign of the cruel and sanguinary

Constantius, he never persecuted them, but on the contrary even pardoned

ten Christian soldiers who had conspired against his life. His letters

are read and admired: "The Galileans," says he, "under my predecessor,

suffered exile and imprisonment; and those who, according to the change

of circumstances, were called heretics, were reciprocally massacred in

their turn. I have called home their exiles, I have liberated their

prisoners, I have restored their property to those who were proscribed,

and have compelled them to live in peace; but such is the restless rage

of these Galileans that they deplore their inability any longer to

devour one another." What a letter! What a sentence, dictated by

philosophy, against persecuting fanaticism. Ten Christians conspiring

against his life, he detects and he pardons them. How extraordinary a

man! What dastardly fanatics must those be who attempt to throw disgrace

on his memory!

In short, on investigating facts with impartiality, we are obliged to

admit that Julian possessed all the qualities of Trajan, with the

exception of that depraved taste too long pardoned to the Greeks and

Romans; all the virtues of Cato, without either his obstinacy or

ill-humor; everything that deserves admiration in Julius Cæsar, and none

of his vices. He possessed the continence of Scipio. Finally, he was in

all respects equal to Marcus Aurelius, who was reputed the first of men.

There are none who will now venture to repeat, after that slanderer

Theodoret, that, in order to propitiate the gods, he sacrificed a woman

in the temple of Carres; none who will repeat any longer the story of

the death scene in which he is represented as throwing drops of blood

from his hand towards heaven, calling out to Jesus Christ: "Galilean,

thou hast conquered"; as if he had fought against Jesus in making war

upon the Persians; as if this philosopher, who died with such perfect

resignation, had with alarm and despair recognized Jesus; as if he had

believed that Jesus was in the air, and that the air was heaven! These

ridiculous absurdities of men, denominated fathers of the Church, are

happily no longer current and respected.

Still, however, the effect of ridicule was, it seems, to be tried

against him, as it was by the light and giddy citizens of Antioch. He is

reproached for his ill-combed beard and the manner of his walk. But you,

Mr. Abbé de la Bletterie, never saw him walk; you have, however, read

his letters and his laws, the monuments of his virtues. Of what

consequence was it, comparatively, that he had a slovenly beard and an

abrupt, headlong walk, while his heart was full of magnanimity and all

his steps tended to virtue!

One important fact remains to be examined at the present day. Julian is

reproached with attempting to falsify the prophecy of Jesus Christ, by

rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. Fires, it is asserted, came out of

the earth and prevented the continuance of the work. It is said that

this was a miracle, and that this miracle did not convert Julian, nor

Alypius, the superintendent of the enterprise, nor any individual of the

imperial court; and upon this subject the Abbé de la Bletterie thus

expresses himself: "The emperor and the philosophers of his court

undoubtedly employed all their knowledge of natural philosophy to

deprive the Deity of the honor of so striking and impressive a prodigy.

Nature was always the favorite resource of unbelievers; but she serves

the cause of religion so very seasonably, that they might surely suspect

some collusion between them."

1. It is not true that it is said in the Gospel, that the Jewish temple

should not be rebuilt. The gospel of Matthew, which was evidently

written after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, prophesies,

certainly, that not one stone should remain upon another of the temple

of the Idumæan Herod; but no evangelist says that it shall never be

rebuilt. It is perfectly false that not one stone remained upon another

when Titus demolished it. All its foundations remained together, with

one entire wall and the tower Antonia.

2. Of what consequence could it be to the Supreme Being whether there

was a Jewish temple, a magazine, or a mosque, on the spot where the Jews

were in the habit of slaughtering bullocks and cows?

3. It is not ascertained whether it was from within the circuit of the

walls of the city, or from within that of the temple, that those fires

proceeded which burned the workmen. But it is not very obvious why the

Jews should burn the workmen of the emperor Julian, and not those of the

caliph Omar, who long afterwards built a mosque upon the ruins of the

temple; or those of the great Saladin who rebuilt the same mosque. Had

Jesus any particular predilection for the mosques of the Mussulmans?

4. Jesus, notwithstanding his having predicted that there would not

remain one stone upon another in Jerusalem, did not prevent the

rebuilding of that city.

5. Jesus predicted many things which God permitted never to come to

pass. He predicted the end of the world, and his coming in the clouds

with great power and majesty, before or about the end of the then

existing generation. The world, however, has lasted to the present

moment, and in all probability will last much longer.

6. If Julian had written an account of this miracle, I should say that

he had been imposed upon by a false and ridiculous report; I should

think that the Christians, his enemies, employed every artifice to

oppose his enterprise, that they themselves killed the workmen, and

excited and promoted the belief of their being destroyed by a miracle;

but Julian does not say a single word on the subject. The war against

the Persians at that time fully occupied his attention; he put off the

rebuilding of the temple to some other time, and he died before he was

able to commence the building.

7. This prodigy is related by Ammianus Marcellinus, who was a Pagan. It

is very possible that it may have been an interpolation of the

Christians. They have been charged with committing numberless others

which have been clearly proved.

But it is not the less probable that at a time when nothing was spoken

of but prodigies and stories of witchcraft, Ammianus Marcellinus may

have reported this fable on the faith of some credulous narrator. From

Titus Livius to de Thou, inclusively, all historians have been infected

with prodigies.

8. Contemporary authors relate that at the same period there was in

Syria a great convulsion of the earth, which in many places broke out in

conflagrations and swallowed up many cities. There was therefore more

miracle.

9. If Jesus performed miracles, would it be in order to prevent the

rebuilding of a temple in which he had himself sacrificed, and in which

he was circumcised? Or would he not rather perform miracles to convert

to Christianity the various nations who at present ridicule it? Or

rather still, to render more humane, more kind, Christians themselves,

who, from Arius and Athanasius down to Roland and the Paladins of the

Cévennes, have shed torrents of human blood, and conducted themselves

nearly as might be expected from cannibals?

Hence I conclude that "nature" is not in "collusion", as La Bletterie

expresses it, with Christianity, but that La Bletterie is in collusion

with some old women's stories, one of those persons, as Julian phrases

it, "quibus cum stolidis aniculis negotium erat."

La Bletterie, after having done justice to some of Julian's virtues, yet

concludes the history of that great man by observing, that his death was

the effect of "divine vengeance". If that be the case, all the heroes

who have died young, from Alexander to Gustavus Adolphus, have, we must

infer, been punished by God. Julian died the noblest of deaths, in the

pursuit of his enemies, after many victories. Jovian, who succeeded him,

reigned a much shorter time than he did, and reigned in disgrace. I see

no divine vengeance in the matter; and I see in La Bletterie himself

nothing more than a disingenuous, dishonest declaimer. But where are the

men to be found who will dare to speak out?

Libanius the Stoic was one of these extraordinary men. He celebrated the

brave and clement Julian in the presence of Theodosius, the wholesale

murderer of the Thessalonians; but Le Beau and La Bletterie fear to

praise him in the hearing of their own puny parish officers.

SECTION II.

Let any one suppose for a moment that Julian had abandoned false gods

for Christianity; then examine him as a man, a philosopher, and an

emperor; and let the examiner then point out the man whom he will

venture to prefer to him. If he had lived only ten years longer, there

is great probability that he would have given a different form to Europe

from that which it bears at present.

The Christian religion depended upon his life; the efforts which he made

for its destruction rendered his name execrable to the nations who have

embraced it. The Christian priests, who were his contemporaries, accuse

him of almost every crime, because he had committed what in their eyes

was the greatest of all--he had lowered and humiliated them. It is not

long since his name was never quoted without the epithet of apostate

attached to it; and it is perhaps one of the greatest achievements of

reason that he has at length ceased to be mentioned under so opprobrious

a designation. Who would imagine that in one of the "Mercuries of

Paris", for the year 1745, the author sharply rebukes a certain writer

for failing in the common courtesies of life, by calling this emperor

Julian "the apostate"? Not more than a hundred years ago the man that

would not have treated him as an apostate would himself have been

treated as an atheist.

What is very singular, and at the same time perfectly true, is that if

you put out of consideration the various disputes between Pagans and

Christians, in which this emperor was engaged; if you follow him neither

to the Christian churches nor idolatrous temples, but observe him

attentively in his own household, in camp, in battle, in his manners,

his conduct, and his writings, you will find him in every respect equal

to Marcus Aurelius.

Thus, the man who has been described as so abominable and execrable, is

perhaps the first, or at least the second of mankind. Always sober,

always temperate, indulging in no licentious pleasures, sleeping on a

mere bear's skin, devoting only a few hours, and even those with regret,

to sleep; dividing his time between study and business, generous,

susceptible of friendship, and an enemy to all pomp, and pride, and

ostentation. Had he been merely a private individual he must have

extorted universal admiration.

If we consider him in his military character, we see him constantly at

the head of his troops, establishing or restoring discipline without

rigor, beloved by his soldiers and at the same time restraining their

excesses, conducting his armies almost always on foot, and showing them

an example of enduring every species of hardship, ever victorious in all

his expeditions even to the last moments of his life, and at length

dying at the glorious crisis when the Persians were routed. His death

was that of a hero, and his last words were those of a philosopher: "I

submit," says he, "willingly to the eternal decrees of heaven, convinced

that he who is captivated with life, when his last hour is arrived, is

more weak and pusillanimous than he who would rush to voluntary death

when it is his duty still to live." He converses to the last moment on

the immortality of the soul; manifests no regrets, shows no weakness,

and speaks only of his submission to the decrees of Providence. Let it

be remembered that this is the death of an emperor at the age of

thirty-two, and let it be then decided whether his memory should be

insulted.

As an emperor, we see him refusing the title of "Dominus," which

Constantine affected; relieving his people from difficulties,

diminishing taxes, encouraging the arts; reducing to the moderate amount

of seventy ounces each those presents in crowns of gold, which had

before been exacted from every city to the amount of three or four

hundred marks; promoting the strict and general observance of the laws;

restraining both his officers and ministers from oppression, and

preventing as much as possible all corruption.

Ten Christian soldiers conspire to assassinate him; they are discovered,

and Julian pardons them. The people of Antioch, who united insolence to

voluptuousness, offer him an insult; he revenges himself only like a man

of sense; and while he might have made them feel the weight of imperial

power, he merely makes them feel the superiority of his mind. Compare

with this conduct the executions which Theodosius (who was very near

being made a saint) exhibited in Antioch, and the ever dreadful and

memorable slaughter of all the inhabitants of Thessalonica, for an

offence of a somewhat similar description; and then decide between these

two celebrated characters.

