The Eve of the French Revolution Part 2

Certain houses had been secularized and turned into n.o.ble chapters. The ladies who inhabited them were freed from the vow of poverty. They wore no religious vestment, but appeared in the fas.h.i.+onable dress of the day.

They received their friends in the convent, and could leave it themselves to reenter the secular life, and to marry if they pleased.

Such a chapter was that of Remiremont in Lorraine, whose abbess was a princess of the Holy Roman Empire, by virtue of her office. Her crook was of gold. Six horses were harnessed to her carriage. Her dominion extended over two hundred villages, whose inhabitants paid her both feudal dues and ecclesiastical t.i.thes. Nor were her duties onerous. She spent a large part of her time in Strasburg, and went to the theatre without scruple. She traveled a good deal in the neighborhood, and was a familiar figure at some of the petty courts on the Rhine. The canonesses followed her good example. Some of them were continually on the road.

Others stayed at home in the convent, and entertained much good company.

They dressed like other people, in the fas.h.i.+on, with nothing to mark their religious calling but a broad ribbon over the right shoulder, blue bordered with red, supporting a cross, with a figure of Saint Romaric.

No lady was received into this chapter who could not show nine generations or two hundred and twenty-five years of chivalric, n.o.ble descent, both on the father's and on the mother's side.

Such requirements as this were extreme, but similar conditions were not unusual. The Benedictines of Saint Claude, transformed into a chapter of canonesses, required sixteen quarterings for admission; that is to say, that every canoness must show by proper heraldic proof, that her sixteen great--grandfathers and great--grandmothers were of n.o.ble blood. The Knights of Malta required but four quarterings. They had two hundred and twenty commanderies in France, with eight hundred Knights. The Grand Priory gave an income of sixty thousand livres to the Prior, who was always a prince. The revenues of the order were 1,750,000 livres.

But very rich monasteries were exceptional after all. Those where life was hard and labor continuous were far more common. In some of them, forty men would be found living on a joint income of six thousand livres a year. They cultivated the soil, they built, they dug. They were not afraid of great undertakings in architecture or engineering, to be accomplished only after long years and generations of labor, for was not their corporation immortal? Then we have the begging orders, infesting the roads and villages, and drawing several million livres a year from the poorer cla.s.ses, which supported and grumbled at them. And against the luxury of the n.o.ble chapters must be set the silence, the vigils, the fasts of La Trappe. This monastery stood in a gloomy valley, sunk among wooded hills. The church and the surrounding buildings were mostly old, and all sombre and uninviting. Each narrow cell was furnished with but a mattress, a blanket and a table, without chair or fire. The monks were clad in a robe and a hood, and wore shoes and stockings, but had neither s.h.i.+rt nor breeches. They shaved three times a year. Their food consisted of boiled vegetables, with salad once a week; never any b.u.t.ter nor eggs. Twice in the night they rose, and hastened s.h.i.+vering to the chapel. Never did they speak, but to their confessor; until, in his last hour, each was privileged to give to the prior his dying messages.

Hither, from the active and gay world of philosophy and frivolity would suddenly retire from time to time some young officer, scholar, or courtier. Here, bound by irrevocable vows, he could weep over his sins, or gnash his teeth at the folly that had brought him, until he found peace at last in life or in the grave.

