History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

310

As several writers on law notice this system with a lenient eye Origines du Droit Français, in Œuvres de Michelet, vol. ii. p. 321; and Eschbach, Etude du Droit, p. 129: ‘le système énergique de la centralisation’, it may be well to state how it actually works.

Mr. Bulwer, writing twenty years ago, says: ‘Not only cannot a commune determine its own expenses without the consent of the minister or one of his deputed functionaries, it cannot even erect a building, the cost of which shall have been sanctioned, without the plan being adopted by a board of public works attached to the central authority, and having the supervision and direction of every public building throughout the Kingdom.’ Bulwer's Monarchy of the Middle Classes, 1836, vol. ii. p. 262.

M. Tocqueville, writing in the present year (1856), says, ‘Sous l'ancien régime, comme de nos jours, il n'y avait ville, bourg, village, ni si petit hameau en France, hôpital, fabrique, couvent ni collège, qui pût avoir une volonté indépendante dans ses affaires particulières, ni administrer à sa volonté ses propres biens. Alors, comme aujourd'hui, l'administration tenait donc tous les Français en tutelle, et si l'insolence du mot ne s'était pas encore produite, on avait du moins déjà la chose.’ Tocqueville, l'Ancien Régime, 1856, pp. 79, 80.

311

The number of civil functionaries in France, who are paid by the government to trouble the people, passes all belief, being estimated, at different periods during the present century, at from 138,000 to upwards of 800,000. Tocqueville, de la Démocratie, vol. i. p. 220; Alison's Europe, vol. xiv. pp. 127, 140; Kay's Condition of the People, vol. i. p. 272; Laing's Notes, 2d series, p. 185. Mr. Laing, writing in 1850, says: ‘In France, at the expulsion of Louis Philippe, the civil functionaries were stated to amount to 807,030 individuals.’

312

‘The government in France possesses control over all the education of the country, with the exception of the colleges for the education of the clergy, which are termed seminaries, and their subordinate institutions.’ Report on the State of Superior Education in France in 1843, in Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. vi. p. 304. On the steps taken during the power of Napoleon, see Alison's Europe, vol. viii. p. 203: ‘Nearly the whole education of the empire was brought effectually under the direction and appointment of government.’

313

Much attention is paid to the surveillance of pupils; it being a fundamental principle of French education, that children should never be left alone. Report on General Education in France in 1842, in Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. v. p. 20.

314

A distinguished French author says: ‘La France souffre du mal du siècle; elle en est plus malade qu'aucun autre pays; ce mal c'est la haine de l'autorité.’ Custine, Russie, vol. ii. p. 136. Compare, Rey, Science Sociale, vol. ii. p. 86 note.

315

It is to the activity of this protective and centralizing spirit that we must ascribe, what a very great authority noticed thirty years ago, as ‘le défaut de spontanéité, qui caractérise les institutions de la France moderne.’ Meyer, Instit. Judic. vol. iv. p. 536. It is also this which, in literature and in science, makes them favour the establishment of academies; and it is probably to the same principle that their jurists owe their love of codification. All these are manifestations of an unwillingness to rely on the general march of affairs, and show an undue contempt for the unaided conclusions of private men.

316

Mably (Observations, vol. iii. pp. 154, 155, 352–362) has collected some striking evidence of the tyranny of the French nobles in the sixteenth century; and as to the wanton cruelty with which they exercised their power in the seventeenth century, see Des Réaux, Historiettes, vol. vii. p. 155, vol. viii. p. 79, vol. ix. pp. 40, 61, 62, vol. x. pp. 255–257. In the eighteenth century, matters were somewhat better; but still the subordination was excessive, and the people were poor, ill-treated, and miserable. Compare Œuvres de Turgot, vol. iv. p. 139; Letter from the Earl of Cork, dated Lyons, 1754, in Burton's Diary, vol. iv. p. 80; the statement of Fox, in Parl. Hist. vol. xxxi. p. 406; Jefferson's Correspond. vol. ii. p. 45; and Smith's Tour on the Continent, edit. 1793, vol. iii. pp. 201, 202.

317

Mr. Eccleston (English Antiq. p. 138) says, that in 1450 ‘villenage had almost passed away;’ and according to Mr. Thornton (Over-Population, p. 182), ‘Sir Thomas Smith, who wrote about the year 1550, declares that he had never met with any personal or domestic slaves; and that the villains, or predial slaves, still to be found, were so few, as to be scarcely worth mentioning.’ Mr. Hallam can find no ‘unequivocal testimony to the existence of villenage’ later than 1574. Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 312; see, to the same effect, Barrington on the Statutes, pp. 308, 309. If, however, my memory does not deceive me, I have met with evidence of it in the reign of James I., but I cannot recall the passage.