Certain writers, called fathers of the Church--Gregory of Nazianzen, and

Theodoret--thought it incumbent on them to calumniate him, because he

had abandoned the Christian religion. They did not consider that it was

the triumph of that religion to prevail over so great a man, and even

over a sage, after having resisted tyrants. One of them says that he

took a barbarous vengeance on Antioch and filled it with blood. How

could a fact so public and atrocious escape the knowledge of all other

historians? It is perfectly known that he shed no blood at Antioch but

that of the victims sacrificed in the regular services of religion.

Another ventures to assert that before his death he threw some of his

own blood towards heaven, and exclaimed, "Galilean, thou hast

conquered." How could a tale so insipid and so improbable, even for a

moment obtain credit? Was it against the Christians that he was then

combating? and is such an act, are such expressions, in the slightest

degree characteristic of the man?

Minds of a somewhat superior order to those of Julian's detractors may

perhaps inquire, how it could occur that a statesman like him, a man of

so much intellect, a genuine philosopher, could quit the Christian

religion, in which he was educated, for Paganism, of which, it is almost

impossible not to suppose, he must have felt the folly and ridicule. It

might be inferred that if Julian yielded too much to the suggestions of

his reason against the mysteries of the Christian religion, he ought, at

least in all consistency, to have yielded more readily to the dictates

of the same reason, when more correctly and decidedly condemning the

fables of Paganism.

Perhaps, by attending a little to the progress of his life, and the

nature of his character, we may discover what it was that inspired him

with so strong an aversion to Christianity. The emperor Constantine, his

great-uncle, who had placed the new religion on the throne, was stained

by the murder of his wife, his son, his brother-in­law, his nephew, and

his father-in-law. The three children of Constantine began their bloody

and baleful reign, with murdering their uncle and their cousins. From

that time followed a series of civil wars and murders. The father, the

brother, and all the relations of Julian, and even Julian himself, were

marked down for destruction by Constantius, his uncle. He escaped this

general massacre, but the first years of his life were passed in exile,

and he at last owed the preservation of his life, his fortune, and the

title of Cæsar, only to Eusebia, the wife of his uncle Constantius, who,

after having had the cruelty to proscribe his infancy, had the

imprudence to appoint him Cæsar, and the still further and greater

imprudence of then persecuting him.

He was, in the first instance, a witness of the insolence with which a

certain bishop treated his benefactress Eusebia. He was called Leontius,

and was bishop of Tripoli. He sent information to the empress, "that he

would not visit her unless she would consent to receive him in a manner

corresponding to his episcopal dignity--that is, that she should advance

to receive him at the door, that she should receive his benediction in a

bending attitude, and that she should remain standing until he granted

her permission to be seated." The Pagan pontiffs were not in the habit

of treating princesses precisely in this manner, and such brutal

arrogance could not but make a deep impression on the mind of a young

man attached at once to philosophy and simplicity.

If he saw that he was in a Christian family, he saw, at the same time,

that he was in a family rendered distinguished by parricides; if he

looked at the court bishops, he perceived that they were at once

audacious and intriguing, and that all anathematized each other in turn.

The hostile parties of Arius and Athanasius filled the empire with

confusion and carnage; the Pagans, on the contrary, never had any

religious quarrels. It is natural therefore that Julian, who had been

educated, let it be remembered, by philosophic Pagans, should have

strengthened by their discourses the aversion he must necessarily have

felt in his heart for the Christian religion. It is not more

extraordinary to see Julian quit Christianity for false gods, than to

see Constantine quit false gods for Christianity. It is highly probable

that both changed for motives of state policy, and that this policy was

mixed up in the mind of Julian with the stern loftiness of a stoic soul.

The Pagan priests had no dogmas; they did not compel men to believe that

which was incredible; they required nothing but sacrifices, and even

sacrifices were not enjoined under rigorous penalties; they did not set

themselves up as the first order in the state, did not form a state

within a state, and did not mix in affairs of government. These might

well be considered motives to induce a man of Julian's character to

declare himself on their side; and if he had piqued himself upon being

nothing besides a Stoic, he would have had against him the priests of

both religions, and all the fanatics of each. The common people would

not at that time have endured a prince who was content simply with the

pure worship of a pure divinity and the strict observance of justice. It

was necessary to side with one of the opposing parties. We must

therefore believe that Julian submitted to the Pagan ceremonies, as the

majority of princes and great men attend the forms of worship in the

public temples. They are led thither by the people themselves, and are

often obliged to appear what in fact they are not; and to be in public

the first and greatest slaves of credulity. The Turkish sultan must

bless the name of Omar. The Persian sophi must bless the name of Ali.

Marcus Aurelius himself was initiated in the mysteries of Eleusis.

We ought not therefore to be surprised that Julian should have debased

his reason by condescending to the forms and usages of superstition; but

it is impossible not to feel indignant against Theodoret, as the only

historian who relates that he sacrificed a woman in the temple of the

moon at Carres. This infamous story must be classed with the absurd tale

of Ammianus, that the genius of the empire appeared to Julian before his

death, and with the other equally ridiculous one, that when Julian

attempted to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem, there came globes of fire

out of the earth, and consumed all the works and workmen without

distinction.

_Iliacos intra muros peccatur et extra._--Horace, book i, ep. ii, 16.

Both Christians and Pagans equally, circulated fables concerning Julian;

but the fables of the Christians, who were his enemies, were filled with

calumny. Who could ever be induced to believe that a philosopher

sacrificed a woman to the moon, and tore out her entrails with his own

hands? Is such atrocity compatible with the character of a rigid Stoic?

He never put any Christians to death. He granted them no favors, but he

never persecuted them. He permitted them, like a just sovereign, to keep

their own property; and he wrote in opposition to them like a

philosopher. He forbade their teaching in the schools the profane

authors, whom they endeavored to decry--this was not persecuting them;

and he prevented them from tearing one another to pieces in their

outrageous hatred and quarrels--this was protecting them. They had in

fact therefore nothing with which they could reproach him, but with

having abandoned them, and with not being of their opinion. They found

means, however, of rendering execrable to posterity a prince, who, but

for his change of religion, would have been admired and beloved by all

the world.

Although we have already treated of Julian, under the article on

"Apostate"; although, following the example of every sage, we have

deplored the dreadful calamity he experienced in not being a Christian,

and have done justice elsewhere to his various excellences, we must

nevertheless say something more upon the subject.

We do this in consequence of an imposture equally absurd and atrocious,

which we casually met with in one of those petty dictionaries with which

France is now inundated, and which unfortunately are so easily compiled.

This dictionary of theology which I am now alluding to proceeds from an

ex-Jesuit, called Paulian, who repeats the story, so discredited and

absurd, that the emperor Julian, after being mortally wounded in a

battle with the Persians, threw some of his blood towards heaven,

exclaiming, "Galilean, thou hast conquered"--a fable which destroys

itself, as Julian was conqueror in the battle, and Jesus Christ

certainly was not the God of the Persians.

Paulian, notwithstanding, dares to assert that the fact is

incontestable. And upon what ground does he assert it? Upon the ground

of its being related by Theodoret, the author of so many distinguished

lies; and even this notorious writer himself relates it only as a vague

report; he uses the expression, "It is said." This story is worthy of

the calumniators who stated that Julian had sacrificed a woman to the

moon, and that after his death a large chest was found among his

movables filled with human heads.

This is not the only falsehood and calumny with which this ex-Jesuit

Paulian is chargeable. If these contemptible wretches knew what injury

they did to our holy religion, by endeavoring to support it by

imposture, and by the abominable abuse with which they assail the most

respectable characters, they would be less audacious and infuriated.

They care not, however, for supporting religion; what they want is to

gain money by their libels; and despairing of being read by persons of

sense, and taste, and fashion, they go on gathering and compiling

theological trash, in hopes that their productions will be adopted in

the seminaries.

We sincerely ask pardon of our well-informed and respectable readers for

introducing such names as those of the ex-Jesuits Paulian, Nonnotte, and

Patouillet; but after having trampled to death serpents, we shall

probably be excused for crushing fleas.

JUST AND UNJUST.

Who has given us the perception of just and unjust? God, who gave us a

brain and a heart. But when does our reason inform us that there are

such things as vice and virtue? Just at the same time it teaches us that

two and two make four. There is no innate knowledge, for the same reason

that there is no tree that bears leaves and fruit when it first starts

above the earth. There is nothing innate, or fully developed in the

first instance; but--we repeat here what we have often said--God causes

us to be born with organs, which, as they grow and become unfolded, make

us feel all that is necessary for our species to feel, for the

conservation of that species.

How is this continual mystery performed? Tell me, ye yellow inhabitants

of the Isles of Sunda, ye black Africans, ye beardless Indians; and

you--Plato, Cicero, and Epictetus. You all equally feel that it is

better to give the superfluity of your bread, your rice, or your manioc,

to the poor man who meekly requests it, than to kill him or scoop his

eyes out. It is evident to the whole world that a benefit is more

honorable to the performer than an outrage, that gentleness is

preferable to fury.

The only thing required, then, is to exercise our reason in

discriminating the various shades of what is right and wrong. Good and

evil are often neighbors; our passions confound them; who shall

enlighten and direct us? Ourselves, when we are calm and undisturbed.

Whoever has written on the subject of human duties, in all countries

throughout the world, has written well, because he wrote with reason.

All have said the same thing; Socrates and Epictetus, Confucius and

Cicero, Marcus Antoninus and Amurath II. had the same morality.

We would repeat every day to the whole of the human race: Morality is

uniform and invariable; it comes from God: dogmas are different; they

come from ourselves.

Jesus never taught any metaphysical dogmas; He wrote no theological

courses; He never said: I am consubstantial; I have two wills and two

natures with only one person. He left for the Cordeliers and the

Jacobins, who would appear twelve hundred years after Him, the delicate

and difficult topic of argument, whether His mother was conceived in

original sin. He never pronounced marriage to be the visible sign of a

thing invisible; He never said a word about concomitant grace; He

instituted neither monks nor inquisitors; He appointed nothing of what

we see at the present day.

God had given the knowledge of just and unjust, right and wrong,

throughout all the ages which preceded Christianity. God never changed

nor can change. The constitution of our souls, our principles of reason

and morality, will ever be the same. How is virtue promoted by

theological distinctions, by dogmas founded on those distinctions, by

persecutions founded on those dogmas? Nature, terrified and

horror-struck at all these barbarous inventions, calls aloud to all men:

Be just, and not persecuting sophists.