To enjoy the temporal privileges of the religious life neither any great age nor any extensive learning was required. To hold a cure of souls or the abbacy of a "regular" convent (whose inmates chose their abbot), a man must be twenty-five years old. But an abbot appointed by the king need only be twenty-two, a canon of a cathedral fourteen, and a chaplain seven. It cannot be doubted that persons of either s.e.x were obliged to make irrevocable vows, without any proof of free vocation, or any reason to expect a fixed resolution. Daughters and younger sons could thus be conveniently disposed of. A larger share was left for the family, for the religious were civilly dead, and did not take part in the inheritance. On the other hand, misfortune and want need not be feared for the inmate of the convent. If a nun were lost to the joys of the world, she was lost to its cares. To make such a choice, to commit temporal suicide, the very young should surely not be admitted. Yet it was not until 1768 that the time for taking final vows was advanced to the very moderate age of twenty-one for young men and eighteen for girls.[Footnote: Rambaud, ii. 45. Mathieu, 43. Cha.s.sin, 25. Boiteau, 176. Bailly, 421. Mme. d'Oberkirch, 127. Mme. de Genlis, _Dict. des etiquettes_, i. Ill _n._, _Le Comte de Fersen et la Cour de France_, I. xxix. Mercier, xi. 358.]

The secular clergy was about as numerous as the regular. It was princ.i.p.ally composed of the _cures_ and _vicaires_ who had charge of parishes.[Footnote: The bishops, of course, belonged to the secular clergy. So, in fact, did the canons; who, on account of the similarity of their mode of life, have been treated with the regulars. In the French hierarchy the _cure_ comes above the _vicaire_. The relation is somewhat that of _parson_ and _curate_ in the church of England.]

These men were mostly drawn from the lower cla.s.ses of society, or at any rate not from the n.o.bility. They had therefore very little chance of promotion. Some of them in the country districts were very poor; for the great t.i.thes, levied on the princ.i.p.al crops, generally belonged to the bishops, to the convents of regulars, or to laymen; and only the lesser t.i.thes, the occasional fees,[Footnote: _Casuel._]

and the product of a small glebe were reserved for the parish priest, and the latter was liable to continual squabbles with the peasants concerning his dues. But the parish priest, with all other churchmen, was exempt from the state taxes, although obliged to pay a proportion of the _decimes_,[Footnote: _Decime_, in the singular, was an extraordinary tax levied on ecclesiastical revenue for some object deemed important. _Decimes_, in the plural, was the tax paid annually by benefices. _Dme_, t.i.the (see Littre, _Decime_). It seems a question whether the proportion of the _decimes_ paid by the parish priests was too large. See _Revue des questions historiques_, 1st July 1890, 102. Necker, _De l'Administration_, ii. 313.] or special tax laid by the clergy on their own order. Moreover, the government set a minimum;[Footnote: _Portion congrue._] and if the income of the parish priest fell below it, the owner of the great t.i.thes was bound to make up the difference. This minimum was set at five hundred livres a year for a _cure_ in 1768, and raised to seven hundred in 1785. A _vicaire_ received two hundred and three hundred and fifty. These amounts do not seem large, but they must have secured to the country priest a tolerable condition, for we do not find that the clerical profession was neglected.

Apart from considerations of material well being, the condition of the parish priest was not undesirable. He was fairly independent, and could not be deprived of his living without due process of law. His house was larger or smaller according to his means, but his authority and influence might in any case be considerable. He had more education and more dealings with the outer world than most of his paris.h.i.+oners. To him the intendant of the province might apply for information concerning the state of his village, and the losses of the peasants by fire, or by epidemics among their cattle. His sympathy with his fellow-villagers was the warmer, that like them he had a piece of ground to till, were it only a garden, an orchard, or a bit of vineyard. Round his door, as round theirs, a few hens were scratching; perhaps a cow lowed from her shed, or followed the village herd to the common. The priest's servant, a stout la.s.s, did the milking and the weeding. In 1788, a provincial synod was much disturbed by a motion, made by some fanatic in the interest of morals, that no priest should keep a serving-maid less than forty-five years of age. The rule was rejected on the ground that it would make it impossible to cultivate the glebes. Undoubtedly, the priests themselves often tucked up the skirts of their ca.s.socks, and lent a hand in the work. They were treated by their flocks with a certain amount of respectful familiarity. They were addressed as _messire_. With the joys and sorrows of their paris.h.i.+oners, their connection was at once intimate and professional. Their ministrations were sought by the sick and the sad, their congratulations by the happy.

