Our loss, due to the irresolution of our chief, and to an indolence
which he paid for with his life, does not alter the goodness of our
cause. And honest people conquered by rogues, remain honest people.”
“It pains me to hear you talk of honest people and rogues, in public
matters, Mr. Rockstrong. These simple expressions might suffice to
indicate the good and the bad side in those combats of angels which
were fought in Heaven before the creation of the world; and which your
fellow countryman, John Milton, has sung with very great barbarity.
But, on this terraqueous globe, camps are not, however desirable
it might be, so equally divided that one can discriminate, without
prejudice or compliance, between the army of the pure and the impure;
nor even distinguish the side of the just from the unjust. So that,
success must necessarily remain the only witness to the goodness of a
cause. I annoy you, Mr. Rockstrong, by telling you that one is rebel
when one is vanquished. Yet when it happens to you to climb to power,
you will not suffer rebellion.”
“Abbé, you do not know what you are saying. I have always hastened to
the side of the vanquished.”
“Truly, Mr. Rockstrong, you are a natural and constant enemy of the
State. You are hardened in your enmity by the force of your genius,
which finds pleasure in destruction and ruin.”
“Abbé, do you call me a criminal?”
“Mr. Rockstrong, if I were a statesman, or a friend of the prince, like
Monsieur Roman, I should take you for a remarkable criminal. But I am
not a sufficiently fervent believer in the religion of politics to be
very terrified at the murmur of your crimes, or of outrages which make
more noise than they do harm.”
“Abbé, you are immoral!”
“If it be only at such a price one can afford to be indulgent, Mr.
Rockstrong, do not blame me too severely.”
“I have no use, my fat Abbé, for an indulgence that you share between
me, the victim, and the scoundrels in Parliament, who condemned me with
such revolting injustice.”
“It is amusing to hear you talk of the injustice of the lords, Mr.
Rockstrong.”
“Is it not a crying injustice?”
“It is quite true, Mr. Rockstrong, that you were convicted, on a
ridiculous charge, by the Lord-Chancellor for a collection of libels,
none of which came in particular under the ban of the English law; it
is true that in a country where one is allowed to write anything and
everything, you were punished for some pungent writings; it is true
that they used, as weapons, obsolete and out-of-the-way forms whose
imposing hypocrisy poorly dissimulated the impossibility of getting
at you by legal methods; it is true that the milords who judged you
were interested in your ruin, since Monmouth’s, and your success
would infallibly have dragged them from their seats. It is true your
ruin was decided on beforehand in the royal Councils. It is true you
escaped by flight, from a mediocre kind of martyrdom in truth, but
a painful one. For imprisonment for life is a penalty even if one
may reasonably hope to escape from it soon. But there is no justice
nor injustice there. You were condemned for State reasons—which is
extremely honourable. And more than one of the lords who condemned you
had conspired with you twenty years before. Your crime was to have
frightened those in office—and it is an unpardonable one. Ministers
and their friends invoke the safety of the State when danger threatens
their fortunes or their posts. And they are willing to believe
themselves necessary for the preservation of the empire, for they
are for the most part interested parties and no philosophers. But
that does not make bad men of them. They are human beings and that is
quite enough to explain their pitiable mediocrity, their stupidity and
their avarice. But whom do you set up against them, Mr. Rockstrong?
Other men of equal mediocrity, and yet more greedy, because they are
hungrier. The people of London would have borne with them as they bear
with the others. They awaited your victory or your defeat to declare
themselves, wherein they gave proof of remarkable sagacity. The people
are well advised when they judge that they have nothing to gain or lose
by change of masters.”
Thus spoke Abbé Coignard, and Mr. Rockstrong with inflamed countenance,
eyes on fire, and wig starting from his head, shouted at him with
gestures from the top of his ladder: “Abbé, I understand thieves and
all types of rogues in Chancery and Parliament. But I do not understand
you, who, without any personal interest in the matter, out of pure
malice, propound maxims that they themselves profess but for their own
profit. You must be wickeder than they, for you have nothing to gain in
the matter. It is beyond me, Abbé!”
