Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, volume 05 — Selected excerpts

[Illustration: Signature: Adolphe Cohn] FROM THE SERMON 'UPON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH'

When the time had come at which the Roman Empire of the West was to collapse and Gaul was to become France, God did not allow such a noble part of Christendom to remain long under idolatrous princes; and wishing to hand over to the kings of the French the keeping of his Church, which he had formerly intrusted to the emperors, he gave not to France only, but to the whole Western world, a new Constantine in the person of Clovis.

The miraculous victory which he sent from heaven to each of these two princes in their wars was a pledge of his love, and the glorious inducement which attracted them to Christianity.

Faith triumphed, and the warlike nation of the Franks knew that the God of Clotilda was the true God of armies.

Then Saint Remi saw that by placing the kings of France and their people in the bosom of Jesus Christ, he had given to the Church a set of invincible protectors.

This great saint, this new Samuel called to anoint the kings, anointed these, in his own words, "to be the perpetual defender of the Church and the poor": a worthy object for royalty to pursue.

After teaching them how to make churches flourish and populations thrive (believe ye that he himself is now speaking to you, as I only recite the fatherly words of this apostle of the French), day and night he prayed to God that they should persevere in His faith and reign according to the rules he had given them; assuring them at the same time that in enlarging their kingdom they would enlarge the kingdom of Christ, and that if they faithfully kept the laws he prescribed in the name of God, the empire of Rome would be given to them, so that from the kings of France would issue Emperors worthy of that title, through whom Christ would reign.

Such were the blessings which a thousand and a thousand times the great Saint Remi poured upon the French and their kings, whom he always called his dear children; unceasingly praising God for his kindness, because, with a view to strengthen the incipient faith of this God-blessed nation, he had deigned, through his own sinner's hands (these are his own words), to repeat, before the eyes of all the French and of their king, the miracles which had burst upon the world in the early foundation of Christian churches.

All the saints then living rejoiced;

and in this decline of the Roman Empire, it seemed to them that there appeared in the kings of France "a new Light for the whole West."

"In occiduis partibus novi jubaris lumen effulgurat;" and not for the West alone, but for all the Church, to which this new kingdom promised new advances.

This is what was said by Saint Avitus, the learned and holy bishop of Vienne, the weighty and eloquent advocate of the Church of Rome, who was directed by his colleagues, the revered bishops of Gaul, to recommend to the Romans in the cause of Pope Symmachus the common cause of the whole episcopacy; "because," so said that great man, "when the Pope, the chief of all the bishops, is assailed, then not one bishop alone, but the whole episcopacy is in danger."

OPENING OF THE

FUNERAL ORATION ON HENRIETTA OF FRANCE

_My Lord_[4]: [Footnote 4: This oration was delivered in the presence of the Duke of Orleans, son-in-law of Henrietta of France; it is he whom Bossuet addresses in beginning his speech.

] He who reigns in heaven and who is the Lord of all the empires, to whom alone majesty, glory, and independence belong, is also the only one who glories in dictating laws to kings, and in giving them, when it so pleases him, great and terrible lessons.

Whether he raises or lowers thrones; whether he communicates his own power to princes, or reclaims it all and leaves them nothing but their own weakness, he teaches them their duties in a manner both sovereign and worthy of him; for when giving them his power, he commands them to use it, as he does, for the good of the world; and he shows them in withdrawing it that all their majesty is borrowed, and that, though seated on the throne, they are nevertheless under his hand and supreme authority.

Thus does he teach princes, not only by words but by deeds and examples.

"Et nunc, reges, intelligite; erudimini, qui judicatis terram."

Christians, ye who have been called from all sides to this ceremony by the memory of a great Queen,--daughter, wife, mother of powerful kings and of sovereigns of three kingdoms,--this speech will bring before you one of those conspicuous examples which spread before the eyes of the world its absolute vanity.

You will see in a single life all the extremes of human affairs: boundless felicity and boundless misery; a long and peaceful possession of one of the world's noblest crowns; all that can be given of the glories of birth and rank gathered upon a head which is afterwards exposed to all the insults of fortune; the good cause at first rewarded by success, then met by sudden turns and unheard-of changes; rebellion long restrained, at last over-riding everything; unbridled licentiousness; the destruction of all laws; royal majesty insulted by crimes before unknown; usurpation and tyranny under the name of liberty; a queen pursued by her enemies, and finding no refuge in either of her kingdoms; her own native land become a melancholy place of exile; many voyages across the sea undertaken by a princess, in spite of the tempest; the ocean surprised at being crossed so often, in such different ways, and for so different causes; a throne shamefully destroyed and miraculously restored.

