minister would be the first person in the country. As it is the House of
Commons attracts people who go there merely for social purposes; if the
highest social rank was to be scrambled for in the House of Commons, the
number of social adventurers there would be even more numerous. It has
been objected of late that English royalty is not splendid enough. It is
compared with the French court, which is quite the most splendid thing
in France; but the French emperor is magnified to emphasise the equality
of everyone else. Great splendour in our court would incite competition.
Fourthly, we have come to regard the crown as the head of our morality.
Lastly, constitutional royalty acts as a disguise; it enables our real
rulers to change without heedless people knowing it. Hence, perhaps, the
value of constitutional royalty in times of transition.
Popular theory regards the sovereign as a co-ordinate authority with the
House of Lords and the House of Commons. Also it holds that the queen is
the executive. Neither is true. There is no authentic explicit
information as to what the queen can do. The secrecy of the prerogative
is an anomaly, but none the less essential to the utility of English
royalty. Let us see how we should get on without a queen. We may suppose
the House of Commons appointing the premier just as shareholders choose
a director. If the predominant party were agreed as to its leader there
would not be much difference at the beginning of an administration. But
if the party were not agreed on its leader the necessity of the case
would ensure that the chief forced on the minority by the majority would
be an exceedingly capable man; where the judgment of the sovereign
intervenes there is no such security. If, however, there are three
parties, the primary condition of a cabinet polity is not satisfied.
Under such circumstances the only way is for the moderate people of
every party to combine in support of the government which, on the whole,
suits every party best. In the choice of a fit minister, if the royal
selection were always discreetly exercised, it would be an incalculable
benefit, but in most cases the wisest course for the monarch would be
inaction.
Now the sovereign has three rights, the right to be consulted, the right
to encourage, and the right to warn. In the course of a long reign a
king would acquire the same advantage which a permanent under-secretary
has over his superior, the parliamentary secretary. But whenever there
is discussion between a king and the minister, the king's opinion would
have its full weight, and the minister's would not. The whole position
is evidently attractive to an intelligent, sagacious and original
sovereign. But we cannot expect a lineal series of such kings. Neither
theory nor experience warrant any such expectations. The only fit
material for a constitutional king is a prince who begins early to
reign, who in his youth is superior to pleasure, is willing to labour,
and has by nature a genius for discretion.
_III.--The House of Lords and the House of Commons_
The use of the order of the lords in its dignified capacity is very
great. The mass of men require symbols, and nobility is the symbol of
mind. The order also prevents the rule of wealth. The Anglo-Saxon has a
natural instinctive admiration of wealth for its own sake; but from the
worst form of this our aristocracy preserves us, and the reverence for
rank is not so base as the reverence for money, or the still worse
idolatry of office. But as the picturesqueness of society diminishes,
aristocracy loses the single instrument of its peculiar power.
The House of Lords as an assembly has always been not the first, but the
second. The peers, who are of the most importance, are not the most
important in the House of Peers. In theory, the House of Lords is of
equal rank with the House of Commons; in practice it is not. The evil of
two co-equal houses is obvious. If they disagree, all business is
suspended. There ought to be an available decisive authority somewhere.
The sovereign power must be comeatable. The English have made it so by
the authority of the crown to create new peers. Before the Reform Act
the members of the peerage swayed the House of Commons, and the two
houses hardly collided except on questions of privilege. After the
Reform Bill the house ceased to be one of the latent directors and
palpable alterers.
It was the Duke of Wellington who presided over the change, and from the
duke himself we may learn that the use of the House of Lords is not to
be a bulwark against revolution. It cannot resist the people if the
people are determined. It has not the control of necessary physical
force. With a perfect lower house, the second chamber would be of
scarcely any value; but beside the actual house, a revising and leisured
legislature is extremely useful. The cabinet is so powerful in the
commons that it may inflict minor measures on the nation which the
nation does not like. The executive is less powerful in the second
chamber, which may consequently operate to impede minor instances of
parliamentary tyranny.
