A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
VOLUME IV
By
VOLTAIRE
EDITION DE LA PACIFICATION
THE WORKS OF VOLTAIRE
A CONTEMPORARY VERSION
With Notes by Tobias Smollett, Revised and Modernized
New Translations by William F. Fleming, and an
Introduction by Oliver H.G. Leigh
A CRITIQUE AND BIOGRAPHY
BY
THE RT. HON. JOHN MORLEY
FORTY-THREE VOLUMES
One hundred and sixty-eight designs, comprising reproductions
of rare old engravings, steel plates, photogravures,
and curious fac-similes
VOLUME VIII
E.R. DuMONT
PARIS--LONDON--NEW YORK--CHICAGO
1901
_The WORKS of VOLTAIRE_
_"Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen hundred
years apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say it
with a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED.
Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the
sweetness of the present civilization."_
_VICTOR HUGO._
LIST OF PLATES--VOL. IV
VOLTAIRE'S ARREST AT FRANKFORT _Frontispiece_
OLIVER CROMWELL
TIME MAKES TRUTH TRIUMPHANT
FRANCIS I. AND HIS SISTER
[Illustration: Voltaire's arrest at Frankfort.]
* * * * *
VOLTAIRE
A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
IN TEN VOLUMES
VOL. IV.
COUNTRY--FALSITY
* * * * *
COUNTRY.
SECTION I
According to our custom, we confine ourselves on this subject to the
statement of a few queries which we cannot resolve. Has a Jew a country?
If he is born at Coimbra, it is in the midst of a crowd of ignorant and
absurd persons, who will dispute with him, and to whom he makes foolish
answers, if he dare reply at all. He is surrounded by inquisitors, who
would burn him if they knew that he declined to eat bacon, and all his
wealth would belong to them. Is Coimbra _his_ country? Can he exclaim,
like the Horatii in Corneille:
_Mourir pour la patrie est un si digne sort_
_Qu'on briguerait en foule, une si belle mort._
So high his meed who for his country dies,
Men should contend to gain the glorious prize.
He might as well exclaim, "fiddlestick!" Again! is Jerusalem his
country? He has probably heard of his ancestors of old; that they had
formerly inhabited a sterile and stony country, which is bordered by a
horrible desert, of which little country the Turks are at present
masters, but derive little or nothing from it. Jerusalem is, therefore,
not his country. In short, he has no country: there is not a square
foot of land on the globe which belongs to him.
The Gueber, more ancient, and a hundred times more respectable than the
Jew, a slave of the Turks, the Persians, or the Great Mogul, can he
regard as his country the fire-altars which he raises in secret among
the mountains? The Banian, the Armenian, who pass their lives in
wandering through all the east, in the capacity of money-brokers, can
they exclaim, "My dear country, my dear country"--who have no other
country than their purses and their account-books?
Among the nations of Europe, all those cut-throats who let out their
services to hire, and sell their blood to the first king who will
purchase it--have they a country? Not so much so as a bird of prey, who
returns every evening to the hollow of the rock where its mother built
its nest! The monks--will they venture to say that they have a country?
It is in heaven, they say. All in good time; but in this world I know
nothing about one.
This expression, "my country," how sounds it from the mouth of a Greek,
who, altogether ignorant of the previous existence of a Miltiades, an
Agesilaus, only knows that he is the slave of a janissary, who is the
slave of an aga, who is the slave of a pasha, who is the slave of a
vizier, who is the slave of an individual whom we call, in Paris, the
Grand Turk?
What, then, is country?--Is it not, probably, a good piece of ground,
in the midst of which the owner, residing in a well-built and commodious
house, may say: "This field which I cultivate, this house which I have
built, is my own; I live under the protection of laws which no tyrant
can infringe. When those who, like me, possess fields and houses
assemble for their common interests, I have a voice in such assembly. I
am a part of the whole, one of the community, a portion of the
sovereignty: behold my country!" What cannot be included in this
description too often amounts to little beyond studs of horses under the
command of a groom, who employs the whip at his pleasure. People may
have a country under a good king, but never under a bad one.
SECTION II.
A young pastry-cook who had been to college, and who had mustered some
phrases from Cicero, gave himself airs one day about loving his country.
"What dost thou mean by country?" said a neighbor to him. "Is it thy
oven? Is it the village where thou wast born, which thou hast never
seen, and to which thou wilt never return? Is it the street in which thy
father and mother reside? Is it the town hall, where thou wilt never
become so much as a clerk or an alderman? Is it the church of Notre
Dame, in which thou hast not been able to obtain a place among the boys
of the choir, although a very silly person, who is archbishop and duke,
obtains from it an annual income of twenty-four thousand louis d'or?"