“It is a sign of my being a philosopher,” gently replied my good
master. “It is in the nature of wise men to irritate the rest of
mankind. Anaxagoras was a celebrated example of it. I do not speak of
Socrates who was but a sophist. But we see that in all times and in all
countries the opinions of meditative minds were subjects of scandal.
You think yourself very different from your enemies, Mr. Rockstrong,
and that you are as lovable as they are odious. Allow me to tell you
that this is but the effect of your pride and of your high courage.
In actual fact, you share in common with those who condemned you, all
human weaknesses and passions. If you are more honest than many of
them, and even if you are a man of incomparable vivacity of mind, you
are filled with a talent for hatred and discord which renders you very
inconvenient in a well-regulated country. The calling of a journalist,
in which you excel, has raised to the highest degree of perfection the
wonderful partiality of your mind, and though a victim of injustice,
you are yourself not just. What I have just said embroils me both with
you and with your enemies, and I am very certain I shall never obtain
a fat living from the minister who has them in his gift. But I prize
freedom of mind more highly than a fat abbey or a cosy priory. I shall
have succeeded in vexing all the world, but I shall die in peace, and
in contentment of heart.”
“Abbé,” half-laughingly, replied Mr. Rockstrong, “I forgive you,
because I think you a little mad. You make no difference between
rogues and honest men, and you would not rather have a free country
than a despotic and shuffling government. You are a lunatic, and of no
ordinary kind.”
“Let us go and drink a pot of wine at the _Petit Bacchus_, Mr.
Rockstrong,” said my good master, “and I will explain to you, while
emptying my glass, why I am totally indifferent to forms of government,
and why I do not trouble myself about any change of masters.”
“Very willingly,” said Mr. Rockstrong, “I shall be interested to drink
in company with such a bad arguer as you.”
He sprang lightly down from his ladder, and we all three repaired to
the inn.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] I have not found this Mr. Rockstrong mentioned in the memoirs
relating to Monmouth’s Rebellion. (ANATOLE FRANCE.)
XV
REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES
Mr. Rockstrong, who was a sensible man, bore my good master no malice
for his sincerity of speech. When the landlord of the _Petit Bacchus_
had brought a pot of wine, the pamphleteer lifted his glass and drank
to Abbé Coignard’s health, calling him a rogue, a friend of robbers, a
tool of tyrants and an old scamp! all with quite a jovial air.
My master returned his compliments with a good grace, congratulating
him on the fact that he drank to a man whose natural humour had
remained unaffected by philosophy.
“As for myself,” he added, “I feel that my intelligence is quite spoilt
by reflection. And as it is not in the nature of mankind to think with
any profundity, I own that my leaning to thought is an odd mania and
highly inconvenient. In the first place it makes me unfit for any
undertaking, for our actions result from a limited outlook and narrow
way of thinking. You will be astonished, Mr. Rockstrong, if you picture
to yourself the simple-mindedness of the men of genius who have stirred
the world. Conquerors and statesmen, who have changed the face of the
earth, have never reflected on the essence of the beings they handled
so roughly. They shut themselves up altogether in the pettiness of
their grand projects and the wisest see but very few things at a time.
Such as you see me, Mr. Rockstrong, it would be impossible for me to
work like Alexander at the conquest of India, or to found and govern an
empire, or, generally speaking, to throw myself into any one of those
vast undertakings which tempt the pride of the impetuous. Reflection
would hamper me, from the outset, and I should find reasons for coming
to a stop at every move I made.”
Then turning to me my good master said sighing:
“Thought is a great infirmity, God keep you from it Tournebroche, my
son, as He has kept His greatest saints, and the souls for whom He
cherishes a singular predilection, and for whom He reserves eternal
glory. Men who think little, or who think not at all, go about their
business happily in this world and the next, whilst the meditative
soul is incessantly menaced with its temporal and spiritual loss. Such
malice lies in thought! Reflect and tremble, my son, at the thought
that the serpent of Genesis is the oldest of philosophers and their
everlasting prince.”
Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard drank a great draught of wine and went on in a
low voice:
“As regards my salvation, that is a subject to which I have never
applied my intelligence. I have never exercised my reason on the truths
of the Faith. Unhappily, I have meditated the deeds of men and the ways
of cities; therefore I am no longer fit to govern an Island, as was
Sancho Panza.”
“That is a very good thing,” retorted Mr. Rockstrong, laughingly,
“for your isle would be a retreat for bandits and vagabonds where the
criminal would judge the innocent, if perchance there were any.
“I well believe it! Mr. Rockstrong, I well believe it!” answered my
good master! “It is quite possible that, if I were to govern another
island of Barataria, manners would be as you say. With one stroke you
have depicted all the empires of the world. I feel that mine would
be no better than the rest. I have no illusions about mankind, and,
so as not to hate them, I despise them. I despise and pity them,
Mr. Rockstrong. But they bear me no good-will for it. They want to
be hated. One vexes them when one shows them the gentlest, the most
indulgent, the most charitable, most human and gracious of all feelings
that they could inspire: contempt. Nevertheless, mutual contempt means
peace on earth, and if men would only thoroughly despise one another
they would do themselves no further harm and live together in an
amiable tranquillity.
“All the ills of civilised societies originate in people thinking too
highly of each other, and raising honour, like a monster, above the
wretchedness of the flesh and the spirit. This feeling makes them both
proud and cruel, and I detest the pride that wants honour to be shown
to it and to others, as if anyone descended from Adam could be worthy
of honour! An animal which eats, drinks (give me something to drink),
and makes love, is worthy of pity, interesting perhaps, even sometimes
pleasant and agreeable.
“He can only be honourable by the effect of a most absurd and
headstrong prejudice in his favour. This prejudice is the source of all
the ills from which we suffer. It is a detestable kind of idolatry.
And to assure to humanity a sweetening of their existence you must
begin by recalling them to their natural humility.
“They will be happy, when, brought back again to a true appreciation of
their condition, they despise one another without there being a single
exception to this most excellent contempt.”
Mr. Rockstrong shrugged his shoulders.
“My fat Abbé,” said he, “you are a pig.”
“I am but a man,” replied my master, “you flatter me, and I feel in
me the germs of that bitter pride that I detest, and that vain-glory
which leads the human race into duels and into war. There are times,
Mr. Rockstrong, when I would have my throat cut for my opinions; which
would be an act of madness. For who can prove that I reason better than
you, you, who reason excessively badly! Give me something to drink!”
Mr. Rockstrong courteously filled my good master’s glass.
“Abbé, you talk nonsense,” he said, “but I love you, and I should much
like to know what you find blameworthy in my public behaviour, and
why you side against me with tyrants, forgers, thieves, and dishonest
judges?”
“Mr. Rockstrong, allow me first of all to diffuse over you and your
friends, with a sweet impartiality, that single sentiment which gently
puts an end to quarrels, and brings pacification. Bear with me if I
respect neither the one nor the other enough to consign them to the
vengeance of the law and to call down punishment on their heads.
Men, whatsoever they do, are always silly sheep, and I leave to
milord-chancellor, who condemned you, the Ciceronian declamations on
state crimes. I have little taste for Catiline orations from whichever
side they come. I am merely sad to see a man like you occupied in
changing forms of government. It is the most frivolous and empty
method of using one’s intelligence, and to fight people in office is
folly, unless it is a way of earning one’s bread and getting on in the
world. Give me something to drink! Bethink you, Mr. Rockstrong, that
these startling changes in the State, meditated by you, are merely
displacements of particular men, and that men taken in the mass are one
like another, average in evil as well as in good; so that to replace
two or three hundred ministers, governors of provinces, colonial
agents, and bonneted presidents of courts, by two or three hundred
others, is as good as doing nothing, and is simply putting Philip and
Barnabas in place of Paul and Xavier. As to changing the condition of
people at the same time, as you hope to do, that is quite impossible,
for that condition does not depend on the ministers, who count for
nothing, but on the earth and its fruits, industry, commerce, money
amassed in the kingdom, the cleverness of the townfolk in trade and
exchange—all things, which be they good or bad, are not kept going by
either the prince or the officers of the crown.”
