II. CHAP. that between the disciples of Luther and the successors of St Peter. This celebrated controversy partook in many points of the characteristics of the great Protestant schism. It was distinguished by the same stern and dogmatic spirit on the one side, and the same inward fervour and bold inquiry on the other vindictive authority commanded among the Jesuits, and intrepid enthusiasm animated the Jansenists. Pascal was the soul of the latter body: the Jesuits never recovered from the effect of his celebrated Provincial Letters. "The comedies of Molière," says Voltaire, "have not more wit than the former part of these letters, nor the writings of Bossuet more sublimity than the latter." The Jansenists, following the dogmas of their founder, Cornelius Jansen, bishop of Ypres, maintained the principles of necessity and predestination, which pervade the tenets of extreme Calvinism; the Jesuits, with Molina, a Spanish priest of that order, asserted the doctrine of free-will, and the necessity of unity in the church. 66 Superstition," says Hume, "is an enemy to civil liberty enthusiasm is a friend to it. The Molinists, while conducted by the Jesuits, are great friends to superstition, rigid observers of external forms and ceremonies, and devoted to the authority of the priests and to tradition. The Jansenists are enthusiasts, and zealous promoters of the passionate devotion and of the inward life; little influenced by authority, and, in a word, but half Catholics. The Jesuits are the tyrants of the people, and the slaves of the court; and the Jansenists preserve alive the small sparks of the love of liberty which are to be found in the French nation."1 1 Hume's Essays, i. 231. Smyth's Lectures on the French Rev. i. 65. 32. of this con V. But these sparks were destined ere long to rise up Transition into a flame; and the declining fervour of religious contest into troversy, warmed by the vigour of political ambition, prothat of the duced that fermentation in the country which at length issued in the fury of the Revolution. The PARLIAMENTS of France bore no resemblance to the great national council of England; they were provincial assemblies, composed parliaments with the king. II. entirely of magistrates of rank from the order of the CHAP. nobility, or the Tiers Etat raised by office to that station; intrusted chiefly with judicial duties, but constituting, in the absence of the States-general, which had not been assembled since 1614, the only subsisting check recognised by the constitution on the authority of the sovereign. The parliament of Paris, the most important of these bodies both in point of rank and influence, and which took the lead in all contests with the crown, was very numerous it consisted of a hundred and seventy members, including seventeen peers, of whom two were princes of the blood. This assembly, from its numbers, its spirit, and the individual respectability of its members, early acquired great consideration, which it retained to the very commencement of the Revolution. It was universally felt to be the only remaining bulwark of public liberty, after the nobles had sunk before the ascendant of Richelieu; and from the persevering, and often heroic courage with which it combated the despotic measures of the crown, it enjoyed a large and well-deserved share of popularity. It had one immense advantage, which will be readily appreciated by all who have experienced the debasing influence either of monarchical or popular appointment, when limited to a short period, or held at will only-its members were independent. They were neither nominated by the intrigues of Versailles nor by the populace of Paris; they received mandates neither from the royal mistresses nor the popular demagogues. They acquired their offices, as commissions are obtained in the English army, by purchase; subject, indeed, to the royal approbation, and to certain regulations formed by themselves, to prevent the introduction of improper members; but neither the crown nor the nobility had, practically speaking, the appointment. Though this system may appear strange to English ideas, yet a little reflection must show, as Burke has observed, that it was admirably fitted both to confer independence and ensure the upright II. i. CHAP. discharge of duty. None could obtain admission but persons of a respectable station; a certain fortune was requisite to purchase the situation; integrity and inde1 Soulavie, pendence were the only passports to public esteem. 1.197. Ma. Neither royal frowns nor popular despotism could Works, vi. dispossess them of their offices. They know little of 367. Grim. human nature who are not aware that these are the Corresp. xvi. 83. only circumstances which can be permanently relied on Weber, i. to produce integrity and independence in judicial functionaries.1 Burke's 469. 