The young pastry-cook knew not how to reply; and a person of reflection,
who overheard the conversation, was led to infer that a country of
moderate extent may contain many millions of men who have no country at
all. And thou, voluptuous Parisian, who hast never made a longer voyage
than to Dieppe, to feed upon fresh sea-fish--who art acquainted only
with thy splendid town-house, thy pretty villa in the country, thy box
at that opera which all the world makes it a point to feel tiresome but
thyself--who speakest thy own language agreeably enough, because thou
art ignorant of every other; thou lovest all this, no doubt, as well as
thy brilliant champagne from Rheims, and thy rents, payable every six
months; and loving these, thou dwellest upon thy love for thy country.
Speaking conscientiously, can a financier cordially love his country?
Where was the country of the duke of Guise, surnamed Balafré--at Nancy,
at Paris, at Madrid, or at Rome? What country had your cardinals Balue,
Duprat, Lorraine, and Mazarin? Where was the country of Attila situated,
or that of a hundred other heroes of the same kind, who, although
eternally travelling, make themselves always at home? I should be much
obliged to any one who would acquaint me with the country of Abraham.
The first who observed that every land is our country in which we "do
well," was, I believe, Euripides, in his "_Phædo_":
"_Ως παντακῶς γε πατρὶς βοσκοῦσα γῆ_."
The first man, however, who left the place of his birth to seek a
greater share of welfare in another, said it before him.
SECTION III.
A country is a composition of many families; and as a family is commonly
supported on the principle of self-love, when, by an opposing interest,
the same self-love extends to our town, our province, or our nation, it
is called love of country. The greater a country becomes, the less we
love it; for love is weakened by diffusion. It is impossible to love a
family so numerous that all the members can scarcely be known.
He who is burning with ambition to be edile, tribune, prætor, consul, or
dictator, exclaims that he loves his country, while he loves only
himself. Every man wishes to possess the power of sleeping quietly at
home, and of preventing any other man from possessing the power of
sending him to sleep elsewhere. Every one would be certain of his
property and his life. Thus, all forming the same wishes, the particular
becomes the general interest. The welfare of the republic is spoken of,
while all that is signified is love of self.
It is impossible that a state was ever formed on earth, which was not
governed in the first instance as a republic: it is the natural march
of human nature. On the discovery of America, all the people were found
divided into republics; there were but two kingdoms in all that part of
the world. Of a thousand nations, but two were found subjugated.
It was the same in the ancient world; all was republican in Europe
before the little kinglings of Etruria and of Rome. There are yet
republics in Africa: the Hottentots, towards the south, still live as
people are said to have lived in the first ages of the world--free,
equal, without masters, without subjects, without money, and almost
without wants. The flesh of their sheep feeds them; they are clothed
with their skins; huts of wood and clay form their habitations. They are
the most dirty of all men, but they feel it not, but live and die more
easily than we do. There remain eight republics in Europe without
monarchs--Venice, Holland, Switzerland, Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Geneva,
and San Marino. Poland, Sweden, and England may be regarded as republics
under a king, but Poland is the only one of them which takes the name.
But which of the two is to be preferred for a country--a monarchy or a
republic? The question has been agitated for four thousand years. Ask
the rich, and they will tell you an aristocracy; ask the people, and
they will reply a democracy; kings alone prefer royalty. Why, then, is
almost all the earth governed by monarchs? Put that question to the rats
who proposed to hang a bell around the cat's neck. In truth, the
genuine reason is, because men are rarely worthy of governing
themselves.
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot we must become the enemy of
the rest of mankind. That good citizen, the ancient Cato, always gave it
as his opinion, that Carthage must be destroyed: "_Delenda est
Carthago_." To be a good patriot is to wish our own country enriched by
commerce, and powerful by arms; but such is the condition of mankind,
that to wish the greatness of our own country is often to wish evil to
our neighbors. He who could bring himself to wish that his country
should always remain as it is, would be a citizen of the universe.
CRIMES OR OFFENCES.
_Of Time and Place._
A Roman in Egypt very unfortunately killed a consecrated cat, and the
infuriated people punished this sacrilege by tearing him to pieces. If
this Roman had been carried before the tribunal, and the judges had
possessed common sense, he would have been condemned to ask pardon of
the Egyptians and the cats, and to pay a heavy fine, either in money or
mice. They would have told him that he ought to respect the follies of
the people, since he was not strong enough to correct them.
The venerable chief justice should have spoken to him in this manner:
"Every country has its legal impertinences, and its offences of time
and place. If in your Rome, which has become the sovereign of Europe,
Africa, and Asia Minor, you were to kill a sacred fowl, at the precise
time that you give it grain in order to ascertain the just will of the
gods, you would be severely punished. We believe that you have only
killed our cat accidentally. The court admonishes you. Go in peace, and
be more circumspect in future."