The House of Lords has the advantage: first, of being possible;
secondly, of being independent. It is accessible to no social bribe, and
it has leisure. On the other hand, it has defects. In appearance, which
is the important thing, it is apathetic. Next, it belongs exclusively to
one class, that of landowners. This would not so greatly matter if the
House of Lords _could_ be of more than common ability, but being an
hereditary chamber, it cannot be so. There is only one kind of business
in which our aristocracy retain a certain advantage. This is diplomacy.
And aristocracy is, in its nature, better suited to such work. It is
trained to the theatrical part of life; it is fit for that if it is fit
for anything. Otherwise an aristocracy is inferior in business. These
various defects would have been lessened if the House of Lords had not
resisted the creation of life peers.
The dignified aspect of the House of Commons is altogether secondary to
its efficient use. Its main function is to choose our president. It
elects the people whom it likes, and it dismisses whom it dislikes, too.
The premier is to the house what the house is to the nation. He must
lead, but he can only lead whither they will follow. Its second function
is _expressive_, to express the mind of the English people. Thirdly, it
ought to teach the nation. Fourthly, to give information, especially of
grievances--not, as in the old days, to the crown, but to the nation.
And, lastly, there is the function of legislation. I do not separate the
financial function from the rest of the legislative. In financial
affairs it lies under an exceptional disability; it is only the minister
who can propose to tax the people, whereas on common subjects any member
can propose anything. The reason is that the house is never economical;
but the cabinet is forced to be economical, because it has to impose the
taxation to meet, the expenditure.
Of all odd forms of government, the oddest really is this government by
public meeting. How does it come to be able to govern at all? The
principle of parliament is obedience to leaders. Change your leader if
you will, but while you have him obey him, otherwise you will not be
able to do anything at all. Leaders to-day do not keep their party
together by bribes, but they can dissolve. Party organisation is
efficient because it is not composed of warm partisans. The way to lead
is to affect a studied and illogical moderation.
Nor are the leaders themselves eager to carry party conclusions too far.
When an opposition comes into power, ministers have a difficulty in
making good their promises. They are in contact with the facts which
immediately acquire an inconvenient reality. But constituencies are
immoderate and partisan. The schemes both of extreme democrats and of
philosophers for changing the system of representation would prevent
parliamentary government from working at all. Under a system of equal
electoral districts and one-man vote, a parliament could not consist of
moderate men. Mr. Hare's scheme would make party bands and fetters
tighter than ever.
A free government is that which the people subject to it voluntarily
choose. If it goes by public opinion, the best opinion which the nation
will accept, it is a good government of its kind. Tried by this rule,
the House of Commons does its appointing business well. Of the
substantial part of its legislative task, the same may be said. Subject
to certain exceptions, the mind and policy of parliament possess the
common sort of moderation essential to parliamentary government. The
exceptions are two. First, it leans too much to the opinions of the
landed interest. Also, it gives too little weight to the growing
districts of the country, and too much to the stationary. But parliament
is not equally successful in elevating public opinion, or in giving
expression to grievances.
_IV.--Changes of Ministry_
There is an event which frequently puzzles some people; this is, a
change of ministry. All our administrators go out together. Is it wise
so to change all our rulers? The practice produces three great evils. It
brings in suddenly new and untried persons. Secondly, the man knows that
he may have to leave his work in the middle, and very likely never come
back to it. Thirdly, a sudden change of ministers may easily cause a
mischievous change of policy. A quick succession of chiefs do not learn
from each other's experience.
Now, those who wish to remove the choice of ministers from parliament
have not adequately considered what a parliament is. When you establish
a predominant parliament you give over the rule of the country to a
despot who has unlimited time and unlimited vanity. Every public
department is liable to attack. It is helpless in parliament if it has
no authorised defender. The heads of departments cannot satisfactorily
be put up for the defence; but a parliamentary head connected by close
ties with the ministry is a protecting machine. Party organisation
ensures the provision of such parliamentary heads. The alternative
provided in America involves changing not only the head but the whole
bureaucracy with each change of government.
