Hilaire Belloc Part 8

This event is the third of the three pillars on which Mr. Belloc supports his notion of Western history: the Roman Empire, the thirteenth century, and the Revolution. He sees in it the principle result of the Reformation, but an event which also undid and increasingly nullified the effects of that schism.

He regards the Reformation as having not only disturbed the unity of Europe, but also having encouraged the growth of those wealthy and selfish cla.s.ses of whom he has a particular dread. He speaks--in his _Marie Antoinette_, which becomes for some little distance here our princ.i.p.al guide--of how "the attempt to force upon the French doctrines convenient, in France as in England, to the wealthy merchants, the intellectuals and the squires was met by popular risings." He believes that to the Catholic tradition descended from the Roman Empire that idea of the State which is always the salvation of the people as opposed to the rich. The violent adhesion of France to the Church--only tempered by some jealousy of Austria--saved the Faith for Europe: France thus became the capital stronghold of the Western idea, whence it issued in renewed force at the Revolution.[7] The Revolution itself was a drastic return to the ideas of universality and equality which are essentially Roman.

It has been Mr. Belloc's task and delight to reconcile the principles of the Revolution with his own faith. He would show that the two were opposed only by this intellectual accident or that political blunder: that the dogmas of each are capable of being held by the same mind. And, in the revival of religion in our own times, which "may be called, according to the taste of the scholar, the Catholic reaction or the Catholic renaissance," he sees not only the first and most beneficent result of the principles of the Revolution, but also a sign that the wounds then inflicted are beginning to be healed.

His clearest and most connected exposition of these things is to be found in the little book which is called _The French Revolution_, of which the object, he says, is "to lay, if that be possible, an explanation of it before the reader."

He begins by making a detailed explanation of the democratic theory, which is drawn from Rousseau's treatise _Le Contrat Social_. Let us select one significant pa.s.sage on the doctrine of equality:

The doctrine of the equality of man is a transcendent doctrine: a "dogma" as we call such doctrines in the field of transcendental religion. It corresponds to no physical reality which we can grasp, it is hardly to be adumbrated even by metaphors drawn from physical objects. We may attempt to rationalize it by saying that what is common to all men is not _more_ important but _infinitely more_ important than the accidents by which men differ.

On such a simple statement does he found his explanation of the greatest event of the modern world, an upheaval and a remoulding which astonishes us equally whether we consider how far it fell short of its highest intentions or how much it actually accomplished.

Now he proceeds from the obvious and historical fact of the quarrel which actually took place between the Revolution and the Church, and asks: "_Was there a necessary and fundamental quarrel between the doctrines of the Revolution and those of the Catholic Church_?" And he replies:

It is impossible for the theologian, or even for the practical ecclesiastical teacher, to put his finger upon a political doctrine essential to the Revolution and to say, "This doctrine is opposed to Catholic dogma or to Catholic morals." Conversely, it is impossible for the Republican to put his finger upon a matter of ecclesiastical discipline or religious dogma and to say, "This Catholic point is at issue with my political theory of the State."

So much for the negative argument which at that point in that book was enough for Mr. Belloc's purpose. He proceeds to explain the material accidents and causes which nullified this argument. But we must attempt further to discover from the general trend of Mr. Belloc's character and thought the positive grounds by which he reconciles these two principles which have so far shown themselves divided in practice.

The two things are of Latin, that is to say of Roman origin. The Church is "the ghost of the Roman Empire sitting crowned and throned on the grave thereof": it is a new manifestation (and a higher one) of the political and social ideal which inspired the Roman people. Also the French have inherited most of the Latin pa.s.sion for reason, law and order: under Napoleon they strove to make a new empire, and they carried together a code of law and the idea of equality all over Europe.

In both the Faith and the Revolution there are secure dogmas on which the mind can rest. Fundamental unprovable things are established by declaration, and fruitless argument about them is cut off at the roots.

In the clear cert.i.tude of such doctrines is a basis for action and for civilization.

The purpose and the scope of work of both these ideas was much the same.

Each proposed to establish a European community, in which the peoples of kindred blood might rest together and develop their resources. The Revolution might well have restored that unity of the Western race which vanished with Rome and which the Reformation forbade the Church to accomplish.

That conception of Europe as an ent.i.ty so far only conscious of itself, as it were, by lucid intervals in a long delirium, is very dear to Mr.