It seems a very indifferent thing to have a statue in our hall; but if,
when Octavius, surnamed Augustus, was absolute master, a Roman had
placed in his house the statue of Brutus, he would have been punished as
seditious. If a citizen, under a reigning emperor, had the statue of the
competitor to the empire, it is said that it was accounted a crime of
high treason.
An Englishman, having nothing to do, went to Rome, where he met Prince
Charles Edward at the house of a cardinal. Pleased at the incident, on
his return he drank in a tavern to the health of Prince Charles Edward,
and was immediately accused of high treason. But whom did he highly
betray in wishing the prince well? If he had conspired to place him on
the throne, then he would have been guilty towards the nation; but I do
not see that the most rigid justice of parliament could require more
from him than to drink four cups to the health of the house of Hanover,
supposing he had drunk two to the house of Stuart.
_Of Crimes of Time and Place, which Ought to Be Concealed._
It is well known how much our Lady of Loretto ought to be respected in
the March of Ancona. Three young people happened to be joking on the
house of our lady, which has travelled through the air to Dalmatia;
which has two or three times changed its situation, and has only found
itself comfortable at Loretto. Our three scatterbrains sang a song at
supper, formerly made by a Huguenot, in ridicule of the translation of
the _santa casa_ of Jerusalem to the end of the Adriatic Gulf. A
fanatic, having heard by chance what passed at their supper, made strict
inquiries, sought witnesses, and engaged a magistrate to issue a
summons. This proceeding alarmed all consciences. Every one trembled in
speaking of it. Chambermaids, vergers, inn-keepers, lackeys, servants,
all heard what was never said, and saw what was never done: there was an
uproar, a horrible scandal throughout the whole March of Ancona. It was
said, half a league from Loretto, that these youths had killed our lady;
and a league farther, that they had thrown the _santa casa_ into the
sea. In short, they were condemned. The sentence was, that their hands
should be cut off, and their tongues be torn out; after which they were
to be put to the torture, to learn--at least by signs--how many
couplets there were in the song. Finally, they were to be burnt to death
by a slow fire.
An advocate of Milan, who happened to be at Loretto at this time, asked
the principal judge to what he would have condemned these boys if they
had violated their mother, and afterwards killed and eaten her? "Oh!"
replied the judge, "there is a great deal of difference; to assassinate
and devour their father and mother is only a crime against men." "Have
you an express law," said the Milanese, "which obliges you to put young
people scarcely out of their nurseries to such a horrible death, for
having indiscreetly made game of the _santa casa,_ which is
contemptuously laughed at all over the world, except in the March of
Ancona?" "No," said the judge, "the wisdom of our jurisprudence leaves
all to our discretion." "Very well, you ought to have discretion enough
to remember that one of these children is the grandson of a general who
has shed his blood for his country, and the nephew of an amiable and
respectable abbess; the youth and his companions are giddy boys, who
deserve paternal correction. You tear citizens from the state, who might
one day serve it; you imbrue yourself in innocent blood, and are more
cruel than cannibals. You will render yourselves execrable to posterity.
What motive has been powerful enough, thus to extinguish reason,
justice, and humanity in your minds, and to change you into ferocious
beasts?" The unhappy judge at last replied: "We have been quarrelling
with the clergy of Ancona; they accuse us of being too zealous for the
liberties of the Lombard Church, and consequently of having no
religion." "I understand, then," said the Milanese, "that you have made
yourselves assassins to appear Christians." At these words the judge
fell to the ground, as if struck by a thunderbolt; and his brother
judges having been since deprived of office, they cry out that injustice
is done them. They forget what they have done, and perceive not that the
hand of God is upon them.
For seven persons legally to amuse themselves by making an eighth perish
on a public scaffold by blows from iron bars; take a secret and
malignant pleasure in witnessing his torments; speak of it afterwards at
table with their wives and neighbors; for the executioners to perform
this office gaily, and joyously anticipate their reward; for the public
to run to this spectacle as to a fair--all this requires that a crime
merit this horrid punishment in the opinion of all well-governed
nations, and, as we here treat of universal humanity, that it is
necessary to the well-being of society. Above all, the actual
perpetration should be demonstrated beyond contradiction. If against a
hundred thousand probabilities that the accused be guilty there is a
single one that he is innocent, that alone should balance all the rest.
