Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time Part 14

Such, gentlemen, is the point of view under which we shall endeavour to contemplate history. We shall seek, in the annals of nations, a knowledge of the human race; we shall try to discover what, in every age and state of civilization, have been the prevailing ideas and principles in general adoption, which have produced the happiness or misery of the generations subjected to their power, and have influenced the destiny of those which succeeded them. The subject is one of the most abundant in considerations of this nature. History presents to us periods of development, during which man, emerging from a state of barbarism and ignorance, arrives gradually at a condition of science and advancement, which may decline, but can never perish, for knowledge is an inheritance that always finds heirs. The civilization of the Egyptians and Phoenicians prepared that of the Greeks; while that of the Romans was not lost to the barbarians who established themselves upon the ruins of the Empire. No preceding age has ever enjoyed the advantage we possess, of studying this slow but real progression: while looking back on the past, we can recognize the route which the human race has followed in Europe for more than two thousand years. Modern history alone, from its vast scope, from the variety and extent of its duration, offers us the grandest and most complete picture which we could possibly possess of the civilization of a certain portion of the globe. A rapid glance will suffice to indicate the character and interest of the subject.

Rome had conquered what her pride delighted to call the world. Western Asia, from the frontiers of Persia, the North of Africa, Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, all the countries situated on the right bank of the Danube, from its source to its mouth, Italy, Gaul, Great Britain, and Spain, acknowledged her authority. That authority extended over more than a thousand leagues in breadth, from the Wall of Antoninus and the southern boundaries of Dacia, to Mount Atlas;--and beyond fifteen hundred leagues in length, from the Euphrates to the Western Ocean. But if the immense extent of these conquests at first surprises the imagination, the astonishment diminishes when we consider how easy they were of accomplishment, and how uncertain of duration. In Asia, Rome had only to contend with effeminate races; in Europe, with ignorant savages, whose governments, without union, regularity, or vigour, were unable to contend with the strong const.i.tution of the Roman aristocracy.

Let us pause a moment to reflect on this. Rome found it more difficult to defend herself against Hannibal than to subjugate the world; and as soon as the world was subdued, Rome began to lose, by degrees, all that she had won by conquest. How could she maintain her power? The comparative state of civilization between the victors and the vanquished had prevented union or consolidation into one substantial and h.o.m.ogeneous whole; there was no extended and regular administration, no general and safe communication; the provinces were only connected with Rome by the tribute they paid; Rome was unknown in the provinces, except by the tribute she exacted. Everywhere, in Asia Minor, in Africa, in Spain, in Britain, in the North of Gallia, small colonies defended and maintained their independence; all the power of the Emperors was inadequate to compel the submission of the Isaurians. The whole formed a chaos of nations half vanquished and semi-barbarous, without interest or existence in the State of which they were considered a portion, and which Rome denominated the Empire.

No sooner was this Empire conquered, than it began to dissolve, and that haughty city which looked upon every region as subdued where she could, by maintaining an army, appoint a proconsul, and levy imposts, soon saw herself compelled to abandon, almost voluntarily, the possessions she was unable to retain. In the year of Christ 270, Aurelian retired from Dacia, and tacitly abandoned that territory to the Goths; in 412, Honorius recognized the independence of Great Britain and Armorica; in 428, he wished the inhabitants of Gallia Narbonensis to govern themselves. On all sides we see the Romans abandoning, without being driven out, countries whose obedience, according to the expression of Montesquieu, _weighed upon them_, and which, never having been incorporated with the Empire, were sure to separate from it on the first shock.