You read in the "_Zend-Avesta_," which is the summary of the laws of

Zoroaster, this admirable maxim: "When it is doubtful whether the action

you are about to perform is just or unjust, abstain from doing it." What

legislator ever spoke better? We have not here the system of "probable

opinions", invented by people who call themselves "the Society of

Jesus".

JUSTICE.

That "justice" is often extremely unjust, is not an observation merely

of the present day; "_summum jus, summa injuria_," is one of the most

ancient proverbs in existence. There are many dreadful ways of being

unjust; as, for example, that of racking the innocent Calas upon

equivocal evidence, and thus incurring the guilt of shedding innocent

blood by a too strong reliance on vain presumptions.

Another method of being unjust is condemning to execution a man who at

most deserves only three months' imprisonment; this species of injustice

is that of tyrants, and particularly of fanatics, who always become

tyrants whenever they obtain the power of doing mischief.

We cannot more completely demonstrate this truth than by the letter of a

celebrated barrister, written in 1766, to the marquis of Beccaria, one

of the most celebrated professors of jurisprudence, at this time, in

Europe:

_Letter To The Marquis Of Beccaria, Professor Of Public Law At Milan, On

The Subject Of M. De Morangies, 1772._

Sir:--You are a teacher of laws in Italy, a country from which we derive

all laws except those which have been transmitted to us by our own

absurd and contradictory customs, the remains of that ancient barbarism,

the rust of which subsists to this day in one of the most flourishing

kingdoms of the earth.

Your book upon crimes and punishments opened the eyes of many of the

lawyers of Europe who had been brought up in absurd and inhuman usages;

and men began everywhere to blush at finding themselves still wearing

their ancient dress of savages.

Your opinion was requested on the dreadful execution to which two young

gentlemen, just out of their childhood, had been sentenced; one of whom,

having escaped the tortures he was destined to, has become a most

excellent officer in the service of the great king, while the other, who

had inspired the brightest hopes, died like a sage, by a horrible death,

without ostentation and without pusillanimity, surrounded by no less

than five executioners. These lads were accused of indecency in action

and words, a fault which three months' imprisonment would have

sufficiently punished, and which would have been infallibly corrected by

time. You replied, that their judges were assassins, and that all Europe

was of your opinion.

I consulted you on the cannibal sentences passed on Calas, on Sirven,

and Montbailli; and you anticipated the decrees which you afterwards

issued from the chief courts and officers of law in the kingdom, which

justified injured innocence and re-established the honor of the nation.

I at present consult you on a cause of a very different nature. It is at

once civil and criminal. It is the case of a man of quality, a

major-general in the army, who maintains alone his honor and fortune

against a whole family of poor and obscure citizens, and against an

immense multitude consisting of the dregs of the people, whose

execrations against him are echoed through the whole of France. The poor

family accuses the general officer of taking from it by fraud and

violence a hundred thousand crowns.

The general officer accuses these poor persons of trying to obtain from

him a hundred thousand crowns by means equally criminal. They complain

that they are not merely in danger of losing an immense property, which

they never appeared to possess, but also of being oppressed, insulted,

and beaten by the officers of justice, who compelled them to declare

themselves guilty and consent to their own ruin and punishment. The

general solemnly protests, that these imputations of fraud and violence

are atrocious calumnies. The advocates of the two parties contradict

each other on all the facts, on all the inductions, and even on all the

reasonings; their memorials are called tissues of falsehoods; and each

treats the adverse party as inconsistent and absurd,--an invariable

practice in every dispute.

When you have had the goodness, sir, to read their memorials, which I

have now the honor of sending to you, you will, I trust, permit me to

suggest the difficulties which I feel in this case; they are dictated by

perfect impartiality. I know neither of the parties, and neither of the

advocates; but having, in the course of four and twenty years, seen

calumny and injustice so often triumph, I may be permitted to endeavor

to penetrate the labyrinth in which these monsters unfortunately find

shelter.

_Presumptions Against The Verron Family._

1. In the first place, there are four bills, payable to order, for a

hundred thousand crowns, drawn with perfect regularity by an officer

otherwise deeply involved in debt; they are payable for the benefit of a

woman of the name of Verron, who called herself the widow of a banker.

They are presented by her grandson, Du Jonquay, her heir, recently

admitted a doctor of laws, although he is ignorant even of orthography.

Is this enough? Yes, in an ordinary case it would be so; but if, in this

very extraordinary case, there is an extreme probability, that the

doctor of laws never did and never could carry the money which he

pretends to have delivered in his grandmother's name; if the

grandmother, who maintained herself with difficulty in a garret, by the

miserable occupation of pawnbroking, never could have been in the

possession of the hundred thousand crowns; if, in short, the grandson

and his mother have spontaneously confessed, and attested the written

confession by their actual signatures, that they attempted to rob the

general, and that he never received more than twelve hundred francs

instead of three hundred thousand livres;--in this case, is not the

cause sufficiently cleared up? Is not the public sufficiently able to

judge from these preliminaries?

2. I appeal to yourself, sir, whether it is probable that the poor widow

of a person unknown in society, who is said to have been a petty

stock-jobber, and not a banker, could be in possession of so

considerable a sum to lend, at an extreme risk, to an officer

notoriously in debt? The general, in short, contends, that this jobber,

the husband of the woman in question, died insolvent; that even his

inventory was never paid for; that this pretended banker was originally

a baker's boy in the household of the duke of Saint-Agnan, the French

ambassador in Spain; that he afterwards took up the profession of a

broker at Paris; and that he was compelled by M. Héraut, lieutenant of

police, to restore certain promissory notes, or bills of exchange, which

he had obtained from some young man by extortion;--such the fatality

impending over this wretched family from bills of exchange! Should all

these statements be proved, do you conceive it at all probable that this

family lent a hundred thousand crowns to an involved officer with whom

they were upon no terms of friendship or acquaintance?

3. Do you consider it probable, that the jobber's grandson, the doctor

of laws, should have gone on foot no less than five leagues, have made

twenty-six journeys, have mounted and descended three thousand steps,

all in the space of five hours, without any stopping, to carry

"secretly" twelve thousand four hundred and twenty-five louis d'or to a

man, to whom, on the following day, he publicly gives twelve hundred

francs? Does not such an account appear to be invented with an utter

deficiency of ingenuity, and even of common sense? Do those who believe

it appear to be sages? What can you think, then, of those who solemnly

affirm it without believing it?

4. Is it probable, that young Du Jonquay, the doctor of laws, and his

own mother, should have made and signed a declaration, upon oath, before

a superior judge, that this whole account was false, that they had never

carried the gold, and that they were confessed rogues, if in fact they

had not been such, and if grief and remorse had not extorted this

confession of their crime? And when they afterwards say, that they had

made this confession before the commissary, only because they had

previously been assaulted and beaten at the house of a proctor, would

such an excuse be deemed by you reasonable or absurd?

Can anything be clearer than that, if this doctor of laws had really

been assaulted and beaten in any other house on account of this cause,

he should have demanded justice of the commissary for this violence,

instead of freely signing, together with his mother, that they were both

guilty of a crime which they had not committed?

Would it be admissible for them to say: We signed our condemnation

because we thought that the general had bought over against us all the

police officers and all the chief judges?

Can good sense listen for a moment to such arguments? Would any one have

dared to suggest such even in the days of our barbarism, when we had

neither laws, nor manners, nor cultivated reason?

If I may credit the very circumstantial memorials of the general, the

Verrons, when put in prison upon his accusation, at first persisted in

the confession of their crime. They wrote two letters to the person whom

they had made the depositary of the bills extorted from the general;

they were terrified at the contemplation of their guilt, which they saw

might conduct them to the galleys or to the gibbet. They afterwards gain

more firmness and confidence. The persons with whom they were to divide

the fruit of their villainy encourage and support them; and the

attractions of the vast sum in their contemplation seduce, hurry, and

urge them on to persevere in the original charge. They call in to their

assistance all the dark frauds and pettifogging chicanery to which they

can gain access, to clear them from a crime which they had themselves

actually admitted. They avail themselves with dexterity of the

distresses to which the involved officer was occasionally reduced, to

give a color of probability to his attempting the re-establishment of

his affairs by the robbery or theft of a hundred thousand crowns. They

rouse the commiseration of the populace, which at Paris is easily

stimulated and frenzied. They appeal successfully for compassion to the

members of the bar, who make it a point of indispensable duty to employ

their eloquence in their behalf, and to support the weak against the

powerful, the people against the nobility. The clearest case becomes in

time the most obscure. A simple cause, which the police magistrate would

have terminated in four days, goes on increasing for more than a whole

year by the mire and filth introduced into it through the numberless

channels of chicanery, interest, and party spirit. You will perceive

that the whole of this statement is a summary of memorials or documents

that appeared in this celebrated cause.

_Presumptions In Favor Of The Verron Family_.

We shall consider the defence of the grandmother, the mother, and the

grandson (doctor of laws), against these strong presumptions.

1. The hundred thousand crowns (or very nearly that sum), which it is

pretended the widow Verron never was possessed of, were formerly made

over to her by her husband, in trust, together with the silver plate.

This deposit was "secretly" brought to her six months after her

husband's death, by a man of the name of Chotard. She placed them out,

and always "secretly", with a notary called Gilet, who restored them to

her, still "secretly", in 1760. She had therefore, in fact, the hundred

thousand crowns which her adversary pretends she never possessed.

2. She died in extreme old age, while the cause was going on,

protesting, after receiving the sacrament, that these hundred thousand

crowns were carried in gold to the general officer by her grandson, in

twenty-six journeys on foot, on Sept. 23, 1771.

3. It is not at all probable, that an officer accustomed to borrowing,

and broken down in circumstances, should have given bills payable to

order for the sum of three hundred thousand livres, to a person unknown

to him, unless he had actually received that sum.

4. There are witnesses who saw counted out and ranged in order the bags

filled with this gold, and who saw the doctor of laws carry it to the

general on foot, under his great coat, in twenty-six journeys, occupying

the space of five hours. And he made these twenty-six astonishing

journeys merely to satisfy the general, who had particularly requested

secrecy.

5. The doctor of laws adds: "Our grandmother and ourselves lived, it is

true, in a garret, and we lent a little money upon pledges; but we lived

so merely upon a principle of judicious economy; the object was to buy

for me the office of a counsellor of parliament, at a time when the

magistracy was purchasable. It is true that my three sisters gain their

subsistence by needle-work and embroidery; the reason of which was, that

my grandmother kept all her property for me. It is true that I have kept

company only with procuresses, coachmen, and lackeys: I acknowledge that

I speak and that I write in their style; but I might not on that account

be less worthy of becoming a magistrate, by making, after all, a good

use of my time."

