The Anglo-French Entente In The Seventeenth Century Part 13

A complete account of the battle that raged round these two treatises it is unnecessary to give here.[258] The drift of the argument is sometimes hard to follow, as civil toleration and ecclesiastical toleration are constantly confounded. The discussion must have unsettled the convictions of the refugees. One of the best instances of the difficulties which beset a sincere believer when examining the question, is a treatise written by a minister at Utrecht, Elie Saurin,[259] who endeavoured to steer a middle course between Jurieu and Bayle. The magistrate, he urged, has received a commission from G.o.d to procure eternal happiness to his people and promote the interests of religion. But the religion thus promoted must be the true religion and none but legitimate means employed to further it. Some of these he proceeds to enumerate: the true Church is more or less a State Church, the magistrate a.s.sists the Church in carrying out her decisions, particularly in depriving heretical ministers. And, further, the magistrate exterminates atheism and immoral religions. But he has no right to the individual conscience. The most honest men in the world entertain errors impossible to eradicate, they may be tolerated. "The magistrate," sums up Saurin, "must do, to establish and propagate the true doctrine and extinguish error, all that he can without offering violence to the conscience, or depriving his subjects of their natural or civil rights." A hard programme to carry out![260]

An influence might be traced of these debates on the minds of the contemporary English political writers. But Bayle's _Commentary_ had a greater influence on French thought. While its philosophical argument appealed to Frenchmen, its lack of a political basis robbed it of popularity in England. That these refugees, with their unmistakable Gallic love for general ideas irrespective of any practical application, should end in gaining regard in their own country is not to be wondered at, but it is surprising that their opinions became popular in France only after Voltaire's visit to England. A few conversations at the Rainbow Coffee-House revealed to him what France had given up with the Edict of Nantes. The originality stamped upon the refugees' works showed that their political teaching was not entirely due to England or Holland. In truth, they either stopped short of English liberty or overstepped the bounds that the prudent Whigs had set to the sovereignty of the people. While Bayle pretty accurately represented the yet to come French eighteenth-century gentleman, a cultured free-thinking monarchist, an enemy to the priests and a conservative Gallican, with a dangerous tendency to allow seductive reasoning to run away with his judgment, Jurieu strangely antic.i.p.ated the fanatical Jacobin. Under Louis XIV. France was a country in which Bayle would have chosen to live. In 1793, in the Public Safety Committee, Jurieu might have been considered by Robespierre as a trustworthy patriot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOUIS XIV DESTROYS HERETICAL BOOKS]

And withal, these refugees are practically unknown in France. Lacking the needed pa.s.sport to fame--the graces of style--they are forgotten; and the melancholy impression one feels in unearthing in the great public libraries their dust-eaten pamphlets, is that of disturbing the dead. The men that live in French literature are the contemporary prose-writers, Bossuet, La Bruyere; but turn to England, compare the influence of those men with that of Bayle or Jurieu, or even Drelincourt. After 1688 the influence in England of French official literature sinks to nothing, while that of the refugee literature is immense. No better justification there is of the necessity of comparative literature to discover the errors of familiar a.s.sertions, and dispel common optical illusions.

FOOTNOTES:

[224] By Lecene and Le Clerc, for instance, in _Conversations sur diverses matieres de religion_, 1687, p. 216.

[225] See Renouvier, _Philosophie a.n.a.lytique de l'histoire_, iii. 537. On Bayle may be read with profit, besides Sayous, _op. cit._ i., studies by Sainte-Beuve, _Port. Litt._ i.; f.a.guet, _Etudes du XVIIIe Siecle_; Brunetiere, _Etudes critiques_, 5e serie; Delvolve, _La Philosophie de Bayle_, 1906; Lenient's work, _Etude sur Bayle_, 1855, is worthless.

[226] _Oeuvres_, vi. p. 292.

[227] "He said there was one Bayle had wrote a naughty book about a comet, that did a great deal of harm ... he said he had not read it."--Burnet, _Own Time_, vi. p. 55 n.