This, it may be said, does not prove that this change is a good thing.
It may, however, be proved that some change at any rate is necessary to
a permanently perfect administration. If we look at the Prussian
bureaucracy, whatever success it may recently have achieved, it
certainly does not please the most intelligent persons at home.
Obstinate officials set at defiance the liberal initiations of the
government. In conflicts with simple citizens guilty officials are like
men armed cap-a-pie fighting with the defenceless. The bureaucrat
inevitably cares more for routine than for results. The machinery is
regarded as an achieved result instead of as a working instrument. It
tends to be the most unimproving and shallow of governments in quality,
and to over-government in point of quantity.
In fact, experience has proved in the case of joint-stock banks and of
railways that they are best conducted by an admixture of experts with
men of what may be, called business culture. So in a government office
the intrusion of an exterior head of the office is really essential to
its perfection. As Sir George Lewis said: "It is not the business of a
cabinet minister to work his department; his business is to see that it
is properly worked."
In short, a presidential government, or a hereditary government are
inferior to parliamentary government as administrative selectors. The
revolutionary despot may indeed prove better, since his existence
depends on his skill in doing so. If the English government is not
celebrated for efficiency, that is largely because it attempts to do so
much; but it is defective also from our ignorance. Another reason is
that in the English constitution the dignified parts, which have an
importance of their own, at the same time tend to diminish simple
efficiency.
_V.--Checks, Balances, and History_
In every state there must be somewhere a supreme authority on every
point. In some states, however, that ultimate power is different upon
different points. The Americans, under the mistaken impression that they
were imitating the English, made their constitution upon this principle.
The sovereignty rested with the separate states, which have delegated
certain powers to the central government. But the division of the
sovereignty does not end here. Congress rules the law, but the president
rules the administration. Even his legislative veto can be overruled
when two-thirds of both houses are unanimous. The administrative power
is divided, since on international policy the supreme authority is the
senate. Finally, the constitution itself can only be altered by
authorities which are outside the constitution. The result is that now,
after the civil war, there is no sovereign authority to settle immediate
problems.
In England, on the other hand, we have the typical constitution, in
which the ultimate power upon all questions is in the hands of the same
person. The ultimate authority in the English constitution is a
newly-elected House of Commons. Whatever the question on which it
decides, a new House of Commons can despotically and finally resolve. No
one can doubt the importance of singleness and unity. The excellence in
the British constitution is that it has achieved this unity. This is
primarily due to the provision which places the choice of the executive
in "the people's house." But it could not have been effected without
what I may call the "safety valve" and "the regulator." The "safety
valve" is the power of creating peers, the "regulator" is the cabinet's
power of dissolving. The defects of a popular legislature are: caprice
in selection, the sectarianism born of party organisation, which is the
necessary check on caprice, and the peculiar prejudices and interests of
the particular parliament. Now the caprice of parliament in the choice
of a premier is best checked by the premier himself having the power of
dissolution. But as a check on sectarianism such an extrinsic power as
that of a capable constitutional king is more efficient. For checking
the peculiar interests our colonial governors seem almost perfectly
qualified. But the intervention of a constitutional monarch is only
beneficial if he happens to be an exceptionally wise man. The peculiar
interests of a specific parliament are seldom in danger of overriding
national interests; hence, on the whole, the advantage of the premier
being the real dissolving authority.
The power of creating peers, vested in the premier, serves constantly to
modify the character of the second chamber. What we may call the
catastrophe creation of peers is different. That the power should reside
in the king would again be beneficial only in the case of the
exceptional monarch. Taken altogether, we find that hereditary royalty
is not essential to parliamentary government. Our conclusion is that
though a king with high courage and fine discretion, a king with a
genius for the place, is always useful, and at rare moments priceless,
yet a common king is of no use at a crisis, while, in the common course
of things, he will do nothing, and he need do nothing.