318

M. Cassagnac (Causes de la Révolution, vol. iii. p. 11) says: ‘Chose surprenante, il y avait encore, au 4 août 1789, un million cinq cent mille serfs de corps;’ and M. Giraud (Précis de l'Ancien Droit, Paris, 1852, p. 3), ‘jusqu'à la révolution une division fondamentale partageait les personnes en personnes libres et personnes sujettes à condition servile.’ A few years before the Revolution, this shameful distinction was abolished by Louis XVI. in his own domains. Compare Eschbach, Etude du Droit, pp. 271, 272, with Du Mesnil, Mém. sur le Prince le Brun, p. 94. I notice this particularly, because M. Monteil, a learned and generally accurate writer, supposes that the abolition took place earlier than it really did. Hist. des divers Etats, vol. vi. p. 101.

319

Cassagnac, de la Révolution, vol. i. pp. 122, 173; Giraud, Ancien Droit, p. 11; Soulavie, Mém. de Louis XVI, vol. vi. p. 156; Mém. au Roi sur les Municipalités, in Œuvres de Turgot, vol. vii. p. 423; Mém. de Genlis, vol. i. p. 200.

Further information respecting the amount and nature of these vexatious impositions will be found in De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. xiii. p. 24, vol. xiv. p. 118; Saint-Aulaire, Hist. de la Fronde, vol. i. p. 125; Tocqueville, Ancien Régime, pp. 135, 191, 420, 440; Sully, Œconomies Royales, vol. ii. p. 412, vol. iii. p. 226, vol. iv. p. 199, vol. v. pp. 339, 410, vol. vi. p. 94; Relat. des Ambassad. Vénit. vol. i. p. 96; Mably, Observations, vol. iii. pp. 355, 356; Boulainvilliers, Ancien Gouvernement, vol. iii. p. 109; Le Vassor, Hist. de Louis XIII, vol. ii. p. 29; Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. ii. pp. 103, 369; Mém. de Montglat, vol. i. p. 82; Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. i. pp. 87, 332; Œuvres de Turgot, vol. i. p. 372, vol. iv. pp. 58, 59, 74, 75, 242, 278, vol. v. pp. 226, 242, vol. vi. p. 144, vol. viii. pp. 152, 280.

320

So deeply rooted were these feelings, that, even in 1789, the very year the Revolution broke out, it was deemed a great concession that the nobles ‘will consent, indeed, to equal taxation.’ See a letter from Jefferson to Jay, dated Paris, May 9th, 1789, in Jefferson's Corresp. vol. ii. pp. 462, 463. Compare Mercier sur Rousseau, vol. i. p. 136.

321

‘Les nobles, qui avaient le privilége exclusif des grandes dignités et des gros bénéfices.’ Mém. de Rivarol, p. 97: see also Mém. de Bouillé, vol. i. p. 56; Lemontey, Etablissement Monarchique, p. 337; Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Françoise, vol. ii. p. 556; Campan, Mém. sur Marie-Antoinette, vol. i. pp. 238, 239.

322

‘L'ancien régime n'avait admis que des nobles pour officiers.’ Mém. de Roland, vol. i. p. 398. Ségur mentions that, early in the reign of Louis XVI., ‘les nobles seuls avaient le droit d'entrer au service comme sous-lieutenans.’ Mém. de Ségur, vol. i. p. 65. Compare pp. 117, 265–271, with Mém. de Genlis, vol. iii. p. 74, and De Staël, Consid. sur la Rév. vol. i. p. 123.

323

Thus, De Thou says of Henry III., ‘il remet sous l'ancien pied la cavalerie ordinaire, qui n'étoit composée que de la noblesse.’ Hist. Univ. vol. ix. pp. 202, 203; and see vol. x. pp. 504, 505, vol. xiii. p. 22; and an imperfect statement of the same fact in Boullier, Hist. des divers Corps de la Maison Militaire des Rois de France, Paris, 1818, p. 58, a superficial work on an uninteresting subject.

324

M. Tocqueville (L'Ancien Régime, p. 448) mentions, among other regulations still in force late in the eighteenth century, that ‘en Dauphiné, en Bretagne, en Normandie, il est prohibé à tout roturier d'avoir des colombiers, fuies et volière; il n'y a que les nobles qui puissent avoir des pigeons.’

