Liberty.
Liberty is freedom from restraint. In its widest sense, it is the free permission to exercise our powers of body and mind as we please, without hindrance or restraint. This is absolute liberty. According to this, a man might take away another’s property or life; or enslave another man; or make him the tool of his pleasures or caprices. According to this, a strong man might use a weak one as he pleased, or the cunning man might cheat or circumvent another, and thus take away his life or property, or make him the slave of his pleasures.
This is liberty without law. Such liberty as this could exist only in theory, for where society has enacted no law, the obligation of justice exists. A savage is as truly bound by the golden rule, “do to another as you would have another do to you,” as a member of civilized society; for even the savage has a sense of right and wrong. Truth and justice are intuitive perceptions and feelings in every human soul, and conscience enforces their observance. Every human being, therefore, has his absolute liberty abridged, by notions of right and wrong, anterior to the formation of civil government.
Practically, absolute liberty would be the harshest kind of tyranny, for it would immediately result in making the weak the slaves of the strong. Not only would the weak, therefore, be deprived of liberty, but of justice. In this state of things, no man is free, except the strongest man; he alone has power to act as he pleases; all the rest are his slaves: so that a community endeavoring to establish absolute liberty, immediately make all the members but one, the slaves of a master whose might is the rule of right.
Absolute liberty, therefore, as said before, immediately runs into despotism. It is a thing that can only exist where one man, like Alexander Selkirk, or Robinson Crusoe, is alone upon an island, and “monarch of all he surveys.” Absolute liberty, in society, is a practical absurdity—an impossibility.
Natural liberty is freedom from restraint, except so far as is imposed by the laws of nature. According to this, a man may speak, act, and think as he pleases, without control; in this sense, it is synonymous with absolute liberty. But it is often applied to a state of society, where restraints do actually exist; as, for instance, among savages, even where property is held in common, and where of course there is no theft, there are still obligations, rules, and restrictions, of some kind.
The coward is punished with death; the parricide is banished; the traitor is shot. Every member of such a society is under certain restraints, and certain abridgments of absolute liberty. If one is guilty of cowardice, he consents to lose his life; if he kills his parent, he consents to be forever cast out of his tribe; if he betrays his nation, he agrees that he shall be slain by an arrow. Thus, he is restrained from cowardice, killing a father or mother, or betraying his country; all of which are abridgments of absolute liberty.
Thus, in the simplest and rudest stages of natural liberty, as put in practice among mankind, we see certain restraints upon absolute liberty, established by the laws or customs of the nation. But, in point of fact, other restraints are put upon the largest part of the community, for in such a state of society the weak are obliged, for the most part, to bow to the strong. If, indeed, the weak are protected from the strong, then the strong are restrained, and so far, natural or absolute liberty is abridged. If it is not thus abridged, if the weak are not protected from the strong, then they are the slaves of the strong. In this state of society, where natural liberty is said to prevail, the mass are subject to the despotism of a few; the weak are the slaves of the strong. A state of natural liberty, is, therefore, practically, a state of tyranny on the one hand and slavery on the other.
An illustration of this is found among the animal tribes. Among the fowls of the barnyard, there is no law: the males meet in conflict, and the strongest or most active becomes the master. Among a pack of wolves, or among dogs, the question who shall have the bone, is settled by fighting it out, and the strongest has it. The law of nature, then, is a law of force: where there is no other than natural law, might is the only rule of right.
Even if all men were virtuous, a state of natural and universal liberty could not exist—for virtue itself implies an observance of rules, obligations, and laws. A virtuous man will not steal; his liberty therefore, in this respect, is restrained. It is restrained by law; and the only difference between this restraint and that of civil government, is, that God enacts, and his own heart enforces, the law.
Civil government is founded in the idea that men are not all virtuous; that men will not enact and observe just laws individually and of themselves; and therefore to secure order, peace and justice, government must enact and enforce laws, and thus abridge natural or absolute liberty.
Experience, in all ages, has taught the lesson, that among men, as well as among animals, there being some strong and some weak, the former will ever seek to get the advantage of the latter. Thus government steps in to protect the weak against the strong; to substitute justice for force, right for might.—Young American.