_Query: Are Two Witnesses Enough to Condemn a Man to be Hanged?_
It has been for a long time imagined, and the proverb assures us, that
two witnesses are enough to hang a man, with a safe conscience. Another
ambiguity! The world, then, is to be governed by equivoques. It is said
in St. Matthew that two or three witnesses will suffice to reconcile two
divided friends; and after this text has criminal jurisprudence been
regulated, so far as to decree that by divine law a citizen may be
condemned to die on the uniform deposition of two witnesses who may be
villains? It has been already said that a crowd of according witnesses
cannot prove an improbable thing when denied by the accused. What, then,
must be done in such a case? Put off the judgment for a hundred years,
like the Athenians!
We shall here relate a striking example of what passed under our eyes at
Lyons. A woman suddenly missed her daughter; she ran everywhere in
search of her in vain, and at length suspected a neighbor of having
secreted the girl, and of having caused her violation. Some weeks after
some fishermen found a female drowned, and in a state of putrefaction,
in the Rhône at Condmeux. The woman of whom we have spoken immediately
believed that it was her daughter. She was persuaded by the enemies of
her neighbor that the latter had caused the deceased to be dishonored,
strangled, and thrown into the Rhône. She made this accusation publicly,
and the populace repeated it; persons were found who knew the minutest
circumstances of the crime. The rumor ran through all the town, and all
mouths cried out for vengeance. There is nothing more common than this
in a populace without judgment; but here follows the most prodigious
part of the affair. This neighbor's own son, a child of five years and a
half old, accused his mother of having caused the unhappy girl who was
found in the Rhône to be violated before his eyes, and to be held by
five men, while the sixth committed the crime. He had heard the words
which pronounced her violated; he painted her attitudes; he saw his
mother and these villains strangle this unfortunate girl after the
consummation of the act. He also saw his mother and the assassins throw
her into a well, draw her out of it, wrap her up in a cloth, carry her
about in triumph, dance round the corpse, and, at last, throw her into
the Rhône. The judges were obliged to put all the pretended accomplices
deposed against in chains. The child is again heard, and still
maintains, with the simplicity of his age, all that he had said of them
and of his mother. How could it be imagined that this child had not
spoken the pure truth? The crime was not probable, but it was still less
so that a child of the age of five years and a half should thus
calumniate his mother, and repeat with exactness all the circumstances
of an abominable and unheard-of crime; if he had not been the
eye-witness of it, and been overcome with the force of the truth, such
things would not have been wrung from him.
Every one expected to feast his eyes on the torment of the accused; but
what was the end of this strange criminal process? There was not a word
of truth in the accusation. There was no girl violated, no young men
assembled at the house of the accused, no murder, not the least
transaction of the sort, nor the least noise. The child had been
suborned; and by whom? Strange, but true, by two other children, who
were the sons of the accused. He had been on the point of burning his
mother to get some sweetmeats.
The heads of the accusation were clearly incompatible. The sage and
enlightened court of judicature, after having yielded to the public fury
so far as to seek every possible testimony for and against the accused,
fully and unanimously acquitted them. Formerly, perhaps, this innocent
prisoner would have been broken on the wheel, or judicially burned, for
the pleasure of supplying an execution--the tragedy of the mob.
CRIMINAL.
_Criminal Prosecution._
Very innocent actions have been frequently punished with death. Thus in
England, Richard III., and Edward IV., effected by the judges the
condemnation of those whom they suspected of disaffection. Such are not
criminal processes; they are assassinations committed by privileged
murderers. It is the last degree of abuse to make the laws the
instruments of injustice.
It is said that the Athenians punished with death every stranger who
entered their areopagus or sovereign tribunal. But if this stranger was
actuated by mere curiosity, nothing was more cruel than to take away his
life. It is observed, in "The Spirit of Laws," that this vigor was
exercised, "because he usurped the rights of a citizen."
But a Frenchman in London who goes to the House of Commons to hear the
debates, does not aspire to the rights of a citizen. He is received with
politeness. If any splenetic member calls for the clearing of the house,
the traveller clears it by withdrawing; he is not hanged. It is probable
that, if the Athenians passed this temporary law, it was at a time when
it was suspected that every stranger might be a spy, and not from the
fear that he would arrogate to himself the rights of citizenship. Every
Athenian voted in his tribe; all the individuals in the tribe knew each
other; no stranger could have put in his bean.
We speak here only of a real criminal prosecution, and among the Romans
every criminal prosecution was public. The citizen accused of the most
enormous crimes had an advocate who pleaded in his presence; who even
interrogated the adverse party; who investigated everything before his
judges. All the witnesses, for and against, were produced in open court;
nothing was secret. Cicero pleaded for Milo, who had assassinated
Clodius, in the presence of a thousand citizens. The same Cicero
undertook the defence of Roscius Amerinus, accused of parricide. A
single judge did not in secret examine witnesses, generally consisting
of the dregs of the people, who may be influenced at pleasure.