[228] _Pastoral Letters_, III. 1. xv. p. 355.

[229] _Politique du clerge de France_, p. 133.

[230] _Ibid._ p. 75.

[231] _Apologie pour les reformes_, La Haye, 1683, p. 177.

[232] _Avis aux refugies._

[233] _Nouv. Rep. Lettres_, vol. i. p. 141.

[234] _Ibid._ p. 466.

[235] _Traite du pouvoir absolu des souverains_, Cologne, 1685, p. 159.

[236] _Ibid._ p. 25.

[237] _Derniers efforts de l'Innocence affligee_, 1682, pp. 177, 178.

[238] P. 249, cf. "Aux rois appartient le gouvernment exterieur de l'Eglise de Dieu," Bochart, _op. cit._ p. 23.

[239] Schickler, quoting _Bull. Soc. Prot. Franc._, V. 43.

[240] _Avis aux refugies_; _Lettres choisies_, ii. p. 376.

[241] _Droits des deux souverains_.

[242] _Diary_, i. p. 634.

[243] _The Jesuit Unmasked_, 1689.

[244] _Avis aux refugies_, pp. 83, 84.

[245] _Lettres Pastorales_, III. ll. xv.-xviii. (1st April-16th May 1689).

[246] _Derniers efforts de l'innocence affligee_, p. 214.

[247] _Defense de la nation britannique_, La Haye, 1693, p. 107.

[248] _Bayle, Lettres choisies_, ii. p. 453.

[249] Vol. ii. pp. 699, 700 (the first fifteen volumes only are by Bayle).

[250] _Avis aux refugies_, p. 88.

[251] _Histoire des ouvrages des savans_, April 1690, p. 368.

[252] _Instruction pastorale_, Rotterdam, 1719, p. 29.

[253] _Ibid._ pp. 21, 24.

[254] Burnet, _Own Time_, v. p. 199.

[255] _Ce que c'est que la France toute catholique sous le regne de Louis le Grand_, Rotterdam, 1686.

[256] _Commentaire philosophique sur les paroles de Jesus-Christ, Contrains-les d'entrer_, 1686.

[257] _Du droit des deux souverains en matiere de religion, la conscience et le prince_, 1687.

[258] See Puaux, _Precurseurs francais de la tolerance_.

[259] Not to be confounded with Jacques Saurin, the preacher.

[260] _Reflexions sur les droits de la conscience_, Utrecht, 1697.

CHAPTER VII

SHAKESPEARE AND CHRISTOPHE MONGOYE

Viewed in the light of the most recent critical research, what we know of a certainty about Shakespeare amounts to very little. According to Professor George Saintsbury,[261] "almost all the commonly received stuff of his life-story is shreds and patches of tradition, if not positive dream work"; and he goes on to say that we know nothing either of the poet's father or wife; that it is impossible to affirm that he ever married; that the beginning of his career as a dramatist and the dates of the first production of most of his plays are still shrouded in mystery. Therefore when a scholar proclaims that he has discovered some new well-authenticated fact about Shakespeare, he deserves at least a hearing.

This is how the most significant discovery made since the time of Malone was hailed by a literary paper of wide circulation and undoubted influence: "Interesting as is this new notice of Shakespeare, it has attached to it a number of casual a.s.sumptions and a dose of sentiment which makes no appeal to the serious student. The legal proceedings to which the signature is appended throw little light, if any, on Shakespeare's literary personality."[262] Those for whom the _Athenaeum_ is a guide must have come to the conclusion that they need not worry about what seemed to amount to little more than an idle story; the new signature excepted, which, after all, would merely provide an engraving for some yet unwritten book, the papers might as well have been suffered to slumber on undisturbed in their pigeon-hole at the Record Office.

Luckily for the author of the discovery, there is a spell in Shakespeare's name so potent that it is impossible to mention it, even coupled with Mrs.

E. W. Gallup or Mr. W. S. Booth's conjectures, without attracting some attention.