The shock came from a quarter which the Romans, notwithstanding their pride, had never considered one of their provinces. Even more barbarous than the Gauls, the Britons, and the Spaniards, the Germans had never been conquered, because their innumerable tribes, without fixed residences or country, ever ready to advance or retreat, sometimes threw themselves, with their wives and flocks, upon the possessions of Rome, and at others retired before her armies, leaving nothing for conquest but a country without inhabitants, which they re-occupied as soon as the weakness or distance of the conquerors afforded them the opportunity. It is to this wandering life of a hunting nation, to this facility of flight and return, rather than to superior bravery, that the Germans were indebted for the preservation of their independence. The Gauls and Spaniards had also defended themselves courageously; but the one, surrounded by the ocean, knew not where to fly from enemies they could not expel; and the other, in a state of more advanced civilization, attacked by the Romans, to whom the Narbonnese province afforded, in the very heart of Gaul itself, an impregnable base, and repulsed by the Germans from the land into which they might have escaped, were also compelled to submit. Drusus and Germanicus had long before penetrated into Germany; they withdrew, because the Germans always retreating before them, they would, by remaining, have only occupied territory without subjects.

When, from causes not connected with the Roman Empire, the Tartar tribes who wandered through the deserts of Sarmatia and Scythia, from the northern frontiers of China, marched upon Germany, the Germans, pressed by these new invaders, threw themselves upon the Roman provinces, to conquer possessions where they might establish themselves in perpetuity. Rome then fought in defence; the struggle was protracted; the skill and courage of some of the Emperors for a long time opposed a powerful barrier; but the Barbarians were the ultimate conquerors, because it was imperative on them to win the victory, and their swarms of warriors were inexhaustible. The Visigoths, the Alani, and the Suevi established themselves in the South, of Gaul and Spain; the Vandals pa.s.sed over into Africa; the Huns occupied the banks of the Danube; the Ostrogoths founded their kingdom in Italy; the Franks in the North of Gaul; Rome ceased to call herself the mistress of Europe; Constantinople does not apply to our present subject.

Those nations of the East and the North who transported themselves in a ma.s.s into the countries where they were destined to found States, the more durable because they conquered not to extend but to establish themselves, were barbarians, such as the Romans themselves had long remained. Force was their law, savage independence their delight; they were free because none of them had ever thought or believed that men as strong as themselves would submit to their domination; they were brave because courage with them was a necessity; they loved war because war brings occupation without labour; they desired lands because these new possessions supplied them with a thousand novel sources of enjoyment, which they could indulge in while giving themselves up to idleness. They had chiefs because men leagued together always have leaders, and because the bravest, ever held in high consideration, soon become the most powerful, and bequeath to their descendants a portion of their own personal influence. These chiefs became kings; the old subjects of Rome, who at first had only been called upon to receive, to lodge, and feed their new masters, were soon compelled to surrender to them a portion of their estates; and as the labourer, as well as the plant, attaches himself to the soil that nourishes him, the lands and the labourers became the property of these turbulent and lazy owners. Thus feudalism was established,--not suddenly, not by an express convention between the chief and his followers, not by an immediate and regular division of the conquered country amongst the conquerors, but by degrees, after long years of uncertainty, by the simple force of circ.u.mstances, as must always happen when conquest is followed by transplantation and continued possession.

We should be wrong in supposing that the barbarians were dest.i.tute of all moral convictions. Man, in that early epoch of civilization, does not reflect upon what we call duties; but he knows and respects, amongst his fellow-beings, certain rights, some traces of which are discoverable even under the empire of the most absolute force. A simple code of justice, often violated, and cruelly avenged, regulates the simple intercourse of a.s.sociated savages. The Germans, unacquainted with any other laws or ties, found themselves suddenly transported into the midst of an order of things founded on different ideas, and demanding different restrictions. This gave them no trouble; their pa.s.sage was too rapid to enable them to ascertain and supply what was deficient in their legislature and policy. Bestowing little thought on their new subjects, they continued to follow the same principles and customs which recently, in the forests of Germany, had regulated their conduct and decided their quarrels. Thus the conquered people were, at first, more forgotten than vanquished, more despised than oppressed; they const.i.tuted the ma.s.s of the nation, and this ma.s.s found itself controlled without being reduced to servitude, because they were not thought of, and because the conquerors never suspected that they could possess rights which they feared to defend. From thence sprang, in the sequel, that long disorder at the commencement of the Middle Ages, during which everything was isolated, fortuitous, and partial; hence also proceeded the absolute separation between the n.o.bles and the people, and those abuses of the feudal system which only became portions of a system when long possession had caused to be looked upon as a right, what at first was only the produce of conquest and chance.