A Roman citizen was not put to the torture at the arbitrary order of
another Roman citizen, invested with this cruel authority by purchase.
That horrible outrage against humanity was not perpetrated on the
persons of those who were regarded as the first of men, but only on
those of their slaves, scarcely regarded as men. It would have been
better not to have employed torture, even against slaves.
The method of conducting a criminal prosecution at Rome accorded with
the magnanimity and liberality of the nation. It is nearly the same in
London. The assistance of an advocate is never in any case refused.
Every one is judged by his peers. Every citizen has the power, out of
thirty-six jurymen sworn, to challenge twelve without reasons, twelve
with reasons, and, consequently, of choosing his judges in the remaining
twelve. The judges cannot deviate from or go beyond the law. No
punishment is arbitrary. No judgment can be executed before it has been
reported to the king, who may, and who ought to bestow pardon on those
who are deserving of it, and to whom the law cannot extend it. This case
frequently occurs. A man outrageously wronged kills the offender under
the impulse of venial passion; he is condemned by the rigor of the law,
and saved by that mercy which ought to be the prerogative of the
sovereign.
It deserves particular remark that in the same country where the laws
are as favorable to the accused as they are terrible for the guilty, not
only is false imprisonment in ordinary cases punished by heavy damages
and severe penalties, but if an illegal imprisonment has been ordered by
a minister of state, under color of royal authority, that minister may
be condemned to pay damages corresponding to the imprisonment.
_Proceedings in Criminal Cases Among Particular Nations._
There are countries in which criminal jurisprudence has been founded on
the canon law, and even on the practice of the Inquisition, although
that tribunal has long since been held in detestation there. The people
in such countries still remain in a species of slavery. A citizen
prosecuted by the king's officer is at once immured in a dungeon, which
is in itself a real punishment of perhaps an innocent man. A single
judge, with his clerk, hears secretly and in succession, every witness
summoned.
Let us here merely compare, in a few points, the criminal procedure of
the Romans with that of a country of the west, which was once a Roman
province. Among the Romans, witnesses were heard publicly in the
presence of the accused, who might reply to them, and examine them
himself, or through an advocate. This practice was noble and frank; it
breathed of Roman magnanimity. In France, in many parts of Germany,
everything is done in secret. This practice, established under Francis
I., was authorized by the commissioners, who, in 1670, drew up the
ordinance of Louis XIV. A mere mistake was the cause of it.
It was imagined, on reading the code "_De Testibus_" that the words,
_Testes intrare judicii secretum,_ signified that witnesses were
examined in secret. But _secretum_ here signifies the chambers of the
judge. _Intrare secretum_ to express speaking in secret, would not be
Latin. This part of our jurisprudence was occasioned by a solecism.
Witnesses were usually persons of the lowest class, and whom the judge,
when closeted with them, might induce to say whatever he wished. These
witnesses are examined a second time, always in secret, which is called,
re-examination; and if, after re-examination, they retract their
depositions, or vary them in essential circumstances, they are punished
as false witnesses. Thus, when an upright man of weak understanding, and
unused to express his ideas, is conscious that he has stated either too
much or too little--that he has misunderstood the judge, or that the
judge has misunderstood him--and revokes, in the spirit of justice, what
he has advanced through incaution, he is punished as a felon. He is in
this manner often compelled to persevere in false testimony, from the
actual dread of being treated as a false witness.
The person accused exposes himself by flight to condemnation, whether
the crime has been proved or not. Some jurisconsults, indeed, have
wisely held that the contumacious person ought not to be condemned
unless the crime were clearly established; but other lawyers have been
of a contrary opinion: they have boldly affirmed that the flight of the
accused was a proof of the crime; that the contempt which he showed for
justice, by refusing to appear, merited the same chastisement as would
have followed his conviction. Thus, according to the sect of lawyers
which the judge may have embraced, an innocent man may be acquitted or
condemned.
It is a great abuse in jurisprudence that people often assume as law the
reveries and errors--sometimes cruel ones--of men destitute of all
authority, who have laid down their own opinions as laws. In the reign
of Louis XIV., two edicts were published in France, which apply equally
to the whole kingdom. In the first, which refers to civil causes, the
judges are forbidden to condemn in any suit, on default, when the demand
is not proved; but in the second, which regulates criminal proceedings,
it is not laid down that, in the absence of proof, the accused shall be
acquitted. Singular circumstance! The law declares that a man proceeded
against for a sum of money shall not be condemned, on default, unless
the debt be proved; but, in cases affecting life, the profession is
divided with respect to condemning a person for contumacy when the crime
is not proved; and the law does not solve the difficulty.