No wedding party nor funeral feast was complete without them.[Footnote: Turgot, v. 364. This letter is very interesting, as showing the importance of the _cures_ and their possible dealings with the intendant. Mathieu, 152. Babeau, _La vie rurale_, 157. A good study of the clergy before the Revolution is found in an article by Marius Sepet (_La societe francaise a la veille de la revolution_), in the _Revue des questions historiques_, 1st April and 1st July, 1889.]

The privileges and immunities which the Church of France enjoyed had given to her clergy a tone of independence both to the Pope and to the king. We have seen them accompanying their "free gifts" to the latter by requests and conditions. Toward the Holy See their att.i.tude had once been quite as bold. In 1682 an a.s.sembly of the Church of France had promulgated four propositions which were considered the bulwarks of the Gallican liberties.

(1.) G.o.d has given to Saint Peter and his successors no power, direct or indirect, over temporal affairs.

(2.) Ec.u.menical councils are superior to the Pope in spiritual matters.

(3.) The rules, usages and statutes admitted by the kingdom and the Church of France must remain inviolate.

(4.) In matters of faith, decisions of the Sovereign Pontiff are irrevocable only after having received the consent of the church.

These propositions were undoubtedly a part of the law of France, and were fully accepted by a portion of the French clergy. But the spirit that dictated them had in a measure died out during the corrupt reign of Louis XV. The long quarrel between the Jesuits and the Jansenists, which agitated the Galilean church during the latter part of the seventeenth and the earlier half of the eighteenth century, had tended neither to strengthen nor to purify that body. A large number of the most serious, intelligent and devout Catholics in France had been put into opposition to the most powerful section of the clergy and to the Pope himself. Thus the Church of France was in a bad position to repel the violent attacks made upon her from without.[Footnote: Rambaud, ii. 40. For a Catholic account of the Jansenist quarrel, see Carne, _La monarchie francaise au 18me siecle_, 407.]

For a time of trial had come to the Catholic Church, and the Church of France, although hardly aware of its danger, was placed in the forefront of battle. It was against her that the most persistent and violent a.s.sault of the Philosophers was directed. Before considering the doctrines of those men, who differed among themselves very widely on many points, it is well to ask what was the cause of the great excitement which their doctrines created. Men as great have existed in other centuries, and have exercised an enormous influence on the human mind.

But that influence has generally been gradual; percolating slowly, through the minds of scholars and thinkers, to men of action and the people. The intellectual movement of the eighteenth century in France was rapid. It was the nature of the opposition which they encountered which drew popular attention to the attacks of the Philosophers.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CHURCH AND HER ADVERSARIES.

The new birth of learning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had been followed by the strengthening and centralization of government, both in church and state. France had its full share of this change. Its civil government became the strongest in Europe, putting down every breath of opposition. Against the political conduct of Louis XIV neither magistrate nor citizen dared to raise his voice. The Church of France, on the other hand, in close alliance with the civil power, became almost irresistible in her own sphere. The Catholic Church throughout Europe had been the great schoolmaster of civilization. It had fallen into the common fault of schoolmasters, the a.s.sumption of infallibility. It was, moreover, a state within all states. Its sovereign, the Pope, the most powerful monarch in Christendom, is chosen in accordance with a curious and elaborate set of regulations, by electors appointed by his predecessors. His rule, nominally despotic, is limited by powers and influences understood by few persons outside of his palace. His government, although highly centralized, is yet able to work efficiently in all the countries of the earth. It is served by a great body of officials, probably less corrupt on the whole than those of any other state. They are kept in order, not only by moral and spiritual sanctions, but by a system of worldly promotion. They wield over their subjects a tremendous weapon, sometimes borrowed, but seldom long or very skillfully used by laymen, and called, in clerical language, excommunication. This, when it is confined to the denial of religious privileges, may be considered a spiritual weapon. But in the eighteenth century the temporal power of Catholic Europe was still in great measure at the service of the ecclesiastical authorities. Obedience to the church was a law of the state. Although Frenchmen were no longer executed for heresy in the reign of Louis XVI., they still were persecuted. The property of Protestants was unsafe, their marriages invalid. Their children might be taken from them. Such toleration as existed was precarious, and the Church of France was constantly urging the temporal government to take stronger measures for the extirpation of heresy.