Those are the lessons which are given by God to the kings; thus does He show to the world the emptiness of its pomps and splendors.

If I lack words, if expression is unable to do justice to a subject of such magnitude and loftiness, things alone will speak sufficiently; the heart[5] of a great queen, formerly raised by long years of prosperity and suddenly plunged into an abyss of bitterness, will speak loudly enough; and if private characters are not allowed to give lessons to princes upon such strange occurrences, a king lends me his voice to tell them.

"Et nunc, reges, intelligite; erudimini, qui judicatis terram:" Understand now, ye kings of the earth; learn, ye who judge the world.

[Footnote 5: The Queen's heart was kept in the church where Bossuet was speaking.

] But the wise and religious Princess who is the subject of this discourse was not simply a spectacle presented to them that they may study therein the counsels of Divine Providence and the fatal revolutions of monasteries: she was her own instructor, while God instructed all princes through her example.

I have said already that the Divine Lord teaches them both by giving and by taking away their power.

The Queen of whom I speak understood one of these lessons as well as the other, contrary as they are, which means that in good as well as in evil fortune she behaved as a Christian.

In the one she was charitable, in the other invincible.

While prosperous she made her power felt by the world through infinite blessings; when fortune forsook her, she enlarged her own treasure of virtues, so that she lost for her own good this royal power which she had had for the good of others.

And if her subjects, if her allies, if the Church Universal were the gainers by her greatness, she gained by her misfortunes and humiliations more than she had done by all her glory.

THE GREAT REBELLION

I confess, on entering upon my undertaking, that I realize its difficulty more than ever.

When I fasten my eyes upon the unheard-of misfortunes of such a great queen, I fail to find words; and my mind, revolted by so many undeserved hardships inflicted upon majesty and virtue, would never consent to rush into such a maze of horrors, if the admirable constancy with which this princess bore her reverses had not risen far above the crimes by which they were caused.

But at the same time, Christians, I labor under another solicitude: what I meditate upon is no human work; I am not here a historian, about to unravel to you the mysteries of cabinets, or the order of battles, or the interests of parties; I must rise above man in order that every creature should tremble under the judgments of God.

"I shall enter with David into the powers of the Lord," and I have to show you the wonders of his hand and of his resolutions: resolutions of deserved punishment for England, resolutions of compassion for the Queen's salvation; but resolutions stamped by the finger of God, whose imprint is so striking and manifest in the events of which I have to treat, that no one can fail to be dazzled by his light.

When we go back in time, no matter how far, and investigate in the histories the instances of great revolutions, we find that hitherto they have been caused by the licentiousness or violence of princes.

For when princes, ceasing to study their civil and military affairs, make hunting their only labor, or as was said by one historian, find all their glory in their splendor, and put all their mind to the invention of new pleasures; or when, carried away by their violent natures, they cease to respect the laws and to know any bounds, and thus lose both the respect and the fear of their subjects, because the ills those subjects are bearing seem more unendurable than those they only fear,--then, either excessive licentiousness or patience driven to extremity is full of menace to reigning houses.

Charles I. , King of England, was just, moderate, magnanimous, very well informed in regard to his affairs and to the arts of government; never was there a prince more able to make royalty not only venerable and holy, but also loved and cherished by his people.

What fault can be found with him, save clemency?

I am willing to say of him what a celebrated writer said of Cæsar, that he was so clement as to be compelled to repent it.

("Cæsari proprium et peculiare sit elementiæ insigne qua usque ad poenitentiam omnes superavit."

) Let this be, then, if you will, the illustrious fault of Charles as well as of Caesar; but if any one wishes to believe that misfortune and defeat are always associated with weakness, do not let him think, for all that, he can persuade us that either strength was wanting in Charles's courage or energy in his resolutions.

When pursued to the very last extremities by Fortune's implacable malignity, and betrayed by all his people, he never deserted his own cause; in spite of the ill success of his unfortunate arms, though conquered he was not subdued; and just as he never when victorious refused that which was reasonable, when captive he always rejected that which was weak and unjust.