6. All worthy persons have commiserated our misfortune. M. Aubourg, a

farmer-general, as respectable as any in Paris, has generously taken our

side, and his voice has obtained for us that of the public.

This defence appears in some part of it plausible. Their adversary

refutes it in the following manner:

_Arguments Of The Major-General Against Those Of The Verron Family_.

1. The story of the deposit must be considered by every man of sense as

equally false and ridiculous with that of the six-and-twenty journeys on

foot. If the poor jobber, the husband of the old woman, had intended to

give at his death so much money to his wife, he might have done it in a

direct way from hand to hand, without the intervention of a third

person.

If he had been possessed of the pretended silver plate, one-half of it

must have belonged to the wife, as equal owner of their united goods.

She would not have remained quiet for the space of six months, in a

paltry lodging of two hundred francs a year, without reclaiming her

plate, and exerting her utmost efforts to obtain her right. Chotard

also, the alleged friend of her husband and herself, would not have

suffered her to remain for six long months in a state of such great

indigence and anxiety.

There was, in reality, a person of the name of Chotard; but he was a man

ruined by debts and debauchery; a fraudulent bankrupt who embezzled

forty thousand crowns from the tax office of the farmers-general in

which he held a situation, and who is not likely to have given up a

hundred thousand crowns to the grandmother of the doctor in laws.

The widow Verron pretends, that she employed her money at interest,

always it appears in secrecy, with a notary of the name of Gilet, but no

trace of this fact can be found in the office of that notary.

She declares, that this notary returned her the money, still secretly,

in the year 1760: he was at that time dead.

If all these facts be true, it must be admitted that the cause of Du

Jonquay and the Verrons, built on a foundation of such ridiculous lies,

must inevitably fall to the ground.

2. The will of widow Verron, made half an hour before her death, with

death and the name of God on her lips, is, to all appearance, in itself

a respectable and even pious document. But if it be really in the number

of those pious things which are every day observed to be merely

instrumental to crime--if this lender upon pledges, while recommending

her soul to God, manifestly lied to God, what importance or weight can

the document bring with it? Is it not rather the strongest proof of

imposture and villainy?

The old woman had always been made to state, while the suit was carried

on in her name, that she possessed only this sum of one hundred thousand

crowns which it was intended to rob her of; that she never had more than

that sum; and yet, behold! in her will she mentions five hundred

thousand livres of her property! Here are two hundred thousand francs

more than any one expected, and here is the widow Verron convicted out

of her own mouth. Thus, in this singular cause, does the at once

atrocious and ridiculous imposture of the family break out on every

side, during the woman's life, and even when she is within the grasp of

death.

3. It is probable, and it is even in evidence, that the general would

not trust his bills for a hundred thousand crowns to a doctor of whom he

knew little or nothing, without having an acknowledgment from him. He

did, however, commit this inadvertence, which is the fault of an

unsuspecting and noble heart; he was led astray by the youth, by the

candor, by the apparent generosity of a man not more than twenty-seven

years of age, who was on the point of being raised to the magistracy,

who actually, upon an urgent occasion, lent him twelve hundred francs,

and who promised in the course of a few days to obtain for him, from an

opulent company, the sum of a hundred thousand crowns. Here is the knot

and difficulty of the cause. We must strictly examine whether it be

probable, that a man, who is admitted to have received nearly a hundred

thousand crowns in gold, should on the very morning after, come in great

haste, as for a most indispensable occasion, to the man who the evening

before had advanced him twelve thousand four hundred and twenty-five

louis d'or.

There is not the slightest probability of his doing so. It is still less

probable, as we have already observed, that a man of distinction, a

general officer, and the father of a family, in return for the

invaluable and almost unprecedented kindness of lending him a hundred

thousand crowns, should, instead of the sincerest gratitude to his

benefactor, absolutely endeavor to get him hanged; and this on the part

of a man who had nothing more to do than to await quietly the distant

expirations of the periods of payment; who was under no temptation, in

order to gain time, to commit such a profligate and atrocious villainy,

and who had never in fact committed any villainy at all. Surely it is

more natural to think that the man, whose grandfather was a

pettifogging, paltry jobber, and whose grandmother was a wretched lender

of small sums upon the pledges of absolute misery, should have availed

himself of the blind confidence of an unsuspecting soldier, to extort

from him a hundred thousand crowns, and that he promised to divide this

sum with the depraved and abominable accomplices of his baseness.

4. There are witnesses who depose in favor of Du Jonquay and widow

Verron. Let us consider who those witnesses are, and what they depose.

In the first place, there is a woman of the name of Tourtera, a broker,

who supported the widow in her peddling, insignificant concern of

pawnbroking, and who has been five times in the hospital in consequence

of the scandalous impurities of her life; which can be proved with the

utmost ease.

There is a coachman called Gilbert, who, sometimes firm, at other times

trembling in his wickedness, declared to a lady of the name of Petit, in

the presence of six persons, that he had been suborned by Du Jonquay. He

subsequently inquired of many other persons, whether he should yet be in

time to retract, and reiterated expressions of this nature before

witnesses.

Setting aside, however, what has been stated of Gilbert's disposition to

retract, it is very possible that he might be deceived, and may not be

chargeable with falsehood and perjury. It is possible, that he might see

money at the pawnbroker's, and that he might be told, and might believe,

that three hundred thousand livres were there. Nothing is more dangerous

in many persons than a quick and heated imagination, which actually

makes men think that they have seen what it was absolutely impossible

for them to see.

Then comes a man of the name of Aubriot, a godson of the procuress

Tourtera, and completely under her guidance. He deposes, that he saw, in

one of the streets of Paris, on Sept. 23, 1771, Doctor Du Jonquay in his

great coat, carrying bags.

Surely there is here no conclusive proof that the doctor on that day

made twenty-six journeys on foot, and travelled over five leagues of

ground, to deliver "secretly" twelve thousand four hundred and

twenty-five louis d'or, even admitting all that this testimony states to

be true. It appears clear, that Du Jonquay went this journey to the

general, and that he spoke to him; and it appears probable, that he

deceived him; but it is not clear that Aubriot saw him go and return

thirteen times in one morning. It is still less clear, that this witness

could at that time see so many circumstances occurring in the street, as

he was actually laboring under a disorder which there is no necessity to

name, and on that very day underwent for it the severe operation of

medicine, with his legs tottering, his head swelled, and his tongue

hanging half out of his mouth. This was not precisely the moment for

running into the street to see sights. Would his friend Du Jonquay have

said to him: Come and risk your life, to see me traverse a distance of

five leagues loaded with gold: I am going to deliver the whole fortune

of my family, secretly, to a man overwhelmed with debts; I wish to have,

privately, as a witness, a person of your character? This is not

exceedingly probable. The surgeon who applied the medicine to the

witness Aubriot on this occasion, states that he was by no means in a

situation to go out; and the son of the surgeon, in his interrogatory,

refers the case to the academy of surgery.

But even admitting that a man of a particularly robust constitution

could have gone out and taken some turns in the street in this

disgraceful and dreadful situation, what could it have signified to the

point in question? Did he see Du Jonquay make twenty-six journeys

between his garret and the general's hotel? Did he see twelve thousand

four hundred and twenty-five louis d'or carried by him? Was any

individual whatever a witness to this prodigy well worthy the "Thousand

and One Nights"? Most certainly not; no person whatever. What is the

amount, then, of all his evidence on the subject?

5. That the daughter of Mrs. Verron, in her garret, may have sometimes

borrowed small sums on pledges; that Mrs. Verron may have lent them, in

order to obtain and save a profit, to make her grandson a counsellor of

parliament, has nothing at all to do with the substance of the case in

question. In defiance of all this, it will ever be evident, that this

magistrate by anticipation did not traverse the five leagues to carry to

the general the hundred thousand crowns, and that the general never

received them.

6. A person named Aubourg comes forward, not merely as a witness, but as

a protector and benefactor of oppressed innocence. The advocates of the

Verron family extol this man as a citizen of rare and intrepid virtue.

He became feelingly alive to the misfortunes of Doctor Du Jonquay, his

mother, and grandmother, although he had no acquaintance with them; and

offered them his credit and his purse, without any other object than

that of assisting persecuted merit.

Upon examination it is found, that this hero of disinterested

benevolence is a contemptible wretch who began the world as a lackey,

was then successively an upholsterer, a broker, and a bankrupt, and is

now, like Mrs. Verron and Tourtera, by profession a pawnbroker. He flies

to the assistance of persons of his own profession. The woman Tourtera,

in the first place, gave him twenty-five louis d'or, to interest his

probity and kindness in assisting a desolate family. The generous

Aubourg had the greatness of soul to make an agreement with the old

grandmother, almost when she was dying, by which she gives him fifteen

thousand crowns, on condition of his undertaking to defray the expenses

of the cause. He even takes the precaution to have this bargain noticed

and confirmed in the will, dictated, or pretended to be dictated, by

this old widow of the jobber on her death-bed. This respectable and

venerable man then hopes one day to divide with some of the witnesses

the spoils that are to be obtained from the general. It is the

magnanimous heart of Aubourg that has formed this disinterested scheme;

it is he who has conducted the cause which he seems to have taken up as

a patrimony. He believed the bills payable to order would infallibly be

paid. He is in fact a receiver who participates in the plunder effected

by robbers, and who appropriates the better part to himself.

Such are the replies of the general: I neither subtract from them nor

add to them--I simply state them. I have thus explained to you, sir, the

whole substance of the cause, and stated all the strongest arguments on

both sides.

I request your opinion of the sentence which ought to be pronounced, if

matters should remain in the same state, if the truth cannot be

irrevocably obtained from one or other of the parties, and made to

appear perfectly without a cloud.

The reasons of the general officer are thus far convincing. Natural

equity is on his side. This natural equity, which God has established in

the hearts of all men, is the basis of all law. Ought we to destroy this

foundation of all justice, by sentencing a man to pay a hundred thousand

crowns which he does not appear to owe?

He drew bills for a hundred thousand crowns, in the vain hope that he

should receive the money; he negotiated with a young man whom he did not

know, just as he would have done with the banker of the king or of the

empress-queen. Should his bills have more validity than his reasons? A

man certainly cannot owe what he has not received. Bills, policies,

bonds, always imply that the corresponding sums have been delivered and

had; but if there is evidence that no money has been had and delivered,

there can be no obligation to return or pay any. If there is writing

against writing, document against document, the last dated cancels the

former ones. But in the present case the last writing is that of Du

Jonquay and his mother, and it states that the opposite party in the

cause never received from them a hundred thousand crowns, and that they

are cheats and impostors.