The church had succeeded in implanting in the minds of its votaries one opinion of enormous value in its struggle for power. Originally and properly an a.s.sociation for the practice and spreading of religion, the corporation had succeeded in making itself an object of wors.h.i.+p. One great reason why atheism took root in France was the impossibility, induced by long habit, of distinguis.h.i.+ng between religion and Catholicism, and of conceiving that the one may exist without the other.

The by-laws of the church had become as sacred as the primary duties of piety; and the injunction to refrain from meat on Fridays was indistinguishable by most Catholics, in point of obligation, from the injunction to love the Lord their G.o.d.

The Protestant churches which separated themselves from the Church of Rome in the sixteenth century carried with them much of the intolerant spirit of the original body. It is one of the commonplace sneers of the unreflecting to say that religious toleration has always been the dogma of the weaker party. The saying, if it were true, which it is not, yet would not be especially sagacious. Toleration, like other things, has been most sought by those whose need of it was greatest. But they have not always recognized its value. It was no small step in the progress of the human mind that was taken when men came to look on religious toleration as desirable or possible. That the state might treat with equal favor all forms of wors.h.i.+p was an opinion hardly accepted by wise and liberal-minded men in the eighteenth century. It may be that the fiery contests of the Reformation were still too near in those days to let perfect peace be safe or profitable.

Yet religious toleration was making its way in men's minds. Cautiously, and with limitations, the doctrine is stated, first by Locke, Bayle, and Fenelon in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, then by almost all the great writers of the eighteenth. The Protestants, with their experience of persecution, a.s.sert that those persons should not be tolerated who teach that faith should not be kept with heretics, or that kings excommunicated forfeit their crowns and kingdoms; or who attribute to themselves any peculiar privilege or power above other mortals in civil affairs; in short, they exclude the Catholics. Atheists also may be excluded, as being under no possible conscientious obligation to dogmatize concerning their negative creed. The Catholics maintain the right of the sovereign to forbid the use of ceremonies, or the profession of opinions, which would disturb the public peace.

Montesquieu, a nominal Catholic only, declares that it is the fundamental principle of political laws concerning religion, not to allow the establishment of a new form if it can be prevented; but when one is once established, to tolerate it. He refuses to say that heresy should not be punished, but he says that it should be punished only with great circ.u.mspection. This left the case of the French Protestants to all appearances as bad as before; for the laws denied that they had been established in the kingdom, and the church always a.s.serted that it was mild and circ.u.mspect in its dealings with heretics. Voltaire will not say that those who are not of the same religion as the prince should share in the honors of the state, or hold public office. Such limitations as these would seem to have deprived toleration of the greater part of its value, by excluding from its benefits those persons who were most likely to be persecuted. But the statement of a great principle is far more effectual than the enumeration of its limitations.

Toleration, eloquently announced as an ideal, made its way in men's minds. "Absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty, is the thing we stand in need of," cries Locke, and the saying is retained when his exceptions concerning the Catholics are forgotten.

"When kings meddle with religion," says Fenelon, "instead of protecting, they enslave her."[Footnote: Locke, vi. 46, 46 (Letter on Toleration).

Bayle, Commentary on the Text "Compelle intrare" (for atheists), ii.

431, a., Fenelon, Oeuvres, vii. 123 (Essai philosophique sur le gouvernement civil). Montesquieu, Oeuvres, iv. 68; v. 175 (Esprit des Lois, liv. xii. ch. v. and liv. x.x.xv. ch. x.). Felice, Voltaire, xli.

