History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

Thus it fell out in France. In that country, as in every other, when theological convictions diminished, theological animosities subsided. Formerly religion had been the cause of war, and had also been the pretext under which it was conducted. Then there came a time when it ceased to be the cause: but so slow is the progress of society, that it was still found necessary to set it up as the pretext.262 Finally, there came the great days of the Fronde, in which it was neither cause nor pretext,263 and in which there was seen, for the first time in France, an arduous struggle by human beings avowedly for human purposes: a war waged by men who sought, not to enforce their opinions, but to increase their liberty. And, as if to make this change still more striking, the most eminent leader of the insurgents was the Cardinal de Retz; a man of vast ability, but whose contempt for his profession was notorious,264 and of whom a great historian has said, ‘he is the first bishop in France who carried on a civil war without making religion the pretence.’265

We have thus seen that, during the seventy years which succeeded the accession of Henry IV., the French intellect developed itself in a manner remarkably similar to that which took place in England. We have seen that, in both countries, the mind, according to the natural conditions of its growth, first doubted what it had long believed, and then tolerated what it had long hated. That this was by no means an accidental or capricious combination, is evident, not only from general arguments, and from the analogy of the two countries, but also from another circumstance of great interest. This is, that the order of events, and as it were their relative proportions, were the same, not only in reference to the increase of toleration, but also in reference to the increase of literature and science. In both countries, the progress of knowledge bore the same ratio to the decline of ecclesiastical influence, although they manifested that ratio at different periods. We had begun to throw off our superstitions somewhat earlier than the French were able to do; and thus, being the first in the field, we anticipated that great people in producing a secular literature. Whoever will take the pains to compare the growth of the French and English minds, will see that, in all the most important departments, we were the first, I do not say in merit, but in the order of time. In prose, in poetry, and in every branch of intellectual excellence, it will be found, on comparison, that we were before the French nearly a whole generation; and that, chronologically, the same proportion was preserved as that between Bacon and Descartes, Hooker and Pascal,266 Shakespeare and Corneille, Massinger and Racine, Ben Jonson and Molière, Harvey and Pecquet. These eminent men were all justly celebrated in their respective countries; and it would perhaps be invidious to institute a comparison between them. But what we have here to observe is, that among those who cultivated the same department, the greatest Englishman, in every instance, preceded the greatest Frenchman by many years. The difference, running as it does, through all the leading topics, is far too regular to be considered accidental. And as few Englishmen of the present day will be so presumptuous as to suppose that we possess any native and inherent superiority over the French, it is evident that there must be some marked peculiarity in which the two countries differed, and which has produced this difference, not in their knowledge, but in the time at which their knowledge appeared. Nor does the discovery of this peculiarity require much penetration. For, notwithstanding that the French were more tardy than the English, still, when the development had fairly begun, the antecedents of its success were among both people precisely the same. It is, therefore, clear, according to the commonest principles of inductive reasoning, that the lateness of the development must be owing to the lateness of the antecedent. It is clear that the French knew less because they believed more.267 It is clear that their progress was checked by the prevalence of those feelings which are fatal to all knowledge, because, looking on antiquity as the sole receptacle of wisdom, they degrade the present in order that they may exaggerate the past: feelings which destroy the prospects of man, stifle his hopes, damp his curiosity, chill his energies, impair his judgment, and, under pretence of humbling the pride of his reason, seek to throw him back into that more than midnight darkness from which his reason alone has enabled him to emerge.

The analogy thus existing between France and England, is, indeed, very striking, and, so far as we have yet considered it, seems complete in all its parts. To sum up the similarities in a few words, it may be said, that both countries followed the same order of development in their scepticism, in their knowledge, in their literature, and in their toleration. In both countries, there broke out a civil war at the same time, for the same object, and, in many respects, under the same circumstances. In both, the insurgents, at first triumphant, were afterwards defeated; and the rebellion being put down, the governments of the two nations were fully restored almost at the same moment: in 1660 by Charles II.; in 1661, by Louis XIV.268 But there the similarity stopped. At this point there began a marked divergence between the two countries;269 which continued to increase for more than a century, until it ended in England by the consolidation of the national prosperity, in France by a revolution more sanguinary, more complete, and more destructive, than any the world has ever seen. This difference between the fortunes of such great and civilized nations is so remarkable, that a knowledge of its causes becomes essential to a right understanding of European history, and will be found to throw considerable light on other events not immediately connected with it. Besides this, such an inquiry, independently of its scientific interest, will have a high practical value. It will show, what men seem only recently to have begun to understand, that, in politics, no certain principles having yet been discovered, the first conditions of success are compromise, barter, expediency, and concession. It will show the utter helplessness even of the ablest rulers, when they try to meet new emergencies by old maxims. It will show the intimate connexion between knowledge and liberty; between an increasing civilization and an advancing democracy. It will show that, for a progressive nation, there is required a progressive polity; that within certain limits, innovation is the sole ground of security; that no institution can withstand the flux and movements of society, unless it not only repairs its structure, but also widens its entrance; and that, even in a material point of view, no country can long remain either prosperous or safe, in which the people are not gradually extending their power, enlarging their privileges, and, so to say, incorporating themselves with the functions of the state.