The clergy alone, to whom the conversion of the victors afforded the means of acquiring a power so much the greater that its force and extent could only be judged by the opinion it directed, maintained their privileges, and secured their independence. The religion which the Germans embraced became the only channel through which they derived new ideas, the sole point of contact between them and the inhabitants of their adopted country. The clergy, at first, thought only of their own interest; in this mode of communication, all the immediate advantages of the invasion of the barbarians were reaped by them for themselves. The liberal and beneficent influences of Christianity expanded slowly; that of religious animosity and theological dispute was the first to make itself felt. It was only in the cla.s.s occupied by those dissensions, and excited by those rancorous feelings, that energetic men were yet to be found in the Roman Empire; religious sentiments and duties had revived, in hearts penetrated with their importance, a degree of zeal long extinguished. St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose had alone resisted Constantine and Theodosius; their successors were the sole opponents who withstood the barbarians. This gave rise to the long empire of spiritual power, sustained with devotion and perseverance, and so weakly or fruitlessly a.s.sailed. We may say now, without fear, that the n.o.blest characters, the men most distinguished by their ability or courage, throughout this period of misfortune and calamity, belonged to the ecclesiastical order; and no other epoch of history supplies, in such a remarkable manner, the confirmation of this truth, so honourable to human nature, and perhaps the most instructive of all others,--that the most exalted virtues still spring up and develope themselves in the bosom of the most pernicious errors.

To these general features, intended to depict the ideas, manners, and conditions of men during the Middle Ages, it would be easy to add others, not less characteristic, and infinitely more minute. We should find poetry and literature, those beautiful and delightful emanations of the mind, the seeds of which have never been choked by all the follies and miseries of humanity, take birth in the very heart of barbarism, and charm the barbarians themselves by a new species of enjoyment. We should find the source and true character of that poetical, warlike, and religious enthusiasm which created chivalry and the crusades. We should probably discover, in the wandering lives of the knights and crusaders, the reflected influence of the roving habits of the German hunters, of that propensity to remove, and that superabundance of population, which ever exist where social order is not sufficiently well regulated for man to feel satisfied with his condition and locality; and before laborious industry has taught him to compel the earth to supply him with certain and abundant subsistence. Perhaps, also, that principle of honour which inviolably attached the German barbarians to a leader of their own choice, that individual liberty of which it was the fruit, and which gives man such an elevated idea of his own individual importance; that empire of the imagination which obtains such control over all young nations, and induces them to attempt the first steps beyond physical wants and purely material incitements, might furnish us with the causes of the elevation, enthusiasm, and devotion which, sometimes detaching the n.o.bles of the Middle Ages from their habitual rudeness, inspired them with the n.o.ble sentiments and virtues that even in the present day command our admiration. We should then feel little surprised at seeing barbarity and heroism united, so much energy combined with so much weakness, and the natural coa.r.s.eness of man in a savage state blended with the most sublime aspirations of moral refinement.