What! because they have disavowed the truth of their confession, which

they state to have been made in consequence of their having received a

blow or an assault, shall another man's property be adjudged to them?

I will suppose for a moment (what is by no means probable), that the

judges, bound down by forms, will sentence the general to pay what in

fact he does not owe;--will they not in this case destroy his reputation

as well as his fortune? Will not all who have sided against him in this

most singular adventure, charge him with calumniously accusing his

adversaries of a crime of which he is himself guilty? He will lose his

honor, in their estimation, in losing his property. He will never be

acquitted but in the judgments of those who examine profoundly. The

number of these is always small. Where are the men to be found who have

leisure, attention, capacity, impartiality, to consider anxiously every

aspect and bearing of a cause in which they are not themselves

interested? They judge in the same way as our ancient parliament judged

of books--that is, without reading them.

You, sir, are fully acquainted with this, and know that men generally

judge of everything by prejudice, hearsay, and chance. No one reflects

that the cause of a citizen ought to interest the whole body of

citizens, and that we may ourselves have to endure in despair the same

fate which we perceive, with eyes and feelings of indifference, falling

heavily upon him. We write and comment every day upon the judgments

passed by the senate of Rome and the areopagus of Athens; but we think

not for a moment of what passes before our own tribunals.

You, sir, who comprehend all Europe in your researches and decisions,

will, I sincerely hope, deign to communicate to me a portion of your

light. It is possible, certainly, that the formalities and chicanery

connected with law proceedings, and with which I am little conversant,

may occasion to the general the loss of the cause in court; but it

appears to me that he must gain it at the tribunal of an enlightened

public, that awful and accurate judge who pronounces after deep

investigation, and who is the final disposer of character.

KING.

King, _basileus, tyrannos, rex, dux, imperator, melch, baal, bel,

pharaoh, eli, shadai, adonai, shak, sophi, padisha, bogdan, chazan, kan,

krall, kong, könig, etc._--all expressions which signify the same

office, but which convey very different ideas.

In Greece, neither "_basileus_" nor "_tyrannos_" ever conveyed the idea

of absolute power. He who was able obtained this power, but it was

always obtained against the inclination of the people.

It is clear, that among the Romans kings were not despotic. The last

Tarquin deserved to be expelled, and was so. We have no proof that the

petty chiefs of Italy were ever able, at their pleasure, to present a

bowstring to the first man of the state, as is now done to a vile Turk

in his seraglio, and like barbarous slaves, still more imbecile, suffer

him to use it without complaint.

There was no king on this side the Alps, and in the North, at the time

we became acquainted with this large quarter of the world. The Cimbri,

who marched towards Italy, and who were exterminated by Marius, were

like famished wolves, who issued from those forests with their females

and whelps. As to a crowned head among these animals, or orders on the

part of a secretary of state, of a grand butler, of a chancellor--any

notion of arbitrary taxes, commissaries, fiscal edicts, etc.--they knew

no more of any of these than of the vespers and the opera.

It is certain that gold and silver, coined and uncoined, form an

admirable means of placing him who has them not, in the power of him who

has found out the secret of accumulation. It is for the latter alone to

possess great officers, guards, cooks, girls, women, jailers, almoners,

pages, and soldiers.

It would be very difficult to insure obedience with nothing to bestow

but sheep and sheep-skins. It is also very likely, after all the

revolutions of our globe, that it was the art of working metals which

originally made kings, as it is the art of casting cannon which now

maintains them.

Cæsar was right when he said, that with gold we may procure men, and

with men acquire gold.

This secret had been known for ages in Asia and Egypt, where the princes

and the priests shared the benefit between them.

The prince said to the priest: Take this gold, and in return uphold my

power, and prophesy in my favor; I will be anointed, and thou shalt

anoint me; constitute oracles, manufacture miracles; thou shalt be well

paid for thy labor, provided that I am always master. The priest, thus

obtaining land and wealth, prophesies for himself, makes the oracles

speak for himself, chases the sovereign from the throne, and very often

takes his place. Such is the history of the shotim of Egypt, the magi of

Persia, the soothsayers of Babylon, the chazin of Syria (if I mistake

the name it amounts to little)--all which holy persons sought to rule.

Wars between the throne and the altar have in fact existed in all

countries, even among the miserable Jews.

We, inhabitants of the temperate zone of Europe, have known this well

for a dozen centuries. Our minds not being so temperate as our climate,

we well know what it has cost us. Gold and silver form so entirely the

_primum mobile_ of the holy connection between sovereignty and religion,

that many of our kings still send it to Rome, where it is seized and

shared by priests as soon as it arrives.

When, in this eternal conflict for dominion, leaders have become

powerful, each has exhibited his pre-eminence in a mode of his own. It

was a crime to spit in the presence of the king of the Medes. The earth

must be stricken nine times by the forehead in the presence of the

emperor of China. A king of England imagines that he cannot take a glass

of beer unless it be presented on the knees. Another king will have his

right foot saluted, and all will take the money of their people. In some

countries the krall, or chazin, is allowed an income, as in Poland,

Sweden, and Great Britain. In others, a piece of paper is sufficient for

his treasury to obtain all that it requires.

Since we write upon the rights of the people, on taxation, on customs,

etc., let us endeavor, by profound reasoning, to establish the novel

maxim, that a shepherd ought to shear his sheep, and not to flay them.

As to the due limits of the prerogatives of kings, and of the liberty of

the people, I recommend you to examine that question at your ease in

some hotel in the town of Amsterdam.

KISS.

I ask pardon of young ladies and gentlemen, for they will not find here

what they may possibly expect. This article is only for learned and

serious people, and will suit very few of them.

There is too much of kissing in the comedies of the time of Molière. The

valets are always requesting kisses from the waiting-women, which is

exceedingly flat and disagreeable, especially when the actors are ugly

and must necessarily exhibit against the grain.

If the reader is fond of kisses, let him peruse the "Pastor Fido": there

is an entire chorus which treats only of kisses, and the piece itself is

founded only on a kiss which Mirtillo one day bestows on the fair

Amaryllis, in a game at blindman's buff--"_un bacio molto saporito._"

In a chapter on kissing by John de la Casa, archbishop of Benevento, he

says, that people may kiss from the head to the foot. He complains,

however, of long noses, and recommends ladies who possess such to have

lovers with short ones.

To kiss was the ordinary manner of salutation throughout all antiquity.

Plutarch relates, that the conspirators, before they killed Cæsar,

kissed his face, his hands, and his bosom. Tacitus observes, that when

his father-in-law, Agricola, returned to Rome, Domitian kissed him

coldly, said nothing to him, and left him disregarded in the surrounding

crowd. An inferior, who could not aspire to kiss his superior, kissed

his own hand, and the latter returned the salute in a similar manner, if

he thought proper.

The kiss was ever used in the worship of the gods. Job, in his parable,

which is possibly the oldest of our known books, says that he had not

adored the sun and moon like the other Arabs, or suffered his mouth to

kiss his hand to them.

In the West there remains of this civility only the simple and innocent

practice yet taught in country places to children--that of kissing their

right hands in return for a sugar-plum.

It is horrible to betray while saluting; the assassination of Cæsar is

thereby rendered much more odious. It is unnecessary to add, that the

kiss of Judas has become a proverb.

Joab, one of the captains of David, being jealous of Amasa, another

captain, said to him, "Art thou in health, my brother?" and took him by

the beard with his right hand to kiss him, while with the other he drew

his sword and smote him so that his bowels were "shed upon the ground".

We know not of any kissing in the other assassinations so frequent among

the Jews, except possibly the kisses given by Judith to the captain

Holofernes, before she cut off his head in his bed; but no mention is

made of them, and therefore the fact is only to be regarded as probable.

In Shakespeare's tragedy of "Othello", the hero, who is a Moor, gives

two kisses to his wife before he strangles her. This appears abominable

to orderly persons, but the partisans of Shakespeare say, that it is a

fine specimen of nature, especially in a Moor.

When John Galeas Sforza was assassinated in the cathedral of Milan, on

St. Stephen's day; the two Medicis, in the church of Reparata; Admiral

Coligni, the prince of Orange, Marshal d'Ancre, the brothers De Witt,

and so many others, there was at least no kissing.

Among the ancients there was something, I know not what, symbolical and

sacred attached to the kiss, since the statues of the gods were kissed,

as also their beards, when the sculptors represented them with beards.

The initiated kissed one another in the mysteries of Ceres, in sign of

concord.

The first Christians, male and female, kissed with the mouth at their

Agapæ, or love-feasts. They bestowed the holy kiss, the kiss of peace,

the brotherly and sisterly kiss, "_hagion philema._" This custom, lasted

for four centuries, and was finally abolished in distrust of the

consequences. It was this custom, these kisses of peace, these

love-feasts, these appellations of brother and sister, which drew on the

Christians, while little known, those imputations of debauchery bestowed

upon them by the priests of Jupiter and the priestesses of Vesta. We

read in Petronius and in other authors, that the dissolute called one

another brother and sister; and it was thought, that among Christians

the same licentiousness was intended. They innocently gave occasion for

the scandal upon themselves.

In the commencement, seventeen different Christian societies existed, as

there had been nine among the Jews, including the two kinds of

Samaritans. Those bodies which considered themselves the most orthodox

accused the others of inconceivable impurities. The term "gnostic", at

first so honorable, and which signifies the learned, enlightened, pure,

became an epithet of horror and of contempt, and a reproach of heresy.

St. Epiphanius, in the third century, pretended that the males and

females at first tickled each other, and at length proceeded to

lascivious kisses, judging of the degree of faith in each other by the

warmth of them. A Christian husband in presenting his wife to a

newly-initiated member, would exhort her to receive him, as above

stated, and was always obeyed.

We dare not repeat, in our chaste language, all that Epiphanius adds in

Greek. We shall simply observe, that this saint was probably a little

imposed upon, that he suffered himself to be transported by his zeal,

and that all the heretics were not execrable debauchees. The sect of

pietists, wishing to imitate the early Christians, at present bestow on

each other kisses of peace, on departing from their assemblies, and also

call one another brother and sister. The ancient ceremony was a kiss

with the lips, and the pietists have carefully preserved it.