I can hardly behold his great heart in his last trials: but certainly he showed that no rebels can deprive of his majesty a king who really knows himself; and those who saw with what visage he appeared in Westminster Hall and in Whitehall Square can easily judge how intrepid he was at the head of his armies, how august and imposing in the middle of his palace and court.

Great Queen, I satisfy your tenderest desires when I celebrate this monarch;

and this heart, which never lived but for him, wakes up from its dust and resumes sentiment, even under this funeral drapery, at the name of such a beloved husband, whom his enemies themselves will call wise and just, and whom posterity will name among great princes, provided his history finds readers whose judgment does not allow itself to be swayed by events and by fortune.

Those who are informed in regard to the facts, being compelled to admit that the king's conduct had given no reason and not even a pretext for the sacrilegious excesses the memory of which is abhorred by us, ascribe them to the unconquerable haughtiness of the nation; and I own that the hatred of parricides is apt to throw our minds into such an opinion: but when we more closely consider the history of this great kingdom, especially during the last reigns, in which not simply adult kings, but even children under guardianship and queens themselves have wielded a power so absolute, and inspired so much terror; when we see the incredible facility with which the true Religion was by turns upset and restored by Henry, Edward, Mary, Elizabeth, we do not find either the nation so prone to rebel nor its Parliaments so proud and factious.

Rather we are compelled to reproach these people with too much docility, since they placed under the yoke even their faith and conscience.

Do not let us then make blind accusations against the inhabitants of the most celebrated island in the world, who according to the most reliable histories trace their origin back to Gaul; and do not let us believe that the Mercians, the Danes, and the Saxons have so far corrupted in them the good blood which they had received from our ancestors as to lead them to such barbarous proceedings, if some other causes had not intervened.

What is it, then, that drove them on?

What force, what transport, what disturbance of the elements stirred these agitations, these violences?

There is no doubt, Christians, that false religions, infidelity, the thirst of disputing on things divine without end, without rule, without submission, carried away their hearts.

Those are the enemies against which the Queen had to fight, and which neither her prudence, her leniency, nor her firmness could conquer.

A man appeared, of a mind incredibly deep, a consummate dissembler and at the same time a powerful statesman, capable of undertaking everything and of concealing everything, no less active and indefatigable in peace than in war; who left nothing to fortune of that which he could take from it by wisdom or foresight, but withal so vigilant, so well prepared for everything, that he never failed to improve any opportunity: in short, one of those restless and audacious minds which seem to have been born in order to transform the world.

How dangerous the fate of such minds, and how many appear in history who were ruined by their very boldness!

But at the same time, what do they not achieve when it pleases God to make use of them!

To this one it was given to deceive the people and to prevail against the kings.

For as he had discovered that in this infinite medley of sects, which no longer had any fixed rules, the pleasure of dogmatic arguing without any fear of being reprimanded or restrained by any authority, either ecclesiastical or secular, was the spell that charmed their minds, he so well managed to conciliate them thereby that out of this monstrous medley he created a formidable unit.

When a man has once found a way of seducing the multitude with the bait of freedom, they afterwards blindly follow, provided they still hear the beloved word.

These, occupied with the object that had first transported them, were still going on without noticing that they were going to servitude; and their subtle leader--who while fighting and arguing, while uniting in himself a thousand different characters, while acting as theologian and prophet as well as soldier and captain, saw that he had so bewitched the world that he was looked upon by the whole army as a chief sent by God for the protection of independence--began to perceive that he could drive them still further.

I shall not relate to you the story of his too prosperous undertakings nor his famous victories which made virtue indignant, nor his long tranquillity which astonished the world.

It was God's purpose to instruct the kings not to desert his Church.

He wished to reveal by one great example all that heresy can do, how indocile and independent it naturally is, how fatal to royalty and to any legitimate authority.

Moreover, when this great God has chosen any one for the instrument of his designs nothing can stop his course: he either chains or blinds or subdues all that is capable of resistance.

"I am the Lord," he says through the lips of Jeremiah; "I am he who made the earth, with the men and animals; and I place it in the hands of whomsoever pleases me; and now I wished to submit these lands to Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, my servant."