247 (Essai sur la tolerance).]

The Church of France had long been cruel to her opponents. The persecution of the French Protestants, which preceded and followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, is known to most readers. It was long and b.l.o.o.d.y. But about the middle of the eighteenth century it began to abate. The last execution for heresy in France appears to have taken place in 1762. A Protestant meeting was surprised and attacked by soldiers in 1767. Some eight or ten years later than this, the last prisoner for conscience' sake was released from the galleys at Toulon.

But no religion except the Roman Catholic was recognized by the state; and to its clergy alone were entrusted certain functions essential to the conduct of civilized life. No marriage could be legally solemnized but by a Catholic priest. No public record of births was kept but in the parish registers. As a consequence of this, no faithful Protestant could be legally married at all, and all children of Protestant parents were b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, whose property could be taken from them by the nearest Catholic relative. It is true that the courts did much to soften the execution of these laws; but the judges, with the best intentions, were sometimes powerless; and all judges did not mean to act fairly by heretics.

Slowly, during the lifetime of a generation, the Protestants gained ground. The coronation-oath contained a clause by which the king promised to exterminate heretics. When Louis XVI. was to be crowned at Rheims, Turgot desired to modify this part of the oath. He drew up a new form. The clergy, however, resisted the innovation, and Maurepas, the prime minister, agreed with them. The young king, with characteristic weakness, is said to have muttered some meaningless sounds, in place of the disputed portion of the oath.

In 1778, an attempt was made to induce the Parliament of Paris to interfere in behalf of the oppressed sectaries, It was stated that since 1740, more than four hundred thousand marriages had been contracted outside of the church, and that these marriages were void in law and the constant cause of scandalous suits. But the Parliament, by a great majority, rejected the proposal to apply to the king for relief. In 1775, and again in 1780, the a.s.sembly of the clergy protested against the toleration accorded to heretics. It is not a little curious that at a time when a measure of simple humanity was thus opposed by the highest court of justice in the realm, and by the Church of France in its corporate capacity, a foreign Protestant, Necker, was the most important of the royal servants.

The spirit of the church, or at least of her leading men, is expressed in the Pastoral Instruction of Lefranc de Pompignan, Archbishop of Vienne, perhaps the most prominent French ecclesiastic of the century.

The church, he says, has never persecuted, although misguided men have done so in her name. The sovereign should maintain the true religion, and is himself the judge of the best means of doing it. But religion sets bounds to what a monarch should do in her defense. She does not ask for violent or sanguinary measures against simple heretics. Such measures would do more harm than good. But when men have the audacity to exercise a pretended and forbidden ministry, injurious to the public peace, it would be absurd to think that rigorous penalties applied to their misdeeds are contrary to Christian charity. And in connection with toleration, the prelate brings together the two texts, "Judge not, that ye be not judged;"--"but he that believeth not is condemned already."

This plan of dealing gently with Protestants, while so maltreating their pastors as to make public wors.h.i.+p or the administration of sacraments very difficult, was a favourite one with French churchmen.

The great devolution was close at hand. On the last day of the first session of the a.s.sembly of Notables, in the spring of 1787, Lafayette proposed to pet.i.tion the king in favor of the Protestants. His motion was received with almost unanimous approval by the committee to which it was made, and the Count of Artois, president of that committee, carried a pet.i.tion to Louis XVI. accordingly. His Majesty deigned to favor the proposal, and an edict for giving a civil status to Protestants was included in the batch of bills submitted to the Parliament of Paris for registration. The measure of relief was of the most moderate character.