325

‘Dès la fin du onzième siècle, à l'époque même où commencèrent les croisades, on trouve la chevalerie établie.’ Koch, Tab. des Révolutions, vol. i. p. 143; see also Sainte-Palaye, Mém. sur la Chevalerie, vol. i. pp. 42, 68. M. Guizot (Civilis. en France, vol. iii. pp. 349–354) has attempted to trace it back to an earlier period; but he appears to have failed, though of course its germs may be easily found. According to some writers it originated in northern Europe; according to others in Arabia! Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 202; Journal of Asiat. Soc. vol. ii. p. 11.

326

‘L'ordre de chevalerie n'étoit accordé qu'aux hommes d'un sang noble.’ Sismondi, Hist. des Français, vol. iv. p. 204. Compare Daniel, Hist. de la Milice, vol. i. p. 97, and Mills' Hist. of Chivalry, vol. i. p. 20.

327

‘In some places there were schools appointed by the nobles of the country, but most frequently their own castles served.’ Mills' Hist. of Chivalry, vol. i. p. 31; and see Sainte-Palaye, Mém. sur l'Anc. Chevalerie, vol. i. pp. 30, 56, 57, on this education.

328

This combination of knighthood and religious rites is often ascribed to the crusades; but there is good evidence that it took place a little earlier, and must be referred to the latter half of the eleventh century. Compare Mills' Hist. of Chivalry, vol. i. pp. 10, 11; Daniel, Hist. de la Milice, vol. i. pp. 101, 102, 108; Boulainvilliers, Ancien Gouv. vol. i. p. 326. Sainte-Palaye (Mém. sur la Chevalerie, vol. i. pp. 119–123), who has collected some illustrations of the relation between chivalry and the church, says, p. 119, ‘enfin la chevalerie étoit regardée comme une ordination, un sacerdoce.’ The superior clergy possessed the right of conferring knighthood, and William Rufus was actually knighted by Archbishop Lanfranc: ‘Archiepiscopus Lanfrancus, eo quòd eum nutrierat, et militem fecerat.’ Will. Malmes. lib. iv., in Scriptores post Bedam, p. 67. Compare Fosbroke's British Monachism, 1843, p. 101, on knighting by abbots.

329

The influence of this on the nobles is rather exaggerated by Mr. Mills; who, on the other hand, has not noticed how the unhereditary element was favourable to the ecclesiastical spirit. Mills' Hist. of Chivalry, vol. i. pp. 15, 389, vol. ii. p. 169; a work interesting as an assemblage of facts, but almost useless as a philosophic estimate.

330

‘In their origin all the military orders, and most of the religious ones, were entirely aristocratic.’ Mills' Hist. of Chivalry, vol. i. p. 336.

331

Mills' Hist. of Chivalry, vol. i. pp. 148, 338. About the year 1127, St. Bernard wrote a discourse in favour of the Knights Templars, in which ‘he extols this order as a combination of monasticism and knighthood… He describes the design of it as being to give the military order and knighthood a serious Christian direction, and to convert war into something that God might approve.’ Neander's Hist. of the Church, vol. vii. p. 358. To this may be added, that, early in the thirteenth century, a chivalric association was formed, and afterwards merged in the Dominican order, called the Militia of Christ: ‘un nouvel ordre de chevalerie destiné à poursuivre les hérétiques, sur le modèle de celui des Templiers, et sous le nom de Milice de Christ.’ Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, vol. i. pp. 52, 133, 203.

332

Several writers ascribe to chivalry the merit of softening manners, and of increasing the influence of women. Sainte-Palaye, Mém. sur la Chevalerie, vol. i. pp. 220–223, 282, 284, vol. iii. pp. vi. vii. 159–161; Helvétius de l'Esprit, vol. ii. pp. 50, 51; Schlegel's Lectures, vol. i. p. 209. That there was such a tendency is, I think, indisputable; but it has been greatly exaggerated; and an author of considerable reading on these subjects says, ‘The rigid treatment shown to prisoners of war in ancient times strongly marks the ferocity and uncultivated manners of our ancestors, and that even to ladies of high rank; notwithstanding the homage said to have been paid to the fair sex in those days of chivalry.’ Grose's Military Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 114. Compare Manning on the Law of Nations, 1839, pp. 145, 146.

333

Mr. Hallam (Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 464) says, ‘A third reproach may be made to the character of knighthood, that it widened the separation between the different classes of society, and confirmed that aristocratical spirit of high birth, by which the large mass of mankind were kept in unjust degradation.’