Mr. Rockstrong quickly interrupted my good master:
“Who does not know,” he exclaimed, “that the condition of industry
and commerce depends on the government, and that only under a free
government can you have good finance?”
“Liberty,” continued Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard, “is but the result
of the wealth of citizens, who free themselves as soon as they are
powerful enough to be independent. People take all the liberty they
can enjoy, or, to put it more plainly, they imperiously clamour for
institutions in recognition and guarantee of the rights which they have
acquired by their industry.
“All liberty emanates from them and their several actions. Their most
involuntary movements enlarge the mould of the state which shapes
itself on them.[15]
“So that one may say that detestable as tyranny is, every tyranny is
necessary, and despotic governments are but the strait-waistcoat on
a feeble and dwindled body. And who does not see that the outward
appearance of government is like the skin which reveals the structure
of an animal without being the cause of it?
“You seize hold upon the skin without troubling yourself about the
viscera, in which you show little natural philosophy, Mr. Rockstrong.”
“So you make no difference between a free state and a tyrannical
government, and all that you regard as nothing but the hide of the
beast, my fat Abbé. And you fail to see that the expenditure of the
prince and the depredations of ministers can ruin agriculture and wear
out trade by raising the taxes.”
“Mr. Rockstrong, there cannot be at the same period and for the same
country more than one possible form of government, any more than an
animal can have more than one pelt at a time. From which it results,
that we must leave to the care of Time, who is a courtly person, the
changing of empires and the remaking of laws. He works at it slowly,
untiringly, and kindly.”
“And you don’t think, my fat Abbé, that we ought to help the old man
who figures on the clocks with a scythe in his hand? You do not believe
that a revolution, such as that of the English or that in the Low
Countries, can have any effect on the condition of the people. No? You
old idiot! you deserve to be crowned with a fool’s cap!”
“Revolutions come about in conservation of good things already
acquired, and not to gain new. It is the folly of nations, it is your
own, Mr. Rockstrong, to found great hopes on the downfall of princes.
People assure unto themselves, by revolting from time to time, the
preservation of their threatened liberties. They have never gained new
liberties thereby. But they are fooled with words. It is remarkable,
Mr. Rockstrong, that men will easily let themselves be killed for words
of no meaning. Ajax made the remark long ago: ‘I thought in my youth’
the poet makes him say, ‘that deeds were more powerful than words, but
I see to-day that the word is the stronger of the two.’ Thus said Ajax,
son of Oileus. Mr. Rockstrong, I am very thirsty!”
FOOTNOTES:
[15] In the time of Abbé Coignard the French already thought themselves
free. The sieur d’Alquié wrote in 1670:
“Three things make a man happy in this world, to know the charm of
intercourse, dainty meats, and liberty, perfect and entire. We have
seen in what way our illustrious kingdom has fulfilled the two first,
so it remains for us merely to show that the third is not lacking
to it, and that liberty is no less a fact than the two preceding
advantages. The thing will appear true to you if, to start with, you
will consider attentively the name of our state, the matter of its
foundation, and its usual customs: for one sees at the start that
the name of _France_ means nothing else than _Franchise_ or liberty,
conformably to the designs of the founders of this monarchy, who,
having noble and generous souls, and being unable to bear either
slavery or the least servitude, resolved among themselves to throw off
the yoke of all kinds of captivity and to be as free as men may be;
this is why they came to the land of the Gauls, which was a country
whose people were neither less warlike nor less jealous of their
_Franchise_ or liberty than they themselves were. As to the second
point, we know that beyond the inclinations and plans they had in
founding this state, they were always their own masters; they made
laws for their sovereign which, limiting their powers, still preserved
their privileges to them, in such wise that if anyone wishes to deprive
them of them, they become enraged and rush to arms with such speed
that nothing can hold them back when this point is involved. As to the
third point, I declare that France is so enamoured of liberty that she
cannot endure a slave, so that Turks and Moors and still less Christian
people, may never wear irons nor be loaded with chains once in her
country, and thus it comes about, that when slaves come to be in France
they are no sooner on her territory than, full of joy, they cry: Long
live France and her beloved liberty!”