It was reserved for the latter half of the fifteenth century to witness the birth of events destined to introduce new manners and a fresh order of politics into Europe, and to lead the world towards the direction it follows at present. Italy, we may say, discovered the civilization of the Greeks; the letters, arts, and ideas of that brilliant antiquity inspired universal enthusiasm. The long quarrels of the Italian Republics, after having forced men to display their utmost energy, made them also feel the necessity of a period of repose enn.o.bled and charmed by the occupations of the mind. The study of cla.s.sic literature supplied the means; they were seized with ardour. Popes, cardinals, princes, n.o.bles, and men of genius gave themselves up to learned researches; they wrote to each other, they travelled to communicate their mutual labours, to discover, to read, and to copy ancient ma.n.u.scripts. The discovery of printing came to render these communications easy and prompt; to make this commerce of the mind extended and prolific. No other event has so powerfully influenced human civilization. Books became a tribune from which the world was addressed. That world was soon doubled. The compa.s.s opened safe roads across the monotonous immensity of the seas. America was discovered; and the sight of new manners, the agitation of new interests which were no longer the trifling concerns of one town or castle with another, but the great transactions of mighty powers, changed entirely the ideas of individuals and the political intercourse of States.

The invention of gunpowder had already altered their military relations; the issue of battles no longer depended on the isolated bravery of warriors, but on the power and skill of leaders. It has not yet been sufficiently investigated to what extent this discovery has secured monarchical authority, and given rise to the balance of power.

Finally, the Reformation struck a deadly blow against spiritual supremacy, the consequences of which are attributable to the bold examination of the theological questions and political shocks which led to the separation of religious sects, rather than to the new dogmas adopted by the Reformers as the foundation of their belief.

Figure to yourselves, gentlemen, the effect which these united causes were calculated to produce in the midst of the fermentation by which the human species was at that time excited, in the progress of the superabundant energy and activity which characterized the Middle Ages.

From that time, this activity, so long unregulated, began to organize itself and advance towards a defined object; this energy submitted to laws; isolation disappeared; the human race formed itself into one great body; public opinion a.s.sumed influence; and if an age of civil wars, of religious dissensions, presents the lengthened echo of that powerful shock which towards the end of the fifteenth century staggered Europe, under so many different forms, it is not the less to the ideas and discoveries which produced that blow that we are indebted for the two centuries of splendour, order, and peace during which civilization has reached the point where we find it in the present day.

This is not the place to follow the march of human nature during these two centuries. That history is so extensive, and composed of so many relations, alternately vast and minute, but always important; of so many events closely connected, brought about by causes so mixed together, and causes in their turn productive of such numerous effects, of so many different labours, that it is impossible to recapitulate them within a limited compa.s.s. Never have so many powerful and neighbouring States exercised upon each other such constant and complicated influence; never has their interior structure presented so many ramifications to study; never has the human mind advanced at once upon so many different roads; never have so many events, actors, and ideas been engaged in such an extended s.p.a.ce, or produced such interesting and instructive results.

Perhaps on some future occasion we may enter into this maze, and look for the clew to guide us through it. Called upon, at present, to study the first ages of modern history, we shall seek for their cradle in the forests of Germany, the country of our ancestors; after having drawn a picture of their manners, as complete as the number of facts which have reached our knowledge, the actual state of our information, and my efforts to reach that level will permit, we shall then cast a glance upon the condition of the Roman Empire at the moment when the barbarians invaded it to attempt establishment; after that we shall investigate the long struggles which ensued between them and Rome, from their irruption into the West and South of Europe, down to the foundation of the princ.i.p.al modern monarchies. This foundation will thus become for us a resting-point, from whence we shall depart again to follow the course of the history of Europe, which is in fact our own; for if unity, the fruit of the Roman dominion, disappeared with it, there are always, nevertheless, between the different nations which rose upon its ruins, relations so multiplied, so continued, and so important, that from them, in the whole of modern history taken together, an actual unity results which we shall be compelled to acknowledge. This task is enormous; and when we contemplate its full extent, it is impossible not to recoil before the difficulty. Judge then, gentlemen, whether I ought not to tremble at such an undertaking; but your indulgence and zeal will make up for the weakness of my resources: I shall be more than repaid if I am able to a.s.sist you in advancing even a few steps on the road which leads to truth!

No. IV.

THE ABBe DE MONTESQUIOU TO M. GUIZOT.

