ROYALTY.

Bands of brigands unite to subvert a country, place it under tribute,

seize its lands, enslave its inhabitants. The expedition completed, the

chieftain of the robbers adopts the title of monarch or king. Such

is the origin of Royalty among all tribes--huntsmen, agriculturists,

shepherds.

A second brigand arrives who finds it equitable to take away by force

what was conquered by violence: he dispossesses the first; he chains

him, kills him, reigns in his place. Ere long time effaces the memory

of this origin; the successors rule under a new form; they do a little

good, from policy; they corrupt all who surround them; they invent

fictitious genealogies to make their families sacred (1); the knavery

of priests comes to their aid; they take Religion for a life-guard:

thenceforth tyranny becomes immortal, the usurped power becomes an

hereditary right.

1 The Boston Investigator's compilation of Paine's Works

contains the following as supposed to be Mr. Paine's:

"Royal Pedigree.--George the Third, who was the grandson of

George the Second, who was the son of George the First, who

was the son of the Princess Sophia, who was the cousin of

Anne, who was the sister of William and Mary, who were the

daughter and son-in-law of James the Second, who was the son

of Charles the First, who was a traitor to his country and

decapitated as such, who was the son of James the First, who

was the son of Mary, who was the sister of Edward the Sixth,

who was the son of Henry the Eighth, who was the coldblooded

murderer of his wives, and the promoter of the Protestant

religion, who was the son of Henry the Seventh, who slew

Richard the Third, who smothered his nephew Edward the

Fifth, who was the son of Edward the Fourth, who with bloody

Richard slew Henry the Sixth, who succeeded Henry the Fifth,

who was the son of Henry the Fourth, who was the cousin of

Richard the Second, who was the son of Edward the Third, who

was the son of Richard the Second, who was the son of Edward

the First, who was the son of Henry the Third, who was the

son of John, who was the brother of Richard the First, who

was the son of Henry the Second, who was the son of Matilda,

who was the daughter of Henry the First, who was the brother

of William Rufus, who was the son of William the Conqueror,

who was the son of a whore."--_Editor._

The effects of Royalty have been entirely harmonious with its origin.

What scenes of horror, what refinements of iniquity, do the annals of

monarchies present! If we should paint human nature with a baseness of

heart, an hypocrisy, from which all must recoil and humanity disavow, it

would be the portraiture of kings, their ministers and courtiers.

And why should it not be so? What should such a monstrosity produce

but miseries and crimes? What is monarchy? It has been finely disguised,

and the people familiarized with the odious title: in its real sense the

word signifies _the absolute power of one single individual_, who may

with impunity be stupid, treacherous, tyrannical, etc. Is it not an

insult to nations to wish them so governed?

Government by a single individual is vicious in itself, independently of

the individual's vices. For however little a State, the prince is

nearly always too small: where is the proportion between one man and the

affairs of a whole nation?

True, some men of genius have been seen under the diadem; but the evil

is then even greater: the ambition of such a man impels him to conquest

and despotism, his subjects soon have to lament his glory, and sing

their _Te-deums_ while perishing with hunger. Such is the history of

Louis XIV. and so many others.

But if ordinary men in power repay you with incapacity or with princely

vices? But those who come to the front in monarchies are frequently

mere mean mischief-makers, commonplace knaves, petty intriguers, whose

small wits, which in courts reach large places, serve only to display

their ineptitude in public, as soon as they appear. (*) In short,

monarchs do nothing, and their ministers do evil: this is the history of

all monarchies.

But if Royalty as such is baneful, as hereditary succession it is

equally revolting and ridiculous. What! there exists among my kind a man

who pretends that he is born to govern me? Whence derived he such right?

From his and my ancestors, says he. But how could they transmit to him

a right they did not possess? Man has no authority over generations

unborn. I cannot be the slave of the dead, more than of the living.

Suppose that instead of our posterity, it was we who should succeed

ourselves: we should not to-day be able to despoil ourselves of the

rights which would belong to us in our second life: for a stronger

reason we cannot so despoil others.

An hereditary crown! A transmissible throne! What a notion! With even a

little reflexion, can any one tolerate it? Should human beings then be

the property of certain individuals, born or to be born? Are we then to

treat our descendants in advance as cattle, who shall have neither will

nor rights of their own? To inherit government is to inherit peoples,

as if they were herds. It is the basest, the most shameful fantasy that

ever degraded mankind.

It is wrong to reproach kings with their ferocity, their brutal

indifference, the oppressions of the people, and molestations of

citizens: it is hereditary succession that makes them what they are:

this breeds monsters as a marsh breeds vipers.

* J. J. Rousseau, Contrat Social.--Author.

The logic on which the hereditary prince rests is in effect this: I

derive my power from my birth; I derive my birth from God; therefore

I owe nothing to men. It is little that he has at hand a complacent

minister, he continues to indulge, conscientiously, in all the crimes of

tyranny. This has been seen in all times and countries.

Tell me, then, what is there in common between him who is master of a

people, and the people of whom he is master? Are these masters really of

their kind? It is by sympathy that we are good and human: with whom does

a monarch sympathize? When my neighbor suffers I pity, because I put

myself in his place: a monarch pities none, because he has never been,

can never be, in any other place than his own.

A monarch is an egoist by nature, the _egoist par excellence_. A

thousand traits show that this kind of men have no point of contact with

the rest of humanity. There was demanded of Charles II. the punishment

of Lauderdale, his favorite, who had infamously oppressed the Scotch.