The tranquillity of England, and her freedom from civil war, are to be ascribed to the recognition of these great truths;270 while the neglect of them has entailed upon other countries the most woful calamities. On this account, therefore, if on no other, it becomes interesting to ascertain how it was that the two nations we have been comparing should, in regard to these truths, have adopted views diametrically opposite, although, in other matters, their opinions, as we have already seen, were very similar. Or, to state the question in other words, we have to inquire how it was that the French, after pursuing precisely the same course as the English, in their knowledge, in their scepticism, and in their toleration, should have stopped short in their politics; how it was that their minds, which had effected such great things, should, nevertheless, have been so unprepared for liberty, that, in spite of the heroic efforts of the Fronde, they not only fell under the despotism of Louis XIV., but never cared to resist it; and, at length, becoming slaves in their souls as well as in their bodies, they grew proud of a condition which the meanest Englishman would have spurned as an intolerable bondage.

The cause of this difference is to be sought in the existence of that spirit of protection which is so dangerous and yet so plausible, that it forms the most serious obstacle with which advancing civilization has to contend. This, which may truly be called an evil spirit, has always been far stronger in France than in England. Indeed, among the French, it continues, even to the present day, to produce the most mischievous results. It is, as I shall hereafter point out, intimately connected with that love of centralization which appears in the machinery of their government, and in the spirit of their literature. It is this which induces them to retain restrictions by which their trade has long been troubled, and to preserve monopolies which, in our country, a freer system has effectually destroyed. It is this which causes them to interfere with the natural relation between producers and consumers; to force into existence manufactures which otherwise would never arise, and which, for that very reason, are not required; to disturb the ordinary march of industry, and, under pretence of protecting their native labourers, diminish the produce of labour by diverting it from those profitable channels into which its own instincts always compel it to flow.

When the protective principle is carried into trade, these are its inevitable results. When it is carried into politics, there is formed what is called a paternal government, in which supreme power is vested in the sovereign, or in a few privileged classes. When it is carried into theology, it produces a powerful church, and a numerous clergy, who are supposed to be the necessary guardians of religion, and every opposition to whom is resented as an insult to the public morals. These are the marks by which protection may be recognized; and from a very early period they have displayed themselves in France much more clearly than in England. Without pretending to discover their precise origin, I will, in the next chapter, endeavour to trace them back to a time sufficiently remote to explain some of the discrepancies which, in this respect existed between the two countries.

Note to p. 93.Descartes died in Sweden on a visit to Christina; so that, strictly speaking, there is an error in the text. But this does not affect the argument; because the works of Descartes, being eagerly read in France, and not being prohibited, we must suppose that his person would have been safe, had he remained in his own country. To burn a heretic is a more decisive step than to suppress a book; and as the French clergy were not strong enough to effect the latter, it is hardly likely that they could have accomplished the former.

CHAPTER II

HISTORY OF THE PROTECTIVE SPIRIT, AND COMPARISON OF IT IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND

When, towards the end of the fifth century, the Roman empire was broken up, there followed, as is well known, a long period of ignorance and of crime, in which even the ablest minds were immersed in the grossest superstitions. During these, which are rightly called the Dark Ages, the clergy were supreme: they ruled the consciences of the most despotic sovereigns, and they were respected as men of vast learning, because they alone were able to read and write; because they were the sole depositaries of those idle conceits of which European science then consisted; and because they preserved the legends of the saints and the lives of the fathers, from which, as it was believed, the teachings of divine wisdom might easily be gathered.

Such was the degradation of the European intellect for about five hundred years, during which the credulity of men reached a height unparalleled in the annals of ignorance. But at length the human reason, that divine spark which even the most corrupt society is unable to extinguish, began to display its power, and disperse the mists by which it was surrounded. Various circumstances, which it would be tedious here to discuss, caused this dispersion to take place at different times in different countries. However, speaking generally, we may say that it occurred in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and that by the twelfth century there was no nation now called civilized, upon whom the light had not begun to dawn.

