I.

The inheritance of wisdom with a throne is always rare: I find in

history but two striking examples of it,--in India, the succession of

the three Mongol emperors, Bâber, Hoomâyoon, and Akbar; at Rome, at the

head of the greatest empire that ever existed, the two admirable reigns

of Antonine the Pious and Marcus Aurelius. Of the last two, I consider

Antonine the greatest. His goodness did not lead him into faults: he was

not tormented with that internal trouble which disturbed without

ceasing the heart of his adopted son. This strange malady, this restless

study of himself, this demon of scrupulousness, this fever of

perfection, are signs of a less strong and distinguished nature. As the

finest thoughts are those which are not written, Antonine had in this

respect also a superiority over Marcus Aurelius. But let us add that we

should be ignorant of Antonine, if Marcus Aurelius had not transmitted

to us that exquisite portrait of his adopted father, in which he seems

to have applied himself, through humility, to painting the picture of a

better man than himself.

It is he who has sketched in the first book of his "Thoughts,"--that

admirable background where the noble and pure forms of his father,

mother, grandfather, and tutors, move in a celestial light. Thanks to

Marcus Aurelius, we are able to understand how these old Roman families,

who had seen the reign of the wicked emperors, still retained honesty,

dignity, justice, the civil, and, if I may dare to say it, the

republican spirit. They lived there in admiration of Cato, of Brutus, of

Thrasea, and of the great stoics whose souls had never bowed under

tyranny. The reign of Domitian was abhorred by them. The sages who had

endured it without submission were honored as heroes. The accession of

the Antonines was only the coming to power of the society of sages, of

whose just anger Tacitus has informed us,--a society of wise men formed

by the league of all those who had revolted against the despotism of the

first Cæsars.

The salutary principle of adoption made the imperial court of the second

century a true cradle of virtue. The noble and learned Nerva, in

establishing this principle, assured the happiness of the human race

during almost a hundred years, and gave to the world the best century of

progress of which any knowledge has been preserved. The sovereignty thus

possessed in common by a group of choice men who delegated it or shared

it, according to the needs of the moment, lost a part of that attraction

which renders it so dangerous.

Men came to the throne without seeking it, but also without the right of

birth, or in any sense the divine right: men came there understanding

themselves, experienced, having been long prepared. The empire was a

civil burden which each accepted in his turn, without dreaming of

hastening the hour. Marcus Aurelius was made emperor so young, that the

idea of ruling had scarcely occurred to him, and had not for a moment

exercised its charm upon his mind.

At eight years, when he was already _præsul_ of the Salian priests,

Hadrian remarked this sad child, and loved him for his good-nature, his

docility, and his incapability of falsehood. At eighteen years the

empire was assured to him. He awaited it patiently for twenty-two years.

The evening when Antonine, feeling himself about to die, after having

given to the tribune the watchword, _Æquanimitas_, commanded the golden

statue of Fortune, which was always in the apartment of the emperor, to

be borne into that of his adopted son, he experienced neither surprise

nor joy.

He had long been sated with all joys, without having tasted them: he had

seen the absolute vanity of them by the profoundness of his philosophy.

The great inconvenience of practical life, and that which renders it

insupportable to a superior man, is, that, if one carries into it the

principles of the ideal, talents become defects; so that very often the

accomplished man is less successful in it than one who is fitted by

egotism or ordinary routine. Three or four times the virtue of Marcus

Aurelius came near being his ruin. The first fault into which it led him

was that of sharing the empire with Lucius Verus, to whom he was under

no obligation. Verus was a frivolous and worthless man. Prodigies of

goodness and delicacy were necessary in order to prevent his committing

disastrous follies. The wise emperor, earnest and industrious, took with

him in his _lectica_ (sedan) the senseless colleague whom he had given

himself. He persisted in treating him seriously: he never once revolted

against this sorry companionship. Like all well-bred men, Marcus

Aurelius discommoded himself continually: his manners came from a

general habit of firmness and dignity. Souls of this kind, either from

respect for human nature, or in order not to wound others, resign

themselves to the appearance of seeing no evil. Their life is a

perpetual dissimulation.

According to some, he even deceived himself, since, in his intimate

intercourse with the gods, on the borders of the Granicus, speaking of

his unworthy wife, he thanked them for having given him a wife "so

amiable, so affectionate, so pure." I have shown elsewhere that the

patience, or, if one chooses, the weakness, on this point, of Marcus

Aurelius, has been somewhat exaggerated. Faustina had faults: the

greatest one was that she disliked the friends of her husband; and, as

these friends wrote history, she has paid the penalty before posterity.

