FOOTNOTES
[1] (Monsieur Jean Lacoste wrote in the Gazette de France of May 20, 1893): Monsieur l'Abbé Jérôme Coignard is a priest full of knowledge, humility and faith. I do not say that his conduct was always an honour to his bands or that his robe was unstained. But if he succumbs to temptation, if the devil has in him an easy prey, he never loses confidence; he hopes by God's grace to fall no more, and to reach the glories of Paradise. And, in fact, he affords us the spectacle of a very edifying death. Thus a grain of faith beautifies life, and Christian humility well becomes our human weakness.
Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard, if he be not a saint, perhaps deserves purgatory. But he deserves the fire a very long time, and has run risk of hell. For in his acts of humility, though sincere, there was scarcely any repentance. He reckoned too much on the grace of God, and made no effort to help the workings of grace. That is why he fell back into his sin. Thus faith availed him little, and he was nearly a heretic, for the holy council of Trent, by its canons VI. and IX. in its sixth session, declared all those anathema who pretend "that it is not in the power of man to give up his evil ways" and who have such reliance on faith that they think faith alone can save them "without any motion of the will." Thus the divine mercy extended to Abbé Coignard is truly miraculous and beyond ordinary channels.
[2] This has been very favourably received, Monsieur Hugues Rebell having admitted that there is such a thing as a charitable scepticism. Referring, not, it is true, to the opinions of Monsieur Coignard, but to some writings drawn from the same source, he has made some remarks of which I may avail myself here:
"An interesting vein of thought might be followed up after reading this work, furnishing, as it does, some valuable teaching: I may be permitted some reflections on it:
"1. The organisation of a particular society does not depend on individual wills, but on the compulsion of nature, or to put it more simply, on the unanimity of the more intelligent beings of which that society is composed who inevitably choose the most agreeable rule of life:
"2. Mankind at any one period, having the same organic constitution and passions as mankind at any other period, can never have entirely differing institutions. It results from this that a political revolution is no more than a rotatory movement, round the ancient ways, which ends where it began; it is just a disease, an interruption in human development. And the result of this law is that all societies live and die in the same way."
Hugues Rebell in l'Ermitage, April 1893.
Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard simply says that a people is not susceptible to more than one form of government at the same period.
[3] A stipendiary magistrate.
[4] Vide post, p. 174.
[5] Monsieur Baiselance or Baisselance, succeeded Montaigne, considerably later, as Mayor of Bordeaux. [A. F.]
Ces petits souverains qu'on fait pour une année,
Voyant d'un temps si court leur puissance bornée,
Des plus heureux desseins font avorter le fruit,
De peur de le laisser à celui que les suit.
Comme ils ont peu de part aux biens dont ils ordonnent,
Dans le champ du public largement ils moissonnent,
Assurés que chacun leur pardonne aisément,
Espérant à son tour un pareil traitement.
[7] The geometry of which Jacques Tournebroche speaks is decorated with designs by Sebastien Leclerc which I, on the contrary, admire for their precise elegance and delicate exactitude, but one must endure contradiction (Anatole France).
[8] It is a priest speaking thus (Anatole France).
Cf. Saint-Evremont (Les Académiciens):
Godeau. Good-day, dear Colletet.
Colletet (throwing himself on his knees). Say, my lord of Grasse,
What I must do when I before you pass.
Should I not kiss, perhaps, your hallowed shoon?
Godeau. We are all equal, all Apollo's own.
"Rise up, my Colletet—"
Colletet. "Does your worship's grace
Permit the liberty, to your very face!"
Godeau. "Our intercourse is nothing changed, elsewhere
You see me bishop; Godeau, simply, here."
Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard, lived under the old régime. In those days it was said that the French Academy had the merit of establishing perfect equality between its members, an equality not recognised in law. Nevertheless, it was destroyed in 1793 as "the last refuge of aristocracy."
[10] He means the bishop whom the king had appointed distributor of ecclesiastical patronage.
[11] The king was protector of the Academy.
[12] It is true that the Academy condemned this expression:
"Custom, too strong, as oftentime before,
Makes us, improperly, say Shut the Door,
Usage will, daily, authorise a word,
Natheless employed in manner quite absurd.
Would you escape December's cold and gloom,
You must Push to the Door and Shut the Room."
Saint-Evremont (Les Académiciens).
[13] In those days the Academy awarded no prizes.
[14] I have not found this Mr. Rockstrong mentioned in the memoirs relating to Monmouth's Rebellion. (Anatole France.)
[15] In the time of Abbé Coignard the French already thought themselves free. The sieur d'Alquié wrote in 1670:
"Three things make a man happy in this world, to know the charm of intercourse, dainty meats, and liberty, perfect and entire. We have seen in what way our illustrious kingdom has fulfilled the two first, so it remains for us merely to show that the third is not lacking to it, and that liberty is no less a fact than the two preceding advantages. The thing will appear true to you if, to start with, you will consider attentively the name of our state, the matter of its foundation, and its usual customs: for one sees at the start that the name of France means nothing else than Franchise or liberty, conformably to the designs of the founders of this monarchy, who, having noble and generous souls, and being unable to bear either slavery or the least servitude, resolved among themselves to throw off the yoke of all kinds of captivity and to be as free as men may be; this is why they came to the land of the Gauls, which was a country whose people were neither less warlike nor less jealous of their Franchise or liberty than they themselves were. As to the second point, we know that beyond the inclinations and plans they had in founding this state, they were always their own masters; they made laws for their sovereign which, limiting their powers, still preserved their privileges to them, in such wise that if anyone wishes to deprive them of them, they become enraged and rush to arms with such speed that nothing can hold them back when this point is involved. As to the third point, I declare that France is so enamoured of liberty that she cannot endure a slave, so that Turks and Moors and still less Christian people, may never wear irons nor be loaded with chains once in her country, and thus it comes about, that when slaves come to be in France they are no sooner on her territory than, full of joy, they cry: Long live France and her beloved liberty!"
Les délices de la France ... by François Savinien d'Alquié, Amsterdam 1670.
Chapter XVI. entitled "France is a land of freedom for all sorts of people."
[16] The institution styled lit de justice, bed of justice.
Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.