Belloc. We have dwelt on it at the beginning of this chapter and must return to it now, for, if one idea can be said to underlie all his historical writings, this is that one idea. The notions which we have described as the three pillars of his historical scheme are three expressions of this vision, and the vision is of something transcendent, like the dogmas on which his mind rests, something which is a reality, but cannot be proved in words or seized by any merely physical metaphor.

He begins _Marie Antoinette_ with these words: "Europe, which carries the fate of the whole world ..."

This fundamental point in its three expressions is the point which Mr.

Belloc would have his public grasp before beginning to discuss the problems which await it in the polling-booths and in the everyday conversations which more weightily mould the fate of the world. He is a propagandist historian, and his work has the liveliness given by an air of eagerness to convince.

His bias, the precise nature of his propaganda, are frankly exposed. He would have the State and European society, especially the society of England, revived by a return to the profession and the practice of his own faith. In Prussia also historians compose their works with such a definite and positive end in contemporary affairs.

But between them and Mr. Belloc lies this great difference. He writes, as we have said, candidly, in a partisan spirit, with the eagerness of a man who wishes to convince. In the University of Berlin the indoctrination of the student is pursued under the cloak of a baleful and gloomy pedantry, laughably miscalled "the scientific method." The propaganda of Frederick is not obvious and many are deceived.

The Catholic historian lies in England under a grave suspicion. Lingard, who wrote, after all, one of the best histories of the English nation, certainly more readable than Freeman and less prejudiced than Froude, is neither studied nor mentioned in our schools. Even poor Acton, whose smug Whig bias is apparent to the stupidest, who nourished himself on Lutheran learning, "mostly," as he says, pathetically "in octavo volumes," is thought of darkly by the uninstructed as an emissary of the Jesuits. But who can either suffer from or accuse the Catholic bias of Mr. Belloc?

He says to you frankly in every page: "I am a Catholic. I believe in the Church of Rome. For these and these reasons, I am of opinion that the Reformation was a disaster and that the Protestant peoples are still a danger to Europe." Can you still complain of the propagandist turn of such a man? As well complain of a professed theologian that he is bia.s.sed as to the existence of G.o.d. He warns you amply that he has a particular point of view, and he gives you every opportunity to make allowance for it. When you have done so, you will find that his narrative and interpretation are still astonishingly accurate and just.

And he has a corrective to bias in his vivid poetic love of the past, which we shall a.n.a.lyse in the succeeding chapter.

This also is made a reproach against him by scholars. It is true that in his serious historical works, _Robespierre_, _Danton_, and _Marie Antoinette_, he introduces more of romance than is commonly admitted by serious writers. He is apt to give his descriptions something of the positive and living character which we more usually expect in a novel.

The charge is made against him, under which Macaulay suffers justly and Prescott, the American, with less reason, of having written historical romances. Let us grant that it is not usual to give so much detail or so much colour as that in which Mr. Belloc takes delight.

Is his accuracy thereby spoilt? He insists on seeing all the events and details of Cardinal de Rohan's interview with the pretended Queen of France. But it does not of itself testify that Mr. Belloc cannot judge whether this interview took place or interfered with his estimate of its importance. We contend, very seriously and very gravely, that these books will be found to show a singularly high level of accuracy and justice. In the interpretation of facts bias will show: in Acton equally with Froude. If it did not, if the historian were an instrument and humanly null, what effect would either his narrative or his reading have on the student? He could not convey to another mind even his comprehension of the bare facts. Mr. Belloc invests his narrative with a living interest, and how he does this and why it is the surest guarantee of accuracy and impartiality, we shall endeavour to show in the succeeding chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Professor Bury adds coyly in a footnote: "But there is another side to this picture which may be seen by studying Mommsen's volume on the provinces."]

[Footnote 2: _Esto Perpetua._]

[Footnote 3: These sentences may appear to indicate indecision in Mr.

Belloc's mind as to this point. He has now informed us that Charlemagne did come of this Gallo-Roman family.]

[Footnote 4: _Paris_, p. 93.]

[Footnote 5: _Paris_, p. 226.]

[Footnote 6: _Ib._, p. 227.]

[Footnote 7: The Italian historian, Guglielmo Ferrero, of whom Mr.

