310 INFIDELITY. [CHAP. LII. some apprehension of the consequences it might one day produce at home. In a remarkable passage of his Testament Politique, he almost foretells the spirit of the eighteenth century, and betrays his anxiety to prevent the diffusion of knowledge among the vulgar; unconscious that its floodgates, when once opened, cannot again be closed.' Already before the end of the seventeenth century symptoms had begun to appear of a change in the literary taste of the nation. The almost superstitious reverence for classical antiquity was the first idol to be destroyed, and Perrault's attack on the ancients was the harbinger of a new era. The French writers of the eighteenth century sought their inspiration not in classical, but in modern literature, especially the English. After this school, they began to occupy themselves with questions of politics and religion; to discuss the elementary principles of society as they may be discovered by the light of reason and the law of nature; and to investigate the grounds of religious belief. Thus the age of Bossuet and Pascal was succeeded by that of Voltaire, Rousseau, and the Encyclopædists. Infidelity had, indeed, taken root in France before the close of Louis XIV.'s reign, under the auspices of the profligate Duke of Vendôme and his brother; and it was in this school that the Duke de Chartres, afterwards the Regent Orleans, imbibed his principles of atheism and immorality. It is the nature of extremes to produce their opposites; and there can be little doubt that disgust at the bigotry, superstition, and hypocrisy which marked the later years of Louis XIV., contributed to produce this deplorable reaction. Infidelity, however, would not probably have spread itself among the great mass of the nation, but for the writers who subsequently sprung up. Fontenelle was their precursor, whose long life, extending from the middle of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century, rendered him the connecting link between the literature of the two periods. Not that Fontenelle can be exactly styled an infidel author. He was, as M. Villemain remarks, but the discreet echo of the bolder thinkers, such as Bayle and others, who wrote in Holland. Yet his writings are marked by a certain want of orthodoxy, a disposition to question received opinions, and to treat grave subjects in that tone of badinage which became characteristic of the eighteenth century. Such especially is the style of his Histoire 1 "Si les lettres étoient profanées à toutes sortes d'esprits, on verrait plus de gens capables de former des doutes que de les résoudre, et beaucoup seraient plus propres à s'opposer aux vérités qu'à les défendre." Ch. ii. § 10. CHAP. LII.] MONTESQUIEU. 311 des Oracles, while his Dialogues of the Dead betray a genius kindred with that of Lucian. Lord Bolingbroke, and the Club of the Entre-sol, which he founded during his banishment in France, tended greatly to promote the liberalism and infidelity of the eighteenth century, and to give them a literary and philosophical turn. Among the most remarkable members of the Club of the Entre-sol, was the Abbé de St. Pierre, whose works, says M. Villemain,' present the programme of a social revolution so bold and complete as to astonish even J. J. Rousseau. But Montesquieu must perhaps be regarded as the first writer whose works had any direct influence upon the French Revolution. After travelling over great part of Europe Montesquieu took up his abode in England, in 1729. Here he applied himself to the study of our Constitution, for which he imbibed a great admiration, as appears from his panegyric on it in the eleventh book of his Esprit des Lois, published about twenty years afterwards. At first, however, this, his greatest work, was not understood by his countrymen. They were hardly yet ripe for serious political studies, and Montesquieu's first work, the Lettres Persanes, seems to have given them a wrong idea of his genius. In the disguise of Eastern masquerade Montesquieu in that work aimed some sly blows at French customs and institutions; and hence, while uttering in the Esprit des Lois his earnest convictions, he was still regarded by many of his countrymen only as a concealed satirist. His book was much better received in England, and it was only by Frenchmen of the next generation that it began to be duly understood and appreciated. Montesquieu must be regarded as the father of that school of reformers, including Necker, Lally Tollendal, Mounier, and others, who at the commencement of the French Revolution wished to establish in France a Constitution on the English model. Hence, in the vain pursuit of institutions, which, it may be confidently asserted, would never have suited the genius and habits of the French nation, they were led to assist the beginnings of a movement which it was not afterwards in their power to stop. There was no analogy whatever between the France of 1789 and England at any period of its history. The want of an aristocracy influential through its dignities and wealth, yet without particular privileges, except that of an hereditary peerage, and identified in its private interests with the great mass of the people, would alone 1 Tableaux des Litt. Franç., Partie ii. Leçon xiv. 312 VOLTAIRE. [CHAP. LII. The have rendered English institutions impossible in France. democratic inclinations of the French, their military habits, their large standing army, all tended the same way. The principles of Montesquieu obtained however, at length, a sort of triumph in the Charter of 1814; which appears to have been founded on the scheme of a Constitution modelled on that of England, and submitted by Lally Tollendal to the Constituent Assembly.1 Voltaire, who also acquired much of his philosophy in England, had a far greater influence than Montesquieu on the French Revolution. Not, however, from any love of constitutional liberty. Voltaire throughout his life was an aristocrat and a royalist, quand même. The son of a notary, he drops the paternal name of Arouet, assumes the title of Mons. de Voltaire, and mixes in the highest circles of Paris. And what society might not have been proud of him? what circle would not have been adorned by his wit and genius? Unfortunately, however, his talent for satire produced effects calculated to remind him unpleasantly of his plebeian origin. He offended a young nobleman, the Chevalier de Rohan, who caused him to be horse-whipped, and in reply to a demand for satisfaction, obtained a lettre de cachet which consigned him to the