There was no other manner of saluting the ladies in France, Italy,

Germany, and England. The cardinals enjoyed the privilege of kissing the

lips of queens, even in Spain, though--what is singular--not in France,

where the ladies have always had more liberties than elsewhere; but

every country has its ceremonies, and there is no custom so general but

chance may have produced an exception. It was an incivility, a rudeness,

in receiving the first visit of a nobleman, if a lady did not kiss his

lips--no matter about his mustaches. "It is an unpleasant custom," says

Montaigne, "and offensive to the ladies to have to offer their lips to

the three valets in his suite, however repulsive." This custom is,

however, the most ancient in the world.

If it is disagreeable to a young and pretty mouth to glue itself to one

which is old and ugly, there is also great danger in the junction of

fresh and vermilion lips of the age of twenty to twenty-five--a truth

which has finally abolished the ceremony of kissing in mysteries and

love-feasts. Hence also the seclusion of women throughout the East, who

kiss only their fathers and brothers--a custom long ago introduced into

Spain by the Arabs.

Attend to the danger: there is a nerve which runs from the mouth to the

heart, and thence lower still, which produces in the kiss an exquisitely

dangerous sensation. Virtue may suffer from a prolonged and ardent kiss

between two young pietists of the age of eighteen.

It is remarkable that mankind, and turtles, and pigeons alone practise

kissing; hence the Latin word "_columbatim_", which our language cannot

render.

We cannot decorously dwell longer on this interesting subject, although

Montaigne says, "It should be spoken of without reserve; we boldly speak

of killing, wounding, and betraying, while on this point we dare only

whisper."

LAUGHTER.

That laughter is the sign of joy, as tears are of grief, is doubted by

no one that ever laughed. They who seek for metaphysical causes of

laughter are not mirthful, while they who are aware that laughter draws

the zygomatic muscle backwards towards the ears, are doubtless very

learned. Other animals have this muscle as well as ourselves, yet never

laugh any more than they shed tears. The stag, to be sure, drops

moisture from its eyes when in the extremity of distress, as does a dog

dissected alive; but they weep not for their mistresses or friends, as

we do. They break not out like us into fits of laughter at the sight of

anything droll. Man is the only animal which laughs and weeps.

As we weep only when we are afflicted, and laugh only when we are gay,

certain reasoners have pretended that laughter springs from pride, and

that we deem ourselves superior to that which we laugh at. It is true

that man, who is a risible animal, is also a proud one; but it is not

pride which produces laughter. A child who laughs heartily, is not merry

because he regards himself as superior to those who excite his mirth;

nor, laughing when he is tickled, is he to be held guilty of the mortal

sin of pride. I was eleven years of age when I read to myself, for the

first time, the "Amphitryon" of Molière, and laughed until I nearly fell

backward. Was this pride? We are seldom proud when alone. Was it pride

which caused the master of the golden ass to laugh when he saw the ass

eat his supper? He who laughs is joyful at the moment, and is prompted

by no other cause.

It is not all joy which produces laughter: the greatest enjoyments are

serious. The pleasures of love, ambition, or avarice, make nobody laugh.

Laughter may sometimes extend to convulsions; it is even said that

persons may die of laughter. I can scarcely believe it; but certainly

there are more who die of grief.

Violent emotions, which sometimes move to tears and sometimes to the

appearance of laughter, no doubt distort the muscles of the mouth; this,

however, is not genuine laughter, but a convulsion and a pain. The tears

may sometimes be genuine, because the object is suffering, but laughter

is not. It must have another name, and be called the "_risus

sardonicus_"--sardonic smile.

The malicious smile, the "_perfidum ridens_," is another thing; being

the joy which is excited by the humiliation of another. The grin,

"_cachinnus_," is bestowed on those who promise wonders and perform

absurdities; it is nearer to hooting than to laughter. Our pride derides

the vanity which would impose upon us. They hoot our friend Fréron in

"The Scotchwoman", rather than laugh at him. I love to speak of friend

Fréron, as in that case I laugh unequivocally.

LAW (NATURAL).

B. What is natural law?

A. The instinct by which we feel justice.

B. What do you call just and unjust?

A. That which appears so to the whole world.

B. The world is made up of a great many heads. It is said that at

Lacedæmon thieves were applauded, while at Athens they were condemned to

the mines.

A. That is all a mere abuse of words, mere logomachy and ambiguity.

Theft was impossible at Sparta, where all property was common. What you

call theft was the punishment of avarice.

B. It was forbidden for a man to marry his sister at Rome. Among the

Egyptians, the Athenians, and even the Jews, a man was permitted to

marry his sister by the father's side. It is not without regret that I

cite the small and wretched nation of the Jews, who certainly ought

never to be considered as a rule for any person, and who--setting aside

religion--were never anything better than an ignorant, fanatical, and

plundering horde. According to their books, however, the young Tamar,

before she was violated by her brother Ammon, addressed him in these

words: "I pray thee, my brother, do not so foolishly, but ask me in

marriage of my father: he will not refuse thee."

A. All these cases amount to mere laws of convention, arbitrary usages,

transient modes. What is essential remains ever the same. Point out to

me any country where it would be deemed respectable or decent to plunder

me of the fruits of my labor, to break a solemn promise, to tell an

injurious lie, to slander, murder, or poison, to be ungrateful to a

benefactor, or to beat a father or mother presenting food to you.

B. Have you forgotten that Jean Jacques, one of the fathers of the

modern Church, has said that the first person who dared to enclose and

cultivate a piece of ground was an enemy of the human race; that he

ought to be exterminated; and that the fruits of the earth belonged to

all, and the land to none? Have we not already examined this

proposition, so beautiful in itself, and so conducive to the happiness

of society?

A. Who is this Jean Jacques? It is certainly not John the Baptist, nor

John the Evangelist, nor James the Greater, nor James the Less; he must

inevitably be some witling of a Hun, to write such abominable

impertinence, or some ill-conditioned, malicious "_bufo magro_," who is

never more happy than when sneering at what all the rest of the world

deem most valuable and sacred. For, instead of damaging and spoiling the

estate of a wise and industrious neighbor, he had only to imitate him,

and induce every head of a family to follow his example, in order to

form in a short time a most flourishing and happy village. The author of

the passage quoted seems to me a thoroughly unsocial animal.

B. You are of opinion, then, that by insulting and plundering the good

man, for surrounding his garden and farmyard with a quick-set hedge, he

has offended against natural law.

A. Yes, most certainly; there is, I must repeat, a natural law; and it

consists in neither doing ill to another, nor rejoicing at it, when from

any cause whatsoever it befalls him.

B. I conceive that man neither loves ill nor does it with any other view

than to his own advantage. But so many men are urged on to obtain

advantage to themselves by the injury of another; revenge is a passion

of such violence; there are examples of it so terrible and fatal; and

ambition, more terrible and fatal still, has so drenched the world with

blood; that when I survey the frightful picture, I am tempted to

confess, that a man is a being truly diabolical. I may certainly

possess, deeply rooted in my heart, the notion of what is just and

unjust; but an Attila, whom St. Leon extols and pays his court to; a

Phocas, whom St. Gregory flatters with the most abject meanness;

Alexander VI., polluted by so many incests, murders, and poisonings, and

with whom the feeble Louis XII., commonly called "the Good," enters into

the most strict and base alliance; a Cromwell, whose protection Cardinal

Mazarin eagerly solicits, and to gratify whom he expels from France the

heirs of Charles I., cousins-german of Louis XIV.--these, and a thousand

similar examples, easily to be found in the records of history, totally

disturb and derange my ideas, and I no longer know what I am doing or

where I am.

A. Well; but should the knowledge that storms are coming prevent our

enjoying the beautiful sunshine and gentle and fragrant gales of the

present day? Did the earthquake that destroyed half the city of Lisbon

prevent your making a very pleasant journey from Madrid? If Attila was a

bandit, and Cardinal Mazarin a knave, are there not some princes and

ministers respectable and amiable men? Has it not been remarked, that in

the war of 1701, the Council of Louis XIV. consisted of some of the most

virtuous of mankind--the duke of Beauvilliers, the Marquis de Torcy,

Marshal Villars, and finally Chamillard, who was not indeed considered a

very able but still an honorable man? Does not the idea of just and

unjust still exist? It is in fact on this that all laws are founded. The

Greeks call laws "the daughters of heaven", which means simply, the

daughters of nature. Have you no laws in your country?

B. Yes; some good, and others bad.

A. Where could you have taken the idea of them, but from the notions of

natural law which every well-constructed mind has within itself? They

must have been derived from these or nothing.

B. You are right; there is a natural law, but it is still more natural

to many people to forget or neglect it.

A. It is natural also to be one-eyed, humpbacked, lame, deformed, and

sickly; but we prefer persons well made and healthy.

B. Why are there so many one-eyed and deformed minds?

A. Hush! Consult, however, the article on "Omnipotence."

LAW (SALIC).

He who says that the Salic law was written with a pen from the wing of a

two-headed eagle, by Pharamond's almoner, on the back of the patent

containing Constantine's donation, was not, perhaps, very much mistaken.

It is, say the doughty lawyers, the fundamental law of the French

Empire. The great Jerome Bignon, in his book on "The Excellence of

France," says that this law is derived from natural law, according to

the great Aristotle, because "in families it was the father who

governed, and no dower was given to daughters, as we read in relation to

the father, mother, and brothers of Rebecca."

He asserts that the kingdom of France is so excellent that it has

religiously preserved this law, recommended both by Aristotle and the

Old Testament. And to prove this excellence of France, he observes also,

that the emperor Julian thought the wine of Surêne admirable.

But in order to demonstrate the excellence of the Salic law, he refers

to Froissart, according to whom the twelve peers of France said that

"the kingdom of France is of such high nobility that it never ought to

pass in succession to a female."

It must be acknowledged that this decision is not a little uncivil to

Spain, England, Naples, and Hungary, and more than all the rest to

Russia, which has seen on its throne four empresses in succession.

The kingdom of France is of great nobility; no doubt it is; but those of

Spain, of Mexico, and Peru are also of great nobility, and there is

great nobility also in Russia.

It has been alleged that Sacred Scripture says the lilies neither toil

nor spin; and thence it has been inferred that women ought not to reign

in France. This certainly is another instance of powerful reasoning; but

it has been forgotten that the leopards, which are--it is hard to say

why--the arms of England, spin no more than the lilies which are--it is

equally hard to say why--the arms of France. In a word, the circumstance

that lilies have never been seen to spin does not absolutely demonstrate

the exclusion of females from the throne to have been a fundamental law

of the Gauls.