But a discriminating critic has no trouble in showing the exaggerations

of the legend. Every thing indicates that Faustina at first found

happiness and love in that villa at Lorium, or in that beautiful retreat

at Lanuvium upon the highest points of the Alban mount, which Marcus

Aurelius described to his tutor Fronto as an abode full of the purest

joys. Then she became weary of too much wisdom. Let us tell all: the

beautiful sentences of Marcus Aurelius, his austere virtue, his

perpetual melancholy, might have become tiresome to a young and

capricious woman possessed of an ardent temperament and marvellous

beauty. He understood it, suffered it, and spoke not. Faustina remained

always his "very good and very faithful wife." No one succeeded, even

after her death, in persuading him to give up this pious lie. In a

bas-relief which is still seen in the Museum of the Capitol at Rome,

while Faustina is borne to heaven by a messenger of the gods, the

excellent emperor regards her with a look full of love. It seems that at

last he had deceived himself, and forgotten all. But through what a

struggle he must have passed in order to do this! During long years, a

sickness at heart slowly consumed him. The desperate effort which was

the essence of his philosophy, this frenzy of renunciation, carried

sometimes even to sophism, concealed an immense wound at the bottom. How

necessary it must have been to bid adieu to happiness in order to reach

such an excess! No one will ever understand all that this poor wounded

heart suffered, the bitterness which that pale face concealed, always

calm, always smiling. It is true that the farewell to happiness is the

beginning of wisdom and the surest means of finding peace. There is

nothing so sweet as the return of joy which follows the renunciation of

joy; nothing so keen, so profound, so charming, as the enchantment of

the disenchanted.

Some historians, more or less imbued with that policy which believes

itself to be superior, because it is not suspected of any philosophy,

have naturally sought to prove that so accomplished a man was a bad

administrator and a mediocre sovereign. It appears, in fact, that Marcus

Aurelius sinned more than once by too much lenity. But never was there a

reign more fruitful in reforms and progress. The public charity founded

by Nerva and Trajan was admirably developed by him. New schools were

established for poor children; the superintendents of provisions became

functionaries of the first rank, and were chosen with extreme care;

while the wants of poor young girls were cared for by the Institute of

_Jeunes Faustiniennes_. The principle that the state has duties in some

degree paternal towards its members (a principle which should be

remembered with gratitude, even when it has been dispensed with),--this

principle, I say, was proclaimed for the first time in the world by

Trajan and his successors. Neither the puerile pomp of Oriental

kingdoms, founded on the baseness and stupidity of men, nor the pedantic

pride of the kingdoms of the middle ages, founded on an exaggerated

sentiment for hereditary succession, and on a simple faith in the rights

of blood, could give an idea of the utterly republican sovereignty of

Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonine, and Marcus Aurelius.

Nothing of the prince by hereditary or divine right, nothing of the

military chieftain: it was a sort of grand civil magistracy, without

resembling a court in any way, or depriving the emperor of his private

character. Marcus Aurelius, in particular, was neither much nor little a

king in the true sense of the word. His fortune was immense, but all

employed for good: his aversion for "the Cæsars," whom he considered as

a species of Sardanapali, magnificent, debauched, and cruel, burst out

at each instant. The civility of his manners was extreme. He gave to the

Senate all its ancient importance: when he was at Rome, he never missed

a session, and left his place only when the Consul had pronounced the

formula, "_Nihil vos moramar, patres conscripti_." Almost every year of

his reign he made war, and he made it well, although he found in it only

_ennui_. His listless campaigns against the Quadi and Marcomanni were

very well conducted: the disgust which he felt for them did not prevent

his most conscientious attention to them. It was in the course of one of

these expeditions, that, encamped on the banks of the Granicus, in the

midst of the monotonous plains of Hungary, he wrote the most beautiful

pages of the exquisite book which has revealed his whole soul to us. It

is probable, that, when very young, he kept a journal of his secret

thoughts. He inscribed there the maxims to which he had recourse in

order to fortify himself, the reminiscences of his favorite authors, the

passages of the moralists which appealed most to him, the principles

which had sustained him through the day, sometimes the reproaches which

his scrupulous conscience addressed to him. "One seeks for himself

solitary retreats, rustic cottages, sea-shore, or mountains: like

others, thou lovest to dream of these good things. To what end, since it

is permitted to thee to retire within thy soul each hour? Man has

nowhere a more tranquil retreat, above all, if he has within himself

those things, the contemplation of which will calm him. Learn, then, how

to enjoy this retreat, and there renew thy strength. Let there be those

short fundamental maxims, which above all will give again serenity to

thy soul, and restore thee to a state in which to support with

resignation the world to which thou shouldest return."

During the sad winters of the North, this consolation became still more

necessary to him. He was nearly sixty years old: old age was premature

with him. One evening all the pictures of his pious youth returned to

his remembrance, and he passed some delicious hours in calculating how

much he owed to each one of the virtuous beings who had surrounded him.

"Examples of my grandfather Verus,--sweetness of manners, unchangeable

patience."

"Qualities which one valued in my father, the souvenir which he has left

me,--modesty, manly character."