All the rude nations that have attained civilisation seem to begin in a
consultative and tentative absolutism. The king has a council of elders
whom he consults while he tests popular support in the assembly of
freemen. In England a very strong executive was an imperative necessity.
The assemblies summoned by the English sovereign told him, in effect,
how far he might go. Legislation as a positive power was very secondary
in those old parliaments; but their negative action was essential. The
king could not venture to alter the law until the people had expressed
their consent. The Wars of the Roses killed out the old councils. The
second period of the constitution continues to the revolution of 1688.
The rule of parliament was then established by the concurrence of the
usual supporters of royalty with the usual opponents of it. Yet the mode
of exercising that rule has since changed. Even as late as 1810 it was
supposed that when the Prince of Wales became Prince Regent he would be
able to turn out the ministry.
It is one of our peculiarities that the English people is always
antagonistic to the executive. It is their natural impulse to resist
authority as something imposed from outside. Hence our tolerance of
local authorities as instruments of resistance to tyranny of the central
authority.
Our constitution is full of anomalies. Some of them are, no doubt,
impeding and mischievous. Half the world believes that the Englishman is
born illogical. As a matter of fact, I am inclined to believe that the
English care more even than the French for simplicity; but the
constitution is not logical. The complexity we tolerate is that which
has grown up. Any new complexity, as such, is detestable to the English
mind. Let anyone try to advocate a plan of suffrage reform at all out of
the way, and see how many adherents he can collect.
This great political question of the day, the suffrage question, is made
exceedingly difficult by this history of ours. We shall find on
investigation that so far from an ultra-democratic suffrage giving us a
more homogeneous and decided House of Commons it would give us a less
homogeneous and more timid house. With us democracy would mean the rule
of money and mainly and increasingly of new money working for its own
ends.
* * * * *
VOLTAIRE
The Age of Louis XIV
Voltaire's "History of the Age of Louis XIV.," was published
when its author (see p. 259), long famous, was the companion
of Frederick the Great in Prussia--from 1750 to 1753. Voltaire
was in his twentieth year when the Grand Monarque died. Louis
XIV. had succeeded his father at the age of five years, in
1643; his nominal reign covered seventy-one years, and
throughout the fifty-three years which followed Mazarin's
death his declaration "L'État c'est moi" had been politically
and socially a truth. He controlled France with an absolute
sway; under him she achieved a European ascendency without
parallel save in the days of Napoleon. He sought to make her
the dictator of Europe. But for William of Orange,
Marlborough, and Eugene, he would have succeeded. Politically
he did not achieve his aim; but under him France became the
unchallenged leader of literary and artistic culture and
taste, the universal criterion.
_I.--France Under Mazarin_
We do not propose to write merely a life of Louis XIV.; our aim is a far
wider one. It is to give posterity a picture, not of the actions of a
single man, but of the spirit of the men of an age the most enlightened
on record. Every period has produced its heroes and its politicians,
every people has experienced revolutions; the histories of all are of
nearly equal value to those who desire merely to store their memory with
facts. But the thinker, and that still rarer person the man of taste,
recognises only four epochs in the history of the world--those four
fortunate ages in which the arts have been perfected: the great age of
the Greeks, the age of Cæsar and of Augustus, the age which followed the
fall of Constantinople, and the age of Louis XIV.; which last approached
perfection more nearly than any of the others.
On the death of Louis XIII., his queen, Anne of Austria, owed her
acquisition of the regency to the Parlement of Paris. Anne was obliged
to continue the war with Spain, in which the brilliant victories of the
young Duc d'Enghein, known to fame as the Great Condé, brought him
sudden glory and unprecedented prestige to the arms of France.