_Example Taken from the Condemnation of a Whole Family._
The following is an account of what happened to an unfortunate family,
at the time when the mad fraternities of pretended penitents, in white
robes and masks, had erected, in one of the principal churches of
Toulouse, a superb monument to a young Protestant, who had destroyed
himself, but who they pretended had been murdered by his father and
mother for having abjured the reformed religion; at the time when the
whole family of this Protestant, then revered as a martyr, were in
irons, and a whole population, intoxicated by a superstition equally
senseless and cruel, awaited with devout impatience the delight of
seeing five or six persons of unblemished integrity expire on the rack
or at the stake. At this dreadful period there resided near Castres a
respectable man, also of the Protestant religion, of the name of Sirven,
who exercised in that province the profession of a feudist. This man had
three daughters. A woman who superintended the household of the bishop
of Castres, proposed to bring to him Sirven's second daughter, called
Elizabeth, in order to make her a Catholic, apostolical and Roman. She
is, in fact, brought. She is by him secluded with the female Jesuits,
denominated the "lady teachers," or the "black ladies." They instruct
her in what they know; they find her capacity weak, and impose upon her
penances in order to inculcate doctrines which, with gentleness, she
might have been taught. She becomes imbecile; the "black ladies" expel
her; she returns to her parents; her mother, on making her change her
linen, perceives that her person is covered with contusions; her
imbecility increases; she becomes melancholy mad; she escapes one day
from the house, while her father is some miles distant, publicly
occupied in his business, at the seat of a neighboring nobleman. In
short, twenty days after the flight of Elizabeth, some children find her
drowned in a well, on January 4, 1761.
This was precisely the time when they were preparing to break Calas on
the wheel at Toulouse. The word "parricide," and what is worse,
"Huguenot," flies from mouth to mouth throughout the province. It was
not doubted that Sirven, his wife, and his two daughters, had drowned
the third, on a principle of religion.
It was the universal opinion that the Protestant religion positively
required fathers and mothers to destroy such of their children as might
wish to become Catholics. This opinion had taken such deep root in the
minds even of magistrates themselves, hurried on unfortunately by the
public clamor, that the Council and Church of Geneva were obliged to
contradict the fatal error, and to send to the parliament of Toulouse an
attestation upon oath that not only did Protestants not destroy their
children, but that they were left masters of their whole property when
they quitted their sect for another. It is known that, notwithstanding
this attestation, Calas was broken on the wheel.
A country magistrate of the name of Londes, assisted by graduates as
sagacious as himself, became eager to make every preparation for
following up the example which had been furnished at Toulouse. A village
doctor, equally enlightened with the magistrate, boldly affirmed, on
inspecting the body after the expiration of eighteen days, that the
young woman had been strangled, and afterwards thrown into the well. On
this deposition the magistrate issued a warrant to apprehend the father,
mother, and the two daughters. The family, justly terrified at the
catastrophe of Calas, and agreeably to the advice of their friends,
betook themselves instantly to flight; they travelled amidst snow during
a rigorous winter, and, toiling over mountain after mountain, at length
arrived at those of Switzerland. The daughter, who was married and
pregnant, was prematurely delivered amidst surrounding ice.
The first intelligence this family received, after reaching a place of
safety, was that the father and mother were condemned to be hanged; the
two daughters to remain under the gallows during the execution of their
mother, and to be reconducted by the executioner out of the territory,
under pain of being hanged if they returned. Such is the lesson given to
contumacy!
This judgment was equally absurd and abominable. If the father, in
concert with his wife, had strangled his daughter, he ought to have been
broken on the wheel, like Calas, and the mother to have been burned--at
least, after having been strangled--because the practice of breaking
women on the wheel is not yet the custom in the country of this judge.
To limit the punishment to hanging in such a case, was an acknowledgment
that the crime was not proved, and that in the doubt the halter was
adopted to compromise for want of evidence. This sentence was equally
repugnant to law and reason. The mother died of a broken heart, and the
whole family, their property having been confiscated, would have
perished through want, unless they had met with assistance.
We stop here to inquire whether there be any law and any reason that can
justify such a sentence? We ask the judge, "What madness has urged you
to condemn a father and a mother?" "It was because they fled," he
replies. "Miserable wretch, would you have had them remain to glut your
insensate fury? Of what consequence could it be, whether they appeared
in chains to plead before you, or whether in a distant land they lifted
up their hands in an appeal to heaven against you? Could you not see
the truth, which ought to have struck you, as well during their absence?