Bastille, whence he was released only to be banished into England. Here was enough to have cured most men of a love of aristocracy and despotism. Not so with Voltaire. On his return we find him throwing himself at the feet of Madame de Pompadour, nay, of Madame du Barri; courting Louis XV. by every means in his power; degrading his fine genius by representing that vicious and profligate Monarch under the character of Trajan in a little piece entitled Le Temple de Gloire, which he wrote for the theatre of Versailles; meanly thrusting himself in the King's way after the performance, to catch the smile and the approving word that were to reward him; and when repulsed with the most marked disdain, for Louis liked neither his principles nor person, still retaining all the devotion of loyalty. Thus, as late as 1771, during the quarrel between Louis XV. and his Parliaments, we find him writing, "For my part, I think the King is right; and if we must serve, it is better to serve under a lion of a good house than under two hundred rats of my own kind." He showed the same complacency towards foreign potentates. Failing to attract the notice of his own Court, he became the guest and literary satellite of Frederick II. of Prussia; and though ultimately treated with the grossest indignity and insult by that Monarch, condescended to See L. Blanc, Hist. de la Révol. t. iii. p. 64. 2 See Marmontel, Mémoires. CHAP. LII.] HIS ENGLISH STUDIES. 313 congratulate him on his victory at Rossbach. He approved of Catharine II.'s arbitrary designs against the national existence of Poland and Turkey. Nay, we even find him corresponding with that Sovereign on the shameful and secret events of her private life, and venturing to bestow upon her the name of Semiramis; whilst the Empress, so far from being offended at the equivocal compliment, tells him "that the eldest of the Orloffs has the soul of a Roman, that he is worthy of the best times of that Republic."2 How, then, did Voltaire contribute to the Revolution? Principally by his attacks on the established religion. Between the Church, almost invariably the upholder of the existing state of things, and a tyranny which founds itself on Divine right, the connection is so close that one cannot be shaken without en dangering the other. The sceptical nature of Voltaire's writings had, moreover, a natural tendency to sap belief in all fixed principles whatsoever. The overthrow of the Church, the absorption of ecclesiastical property, the proclamation of the Age of Reason, are among the most marked and striking features of the French Revolution; and they must be ascribed in the main to the teaching of Voltaire. Voltaire's scepticism, if not imbibed, was at least confirmed, by his residence in England. His study of the English deistical writers, as Shaftesbury, Toland, and others, and his friendship and intercourse with Lord Bolingbroke, gave it a body and a method. From the study of Locke's metaphysical works he imbibed the theory of Sensation; a doctrine which was afterwards developed in France by Condillac in his Traité des Sensations, and laid the foundation of the materialism of the French Encyclopædists. Voltaire's residence in England, during which he obtained a very considerable mastery of our language, imbued him with much admiration for our literature and customs. Hence he contributed to spread in France what has been called the Anglomania; which, by promoting travelling in England, the studying of the English language, the reading of English newspapers, and even the affecting of English tastes and manners, undoubtedly became a strong predisposing cause of the Revolution." It was natural that on his return to France Voltaire should be struck with the different state of things that he found there. Having studied in England the philosophy of Newton, he drew See his letters of January 1st and November 2n1, 1772. 2 Villemain, Euvres, t. ix. P. 356. 314 THE FRENCH CHURCH. [CHAP. LII. up his Système du Monde to explain it to his countrymen ; but the chancellor d'Aguesseau refused his visa to the publication. Such was the narrow spirit which then prevailed among the French authorities, and especially in the Church! All new ideas were looked upon as dangerous, even the most certain and demonstrable conclusions of science. Cardinal Polignac, a fashionable Latin poet of that day, had denounced Newton's discovery in his Anti-Lucretius, as a dangerous reminiscence of Democritus and Epicurus!! Still worse was the fate of Voltaire's Lettres Philosophiques sur les Anglais, which he published soon after his return to France, and which contained much praise of our customs and institutions. The Parliament of Paris ordered them to be burnt by the common hangman, and deprived the publisher of his maîtrise. Voltaire afterwards recast them in his Dictionnaire Philosophique. Such treatment was not likely to increase Voltaire's respect for the Church. And, indeed, there was much in its practice that might serve to explain, and to a certain extent to justify, the hostility of an observant philosopher. The higher clergy were often open profligates and atheists; while that portion, including the Jansenists, which pretended to devotion, exhibited little more than an anile superstition united with a bloody persecuting spirit. What should be thought of a Church in which the profligate Abbé Dubois could obtain a Cardinal's hat, as well as the Archbishopric of Cambray, the see of the virtuous Fénelon? And could find two bishops, one the illustrious Massillon, to vouch for his orthodoxy and worthiness? Prelates of high rank lived in open adultery and fornication; as Cardinal Montmorenci, Grand Almoner of France, with Madame de Choiseul, an abbess. The Bernardine monks of Granselve, in the department of Gers, celebrated their patron's fête with orgies that lasted a fortnight, to which women were admitted, and in which all sorts of excesses were perpetrated. These scandalous scenes were diversified not only with the ridiculous disputes about the billets de confession, the exhibitions of the convulsionaries, &c., already related, but also with cruel and revolting persecutions. In February, 1762, in pursuance of a sentence of the Parliament of Toulouse, Rochette, a Protestant pastor, was hanged for having exercised his ministry in Languedoc. Soon after, Calas, another Protestant of Toulouse, was broken on the wheel on the false accusation of having killed 1 Villemain, pt. i. leç. i. 2 See the account of the Abbé Mont gaillard, an eye-witness, in his Hist. de France, t. ii. p. 246. |