It did not enable the sectaries of the despised religion to hold any office in the state, nor even to meet publicly for wors.h.i.+p. Yet the opposition to the proposed law was warm, and was fomented by part of the n.o.bility and of the clergy. One of the great ladies of the court called on each counselor of the Parliament, and left a note to remind him of his duty to the Catholic religion and the laws. The Bishop of Dol told the king of France that he would be answerable to G.o.d and man for the misfortunes which the reestablishment of Protestantism would bring on the kingdom. His Majesty's sainted aunt, according to the bishop, was looking down on him from that heaven where her virtues had placed her, and blaming his conduct. Louis XVI. resented this language and found manliness enough to send the Bishop of Dol back to his see. On the 19th of January, 1788, the matter was warmly debated in the Parliament itself. D'Espremenil, one of the counselors, was filled with excitement and wrath at the proposed toleration. Pointing to the image of Christ, which hung on the wall of the chamber, "would you," he indignantly exclaimed, "would you crucify him again?" But the appeal of bigotry was unavailing. The measure pa.s.sed by a large majority.[Footnote: For the last persecution of the Protestants, see Felice, 422. Howard, Lazzarettos, 55. Coquerel, 93. Geffroy, i. 406. Cherest, i. 45, 382. For the oath, Turgot, i. 217; vii. 314, 317. See also Dareste, vii. 20, Lefranc de Pompignan, i. 132. Geffroy, i. 410; ii. 85. Droz, ii. 38.

Sallier, Annales francaises, 136 n. The majority was 94 to 17. Seven counselors and three bishops retired without voting.]

It was not against Protestants alone that the clergy showed their activity. The church, in its capacity of guardian of the public morals and religion, pa.s.sed condemnation on books supposed to be hostile to its claims. In this matter it exercised concurrent jurisdiction with the administrative branch of the government and with the courts of law. A new book was liable to undergo a triple ordeal. A license was required before publication, and the ma.n.u.script was therefore submitted to an official censor, often an ecclesiastic. Thence it became the custom to print in foreign countries, books which contained anything to which anybody in authority might object, and to bring them secretly into France. The presses of Holland and of Geneva were thus used. Sometimes, instead of this, a book would be published in Paris with a foreign imprint. Thus "Boston" and "Philadelphia" are not infrequently found on the t.i.tle-pages of books printed in France in the reign of Louis XVI.

Such books were sold secretly, with greater or less precautions against discovery, for the laws were severe; an ordinance pa.s.sed as late as 1757 forbade, under penalty of death, all publications which might tend to excite the public mind. So loose an expression gave discretionary power to the authorities. The extreme penalty was not enforced, but imprisonment and exile were somewhat capriciously inflicted on authors and printers.

But a book that had received the _imprimatur_ of the censor was not yet safe. The clergy might denounce, or the Parliament condemn it. The church was quick to scent danger. An honest scholar, an upright and original thinker, could hardly escape the reproach of irreligion or of heresy. Nor were the laws fairly administered. It might be more dangerous to be supposed to allude disagreeably to the mistress of a prince, than to attack the government of the kingdom. Had a severe law been severely and consistently enforced, slander, heresy, and political thought might have been stamped out together. Such was in some measure the case in the reign of Louis XIV. But under the misrule of the courtiers of his feeble successors, no strict law was adhered to. There was a common tendency to wink at illegal writings of which half the public approved. Malesherbes, for instance, was at one time at the head of the official censors. He is said to have had a way of warning authors and publishers the day before a descent was to be made upon their houses. Under laws thus enforced, authors who held new doctrines learned to adapt their methods to those of the government. Almost all the great French writers of the eighteenth century framed some pa.s.sages in their books for the purpose of satisfying the censor or of avoiding punishment. They were profuse in expressions of loyally to church and state, in pa.s.sages sometimes sounding ludicrously hollow, sometimes conveying the most biting mockery and satire, and again in words hardly to be distinguished from the heartfelt language of devotion. They became skillful at hinting, and masters of the art of innuendo. They attacked Christianity under the name of Mahometanism, and if they had occasion to blame French ministers of state, would seem to be satirizing the viziers of Turkey. Politics and theology are subjects of unceasing and vivid interest, and their discussion cannot be suppressed, unless minds are to be smothered altogether. If any measure of free thought and speech is to be admitted, the engrossing topics will find expression. If people are not allowed pamphlets and editorials, they will bring out their ideas in poems and fables. Under Louis XV and Louis XVI, politics took possession of popular songs, and theology of every conceivable kind of writing.