"Yes," said Charles coolly, "this man has done much against the Scotch,

but I cannot see that he has done anything against my interests." Louis

XIV. often said: "If I follow the wishes of the people, I cannot act the

king." Even such phrases as "misfortunes of the State," "safety of the

State," filled Louis XIV. with wrath.

Could nature make a law which should assure virtue and wisdom invariably

in these privileged castes that perpetuate themselves on thrones, there

would be no objection to their hereditary succession. But let us pass

Europe in review: all of its monarchs are the meanest of men. This one

a tyrant, that one an imbecile, another a traitor, the next a debauchee,

while some muster all the vices. It looks as if fate and nature had

aimed to show our epoch, and all nations, the absurdity and enormity of

Royalty.

But I mistake: this epoch has nothing peculiar. For, such is the

essential vice of this royal succession by animal filiation, the peoples

have not even the chances of nature,--they cannot even hope for a good

prince as an alternative. All things conspire to deprive of reason

and justice an individual reared to command others. The word of young

Dionysius was very sensible: his father, reproaching him for a shameful

action, said, "Have I given thee such example?" "Ah," answered the

youth, "thy father was not a king!"

In truth, were laughter on such a subject permissible, nothing would

suggest ideas more burlesque than this fantastic institution of

hereditary kings. Would it not be believed, to look at them, that there

really exist particular lineages possessing certain qualities which

enter the blood of the embryo prince, and adapt him physically

for royalty, as a horse for the racecourse? But then, in this wild

supposition, it yet becomes necessary to assure the genuine family

descent of the heir presumptive. To perpetuate the noble race of

Andalusian chargers, the circumstances pass before witnesses, and

similar precautions seem necessary, however indecent, to make sure that

the trickeries of queens shall not supply thrones with bastards, and

that the kings, like the horses, shall always be thoroughbreds.

Whether one jests or reasons, there is found in this idea of hereditary

royalty only folly and shame. What then is this office, which may be

filled by infants or idiots? Some talent is required to be a simple

workman; to be a king there is need to have only the human shape, to be

a living automaton. We are astonished when reading that the Egyptians

placed on the throne a flint, and called it their king. We smile at

the dog Barkouf, sent by an Asiatic despot to govern one of his

provinces.(*) But mon-archs of this kind are less mischievous and less

absurd than those before whom whole peoples prostrate themselves. The

flint and the dog at least imposed on nobody. None ascribed to them

qualities or characters they did not possess. They were not styled

'Father of the People,'--though this were hardly more ridiculous than

to give that title to a rattle-head whom inheritance crowns at eighteen.

Better a mute than an animate idol. Why, there can hardly be cited an

instance of a great man having children worthy of him, yet you will have

the royal function pass from father to son! As well declare that a wise

man's son will be wise. A king is an administrator, and an hereditary

administrator is as absurd as an author by birthright.

* See the first year of La Feuille Villageoise, No. 42.--

Author. [Cf. Montaigne's Essays, chap. xii.--_Editor._]

Royalty is thus as contrary to common sense as to com-mon right. But it

would be a plague even if no more than an absurdity; for a people who

can bow down in honor of a silly thing is a debased people. Can they be

fit for great affairs who render equal homage to vice and virtue, and

yield the same submission to ignorance and wisdom? Of all institutions,

none has caused more intellectual degeneracy. This explains the

often-remarked abjectness of character under monarchies.

Such is also the effect of this contagious institution that it renders

equality impossible, and draws in its train the presumption and the

evils of "Nobility." If you admit inheritance of an office, why not that

of a distinction? The Nobility's heritage asks only homage, that of

the Crown commands submission. When a man says to me, 'I am born

illustrious,' I merely smile; when he says 'I am born your master,' I

set my foot on him.

When the Convention pronounced the abolition of Royalty none rose

for the defence that was expected. On this subject a philosopher, who

thought discussion should always precede enactment, proposed a singular

thing; he desired that the Convention should nominate an orator

commissioned to plead before it the cause of Royalty, so that the

pitiful arguments by which it has in all ages been justified might

appear in broad daylight. Judges give one accused, however certain

his guilt, an official defender. In the ancient Senate of Venice there

existed a public officer whose function was to contest all propositions,

however incontestible, or however perfect their evidence. For the rest,

pleaders for Royalty are not rare: let us open them, and see what the

most specious of royalist reasoners have said.

1. _A king is necessary to preserve a people from the tyranny of

powerful men_.

Establish the Rights of Man(1); enthrone Equality; form a good

Constitution; divide well its powers; let there be no privileges, no

distinctions of birth, no monopolies; make safe the liberty of industry

and of trade, the equal distribution of [family] inheritances, publicity

of administration, freedom of the press: these things all established,

you will be assured of good laws, and need not fear the powerful men.

Willingly or unwillingly, all citizens will be under the Law.

1 The reader should bear in mind that this phrase, now used

vaguely, had for Paine and his political school a special

significance; it implied a fundamental Declaration of

individual rights, of supreme force and authority, invasion

which, either by legislatures, law courts, majorities, or

administrators, was to be regarded as the worst treason and

despotism.--_Editor._

2. _The Legislature might usurp authority, and a king is needed to

restrain it_.

With representatives, frequently renewed, who neither administer

nor judge, whose functions are determined by the laws; with national

conventions, with primary assemblies, which can be convoked any moment;

with a people knowing how to read, and how to defend itself; with good

journals, guns, and pikes; a Legislature would have a good deal of

trouble in enjoying any months of tyranny. Let us not suppose an evil

for the sake of its remedy.