_Les délices de la France_ ... by François Savinien d’Alquié, Amsterdam
1670.
Chapter XVI. entitled “France is a land of freedom for all sorts of
people.”
XVI
HISTORY
Monsieur Roman placed half a dozen volumes on the counter.
“I beg of you, Monsieur Blaizot,” said he, “to send me these books.
“There are ‘Mother and Son,’ the ‘Memoirs of the Court of France,’ and
the ‘Testament of Richelieu.’ I should be grateful if you will add to
them anything new you have received lately in the way of history, and
more particularly, anything treating of France since the death of Henry
IV.... All these are works in which I am extremely interested.”
“You are right, Monsieur,” said my master. “Books on history are full
of light stuff very suitable to amuse an honest fellow, and one is sure
of finding a great number of pleasant stories.”
“Monsieur l’Abbé,” answered Monsieur Roman, “what I look for from the
historians is not frivolous amusement. It is a serious study, and I am
filled with despair if I find fiction mingled with fact. I study human
actions in relation to the conduct of nations, and I seek for maxims of
government in history.”
“I am not ignorant of that, Monsieur,” said my good master. “Your
treatise on ‘Monarchy’ is renowned enough for us to know that you have
conceived a political system drawn from history.”
“In such sort,” said Monsieur Roman, “I have been the first to draw
rules for princes and ministers which they cannot avoid without danger.”
“And we behold you, Monsieur, on the frontispiece of your book, in the
likeness of Minerva, presenting to a youthful king the mirror handed
you by the muse, Clio, hovering above your head, in a study decked with
busts and pictures. But allow me to tell you, Monsieur, that this muse
is a story-teller, and that she holds out to you a mirror of falsehood.
There are few truths in history, and the only facts on which all agree
are those we get from a single source. Historians contradict one
another every time they meet. Even more! We see that Flavius Josephus,
who has pourtrayed the same incidents in his ‘Antiquities’ and in his
‘Wars of the Jews,’ records them differently in each of these works.
Titus Livius is but a collector of fables; and Tacitus, your oracle,
gives me the impression of an unsmiling deceiver who flouts all the
world under a pretence of gravity. I have a sufficient esteem for
Thucydides, Polybius, and Guicciardini. As for our own Mézeray, he does
not know what he is saying, any more than do Villaret and Abbé Vély.
But I am accusing historians; it is history itself I should attack.
“What is history? A miscellany of moral tales, or an eloquent medley of
narratives and speeches, according as the historian is a philosopher
or a spouter. You may find eloquent passages, but one must not look
for the truth there, because truth consists in showing the necessary
relation of things, and the historian does not know how to establish
this relation, because he is unable to follow the chain of effects
and causes. Consider that every time that the cause of an historical
fact lies in a fact that is not historical, history fails to see it.
And as historical facts are intimately allied to non-historical facts,
it comes about that events are not linked after their natural order
in history, but are connected one with another by mere artifices of
rhetoric. And I ask you also to notice that the distinction between
facts which appear in history and facts which do not is entirely
arbitrary. It results from this that, far from being a science, history
is condemned by a vice in its essence to the chaos of untruth.
Sequence and continuity will always be lacking to it, and without
these there can be no true knowledge. You see also that one can draw
no prognostic as to the future of a nation from its past history. Now,
the peculiarity of science is to be prophetic, as may be seen by those
tables where the moon’s periods, tides, and eclipses are to be found
calculated beforehand, whilst revolutions and wars escape calculation.”
Monsieur Roman explained to Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard that he merely
asked of history facts, somewhat confused it is true, uncertain,
mingled with errors, but infinitely precious, through their subject,
which is man.
“I know,” he added, “how human annals are curtailed and mixed with
fable. But, though a strict sequence of cause and effect fails us, I
see in it a kind of plan that one loses and then finds again, like the
ruins of temples half-buried in the sand. That alone is of immense
value to me. And I flatter myself that, in the future, history,
formed from abundant material and treated with method, will rival in
exactitude the natural sciences.”