_Of Fundamental Laws_.

The fundamental law of every country is, that if people are desirous of

having bread, they must sow corn; that if they wish for clothing, they

must cultivate flax and hemp; that every owner of a field should have

the uncontrolled management and dominion over it, whether that owner be

male or female; that the half-barbarous Gaul should kill as many as ever

he can of the wholly barbarous Franks, when they come from the banks of

the Main, which they have not the skill and industry to cultivate, to

carry off his harvests and flocks; without doing which the Gaul would

either become a serf of the Frank, or be assassinated by him.

It is upon this foundation that an edifice is well supported. One man

builds upon a rock, and his house stands firm; another on the sands, and

it falls to the ground. But a fundamental law, arising from the

fluctuating inclinations of men, and yet at the same time irrevocable,

is a contradiction in terms, a mere creature of imagination, a chimera,

an absurdity; the power that makes the laws can change them. The Golden

Bull was called "the fundamental law of the empire." It was ordained

that there should never be more than seven Teutonic electors, for the

very satisfactory and decisive reason that a certain Jewish chandelier

had had no more than seven branches, and that there are no more than

seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. This fundamental law had the epithet

"eternal" applied to it by the all-powerful authority and infallible

knowledge of Charles IV. God, however, did not think fit to allow of

this assumption of "eternal" in Charles's parchments. He permitted other

German emperors, out of their all-powerful authority and infallible

knowledge, to add two branches to the chandelier, and two presents to

the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Accordingly the electors are now

nine in number.

It was a very fundamental law that the disciples of the Lord Jesus

should possess no private property, but have all things in common. There

was afterwards a law that the bishops of Rome should be rich, and that

the people should choose them. The last fundamental law is, that they

are sovereigns, and elected by a small number of men clothed in scarlet,

and constituting a society absolutely unknown in the time of Jesus. If

the emperor, king of the Romans, always august, was sovereign master of

Rome in fact, as he is according to the style of his patents and

heraldry, the pope would be his grand almoner, until some other law,

forever irrevocable, was announced, to be destroyed in its turn by some

succeeding one.

I will suppose--what may very possibly and naturally happen--that an

emperor of Germany may have no issue but an only daughter, and that he

may be a quiet, worthy man, understanding nothing about war. I will

suppose that if Catherine II. does not destroy the Turkish Empire, which

she has severely shaken in the very year in which I am now writing my

reverie (the year 1771), the Turk will come and invade this good prince,

notwithstanding his' being cherished and beloved by all his nine

electors; that his daughter puts herself at the head of the troops with

two young electors deeply enamored of her; that she beats the Ottomans,

as Deborah beat General Sisera, and his three hundred thousand soldiers,

and his three thousand chariots of war, in a little rocky plain at the

foot of Mount Tabor; that this warlike princess drives the Mussulman

even beyond Adrianople; that her father dies through joy at her success,

or from any other cause; that the two lovers of the princess induce

their seven colleagues to crown her empress, and that all the princes of

the empire, and all the cities give their consent to it; what, in this

case, becomes of the fundamental and eternal law which enacts that the

holy Roman Empire cannot possibly pass from the lance to the distaff,

that the two-headed eagle cannot spin, and that it is impossible to sit

on the imperial throne without breeches? The old and absurd law would be

derided, and the heroic empress reign at once in safety and in glory.

_How The Salic Law Came To Be Established._

We cannot contest the custom which has indeed passed into law, that

decides against daughters inheriting the crown in France while there

remains any male of the royal blood. This question has been long

determined, and the seal of antiquity has been put to the decision. Had

it been expressly brought from heaven, it could not be more revered by

the French nation than it is. It certainly does not exactly correspond

with the gallant courtesy of the nation; but the fact is, that it was in

strict and rigorous observance before the nation was ever distinguished

for its gallant courtesy.

The president Hénault repeats, in his "Chronicle," what had been stated

at random before him, that Clovis digested the Salic law in 511, the

very year in which he died. I am very well disposed to believe that he

actually did digest this law, and that he knew how to read and write,

just as I am to believe that he was only fifteen years old when he

undertook the conquest of the Gauls; but I do sincerely wish that any

one would show me in the library of St.-Germain-des-Prés, or of St.

Martin, the original document of the Salic law actually signed Clovis,

or Clodovic, or Hildovic; from that we should at least learn his real

name, which nobody at present knows.

We have two editions of this Salic law; one by a person by the name of

Herold, the other by Francis Pithou; and these are different, which is

by no means a favorable presumption. When the text of a law is given

differently in two documents, it is not only evident that one of the two

is false, but it is highly probable that they are both so. No custom or

usage of the Franks was written in our early times, and it would be

excessively strange that the law of the Salii should have been so. This

law, moreover, is in Latin, and it does not seem at all probable that,

in the swamps between Suabia and Batavia, Clovis, or his predecessors,

should speak Latin.

It is supposed that this law has reference to the kings of France; and

yet all the learned are agreed that the Sicambri, the Franks, and the

Salii, had no kings, nor indeed any hereditary chiefs.

The title of the Salic law begins with these words: "_In Christi

nomine_"--"In the name of Christ." It was therefore made out of the

Salic territory, as Christ was no more known by these barbarians than by

the rest of Germany and all the countries of the North.

This law is stated to have been drawn up by four distinguished lawyers

of the Frank nation; these, in Herold's edition, are called Vuisogast,

Arogast, Salegast, and Vuindogast. In Pithou's edition, the names are

somewhat different. It has been unluckily discovered that these names

are the old names, somewhat disguised, of certain cantons of Germany.

In whatever period this law was framed in bad Latin, we find, in the

article relating to allodial or freehold lands, "that no part of Salic

land can be inherited by women." It is clear that this pretended law was

by no means followed. In the first place, it appears from the formulæ of

Marculphus that a father might leave his allodial land to his daughter,

renouncing "a certain Salic law which is impious and abominable."

Secondly, if this law be applied to fiefs, it is evident that the

English kings, who were not of the Norman race, obtained all their great

fiefs in France only through daughters.

Thirdly, it is alleged to be necessary that a fief should be possessed

by a man, because he was able as well as bound to fight for his lord;

this itself shows that the law could not be understood to affect the

rights to the throne. All feudal lords might fight just as well for a

queen as for a king. A queen was not obliged to follow the practice so

long in use, to put on a cuirass, and cover her limbs with armor, and

set off trotting against the enemy upon a carthorse.

It is certain, therefore, that the Salic law could have no reference to

the crown, neither in connection with allodial lands, nor feudal holding

and service.

Mézeray says, "The imbecility of the sex precludes their reigning."

Mézeray speaks here like a man neither of sense nor politeness. History

positively and repeatedly falsifies his assertion. Queen Anne of

England, who humbled Louis XIV.; the empress-queen of Hungary, who

resisted King Louis XV., Frederick the Great, the elector of Bavaria,

and various other princes; Elizabeth of England, who was the strength

and support of our great Henry; the empress of Russia, of whom we have

spoken already; all these decidedly show that Mézeray is not more

correct than he is courteous in his observation. He could scarcely help

knowing that Queen Blanche was in fact the reigning monarch under the

name of her son; as Anne of Brittany was under that of Louis XII.

Velly, the last writer of the history of France, and who on that very

account ought to be the best, as he possessed all the accumulated

materials of his predecessors, did not, however, always know how to turn

his advantages to the best account. He inveighs with bitterness against

the judicious and profound Rapin de Thoyras, and attempts to prove to

him that no princess ever succeeded to the crown while any males

remained who were capable of succeeding. That we all know perfectly

well, and Thoyras never said the contrary.

In that long age of barbarism, when the only concern of Europe was to

commit usurpations and to sustain them, it must be acknowledged that

kings, being often chiefs of banditti or warriors armed against those

banditti, it was not possible to be subject to the government of a

woman. Whoever was in possession of a great warhorse would engage in the

work of rapine and murder only under the standard of a man mounted upon

a great horse like himself. A buckler of oxhide served for a throne. The

caliphs governed by the Koran, the popes were deemed to govern by the

Gospel. The South saw no woman reign before Joan of Naples, who was

indebted for her crown entirely to the affection of the people for King

Robert, her grandfather, and to their hatred of Andrew, her husband.

This Andrew was in reality of royal blood, but had been born in Hungary,

at that time in a state of barbarism. He disgusted the Neapolitans by

his gross manners, intemperance, and drunkenness. The amiable king

Robert was obliged to depart from immemorial usage, and declare Joan

alone sovereign by his will, which was approved by the nation.

In the North we see no queen reigning in her own right before Margaret

of Waldemar, who governed for some months in her own name about the year

1377.

Spain had no queen in her own right before the able Isabella in 1461. In

England the cruel and bigoted Mary, daughter of Henry VIII., was the

first woman who inherited the throne, as the weak and criminal Mary

Stuart was in Scotland in the sixteenth century. The immense territory

of Russia had no female sovereign before the widow of Peter the Great.

The whole of Europe, and indeed I might say the whole world, was

governed by warriors in the time when Philip de Valois supported his

right against Edward III. This right of a male who succeeded to a male,

seemed the law of all nations. "You are grandson of Philip the Fair,"

said Valois to his competitor, "but as my right would be superior to

that of the mother, it must be still more decidedly superior to that of

the son. Your mother, in fact, could not communicate a right which she

did not possess."

It was therefore perfectly recognized in France that a prince of the

blood royal, although in the remotest possible degree, should be heir to

the crown in exclusion even of the daughter of the king. It is a law on

which there is now not the slightest dispute whatever. Other nations

have, since the full and universal recognition of this principle among

ourselves, adjudged the throne to princesses. But France has still

observed its ancient usage. Time has conferred on this usage the force

of the most sacred of laws. At what time the Salic law was framed or

interpreted is not of the slightest consequence; it does exist, it is

respectable, it is useful; and its utility has rendered it sacred.