"To imitate the piety of my mother, her benevolence; to abstain, like

her, not only from doing evil, but from conceiving the thought of it; to

lead her frugal life, which so little resembled the habitual luxury of

the rich."

Then appeared to him, in turn, Diagnotus, who had inspired him with a

taste for philosophy, and made agreeable to his eyes the pallet, the

covering made of a simple skin, and all the apparel of Hellenic

discipline; Junius Rusticus, who taught him to avoid all affectation of

elegance in style, and loaned him the Conversations of Epictetus;

Apollonius of Chalcis, who realized the Stoic ideal of extreme firmness

and perfect sweetness; Sextus of Chaeroneia, so grave and so good;

Alexander the grammarian, who censured with such refined politeness;

Fronto, "who taught him the envy, duplicity, and hypocrisy of a tyrant,

and the hardness which may exist in the heart of a patrician;" his

brother Severus, "who made him understand Thrasia, Helvidius, Cato,

Brutus, who gave him the idea of what a free government is, where the

rule is the natural equality of the citizens and the equality of their

rights; of a royalty which places before all else the respect for the

liberty of the citizens;" and, rising above all others in his immaculate

grandeur, Antonine, his father by adoption, whose picture he traces for

us with redoubled gratitude and love. "I thank the gods," said he

finally, "for having given me good ancestors, good parents, a good

sister, good teachers, and in my surroundings, in my relations, in my

friends, men almost all filled with goodness. I never allowed myself to

be wanting in deference towards them: from my natural disposition, I

could sometimes have shown irreverence; but the benevolence of the gods

never permitted the occasion to present itself. I am also indebted to

the gods, who preserved pure the flower of my youth, for having been

reared under the rule of a prince, and a father who strove to free my

soul from all trace of pride, to make me understand that it is possible,

while living in a palace, to dispense with guards, with splendid

clothes, with torches, with statues, to teach me, in short, that a

prince can almost contract his life within the limits of that of a

simple citizen, without, on that account, showing less nobility and

vigor when he comes to be an emperor, and transact the affairs of state.

They gave me a brother, whose manners were a continual exhortation to

watch over myself, while his deference and attachment should have made

the joy of my heart.

"Thanks to the gods again, that I have made haste to raise those who

have cared for my education, to the honors which they seemed to desire.

They have enabled me to understand Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus, and

have held out to me, surrounded with brilliant light, the picture of a

life conformed to nature. I have fallen short of it in the end, it is

true; but it is my fault. If my body has long supported the rude life

which I lead; if, in spite of my frequent neglect of Rusticus, I have

never overstepped the bounds, or done any thing of which I should

repent; if my mother, who died young, was able, nevertheless, to pass

her last years near me; if, whenever I have wished to succor the poor or

afflicted, money has never been wanting; if I have never needed to

accept any thing from others; if I have a wife of an amiable,

affectionate, and pure character; if I have found many capable men for

the education of my children; if, at the beginning of my passion for

philosophy, I did not become the prey of a sophist,--it is to the gods

that I owe it all. Yes, so many blessings could only be the result of

the aid of the gods and a happy fortune."

This divine candor breathes in every page. No one has ever written more

simply than did he for the sole purpose of unburdening his heart to

God, his only witness. There is not a shadow of system in it. Marcus

Aurelius, to speak exactly, had no philosophy: although he owed almost

every thing to stoicism transformed by the Roman spirit, it is of no

school. According to our idea, he has too little curiosity; for he knows

not all that a contemporary of Ptolemy and Galen should know: he has

some opinions on the system of the world, which were not up to the

highest science of his time. But his moral thought, thus detached from

all alliance with a system, reaches a singular height. The author of the

book, "The Imitation," himself, although free from the quarrels of the

schools, does not rise to this, for his manner of feeling is essentially

Christian. Take away his Christian dogmas, and his book retains only a

portion of its charm. The book of Marcus Aurelius, having no dogmatic

base, preserves its freshness eternally. Every one, from the atheist, or

he who believes himself one, to the man who is the most devoted to the

especial creeds of each worship, can find in it some fruits of

edification. It is the most purely human book which exists. It deals

with no question of controversy. In theology, Marcus Aurelius floats

between pure Deism, Polytheism interpreted in a physical sense according

to the manner of the Stoics, and a sort of cosmic Pantheism. He holds

not much more firmly to one hypothesis than to the other, and he uses

indiscriminately the three vocabularies of the Deist, Polytheist, and

Pantheist. His considerations have always two sides, according as God

and the soul have, or have not, reality. It is the reasoning which we do

each hour; for, if the most complete Materialism is right, we who have

believed in truth and goodness shall be no more duped than others. If

Idealism is right, we have been the true sages, and we have been wise in

the only manner which becomes us, that is to say, with no selfish

waiting, without having looked for a remuneration.