It is from this point that the first great divergence between the European nations took its rise. Before this time their superstition was so great and universal, that it would avail little to measure the degree of their relative darkness. Indeed, so low had they fallen, that, during the earlier period, the authority of the clergy was in many respects an advantage, as forming a barrier between the people and their rulers, and as supplying the sole instance of a class that even made an approach to intellectual pursuits. But when the great movement took place, when the human reason began to rebel, the position of the clergy was suddenly changed. They had been friendly to reasoning as long as the reasoning was on their side.271 While they were the only guardians of knowledge, they were eager to promote its interests. Now, however, it was falling from their hands: it was becoming possessed by laymen: it was growing dangerous: it must be reduced to its proper dimensions. Then it was that there first became general the inquisitions, the imprisonments, the torturings, the burnings, and all the other contrivances by which the church vainly endeavoured to stem the tide that had turned against her.272 From that moment there has been an unceasing struggle between these two great parties, – the advocates of inquiry, and the advocates of belief: a struggle which, however it may be disguised, and under whatever forms it may appear, is at bottom always the same, and represents the opposite interests of reason and faith, of scepticism and credulity, of progress and reaction, of those who hope for the future, and of those who cling to the past.

This, then, is the great starting point of modern civilization. From the moment that reason began, however faintly, to assert its supremacy, the improvement of every people has depended upon their obedience to its dictates, and upon the success with which they have reduced to its standard the whole of their actions. To understand, therefore, the original divergence of France and England, we must seek it in the circumstances that took place when this, which may be called the great rebellion of the intellect, was first clearly seen.

If now, with a view to such inquiry, we examine the history of Europe, we shall find that just at this period there sprung up the feudal system: a vast scheme of polity, which, clumsy and imperfect as it was, supplied many of the wants of the rude people among whom it arose.273 The connexion between it and the decline of the ecclesiastical spirit is very obvious. For the feudal system was the first great secular plan that had been seen in Europe since the formation of the civil law: it was the first comprehensive attempt which had been made, during more than four hundred years, to organize society according to temporal, not according to spiritual circumstances, the basis of the whole arrangement being merely the possession of land, and the performance of certain military and pecuniary services.274

This was, no doubt, a great step in European civilization, because it set the first example of a large public polity in which the spiritual classes as such had no recognized place;275 and hence there followed that struggle between feudality and the church, which has been observed by several writers, but the origin of which has been strangely overlooked. What, however, we have now to notice is, that by the establishment of the feudal system, the spirit of protection, far from being destroyed, was probably not even weakened, but only assumed a new form. Instead of being spiritual, it became temporal. Instead of men looking up to the church, they looked up to the nobles. For, as a necessary consequence of this vast movement, or rather as a part of it, the great possessors of land were now being organized into an hereditary aristocracy.276 In the tenth century, we find the first surnames:277 by the eleventh century most of the great offices had become hereditary in the leading families:278 and in the twelfth century armorial bearings were invented, as well as other heraldic devices, which long nourished the conceit of the nobles, and were valued by their descendants as marks of that superiority of birth to which, during many ages, all other superiority was considered subordinate.279

Such was the beginning of the European aristocracy, in the sense in which that word is commonly used. With the consolidation of its power, feudality was made, in reference to the organization of society, the successor of the church;280 and the nobles, becoming hereditary, gradually displaced in government, and in the general functions of authority, the clergy, among whom the opposite principle of celibacy was now firmly established.281 It is, therefore, evident, that an inquiry into the origin of the modern protective spirit does, in a great measure, resolve itself into an inquiry into the origin of the aristocratic power; since that power was the exponent, and, as it were, the cover under which the spirit displayed itself. This, as we shall hereafter see, is likewise connected with the great religious rebellion of the sixteenth century; the success of which mainly depended on the weakness of the protective principle that opposed it. But, reserving this for future consideration, I will now endeavour to trace a few of the circumstances which gave the aristocracy more power in France than in England, and thus accustomed the French to a closer and more constant obedience, and infused into them a more reverential spirit than that which was usual in our country.