Could you not see that the father was a league distant from his
daughter, in the midst of twenty persons, when the unfortunate young
woman withdrew from her mother's protection? Could you be ignorant that
the whole family were in search of her for twenty days and nights?" To
this you answer by the words, contumacy, contumacy. What! because a man
is absent, therefore must he be condemned to be hanged, though his
innocence be manifest? It is the jurisprudence of a fool and a monster.
And the life, the property, and the honor of citizens, are to depend
upon this code of Iroquois!
The Sirven family for more than eight years dragged on their
misfortunes, far from their native country. At length, the sanguinary
superstition which disgraced Languedoc having been somewhat mitigated,
and men's minds becoming more enlightened, those who had befriended the
Sirvens during their exile, advised them to return and demand justice
from the parliament of Toulouse itself, now that the blood of Calas no
longer smoked, and many repented of having ever shed it. The Sirvens
were justified.
_Erudimini, qui judicatis terram._
Be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
CROMWELL.
SECTION I.
Cromwell is described as a man who was an impostor all his life. I can
scarcely believe it. I conceive that he was first an enthusiast, and
that he afterwards made his fanaticism instrumental to his greatness. An
ardent novice at twenty often becomes an accomplished rogue at forty. In
the great game of human life, men begin with being dupes, and end in
becoming knaves. A statesman engages as his almoner a monk, entirely
made up of the details of his convent, devout, credulous, awkward,
perfectly new to the world; he acquires information, polish, finesse,
and supplants his master.
Cromwell knew not, at first, whether he should become a churchman or a
soldier. He partly became both. In 1622 he made a campaign in the army
of the prince of Orange, Frederick Henry, a great man and the brother of
two great men; and, on his return to England, engaged in the service of
Bishop Williams, and was the chaplain of his lordship, while the bishop
passed for his wife's gallant. His principles were puritanical, which
led him to cordially hate a bishop, and not to be partial to kingship.
He was dismissed from the family of Bishop Williams because he was a
Puritan; and thence the origin of his fortune. The English Parliament
declared against monarchy and against episcopacy; some friends whom he
had in that parliament procured him a country living. He might be said
only now to have commenced his existence; he was more than forty before
he acquired any distinction. He was master of the sacred Scriptures,
disputed on the authority of priests and deacons, wrote some bad
sermons, and some lampoons; but he was unknown. I have seen one of his
sermons, which is insipid enough, and pretty much resembles the holdings
forth of the Quakers; it is impossible to discover in it any trace of
that power by which he afterwards swayed parliaments. The truth is, he
was better fitted for the State than for the Church. It was principally
in his tone and in his air that his eloquence consisted. An inclination
of that hand which had gained so many battles, and killed so many
royalists, was more persuasive than the periods of Cicero. It must be
acknowledged that it was his incomparable valor that brought him into
notice, and which conducted him gradually to the summit of greatness.
He commenced by throwing himself, as a volunteer and a soldier of
fortune, into the town of Hull, besieged, by the king. He there
performed some brilliant and valuable services, for which he received a
gratuity of about six thousand francs from the parliament. The present,
bestowed by parliament upon an adventurer, made it clear that the rebel
party must prevail. The king could not give to his general officers what
the parliament gave to volunteers. With money and fanaticism,
everything must in the end be mastered. Cromwell was made colonel. His
great talents for war became then so conspicuous that, when the
parliament created the earl of Manchester general of its forces,
Cromwell was appointed lieutenant-general, without his having passed
through the intervening ranks. Never did any man appear more worthy of
command. Never was seen more activity and skill, more daring and more
resources, than in Cromwell. He is wounded at the battle of York, and,
while undergoing the first dressing, is informed that his commander, the
earl of Manchester, is retreating, and the battle lost. He hastens to
find the earl; discovers him flying, with some officers; catches him by
the arm, and, in a firm and dignified tone, he exclaims: "My lord, you
mistake; the enemy has not taken that road." He reconducts him to the
field of battle; rallies, during the night, more than twelve thousand
men; harangues them in the name of God; cites Moses, Gideon, and Joshua;
renews the battle at daybreak against the victorious royalist army, and
completely defeats it. Such a man must either perish or obtain the
mastery. Almost all the officers of his army were enthusiasts, who
carried the New Testament on their saddle-bows. In the army, as in the
parliament, nothing was spoken of but Babylon destroyed, building up the
worship of Jerusalem, and breaking the image. Cromwell, among so many
madmen, was no longer one himself, and thought it better to govern than
to be governed by them. The habit of preaching, as by inspiration,
remained with him. Figure to yourself a fakir, who, after putting an
iron girdle round his loins in penance, takes it off to drub the ears of
other fakirs. Such was Cromwell. He becomes as intriguing as he was
intrepid. He associates with all the colonels of the army, and thus
forms among the troops a republic which forces the commander to resign.