334

Sismondi, Hist. des Français, vol. iv. pp. 370, 371, 377; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. iv. p. 478; Foncemagne, De l'Origine des Armoiries, in Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, vol. xx. p. 580. Koch also says (Tableau des Révolutions, vol. i. p. 139), ‘c'est de la France que l'usage des tournois se répandit chez les autres nations de l'Europe.’ They were first introduced into England in the reign of Stephen. Lingard's England, vol. ii. p. 27.

335

Mr. Hallam (Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 470) says they were ‘entirely discontinued in France’ in consequence of the death of Henry II.; but according to Mills' Hist. of Chivalry, vol. ii. p. 226, they lasted the next year; when another fatal accident occurred, and ‘tournaments ceased for ever.’ Compare Sainte-Palaye sur la Chevalerie, vol. ii. pp. 39, 40.

336

Mr. Hallam (Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 467) observes, that the knight, as compared with other classes, ‘was addressed by titles of more respect. There was not, however, so much distinction in England as in France.’ The great honour paid to knights in France is noticed by Daniel (Milice Française, vol. i. pp. 128, 129) and Herder (Ideen zur Geschichte, vol. iv. pp. 226, 267) says, that in France chivalry flourished more than in any other country. The same remark is made by Sismondi (Hist. des Français, vol. iv. p. 198).

337

The Statutum de Militibus, in 1307, was perhaps the first recognition of this. Compare Blackstone's Comment. vol. ii. p. 69; Barrington on the Statutes, pp. 192, 193. But we have positive evidence that compulsory knighthood existed in the reign of Henry III.; or at least that those who refused it were obliged to pay a fine. See Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 421, and Lyttleton's Hist. of Henry II. vol. ii. pp. 238, 239, 2nd edit. 4to. 1767. Lord Lyttleton, evidently puzzled, says, ‘Indeed it seems a deviation from the original principle of this institution. For one cannot but think it a very great inconsistency, that a dignity, which was deemed an accession of honour to kings themselves, should be forced upon any.’

338

In Mills' Hist. of Chivalry, vol. ii. p. 154, it is said, that ‘the judges of the courts of law’ were first knighted in the reign of Edward III.

339

Mr. Mills (Hist. of Chivalry, vol. ii. pp. 99, 100) has printed a curious extract from a lamentation over the destruction of chivalry, written in the reign of Edward IV.; but he has overlooked a still more singular instance. This is a popular ballad, written in the middle of the fifteenth century, and called the Turnament of Tottenham, in which the follies of chivalry are admirably ridiculed. See Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, edit. 1840, vol. iii. pp. 98–101; and Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, edit. 1845, pp. 92–95. According to Turner (Hist. of England, vol. vi. p. 363), ‘the ancient books of chivalry were laid aside’ about the reign of Henry VI.

340

This is not a mere popular opinion, but rests upon a large amount of evidence, supplied by competent and impartial observers. Addison, who was a lenient as well as an able judge, and who had lived much among the French, calls them ‘the vainest nation in the world.’ Letter to Bishop Hough, in Aikin's Life of Addison, vol. i. p. 90. Napoleon says, ‘vanity is the ruling principle of the French.’ Alison's Hist. of Europe, vol. vi. p. 25. Dumont (Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 111) declares, that ‘le trait le plus dominant dans le caractère français, c'est l'amour propre;’ and Ségur (Souvenirs, vol. i. pp. 73, 74), ‘car en France l'amour propre, ou, si on le veut, la vanité, est de toutes les passions la plus irritable.’ It is moreover stated, that phrenological observations prove that the French are vainer than the English. Combe's Elements of Phrenology, 6th edit. Edinb. 1845, p. 90; and a partial recognition of the same fact in Broussais, Cours de Phrénologie, p. 297. For other instances of writers who have noticed the vanity of the French, see Tocqueville, l'Ancien Régime, p. 148; Barante, Lit. Franç. au XVIIIe. Siècle, p. 80; Mém. de Brissot, vol. i. p. 272; Mézéray, Hist. de France, vol. ii. p. 933; Lemontey, Etablissement Monarchique, p. 418; Voltaire, Lettres inédites, vol. ii. p. 282; Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. ii. p. 358; De Staël sur la Révolution, vol. i. p. 260, vol. ii. p. 258.