He calls him his servant, although an infidel, because he selected him for enforcing his decrees.

"And I order," he goes on, "that everything be obedient unto him, even the animals;" thus it is that everything bends and becomes flexible when God so commands!

But listen to the rest of the prophecy:--"I order that these people shall obey him, and shall obey his son also, until the time of the one and the other do come."

See, ye Christians, how clearly marked the times are, how numbered the generations: God determines how long the sleep of the world shall be, and also when the awakening is to come.

* * * * * God held twelve years, without relaxing, without any consolation from men, our unfortunate Queen (let us loudly call her by this title, which she made a cause for thanksgiving), making her learn under his hand such hard but useful lessons.

At last, softened by her prayers and her humble patience, he restored the royal house; Charles II.

is recognized and the injury of the kings is avenged.

Those whom arms could not conquer, nor reasoning convince, came back suddenly of their own accord: disappointed in their freedom, they at last came to detest its excesses, ashamed that they had had so much power, and horrified at their own success.

We know that this magnanimous prince might have hastened things by making use of the hands of those who offered to destroy tyranny at one blow: but his great soul disdained these low agencies; he believed that whatever were the conditions of kings, it behoved their majesty to act only by the laws or by arms.

These laws, which he defended, restored him almost by themselves; he reigns, peaceful and glorious, on his ancestors' throne, and with and through him also reign justice, wisdom, and mercy.

FROM THE 'DISCOURSE UPON UNIVERSAL HISTORY'

INTRODUCTION

Even were history useless to other men, it would still be necessary to have it read by princes.

There is no better way of making them discover what can be brought about by passions and interests, by times and circumstances, by good and bad advice.

The books of historians are filled with the actions that occupy them, and everything therein seems to have been done for their use.

If experience is necessary to them for acquiring that prudence which enables them to become good rulers, nothing is more useful to their instruction than to add to the example of past centuries the experiences with which they meet every day.

While usually they learn to judge of the dangerous circumstances that surround them, only at the expense of their subjects and of their own glory, by the help of history they form their judgment upon the events of the past without risking anything.

When they see even the most completely hidden vices of princes exposed to the eyes of all men, in spite of the insincere praise which they received while alive, they feel ashamed of the empty joy which flattery gives them, and they acknowledge that true glory cannot obtain without real merit.

Moreover, it would be disgraceful,--I do not say for a prince, but in general for any educated man,--not to know the human kind and the memorable changes which took place in the world through the lapse of ages.

If we do not learn from history to distinguish the times, we shall represent men under the law of nature, or under the civil law, the same as under the sway of the gospel; we shall speak of the Persians conquered under Alexander in the same way as of the Persians victorious under Cyrus; we shall represent Greece as free in the time of Philip as in the time of Themistocles or Miltiades; the Roman people as proud under the Emperors as under the Consuls; the Church as quiet under Diocletian as under Constantine; and France, disturbed by civil wars under Charles IX.

and Henri III.

, as powerful as in the time of Louis XIV.

, when, united under such a great King, alone she triumphs over the whole of Europe.

PUBLIC SPIRIT IN ROME

He who can put into the minds of the people patience in labor, a feeling for glory and the nation's greatness, and love of their country, can boast of having framed the political constitution best fitted for the production of great men.

It is undoubtedly to great men that the strength of an empire is due.

Nature never fails to bring forth in all countries lofty minds and hearts; but we must assist it in forming them.

What forms and perfects them consists of strong feelings and noble impressions which spread through all minds and invisibly pass from one to another.

What is it that makes our nobility so proud in battle, so bold in its undertakings?

It is the opinion received from childhood and established by the unanimous sentiment of the nation, that a nobleman without valor degrades himself and is no longer worthy to see the light of day.

All the Romans were nurtured in these sentiments, and the common people vied with the aristocracy as to who would in action be most faithful to these vigorous maxims....

The fathers who did not bring their children up in these maxims, and in the manner necessary to enable them to serve the State, were called into court before the magistrates and there adjudged guilty of a crime against the public.

When such a course has been entered upon, great men produce great men to succeed them; and if Rome has had such men in greater number than any other city, it is nowise due to chance; it is because the Roman State, constituted in the manner which we have described, possessed as it were the very nature that must needs be most prolific of heroes.

JAMES BOSWELL