Another commander is appointed, and him he disgusts. He governs the
army, and through it he governs the parliament; which he at last compels
to make him commander. All this is much; but the essential point is that
he wins all the battles he fights in England, Scotland, and Ireland; and
wins them, not consulting his own security while the fight rages, but
always charging the enemy, rallying his troops, presenting himself
everywhere, frequently wounded, killing with his own hands many royalist
officers, like the fiercest soldier in the ranks.
[Illustration: Oliver Cromwell.]
In the midst of this dreadful war Cromwell made love; he went, with the
Bible under his arm, to an assignation with the wife of his
major-general, Lambert. She loved the earl of Holland, who served in the
king's army. Cromwell took him prisoner in battle, and had the pleasure
of bringing his rival to the block. It was his maxim to shed the blood
of every important enemy, in the field or by the hand of the
executioner. He always increased his power by always daring to abuse it;
the profoundness of his plans never lessened his ferocious impetuosity.
He went to the House of Commons, and drove all the members out, one
after another, making them defile before him. As they passed, each was
obliged to make a profound reverence; one of them was passing on with
his head covered; Cromwell seized his hat and threw it down. "Learn,"
said he, "to respect me."
When he had outraged all kings by beheading his own legitimate king, and
he began himself to reign, he sent his portrait to one crowned head,
Christina, queen of Sweden. Marvel, a celebrated English poet, who wrote
excellent Latin verses, accompanied his portrait with six lines, in
which he introduces Cromwell himself speaking; Cromwell corrected these
two last verses:
_At tibi submittit frontem reverentior umbra,_
_Non sunt hi vultus regibus usque truces._
The spirit of the whole six verses may be given thus:
_Les armes à la main j'ai défendu les lois;_
_D'un peuple audacieux j'ai vengé la querelle._
_Regardez sans frémir cette image fidèle:_
_Mon front n'est pas toujours l'épouvante des rois._
'Twas mine by arms t'uphold my country's laws;
My sword maintained a lofty people's cause;
With less of fear these faithful outlines trace,
Menace of kings not always clouds my face.
This queen was the first to acknowledge him after he became protector of
the three kingdoms. Almost all the sovereigns of Europe sent ambassadors
_to their brother Cromwell_--to that domestic of a bishop, who had just
brought to the scaffold a sovereign related to them. They emulously
courted his alliance. Cardinal Mazarin, in order to please him, banished
from France the two sons of Charles I., the two grandsons of Henry IV.,
and the two cousins-german of Louis XIV. France conquered Dunkirk for
him, and the keys of it were delivered into his possession. After his
death, Louis XIV. and his whole court went into mourning, except
mademoiselle, who dared to appear in the circle in colors, and alone to
maintain the honor of her race.
No king was ever more absolute than Cromwell. He would observe "that he
had preferred governing under the name of protector rather than under
that of king, because the English were aware of the limits of the
prerogative of a king of England, but knew not the extent of that of a
protector." This was knowing mankind, who are governed by opinion, and
whose opinion depends upon a name. He had conceived a profound contempt
for the religion to which he owed his success. An anecdote, preserved in
the St. John family, sufficiently proves the slight regard he attached
to that instrument which had produced such mighty effects in his hands.
He was drinking once in company with Ireton, Fleetwood, and St. John,
great grandfather of the celebrated Lord Bolingbroke; a bottle of wine
was to be uncorked, and the corkscrew fell under the table; they all
looked for it, and were unable to find it. In the meantime a deputation
from the Presbyterian churches awaited in the ante-chamber, and an usher
announced them. "Tell them," said Cromwell, "that I have retired, and
_that I am seeking the Lord_." This was the expression employed by the
fanatics for going to prayers. Having dismissed the troop of divines, he
thus addressed his companions: "Those fellows think we are seeking the
Lord, while we are only seeking a corkscrew."
There is scarcely any example in Europe of a man who, from so low a
beginning, raised himself to such eminence. But with all his great
talents, what did he consider absolutely essential to his happiness?
Power he obtained; but was he happy? He had lived in poverty and
disquiet till the age of forty-three; he afterwards plunged into blood,
passed his life in trouble, and died prematurely, at the age of
fifty-seven. With this life let any one compare that of a Newton, who
lived fourscore years, always tranquil, always honored, always the light
of all thinking beings; beholding every day an accession to his fame,
his character, his fortune; completely free both from care and remorse;
and let him decide whose was the happier lot.
_O curas hominum! O quantim est in rebus inane!_
O human cares! O mortal toil how vain!