341

The relation between chivalry and duelling has been noticed by several writers; and in France, where the chivalric spirit was not completely destroyed until the Revolution, we find occasional traces of this connexion even in the reign of Louis XVI. See, for instance, in Mém. de Lafayette, vol. i. p. 86, a curious letter in regard to chivalry and duelling in 1778. In England there is, I believe, no evidence of even a single private duel being fought earlier than the sixteenth century, and there were not many till the latter half of Elizabeth's reign; but in France the custom arose early in the fifteenth century, and in the sixteenth it became usual for the seconds to fight as well as the principals. Compare Montlosier, Monarc. Franç. vol. ii. p. 436, with Monteil, Hist. des divers Etats, vol. vi. p. 48. From that time the love of the French for duelling became quite a passion until the end of the eighteenth century, when the Revolution, or rather the circumstances which led to the Revolution, caused its comparative cessation. Some idea may be formed of the enormous extent of this practice formerly in France, by comparing the following passages, which I have the more pleasure in bringing together, as no one has written even a tolerable history of duelling, notwithstanding the great part it once played in European society. De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. ix. pp. 592, 593, vol. xv. p. 57; Daniel, Milice Française, vol. ii. p. 582; Sully, Œconomies, vol. i. p. 301, vol. iii. p. 406, vol. vi. p. 122, vol. viii. p. 41, vol. ix. p. 408; Carew's State of France under Henry IV., in Birch's Historical Negotiations, p. 467; Ben Jonson's Works, edit. Gifford, vol. vi. p. 69; Dulaure, Hist. de Paris (1825 3rd edit.), vol. iv. p. 567, vol. v. pp. 300, 301; Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Univ. vol. xx. p. 242; Lettres de Patin, vol. iii. p. 536; Capefigue, Hist. de la Réforme, vol. viii. p. 98; Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 63; Des Réaux, Historiettes, vol. x. p. 13; Mém. de Genlis, vol. ii. p. 191, vol. vii. p. 215, vol. ix. p. 351; Mem. of the Baroness d'Oberkirch, vol. i. p. 71, edit. Lond. 1852; Lettres inédites d'Aguesseau, vol. i. p. 211; Lettres de Dudeffand à Walpole, vol. iii. p. 249, vol. iv. pp. 27, 28, 152; Boullier, Maison Militaire des Rois de France, pp. 87, 88; Biog. Univ. vol. v. pp. 402, 403, vol. xxiii. p. 411, vol. xliv. pp. 127, 401, vol. xlviii. p. 522, vol. xlix. p. 130.

342

On the effect of the wars of the Roses upon the nobles, compare Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 10; Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. iii. p. 340; Eccleston's English Antiq. pp. 224, 320: and on their immense pecuniary, or rather territorial, losses, Sinclair's Hist. of the Revenue, vol. i. p. 155.

343

‘The last instance of a pitched battle between two powerful noblemen in England occurs in the reign of Edward IV.’ Allen on the Prerogative, p. 123.

344

Clarendon (Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 80), in a very angry spirit, but with perfect truth, notices (under the year 1640) the connexion between ‘a proud and venomous dislike against the discipline of the church of England, and so by degrees (as the progress is very natural) an equal irreverence to the government of the state too.’ The Spanish government, perhaps more than any other in Europe, has understood this relation; and even so late as 1789, an edict of Charles IV. declared, ‘qu'il y a crime d'hérésie dans tout ce qui tend, ou contribue, à propager les idées révolutionnaires.’ Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, vol. ii. p. 130.

345

The general character of her policy towards the Protestant English bishops is summed up very fairly by Collier; though he, as a professional writer, is naturally displeased with her disregard for the heads of the church. Collier's Eccles. Hist. of Great Britain, vol. vii. pp. 257, 258, edit. Barham, 1840.

346

One of the charges which, in 1588, Sixtus V. publicly brought against Elizabeth, was, that ‘she hath rejected and excluded the ancient nobility, and promoted to honour obscure people.’ Butler's Mem. of the Catholics, vol. ii. p. 4. Persons also reproaches her with her low-born ministers, and says that she was influenced ‘by five persons in particular – all of them sprung from the earth – Bacon, Cecil, Dudley, Hatton, and Walsingham.’ Butler, vol. ii. p. 31. Cardinal Allen taunted her with ‘disgracing the ancient nobility, erecting base and unworthy persons to all the civil and ecclesiastical dignities.’ Dodd's Church History, edit. Tierney, 1840, vol. iii. appendix no. xii. p. xlvi. The same influential writer, in his Admonition, said that she had injured England, ‘by great contempt and abasing of the ancient nobility, repelling them from due government, offices, and places of honour.’ Allen's Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland, 1588 (reprinted London, 1842), p. xv. Compare the account of the Bull of 1588, in De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. x. p. 175: ‘On accusoit Elisabeth d'avoir au préjudice de la noblesse angloise élevé aux dignités, tant civiles qu'ecclésiastiques, des hommes nouveaux, sans naissance, et indignes de les posséder.’