Belloc, however, has no very high opinion, betrays some similar ideas in writing of the importance of Gaul in the Empire.]

CHAPTER IX

THE HISTORICAL WRITER

In an essay in _First and Last_, Mr. Belloc says:

... That earthwork is the earthwork where the British stood against the charge of the Tenth Legion, and first heard, sounding on their bronze, the arms of Caesar. Here the river was forded; here the little men of the South went up in formation; here the barbarian broke and took his way, as the opposing General has recorded, through devious woodland paths, scattering in the pursuit; here began the great history of England.

Is it not an enormous business merely to stand in such a place? I think so.

There you have compactly and poignantly expressed a mood which is common to all men who have any feeling for the past. It is a pathetic, almost a tragic mood, a longing more pitiable than that of any fanatic for any paradise, any lover for any woman, because it is quite impossible that it should ever be satisfied. To see, to feel, to move among the foundations of our generation--it is so natural a desire, and it is quite hopeless.

It is a desire which one might naturally suppose to be common among historians, and to govern their thoughts: but you will not find it in the academies. Only in the true historian, the student who, like Herodotus, is also a poet and names the Muses, will you find its clear expression. But it is and must be the mainspring of all good historical writing, for this desire to know the concrete past is, in the end, the only corrective to the propagandist bias, which is, as we have seen, the right motive of useful research. Acton had it not, Froude perhaps a little, Maitland, one might believe, to some extent,[8] Professor Bury, Lord knows, neither that nor any other emotion comprehensible in man. To the don, indeed, the absence of the past is one of the factors in his fascinating, esoteric game: were some astounding doc.u.ment to appear that should make the origin and const.i.tution of the mediaeval manor as clear as daylight, the problem would lose its interest, the agile don would find it too easy for him. The equipment of the ideal historian consists of the attributes of practical and poetic man, the desire to gain some present benefit, to learn some urgent lesson, and the desire to perfect the spirit by contemplation of the past.

History, indeed, is the record of the actions of individual men, and these men, like ourselves, had arms, legs and stomachs, and suffered the workings of the same fears and pa.s.sions that we suffer. To derive any practical or spiritual benefit from the study of history, we must understand, as far as possible, by a.n.a.logy from our own experience, how the events of which we read came about: we must see them as personal events, originated by the actions, and influencing the lives of human beings like ourselves.

We have expressed sufficiently in the previous chapter an opinion on the value of Mr. Belloc's historical conclusions: we must now examine more closely the method by means of which he presents these conclusions and its effect on the reader.

His method, it goes without saying, is more lively. In the whole of the _Cambridge Modern History_ (sixteen volumes of unbelievable dimensions) you will not find one living character or one paragraph of exhilarating prose.[9] Mr. Belloc's work, on the other hand, is full of both. But this must not be taken, without further inquiry, to be an unqualified merit.

The lively writer is, by an ever-living commonplace, considered to be inaccurate: the donnish historian may, by his plodding want of imagination, give us only the strict facts. The lively writer, perhaps, in the desire to round out a character of a man concerning whom little is known or to perfect the rhythm of a paragraph, will consult his convenient fancy rather than the difficult doc.u.ment. In academic circles, it is rather a reproach to say that a man writes in an interesting way: they remember Macaulay and would, if they could, forget Gibbon.

Mr. Belloc's writing, nevertheless, is not affected by the desire either to impress or to startle his readers, any more than the writing of a good poet springs from an aiming at effect: it is like all true literature, in the first place, the outcome of a strong and personal pa.s.sion, the pa.s.sion for the past. He says himself[10]:

To study something of great age until one grows familiar with it and almost to live in its time, is not merely to satisfy a curiosity or to establish aimless truths: it is rather to fulfil a function whose appet.i.te has always rendered History a necessity. By the recovery of the Past, stuff and being are added to us; our lives which, lived in the present only, are a film or surface, take on body--are lifted into one dimension more. The soul is fed....

One may say that historical learning grants men glimpses of life completed and a whole; and such a vision should be the chief solace of whatever is mortal and cut off imperfectly from fulfilment.

Such a pa.s.sion, then, such a purely poetic, spiritual, impractical pa.s.sion is perhaps the cause of Mr. Belloc's note and career. It is the pa.s.sion of a poet. a.s.suredly actuated by such a feeling, he has developed his practical and political opinions: the true poet is always practical.