_March 31st, 1815._

I am not, my dear Sir, so lost to my friends that I have forgotten their friendship: yours has had many charms for me. I do not reproach myself with the poor trick I have played you. Your age does not run a long lease with mine. We can only show the public the objects worthy of their confidence; and I congratulate myself with having left them an impression of you which will not readily be effaced. I have been less fortunate on my own account, and can only deplore that fatality which has triumphed over my convictions, my repugnances, and the immeasurable consolations which friendship has bestowed on me. Let my example be profitable to you on some future occasion. Give to public affairs the period of your strength, but not that which requires repose alone; the interval will be long enough, at your time of life, to enable you to arrive at much distinction. I shall enjoy it with the interest which you know I feel, and with all the warm feelings with which your attachment has inspired me. Present my respects to Madame Guizot; it is to her I offer my apologies for having disturbed her tranquillity. But I hope her infant will profit by the strong food we have already administered to it. Allow me to request some token of remembrance from her as well as from yourself, for all the sentiments of respect and friendship I have vowed to you for life.

THE ABBe DE MONTESQUIOU TO M. GUIZOT.

_Plaisance, June 8th, 1816._

I was expecting to hear from you, my dear friend, with much impatience, and I now thank you sincerely for having written to me. It was not that I doubted your philosophy; you know that those who precede their age learn too soon the uncertainty of all human affairs; but I feared lest your taste for your early avocations might induce you to abandon public affairs, for which you have evinced such ready ability; and we are not rich enough to make sacrifices. I feel very happy at being satisfied on this point, and leave the rest to the caprices of that destiny which can scarcely be harsh towards you. You will be distinguished at the Council, as you have been in all other situations; and it must naturally follow, that the better you are known, your career will become the more brilliant and secure. Youth, which feels its power, ought always to say, with the Cardinal de Bernis, "My Lord, I shall wait." The more I see of France, the more I am impressed with the truth, that those who believe they have secured the State by compromising the royal authority in these distant departments, have committed a mistake. All that are honest and rational are royalists; but, thanks to our own dissensions, they no longer know how to show themselves such. They thought until then, that to serve the King was to do what he required through the voice of his ministers, and they have been lately told that this was an error, but they have been left in ignorance as to who are his Majesty's real organs. The enemies to our repose profit by this. The most absurd stories are propagated amongst the people, and all are the people at so great a distance. I can imagine that the character of these disturbers varies in our different provinces. In this, where we have no large towns, and no aristocracy, we lie at the mercy of all who pretend to know more than ourselves. Great credit thus attaches to the Half-pays, who, belonging more to the people than to any other cla.s.s, and not being able to digest their last disappointment, trade upon it in every possible manner, and are always believed because they are the richest in their immediate locality. The gentlemen Deputies come next upon the list, estimating themselves as little proconsuls, disposing of all places, and setting aside prefects. Thus you see how little authority remains with the King, whose agents are masters and do nothing in his name. As to the administration of justice, you may readily suppose that no one thinks of it. The people are in want of bread; their harvest rots under continual rains; the roads are horrible, the hospitals in the greatest misery; nothing remains but dismissals, accusations, and deputations. If you could change them for a little royal authority, we might still see the end of our sufferings; but make haste, for when the month of October has arrived it will be too late.

Adieu, my dear friend, present my respects to Madame Guizot, and receive the fullest a.s.surance of my good wishes.

No. V.

_Fragments selected from a Pamphlet by_ M. GUIZOT, _ent.i.tled 'Thoughts upon the Liberty of the Press,' 1814._

Many of the calamities of France, calamities which might be indefinitely prolonged if they were not attacked at their source, arise, as I have just said, from the ignorance to which the French people have been condemned as to the affairs and position of the State, to the system of falsehood adopted by a Government which required everything to be concealed, and to the indifference and suspicion with which this habitual deceit and falsehood had inspired the citizens. It is truth, therefore, which ought to appear in broad daylight; it is obscurity which ought to be dissipated, if we wish to re-establish confidence and revive zeal. It will not suffice that the intentions of Government should be good, or its words sincere; it is requisite that the people should be convinced of this, and should be supplied with the means of satisfying themselves. When we have been for a long time tricked by an impostor, we become doubtful even of an honest man; and all our proverbs on the melancholy suspicion of old age are founded on this truth ...

