When the time had come at which the Roman Empire of the West was to
collapse and Gaul was to become France, God did not allow such a noble
part of Christendom to remain long under idolatrous princes; and wishing
to hand over to the kings of the French the keeping of his Church, which
he had formerly intrusted to the emperors, he gave not to France only,
but to the whole Western world, a new Constantine in the person of
Clovis. The miraculous victory which he sent from heaven to each of
these two princes in their wars was a pledge of his love, and the
glorious inducement which attracted them to Christianity. Faith
triumphed, and the warlike nation of the Franks knew that the God of
Clotilda was the true God of armies.
Then Saint Remi saw that by placing the kings of France and their people
in the bosom of Jesus Christ, he had given to the Church a set of
invincible protectors. This great saint, this new Samuel called to
anoint the kings, anointed these, in his own words, "to be the perpetual
defender of the Church and the poor": a worthy object for royalty to
pursue. After teaching them how to make churches flourish and
populations thrive (believe ye that he himself is now speaking to you,
as I only recite the fatherly words of this apostle of the French), day
and night he prayed to God that they should persevere in His faith and
reign according to the rules he had given them; assuring them at the
same time that in enlarging their kingdom they would enlarge the kingdom
of Christ, and that if they faithfully kept the laws he prescribed in
the name of God, the empire of Rome would be given to them, so that from
the kings of France would issue Emperors worthy of that title, through
whom Christ would reign.
Such were the blessings which a thousand and a thousand times the great
Saint Remi poured upon the French and their kings, whom he always called
his dear children; unceasingly praising God for his kindness, because,
with a view to strengthen the incipient faith of this God-blessed
nation, he had deigned, through his own sinner's hands (these are his
own words), to repeat, before the eyes of all the French and of their
king, the miracles which had burst upon the world in the early
foundation of Christian churches. All the saints then living rejoiced;
and in this decline of the Roman Empire, it seemed to them that there
appeared in the kings of France "a new Light for the whole West." "In
occiduis partibus novi jubaris lumen effulgurat;" and not for the West
alone, but for all the Church, to which this new kingdom promised new
advances. This is what was said by Saint Avitus, the learned and holy
bishop of Vienne, the weighty and eloquent advocate of the Church of
Rome, who was directed by his colleagues, the revered bishops of Gaul,
to recommend to the Romans in the cause of Pope Symmachus the common
cause of the whole episcopacy; "because," so said that great man, "when
the Pope, the chief of all the bishops, is assailed, then not one bishop
alone, but the whole episcopacy is in danger."
OPENING OF THE
FUNERAL ORATION ON HENRIETTA OF FRANCE
_My Lord_[4]:
[Footnote 4: This oration was delivered in the presence of the Duke of
Orleans, son-in-law of Henrietta of France; it is he whom Bossuet
addresses in beginning his speech.]
He who reigns in heaven and who is the Lord of all the empires, to whom
alone majesty, glory, and independence belong, is also the only one who
glories in dictating laws to kings, and in giving them, when it so
pleases him, great and terrible lessons. Whether he raises or lowers
thrones; whether he communicates his own power to princes, or reclaims
it all and leaves them nothing but their own weakness, he teaches them
their duties in a manner both sovereign and worthy of him; for when
giving them his power, he commands them to use it, as he does, for the
good of the world; and he shows them in withdrawing it that all their
majesty is borrowed, and that, though seated on the throne, they are
nevertheless under his hand and supreme authority. Thus does he teach
princes, not only by words but by deeds and examples. "Et nunc, reges,
intelligite; erudimini, qui judicatis terram."
Christians, ye who have been called from all sides to this ceremony by
the memory of a great Queen,--daughter, wife, mother of powerful kings
and of sovereigns of three kingdoms,--this speech will bring before you
one of those conspicuous examples which spread before the eyes of the
world its absolute vanity. You will see in a single life all the
extremes of human affairs: boundless felicity and boundless misery; a
long and peaceful possession of one of the world's noblest crowns; all
that can be given of the glories of birth and rank gathered upon a head
which is afterwards exposed to all the insults of fortune; the good
cause at first rewarded by success, then met by sudden turns and
unheard-of changes; rebellion long restrained, at last over-riding
everything; unbridled licentiousness; the destruction of all laws; royal
majesty insulted by crimes before unknown; usurpation and tyranny under
the name of liberty; a queen pursued by her enemies, and finding no
refuge in either of her kingdoms; her own native land become a
melancholy place of exile; many voyages across the sea undertaken by a
princess, in spite of the tempest; the ocean surprised at being crossed
so often, in such different ways, and for so different causes; a throne
shamefully destroyed and miraculously restored. Those are the lessons
which are given by God to the kings; thus does He show to the world the
emptiness of its pomps and splendors. If I lack words, if expression is
unable to do justice to a subject of such magnitude and loftiness,
things alone will speak sufficiently; the heart[5] of a great queen,
formerly raised by long years of prosperity and suddenly plunged into an
abyss of bitterness, will speak loudly enough; and if private characters
are not allowed to give lessons to princes upon such strange
occurrences, a king lends me his voice to tell them. "Et nunc, reges,
intelligite; erudimini, qui judicatis terram:" Understand now, ye kings
of the earth; learn, ye who judge the world.
[Footnote 5: The Queen's heart was kept in the church where Bossuet was
speaking.]
But the wise and religious Princess who is the subject of this discourse
was not simply a spectacle presented to them that they may study therein
the counsels of Divine Providence and the fatal revolutions of
monasteries: she was her own instructor, while God instructed all
princes through her example. I have said already that the Divine Lord
teaches them both by giving and by taking away their power. The Queen of
whom I speak understood one of these lessons as well as the other,
contrary as they are, which means that in good as well as in evil
fortune she behaved as a Christian. In the one she was charitable, in
the other invincible. While prosperous she made her power felt by the
world through infinite blessings; when fortune forsook her, she enlarged
her own treasure of virtues, so that she lost for her own good this
royal power which she had had for the good of others. And if her
subjects, if her allies, if the Church Universal were the gainers by her
greatness, she gained by her misfortunes and humiliations more than she
had done by all her glory.