Dress and other matters in France, in the time of Henry IV.
One grand object of the king, Henry IV. of France, was to promote the arts and manufactures. The silk trade of Lyons owes its birth to him. Thinking to benefit trade and commerce, he encouraged his courtiers in habits of expense, quite opposite to his own frugal habits.
The expense of dress became enormously great on account of the quantity of gold, silver, and jewels with which it was decorated. It was not only costly, but dreadfully heavy. It is related of one of the ladies of the court, that, when she was in full dress, she was so encumbered by the weight of her finery as to be unable to move, or even to stand.
The dress of a gentleman of the day is thus described: “He was clothed in silver tissue; his shoes were white, and also his stockings. His cloak was black, bordered with rich embroidery and lined with cloth of silver; his bonnet was of black velvet, and he wore besides a profusion of precious stones.”
The ruff had been laid aside in the last reign, because Henry III. took it into his head that the person whose business it was to pin on his ruff, had been bribed to scratch him on the neck with a poisoned pin.
Its place, so far as the ladies were concerned, was supplied by a sort of frame of wire and lace, in which the head was enclosed, and which, in compliment to the queen, was called a Medicis. Masks were much worn by both sexes. They were made of black velvet, and were so necessary a part of the out-door costume of a lady, that she was thought to be in dishabille if seen without one.
This weight of dress led to the introduction of a new luxury. The ladies could no longer ride to court on horseback. Coaches were therefore employed to carry them. The first coach made its appearance in Paris, in the reign of Henry II.
For a long time, there were but three in the whole city. The queen had one; a great court lady had another; and the third belonged to an old nobleman, “who, being too fat to ride on horseback, was obliged to submit to the mortification of being carried in a coach like a woman.”
The tapestry, carpets, and bed hangings of the houses corresponded in splendor and costliness with the dress. When the constable Montmorenci was killed, his body was brought to his own house, and lay in state, as it is called; that is, for exhibition, in a hall, the walls of which were hung with crimson velvet bordered with pearls.
But in all other respects, the houses, and even the king’s palaces, were very deficient in what we should call furniture. Excepting one or two arm-chairs for the heads of the family, the rooms usually contained one coarse long table, some stools, a few benches, and several chests, which also served for seats.
Those who could not afford the expense of hangings of silk, or damask, or satin, covered the walls with gilt leather, or had them panelled with wood. I think the last was the most appropriate, from the description we have of what was perhaps the only parlor and sitting-room of a French chateau, or country house.
“The hall was very large. At one end was a stag’s antlers, which were used for hanging up hats, coats, dogs’ collars, and the chaplet of paternosters. At the opposite end of the hall were bows and arrows, targets, swords, pikes and cross-bows.
“In the great window were three harquebusses, (a kind of gun,) with a variety of nets, and other apparatus for sporting. In the chests (called coffers) were coats of mail laid up in bran, to keep them from rusting. Under the benches was a plentiful supply of clean straw for the dogs to lie on.”
Amidst all this litter, there were two shelves, on which was deposited the library. This consisted of the Bible, Ogier the Dane, the Shepherd’s Calendar, the Golden Legend, the Romance of the Rose, &c.
From this selection, it would appear that romances were preferred to those memoirs and histories, so much more interesting to us, of which many had been written. The period itself produced several writers, whose works are still held in high estimation.
At the head of these is the great Duke of Sully, who has given a most interesting account of those scenes in French history, in which he and his great master bore the most conspicuous part. Next to him is De Thou, who has written a minute general history of the period between 1545 and 1607.
Another distinguished memoir-writer was Theodore d’Aubigné, half-brother to the king, and grandfather to Madame de Maintenon.
One of the first cares of Henry when he came to the throne, was to restore his capital to its former flourishing condition. He found the streets overgrown with grass, many of the shops shut up, and others, abandoned by their owners, had been converted into stables. When the Spanish ambassadors arrived, a few months after his coronation, they expressed their admiration at the great improvement which had taken place in the city, since it had been under his rule.
The king replied, “When the master is absent, all things get into disorder; but when he is returned, his presence ornaments the house, and all things profit.”—Pictorial History of France.