The nation, so long deceived, expects the truth from every quarter; at present, it has a hope of accomplishing this object. It demands it with anxiety from its representatives, its administrators, and from all who are believed capable of imparting it. The more it has been withheld up to this period, the more precious it will be considered. There will be this advantage, that it will be hailed with transport by the people as soon as they satisfy themselves that it may be trusted; and there will be a corresponding evil,--they will listen to it without fear, when they discover that they are left in freedom to deliver their opinions, and to labour openly in its support. No one questions the embarra.s.sments which truth will dissipate, or the references it will supply. A nation from whom it has been sedulously withheld, soon believes that something hostile is in agitation, and recoils back into mistrust. But when the truth is openly manifested, when a Government displays a n.o.ble confidence in its own sentiments and in the good feeling of its subjects, this confidence excites theirs in return, and calls up all their zeal.... The French, certain to understand, and quick to utter truth, will soon abandon that injurious tendency to suspicion which leads them from all esteem for their head, and all devotion to the State. The most indifferent spirits will resume an interest in public affairs, when they discover that they can take a part in them; the most apprehensive will cease their fears when they cease to live in clouds; they will no longer be continually occupied in calculating how much they should reject out of the speeches that are addressed to them, the recitals delivered and the portions presented for investigation; or how much artifice, dangerous intention, or afterthought remains hidden in all that proceeds from the throne.... An extended liberty of the press can alone, while restoring confidence, give back that energy to the King and the people which neither can dispense with: it is the life of the soul that requires to be revived in the nation in which it has been extinguished by despotism; that life lies in the free action of the press, and thought can only expand and develope itself in full publicity. No one in France can longer dread the oppression under which we have lived for ten years; but if the want of action which weakness engenders were to succeed that which tyranny imposes;--if the weight of a terrible and mute agitation should be replaced only by the languor of repose, we should never witness a renewal in France of that national activity, that brave and generous disposition which makes many sacrifices to duty;--finally, of that confidence in the sovereign, the necessity of which will be more acknowledged every day. We should merely obtain from the nation a barren tranquillity, the insufficiency of which would compel recourse to measures evil in themselves, and very far removed from the paternal intentions of the King.

Let us, on the contrary, adopt a system of liberty and frankness; let truth circulate freely from the throne to the people, and from the people to the throne; let the paths be opened to those who ought to speak freely, and to others who desire to learn; we shall then see apathy dissipate, suspicion vanish, and loyalty become general and spontaneous, from the certainty of its necessity and usefulness.

Unfortunately, during the twenty-five years which have recently elapsed, we have so deplorably abused many advantages, that, at present, to name them suffices to excite the most deplorable apprehensions. We are not inclined to take into consideration the difference of the times, of situation, of the march of opinion, or of the temperament of men's minds: we look upon as always dangerous what has once proved fatal; we think and act as mothers might do, who, because they saw the infant fall, would prevent the youth from walking.... This inclination is general; we retrace it under every form; and those who have closely observed it will have little trouble in satisfying themselves that perfect liberty of the press, at least with regard to political questions, would, in the present day, be almost without danger. Those who fear it fancy themselves still at the beginning of the Revolution--at that epoch when all pa.s.sions sought only to display themselves, when violence was the popular characteristic, and reason obtained only a contemptuous smile. Nothing can be more dissimilar than that time and the present; and, from the very cause that unlicensed freedom then gave rise to the most disastrous evils, we may infer, unless I deceive myself, that very few would now spring from the same source.