Soon after the middle of the eleventh century, and therefore while the aristocracy was in the process of formation, England was conquered by the Duke of Normandy, who naturally introduced the polity existing in his own country.282 But, in his hands, it underwent a modification suitable to the new circumstances in which he was placed. He, being in a foreign country, the general of a successful army composed partly of mercenaries,283 was able to dispense with some of those feudal usages which were customary in France. The great Norman lords, thrown as strangers into the midst of a hostile population, were glad to accept estates from the crown on almost any terms that would guarantee their own security. Of this, William naturally availed himself. For, by granting baronies on conditions favourable to the crown, he prevented the barons284 from possessing that power which they exercised in France, and which, but for this, they would have exercised in England. The result was, that the most powerful of our nobles became amenable to the law, or, at all events, to the authority of the king.285 Indeed, to such an extent was this carried, that William, shortly before his death, obliged all the landowners to render their fealty to him; thus entirely neglecting that peculiarity of feudalism, according to which each vassal was separately dependent on his own lord.286

But in France, the course of affairs was very different. In that country the great nobles held their lands, not so much by grant, as by prescription.287 A character of antiquity was thus thrown over their rights; which, when added to the weakness of the crown, enabled them to exercise on their own estates, all the functions of independent sovereigns.288 Even when they received their first great check, under Philip Augustus,289 they, in his reign, and indeed long after, wielded a power quite unknown in England. Thus, to give only two instances: the right of coining money, which has always been regarded as an attribute of sovereignty, was never allowed in England, even to the greatest nobles.290 But in France it was exercised by many persons independently of the crown, and was not abrogated until the sixteenth century.291 A similar remark holds good of what was called the right of private war; by virtue of which the nobles were allowed to attack each other, and disturb the peace of the country with the prosecution of their private feuds. In England the aristocracy were never strong enough to have this admitted as a right,292 though they too often exercised it as a practice. But in France it became a part of the established law; it was incorporated into the text-books of feudalism, and it is distinctly recognized by Louis IX. and Philip the Fair, – two kings of considerable energy, who did every thing in their power to curtail the enormous authority of the nobles.293

Out of this difference between the aristocratic power of France and England, there followed many consequences of great importance. In our country the nobles, being too feeble to contend with the crown, were compelled, in self-defence, to ally themselves with the people.294 About a hundred years after the Conquest, the Normans and Saxons amalgamated; and both parties united against the king in order to uphold their common rights.295 The Magna Charta, which John was forced to yield contained concessions to the aristocracy; but its most important stipulations were those in favour of ‘all classes of freemen.’296 Within half a century, fresh contests broke out; the barons were again associated with the people, and again there followed the same results, – the extension of popular privileges being each time the condition and the consequence of this singular alliance. In the same way, when the Earl of Leicester raised a rebellion against Henry III., he found his own party too weak to make head against the crown. He, therefore, applied to the people:297 and it is to him that our House of Commons owes its origin; since he, in 1264, set the first example of issuing writs to cities and boroughs; thus calling upon citizens and burgesses to take their place in what had hitherto been a parliament composed entirely of priests and nobles.298

The English aristocracy being thus forced, by their own weakness, to rely on the people,299 it naturally followed, that the people imbibed that tone of independence, and that lofty bearing, of which our civil and political institutions are the consequence, rather than the cause. It is to this, and not to any fanciful peculiarity of race, that we owe the sturdy and enterprising spirit for which the inhabitants of this island have long been remarkable. It is this which has enabled us to baffle all the arts of oppression, and to maintain for centuries liberties which no other nation has ever possessed. And it is this which has fostered and upheld those great municipal privileges, which, whatever be their faults, have, at least, the invaluable merit of accustoming free men to the exercise of power, giving to citizens the management of their own city, and perpetuating the idea of independence, by preserving it in a living type, and by enlisting in its support the interests and affections of individual men.

But the habits of self-government which, under these circumstances, were cultivated in England, were, under opposite circumstances, neglected in France. The great French lords being too powerful to need the people, were unwilling to seek their alliance.300 The result was, that, amid a great variety of forms and names, society was, in reality, only divided into two classes – the upper and the lower, the protectors and the protected. And, looking at the ferocity of the prevailing manners, it is not too much to say, that in France, under the feudal system, every man was either a tyrant or a slave. Indeed, in most instances, the two characters were combined in the same person. For, the practice of subinfeudation, which in our country was actively checked, became in France almost universal.301 By this, the great lords having granted lands on condition of fealty and other services to certain persons, these last subgranted them; that is, made them over on similar conditions to other persons, who had likewise the power of bestowing them on a fourth party, and so on in an endless series;302 thus forming a long chain of dependence, and, as it were, organizing submission into a system.303 In England, on the other hand, such arrangements were so unsuited to the general state of affairs, that it is doubtful if they were ever carried on to any extent; and, at all events, it is certain that, in the reign of Edward I., they were finally stopped by the statute known to lawyers as Quia emptores.304