33. Powers of the parlia ments. The most important constitutional power with which the parliaments were intrusted, was that of consenting to or refusing the king's edicts for the imposition of any new tax; and it was part of consuetudinary usage, that no impost, though imposed by a royal decree, had the force of law until it was registered in the parliamentary books. When the parliaments were refractory, therefore, or disapproved of the measures of the court, the course they adopted was to refuse to register the edict which laid on any new tax; and as the courts of law, till this was done, refused to enforce it, this power was often a very effectual one. The only known remedy was for the king to hold what was called a lit de justice, or bed of justice; that is, to repair to the place where the parliament sat, and ordain the registration of the edict on his own authority. Unpopular as such a measure of course was, it was not unfrequently had recourse to, and sometimes even by the * Card. de mild and forbearing Louis XVI. Yet it was always ii. 117. Ma: regarded as an arbitrary step; the parliaments loudly protested against its legality; many great constitutional lawyers agreed with them, as holding it an unwarrantable stretch of the royal authority; and at any rate it was sure to be an unpopular proceeding, likely to endanger any ministry by which it was recommended.2 Retz's Mem. bly, Obs. sur Soul. i. 197. The contest between the crown and the parliaments had subsisted in France for two centuries; but it never became envenomed till it was mixed up with the Port CHAP. II. Progress of with the Royal controversy. controversy. Such was the legacy bequeathed to the country by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; an internal semi-religious strife, springing from 34. the outward extinction of religious dissent. The details the contest of this contest would fill volumes, and belong pro- parliaments. perly to the history of France during the eighteenth 1756. century, not to the annals of the Revolution. But the general results may be stated in a few words. Orders, in the first instance, were issued by the archbishop of Paris, and the clergy acting under the influence of the Jesuits, to refuse the sacrament to those of the Jansenist persuasion this was met by censure and prosecutions from the parliament of Paris against those who obeyed these orders. The crown, upon this, issued a mandate to stay all such prosecutions: the parliament remonstrated, and the royal commands were renewed. The parliament retorted, by suspending all judicial business in their courts. The crown, upon this, issued a mandate enforcing the repeal of these resolutions of suspension: the parliament immediately attached the revenue of the archbishop of Paris. Rigorous measures were now resorted to by the court lettres-de-cachet were issued; all the members of the parliament exiled; four of the most obnoxious were sent to the state prisons; and an attempt was made to form new courts of justice instead of the parliament. But the letters-patent constituting these new courts were not valid till registered in the inferior courts, and these courts, espousing the cause of the parliament, refused to record them. The nation was now roused: the provincial parliaments every where met and supported the parliament of Paris; the clergy who refused the sacra- 1 Soulavie, ments were generally prosecuted. Thus the nation was la Monarch. reduced to a position of inextricable confusion if the Francii. contest were any further pursued on the one hand, the holiest rites of religion were suspended; on the other, the most important legal courts were closed.1 The necessity of applying a remedy at length prevailed over the stub 1757 Décad. de 249, 258. Smyth, i 65, 67. Lac. xviii. Siècle iii. 266, 288, 194, 200. CHAP. bornness of the court: the parliaments were recalled, and the archbishop was exiled. II. 35. of the Jesuits. VI. In the progress of time the Jesuits became Suppression obnoxious to the most powerful interests in the court, from the incessant intrigues which they kept up, and the disagreeable manner in which they interfered with the mistresses and council of Louis XV. Madame Pompadour, and the Duke de Choiseul, the chief minister, united their strength to effect the destruction of a rival authority; and they were powerfully supported by the parliament of Paris, and the numerous body in France, both in and out of the church, who belonged to the Jansenist party. Louis XV. long held out against their united efforts, partly from the influence of the archbishop of Paris, and the dignified clergy in the metropolis, who were almost all of the Molinist side and party, and partly from an impression that the Jesuits were valuable as ecclesiastical agents of the crown; and that Cardinal Fleury's maxim was well founded, that "if they are bad masters, they will prove good servants." But at length, when the monarch, in his declining years, became more devoted to sensual enjoyments, and found that the Jesuits about the court might interfere with the orgies in the Parc-aux-Cerfs, he yielded to the persecution which the 38. Soul. parliaments had long carried on against this celebrated sect, and by a royal decree, in November 1764, their order was entirely suppressed in France.1* 1 Lac. iv. 18, Décad. iii. 279,285. 36. the religious The destruction of the Jesuits had immediately the Cessation of effect of stilling the fury of the religious controversy; but contests, and it was far from putting an end to the contest between the philosophi crown and the parliament, which continued unabated cal opinions. down to the close of the reign of Louis XV. Meanwhile, the cessation of the religious conflict had the effect of rise of the * Frederick the Great, who, with all his partiality to the French free-thinking philosophers, knew well where the real supports of the throne are to be found, exclaimed, when he heard that the government had banished the Jesuits from France "Pauvres moutons, ils ont détruit les renards qui les défendaient des loups, et ils ne voient pas qu'ils vont être dévorés."-WEBER's Memoirs, i. 94. |