Nevertheless, as many people appear to dread such a result; as I am unwilling to affirm that the experiment might not be followed by certain inconveniences, more mischievous from the fear they would inspire than from the actual consequences they might introduce;--as in the state in which we find ourselves, without a guide in the experience of the past, or certain data for the future, it is natural that we should advance cautiously; and as the spirit of the nation seems to indicate that in every respect circ.u.mspection is necessary, the opinions of those who think that some restrictions should be imposed, ought, perhaps, to prevail. For twenty-five years the nation has been so utterly a stranger to habits of true liberty, it has pa.s.sed through so many different forms of despotism, and the last was felt to be so oppressive, that, in restoring freedom, we may dread inexperience more than impetuosity; it would not dream of attack, but it might prove unequal to defence; in the midst of the necessity for order and peace which is universally felt, in the midst of a collision of opposing interests which must be carefully dealt with, Government may wish, and with reason, to avoid the appearance of clashing and disturbance, which might probably be without importance, but the danger of which would be exaggerated by imagination.

The question then reduces itself to this:--What are, under existing circ.u.mstances, the causes which call for a certain restraint in the liberty of the press? and by what restrictions, conformable to the nature of these causes, can we modify without destroying its freedom?

and how shall we gradually remove these qualifications, for the present considered necessary?

All liberty is placed between oppression and license: the liberty of man in the social state is necessarily restrained by certain laws, the abuse or oblivion of which are equally dangerous; but the circ.u.mstances which expose society to either of these perils are different. In a well-established government, solidly const.i.tuted, the danger against which the friends of liberty have to contend is oppression: all is there combined for the maintenance of law; all tends to support vigorous discipline, against which every individual labours to retain the share of freedom which is his due; the function of government is to support order; that of the governed to watch over liberty.

The state of things is entirely different in a government only commencing. If it follows a period of misfortune and disturbance, during which morality and reason have been equally perverted,--when pa.s.sions have been indulged without curb, when private interests have been paraded without shame,--then oppression falls within the number of dangers which are only to be antic.i.p.ated, while license is that which must be directly opposed. Our Government has not yet attained its full strength; it is not yet possessed of all the means which are to be placed at its disposal to maintain order and rule: before acquiring all, it will be careful not to abuse any; and the governed, who are still without some of the advantages of order, wish to possess all those of confusion. They are not yet sufficiently sure of their own tranquillity, to abstain from attacking that of others. Every one is ready to inflict the blow he is exposed to receive; we offend with impunity the laws which have not yet foreseen all the methods that may be adopted to elude them; we brave without danger the authorities which cannot yet appeal, in their own support, to the experience of the happiness enjoyed under their auspices. It is, then, against particular attempts that constant watch should be kept; thus it becomes necessary to protect liberty from the outrages of license, and sometimes to prevent a strong government from being reduced to defence when uncertain of commanding obedience.

Thus, unrestricted liberty of the press, without detrimental consequences in a state of government free, happy, and strongly const.i.tuted, might prove injurious under a system only commencing, and in which the citizens have still to acquire liberty and prosperity. In the first case there is no danger in allowing freedom of thought and utterance to all, because, if the order of things is good, the great majority of the members of society will be disposed to support it, and also because the nation, enlightened by its actual happiness, will not be easily drawn to the pursuit of something always represented as better, but ever uncertain of acquirement. In the second case, on the contrary, the pa.s.sions and interests of many individuals, differing in themselves, and all, more or less, abstracted from any feeling for the public good, are neither instructed by prosperity nor enlightened by experience; there exist therefore in the nation very few barriers against the plotters of evil, while in the government there are many gaps through which disorder may introduce itself: every species of ambition revives, and none can tell on what point to settle; all seek their place, without being sure of finding it; common sense, which invents nothing, but knows how to select, has no fixed rule upon which to act; the bewildered mult.i.tude, who are directed by nothing and have not yet learned to direct themselves, know not what guide to follow; and in the midst of so many contradictory ideas, and incapable of separating truth from falsehood, the least evil that can happen is, that they may determine to remain in their ignorance and stupidity. While information is still so sparingly disseminated, the license of the press becomes an important obstacle to its progress; men, little accustomed to reason upon certain matters, and poor in positive knowledge, adopt too readily the errors which are propagated from every quarter, and find it difficult to distinguish readily the truth when presented to them; thence originate a host of false and crude notions, a multiplicity of judgments adopted without examination, and a pretended acquirement, the more mischievous as, occupying the place which reason alone should hold, it for a long time interdicts her approach.