_Examination Whether Daughters Are In All Cases Deprived Of Every

Species Of Inheritance By This Salic Law._

I have already bestowed the empire on a daughter in defiance of the

Golden Bull. I shall have no difficulty in conferring on a daughter the

kingdom of France. I have a better right to dispose of this realm than

Pope Julian II., who deprived Louis XII. of it, and transferred it by

his own single authority to the emperor Maximilian. I am better

authorized to plead in behalf of the daughters of the house of France,

than Pope Gregory XIII. and Cordelier Sextus-Quintus were to exclude

from the throne our princes of the blood, under the pretence actually

urged by these excellent priests, that Henry IV. and the princes of

Condé were a "bastard and detestable race" of Bourbon--refined and holy

words, which deserve ever to be remembered in order to keep alive the

conviction of all we owe to the bishops of Rome. I may give my vote in

the states-general, and no pope certainly can have any suffrage on it. I

therefore give my vote without hesitation, some three or four hundred

years from the present time, to a daughter of France, then the only

descendant remaining in a direct line from Hugh Capet. I constitute her

queen, provided she shall have been well educated, have a sound

understanding, and be no bigot. I interpret in her favor that law which

declares "_que fille ne doit mie succéder_"--that a daughter must in no

case come to her succession. I understand by the words, that she must in

no case succeed as long as there shall be any male. But on failure of

males, I prove that the kingdom belongs to her by nature, which ordains

it, and for the benefit of the nation.

I invite all good Frenchmen to show the same respect as myself for the

blood of so many kings. I consider this as the only method of preventing

factions which would dismember the state. I propose that she shall reign

in her own right, and that she shall be married to some amiable and

respectable prince, who shall assume her name and arms, and who, in his

own right, shall possess some territory which shall be annexed to

France; as we have seen Maria Theresa of Hungary united in marriage to

Francis, duke of Lorraine, the most excellent prince in the world.

What Celt will refuse to acknowledge her, unless we should discover some

other beautiful and accomplished princess of the issue of Charlemagne,

whose family was expelled by Hugh Capet, notwithstanding the Salic law?

or unless indeed we should find a princess fairer and more accomplished

still, an unquestionable descendant from Clovis, whose family was before

expelled by Pepin, his own domestic, notwithstanding, be it again

remembered, the Salic law.

I shall certainly find no involved and difficult intrigues necessary to

obtain the consecration of my royal heroine at Rheims, or Chartres, or

in the chapel of the Louvre--for either would effectually answer the

purpose; or even to dispense with any consecration at all. For monarchs

reign as well when not consecrated as when consecrated. The kings and

queens of Spain observe no such ceremony.

Among all the families of the king's secretaries, no person will be

found to dispute the throne with this Capetian princess. The most

illustrious houses are so jealous of each other that they would

infinitely prefer obeying the daughter of kings to being under the

government of one of their equals.

Recognized by the whole of France, she will receive the homage of all

her subjects with a grace and majesty which will induce them to love as

much as they revere her; and all the poets will compose verses in her

honor.

LAW (CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL).

The following notes were found among the papers of a lawyer, and are

perhaps deserving some consideration:

That no ecclesiastical law should be of any force until it has received

the express sanction of government. It was upon this principle that

Athens and Rome were never involved in religious quarrels.

These quarrels fall to the lot of those nations only that have never

been civilized, or that have afterwards been again reduced to barbarism.

That the magistrate alone should have authority to prohibit labor on

festivals, because it does not become priests to forbid men to cultivate

their fields.

That everything relating to marriages depends solely upon the

magistrate, and that the priests should be confined to the august

function of blessing them.

That lending money at interest is purely an object of the civil law, as

that alone presides over commerce.

That all ecclesiastical persons should be, in all cases whatever, under

the perfect control of the government, because they are subjects of the

state.

That men should never be so disgracefully ridiculous as to pay to a

foreign priest the first year's revenue of an estate, conferred by

citizens upon a priest who is their fellow-citizen.

That no priest should possess authority to deprive a citizen even of the

smallest of his privileges, under the pretence that that citizen is a

sinner; because the priest, himself a sinner, ought to pray for sinners,

and not to judge them.

That magistrates, cultivators, and priests, should alike contribute to

the expenses of the state, because all alike belong to the state.

That there should be only one system of weights and measures, and

usages.

That the punishment of criminals should be rendered useful. A man that

is hanged is no longer useful; but a man condemned to the public works

is still serviceable to his country, and a living lecture against crime.

That the whole law should be clear, uniform, and precise; to interpret

it is almost always to corrupt it.

That nothing should be held infamous but vice.

That taxes should be imposed always in just proportion.

That law should never be in contradiction to usage; for, if the usage is

good, the law is worth nothing.

LAWS.

SECTION I.

It is difficult to point out a single nation living under a system of

good laws. This is not attributable merely to the circumstance that laws

are the productions of men, for men have produced works of great utility

and excellence; and those who invented and brought to perfection the

various arts of life were capable of devising a respectable code of

jurisprudence. But laws have proceeded, in almost every state, from the

interest of the legislator, from the urgency of the moment, from

ignorance, and from superstition, and have accordingly been made at

random, and irregularly, just in the same manner in which cities have

been built. Take a view of Paris, and observe the contrast between that

quarter of it where the fish-market (Halles) is situated, the St.

Pierre-aux-bœufs, the streets Brisemiche and Pet-au-diable and the

beauty and splendor of the Louvre and the Tuileries. This is a correct

image of our laws.

It was only after London had been reduced to ashes that it became at all

fit to be inhabited. The streets, after that catastrophe, were widened

and straightened. If you are desirous of having good laws, burn those

which you have at present, and make fresh ones.

The Romans were without fixed laws for the space of three hundred years;

they were obliged to go and request some from the Athenians, who gave

them such bad ones that they were almost all of them soon abrogated. How

could Athens itself be in possession of a judicious and complete system?

That of Draco was necessarily abolished, and that of Solon soon expired.

Our customary or common law of Paris is interpreted differently by

four-and-twenty commentaries, which decidedly proves, the same number of

times, that it is ill conceived. It is in contradiction to a hundred and

forty other usages, all having the force of law in the same nation, and

all in contradiction to each other. There are therefore, in a single

department in Europe, between the Alps and the Pyrenees, more than forty

distinct small populations, who call themselves fellow-countrymen, but

who are in reality as much strangers to one another as Tonquin is to

Cochin China.

It is the same in all provinces of Spain. It is in Germany much worse.

No one there knows what are the rights of the chief or of the members.

The inhabitant of the banks of the Elbe is connected with the cultivator

of Suabia only in speaking nearly the same language, which, it must be

admitted, is rather an unpolished and coarse one.

The English nation has more uniformity; but having extricated itself

from servitude and barbarism only by occasional efforts, by fits and

convulsive starts, and having even in its state of freedom retained many

laws formerly promulgated, either by the great tyrants who contended in

rivalship for the throne, or the petty tyrants who seized upon the power

and honors of the prelacy, it has formed altogether a body of laws of

great vigor and efficacy, but which still exhibit many bruises and

wounds, very clumsily patched and plastered.

The intellect of Europe has made greater progress within the last

hundred years than the whole world had done before since the days of

Brahma, Fohi, Zoroaster, and the Thaut of Egypt. What then is the cause

that legislation has made so little?

After the fifth century, we were all savages. Such are the revolutions

which take place on the globe; brigands pillaging and cultivators

pillaged made up the masses of mankind from the recesses of the Baltic

Sea to the Strait of Gibraltar; and when the Arabs made their appearance

in the South, the desolation of ravage and confusion was universal.

In our department of Europe, the small number, being composed of daring

and ignorant men, used to conquest and completely armed for battle, and

the greater number, composed of ignorant, unarmed slaves, scarcely any

one of either class knowing how to read or write--not even Charlemagne

himself--it happened very naturally that the Roman Church, with its pen

and ceremonies, obtained the guidance and government of those who passed

their life on horseback with their lances couched and the morion on

their heads.

The descendants of the Sicambri, the Burgundians, the Ostrogoths,

Visigoths, Lombards, Heruli, etc., felt the necessity of something in

the shape of laws. They sought for them where they were to be found. The

bishops of Rome knew how to make them in Latin. The barbarians received

them with greater respect in consequence of not understanding them. The

decretals of the popes, some genuine, others most impudently forged,

became the code of the new governors, "_regas_"; lords, "_leus_"; and

barons, who had appropriated the lands. They were the wolves who

suffered themselves to be chained up by the foxes. They retained their

ferocity, but it was subjugated by credulity and the fear which

credulity naturally produces. Gradually Europe, with the exception of

Greece and what still belonged to the Eastern Empire, became subjected

to the dominion of Rome, and the poet's verse might be again applied as

correctly as before: _Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam._--Æneid,

i, 286.

The subject world shall Rome's dominion own,

And prostrate shall adore the nation of the gown.

--DRYDEN.

Almost all treaties being accompanied by the sign of the cross, and by

an oath which was frequently administered over some relics, everything

was thus brought within the jurisdiction of the Church. Rome, as

metropolitan, was supreme judge in causes, from the Cimbrian Chersonesus

to Gascony; and a thousand feudal lords, uniting their own peculiar

usages with the canon law, produced in the result that monstrous

jurisprudence of which there at present exist so many remains. Which

would have been better--no laws at all, or such as these?

It was beneficial to an empire of more vast extent than that of Rome to

remain for a long time in a state of chaos; for, as every valuable

institution was still to be formed, it was easier to build a new edifice

than to repair one whose ruins were looked upon as sacred.

The legislatrix of the North, in 1767, collected deputies from all the

provinces which contained about twelve hundred thousand square leagues.

There were Pagans, Mahometans of the sect of Ali, and others of the sect

of Omar, and about twelve different sects of Christians. Every law was

distinctly proposed to this new synod; and if it appeared conformable to

the interest of all the provinces, it then received the sanction of the

empress and the nation.

The first law that was brought forward and carried, was a law of

toleration, that the Greek priest might never forget that the Latin

priest was his fellow-man; that the Mussulman might bear with his Pagan

brother; and that the Roman Catholic might not be tempted to sacrifice

his brother Presbyterian.

The empress wrote with her own hand, in this grand council of

legislation, "Among so many different creeds, the most injurious error

would be intolerance."

It is now unanimously agreed that there is in a state only one

authority; that the proper expressions to be used are, "civil power,"

and "ecclesiastical discipline"; and that the allegory of the two swords

is a dogma of discord.

She began with emancipating the serfs of her own particular domain. She

emancipated all those of the ecclesiastical domains. She might thus be

said to have created men out of slaves.

The prelates and monks were paid out of the public treasury. Punishments

were proportioned to crimes, and the punishments were of a useful

character; offenders were for the greater part condemned to labor on

public works, as the dead man can be of no service to the living.

The torture was abolished, because it punishes a man before he is known

to be guilty; because the Romans never put any to the torture but their

slaves; and because torture tends to saving the guilty and destroying

the innocent.

This important business had proceeded thus far, when Mustapha III., the

son of Mahmoud, obliged the empress to suspend her code and proceed to

fighting.