But internally the national finances were in a terribly unsatisfactory
state. The measures for raising funds adopted by the minister Mazarin
were the more unpopular because he was himself an Italian. The Paris
Parlement set itself in opposition to the minister; the populace
supported it; the resistance was organised by Paul de Gondi, afterwards
known as the Cardinal de Retz. The court had to flee from Paris to St.
Germain. Condé was won over by the queen regent; but the nobles, hoping
to recover the power which Richelieu had wrenched from them, took the
popular side. And their wives and daughters surpassed them in energy. A
very striking contrast to the irresponsible frivolity with which the
whole affair was conducted is presented by the grim orderliness with
which England had at that very moment carried through the last act in
the tragedy of Charles I. In France the factions of the Fronde were
controlled by love intrigues.
Condé was victorious. But he was at feud with Mazarin, made himself
personally unpopular, and found himself arrested when he might have made
himself master of the government. A year later the tables were turned;
Mazarin had to fly, and the Fronde released Condé. The civil war was
renewed; a war in which no principles were at stake, in which the
popular party of yesterday was the unpopular party of to-day; in which
there were remarkable military achievements, much bloodshed, and much
suffering, and which finally wore itself out in 1653, when Mazarin
returned to undisputed power. Louis XIV. was then a boy of fifteen.
Mazarin had achieved a great diplomatic triumph by the peace of
Westphalia in 1648; but Spain had remained outside that group of
treaties; and, owing to the civil war of the Fronde, Condé's successes
against her had been to a great extent made nugatory--and now Condé was
a rebel and in command of Spanish troops. But Condé, with a Spanish
army, met his match in Turenne with a French army.
At this moment, Christina of Sweden was the only European sovereign who
had any personal prestige. But Cromwell's achievements in England now
made each of the European statesmen anxious for the English alliance;
and Cromwell chose France. The combined arms of France and England were
triumphant in Flanders, when Cromwell died; and his death changed the
position of England. France was financially exhausted, and Mazarin now
desired a satisfactory peace with Spain. The result, was the Treaty of
the Pyrenees, by which the young King Louis took a Spanish princess in
marriage, an alliance which ultimately led to the succession of a
grandson of Louis to the Spanish throne. Immediately afterwards, Louis'
cousin, Charles II., was recalled to the throne of England. This closing
achievement of Mazarin had a triumphant aspect; his position in France
remained undisputed till his death in the next year (1661). He was a
successful minister; whether he was a great statesman is another
question. His one real legacy to France was the acquisition of Alsace.
_II.---The French Supremacy in Europe_
On Mazarin's death Louis at once assumed personal rule. Since the death
of Henry the Great, France had been governed by ministers; now she was
to be governed by the king--the power exercised by ministers was
precisely circumscribed. Order and vigour were introduced on all sides;
the finances were regulated by Colbert, discipline was restored in the
army, the creation of a fleet, was begun. In all foreign courts Louis
asserted the dignity of France; it was very soon evident that there was
no foreign power of whom he need stand in fear. New connections were
established with Holland and Portugal. England under Charles II. was of
little account.
To the king on the watch for an opportunity, an opportunity soon
presents itself. Louis found his when Philip IV. of Spain was succeeded
by the feeble Charles II. He at once announced that Flanders reverted to
his own wife, the new king's elder sister. He had already made his
bargain with the Emperor Leopold, who had married the other infanta.
Louis' armies were overrunning Flanders in 1667, and Franche-Comté next
year. Holland, a republic with John de Witt at its head, took alarm; and
Sir William Temple succeeded in effecting the Triple Alliance between
Holland, England, and Sweden. Louis found it advisable to make peace,
even at the price of surrendering Franche-Comté for the present.
Determined now, however, on the conquest of Holland, Louis had no
difficulty in secretly detaching the voluptuary Charles II. from the
Dutch alliance. Holland itself was torn between the faction of the De
Witts and the partisans of the young William of Orange. Overwhelming
preparations were made for the utterly unwarrantable enterprise.