The Revolution has proved to us the danger arising from knowledge so erroneously obtained. From this danger we are now called on to protect ourselves. It is better to confess the fact: we have learned wisdom from misfortune; but the despotism of the last ten years has extinguished, for the greater part of the French people, the light we might thence have derived. Some individuals, undoubtedly, have continued to reflect, to observe, and to study--they have been instructed by the very despotism which oppressed them; but the nation in general, crushed and unfortunate, has found itself arrested in the development of its intellectual faculties. When we look closely into the fact, we feel surprised and almost ashamed of our national thoughtlessness and ignorance; we feel the necessity of emerging from it. The most oppressive yoke alone was able to reduce, and could again reduce it for a certain time to silence and inaction; but it requires to be propped and guided, and, after so much experimental imprudence, for the interest even of reason and knowledge, the liberty of the press, which we have never yet enjoyed, ought to be attempted with caution.

Regarded in this point of view, the restrictions which may be applied will less startle the friends of truth and justice; they will see in them nothing more than a concession to existing circ.u.mstances, dictated solely by the interest of the nation; and if care is taken to limit this concession so that it may never become dangerous; if, in establishing a barrier against license, a door is always left open for liberty; if the object of these restrictions is evidently to prepare the French people to dispense with them, and to arrive hereafter at perfect freedom; if they are so combined and modified that the liberty may go on increasing until the nation becomes more capable of enjoying it profitably;--finally, if, instead of impeding the progress of the human mind, they are only calculated to a.s.sure it, and to direct the course of the most enlightened spirits;--so far from considering them as an attack upon the principles of justice, we shall see in them a measure of prudence, a guarantee for public order, and a new motive for hoping that the overthrow of that order will never again occur to disturb or r.e.t.a.r.d the French nation in the career of truth and reason.

No. VI.

_Report to the King, and Royal Decree for the Reform of Public Instruction, February 17th, 1815._

Louis, by the grace of G.o.d, King of France and Navarre, to all who may receive these presents, they come greeting.

Having had an account delivered to us, of the state of public instruction in our kingdom, we have observed that it rested upon inst.i.tutions destined to advance the political views of the Government which had formed them, rather than to extend to our subjects the advantages of moral education, conformable with the necessities of the age. We have rendered justice to the wisdom and zeal of all who were appointed to watch over and direct instruction. We have seen with satisfaction that they have never ceased to struggle against the obstacles which the times opposed to them, and also to the inst.i.tutions which they were called to put in force. But we have felt the necessity of reforming these inst.i.tutions, and of bringing back national education to its true object; which is, to disseminate sound doctrines, to maintain good manners, and to train men who, by their knowledge and virtue, may communicate to society the profitable lessons and wise examples they have received from their masters.

We have maturely considered these inst.i.tutions, which we now propose to reform; and it appears to us that a system of single and absolute authority is incompatible with our paternal intentions and with the liberal spirit of our government;

That this authority, essentially occupied in the direction of the whole, was to a certain extent condemned to be in ignorance or neglectful of those details of daily examination, which can only be intrusted to local supervisors better informed as to the necessities, and more directly interested in the prosperity of the establishments committed to their charge;

That the right of nomination to all these situations, concentrated in the hands of a single person, left too much opening for error, and too much influence to favour, weakening the impulse of emulation, and reducing the teachers to a state of dependence ill suited to the honourable post they occupied, and to the importance of their functions;