There was hardly an advertis.e.m.e.nt of the virtues of a quack medicine, or a copy of verses to a man's mistress, that did not contain a fling at the church or the government. There can be no doubt that the moral nature of authors and of the public suffered in such a course. Books lost some of their real value. But for a time an element of excitement was added to the pleasure both of writers and readers. The author had all the advantage of being persecuted, with the pleasing a.s.surance that the persecution would not go very far. The reader, while perusing what seemed to him true and right, enjoyed the satisfaction of holding a forbidden book. He had the amus.e.m.e.nt of eating stolen fruit, and the inward conviction that it agreed with him.[Footnote: Lomenie, Vie de Beaumarchais, i. 324. Montesquieu, i. 464 (Lettres persanes, cxlv.).

Mirabeau, L'ami des hommes, 238 (pt. ii. oh, iv.). Anciennes Lois, xxii.

272. Lanfrey, 193.]

The writers who adopted this course are mostly known as the "Philosophers." It is hard to be consistent in the use of this word as applied to Frenchmen of the eighteenth century. The name was sometimes given to all those who advocated reform or alteration in church or state. In its stricter application, it belongs to a party among them; to Voltaire and his immediate followers, and especially to the Encyclopaedists.

"Never," says Voltaire, in his "English Letters," "will our philosophers make a religious sect, for they are without enthusiasm."

This was a favorite idea with the disciples of the great cynic, but the event has disproved its truth. The Philosophers in Voltaire's lifetime formed a sect, although it could hardly be called a religious one. The Patriarch of Ferney himself was something not unlike its pontiff.

Diderot and d'Alembert were its bishops, with their attendant clergy of Encyclopaedists. Helvetius and Holbach were its doctors of atheology.

Most reading and thinking Frenchmen were for a time its members.

Rousseau was its arch-heretic. The doctrines were materialism, fatalism, and hedonism. The sect still exists. It has adhered, from the time of its formation, to a curious notion, its favorite superst.i.tion, which may be expressed somewhat as follows: "Human reason and good sense were first invented from thirty to fifty years ago." "When we consider," says Voltaire, "that Newton, Locke, Clarke and Leibnitz, would have been persecuted in France, imprisoned at Rome, burnt at Lisbon, what must we think of human reason? It was born in England within this century."

[Footnote: Voltaire (Geneva ed. 1771) xv. 99 (Newton). Also (Beuchot's ed.) xv. 351 (Essai sur les Moeurs) and pa.s.sim. The date usually set by Voltaire's modern followers is that of the publication of the Origin of Species; although no error is more opposed than this one to the great theory of evolution.] And similar expressions are frequent in his writings. The sectaries, from that day to this, have never been wanting in the most glowing enthusiasm. In this respect they generally surpa.s.s the Catholics; in fanaticism (or the quality of being c.o.c.ksure) the Protestants. They hold toleration as one of their chief tenets, but never undertake to conceal their contempt for any one who disagrees with them. The sect has always contained many useful and excellent persons, and some of the most dogmatic of mankind.

CHAPTER V.

THE CHURCH AND VOLTAIRE.

The enemies of the Church of France were many and bitter, but one man stands out prominent among them. Voltaire was a poet, much admired in his day, an industrious and talented historian, a writer on all sorts of subjects, a wit of dazzling brilliancy; but he was first, last, and always an enemy of the Catholic Church, and although not quite an atheist, an opponent of all forms of religion. For more than forty years he was the head of the party of the Philosophers. During all that time he was the most conspicuous of literary Frenchmen. Two others, Rousseau and Montesquieu, may rival him in influence on the modern world, but his followers in the regions of thought are numerous and aggressive to-day.