Catherine de Medici | Page 7

of will, religious liberty, and political liberty (not, observe this,
to be confounded with civil liberty) is the France of to-day. What is the
France of 1840? A country occupied exclusively with material
interests,--without patriotism, without conscience; where power has no
vigor; where election, the fruit of liberty of will and political liberty,
lifts to the surface none but commonplace men; where brute force has
now become a necessity against popular violence; where discussion,
spreading into everything, stifles the action of legislative bodies; where
money rules all questions; where individualism--the dreadful product of
the division of property /ad infinitum/--will suppress the family and
devour all, even the nation, which egoism will some day deliver over to
invasion. Men will say, "Why not the Czar?" just as they said, "Why
not the Duc d'Orleans?" We don't cling to many things even now; but
fifty years hence we shall cling to nothing.
Thus, according to Catherine de' Medici and according to all those who
believe in a well-ordered society, in /social man/, the subject cannot
have liberty of will, ought not to /teach/ the dogma of liberty of
conscience, or demand political liberty. But, as no society can exist
without guarantees granted to the subject against the sovereign, there
results for the subject /liberties/ subject to restriction. Liberty, no;
liberties, yes,--precise and well-defined liberties. That is in harmony
with the nature of things.
It is, assuredly, beyond the reach of human power to prevent the liberty

of thought; and no sovereign can interfere with money. The great
statesmen who were vanquished in the long struggle (it lasted five
centuries) recognized the right of subjects to great liberties; but they
did not admit their right to publish anti-social thoughts, nor did they
admit the indefinite liberty of the subject. To them the words "subject"
and "liberty" were terms that contradicted each other; just as the theory
of citizens being all equal constitutes an absurdity which nature
contradicts at every moment. To recognize the necessity of a religion,
the necessity of authority, and then to leave to subjects the right to deny
religion, attack its worship, oppose the exercise of power by public
expression communicable and communicated by thought, was an
impossibility which the Catholics of the sixteenth century would not
hear of.
Alas! the victory of Calvinism will cost France more in the future than
it has yet cost her; for religious sects and humanitarian,
equality-levelling politics are, to-day, the tail of Calvinism; and,
judging by the mistakes of the present power, its contempt for intellect,
its love for material interests, in which it seeks the basis of its support
(though material interests are the most treacherous of all supports), we
may predict that unless some providence intervenes, the genius of
destruction will again carry the day over the genius of preservation.
The assailants, who have nothing to lose and all to gain, understand
each other thoroughly; whereas their rich adversaries will not make any
sacrifice either of money or self-love to draw to themselves supporters.
The art of printing came to the aid of the opposition begun by the
Vaudois and the Albigenses. As soon as human thought, instead of
condensing itself, as it was formerly forced to do to remain in
communicable form, took on a multitude of garments and became, as it
were, the people itself, instead of remaining a sort of axiomatic divinity,
there were two multitudes to combat,--the multitude of ideas, and the
multitude of men. The royal power succumbed in that warfare, and we
are now assisting, in France, at its last combination with elements
which render its existence difficult, not to say impossible. Power is
action, and the elective principle is discussion. There is no policy, no
statesmanship possible where discussion is permanent.
Therefore we ought to recognize the grandeur of the woman who had
the eyes to see this future and fought it bravely. That the house of

Bourbon was able to succeed to the house of Valois, that it found a
crown preserved to it, was due solely to Catherine de' Medici. Suppose
the second Balafre had lived? No matter how strong the Bearnais was,
it is doubtful whether he could have seized the crown, seeing how
dearly the Duc de Mayenne and the remains of the Guise party sold it
to him. The means employed by Catherine, who certainly had to
reproach herself with the deaths of Francois II. and Charles IX., whose
lives might have been saved in time, were never, it is observable, made
the subject of accusations by either the Calvinists or modern historians.
Though there was no poisoning, as some grave writers have said, there
was other conduct almost as criminal; there is no doubt she hindered
Pare from saving one, and allowed the other to accomplish his own
doom by