I.
We must, above all, distinguish clearly “the saving principle” from the opinions with which it might be confounded. It will be easier to understand what it is when we will have said what it is not.
In the first place, this principle is not that of absolute monarchy.
In the happiest period of our history, the power of the monarch was modified by institutions of various kinds: by the states-general, which, having the right to confirm or reject new taxes, afforded an opportunity of laying at the foot of the throne the complaints and the wishes of the country; by the magistrates, who, almost sovereign in the judicial order, exercised an efficacious control over the legislature; by the church above all, that energetically defended the supremacy of divine law against the caprices of princes. Whatever may be thought of the causes which, after the invasion of Protestantism, led to the destruction of these guarantees, and to the concentration of power; whatever may be said to excuse or glorify absolute monarchy in the past, it evidently cannot now be presented as the immutable principle through which we could ask our salvation.
It is not necessary to add that the inferior institutions which surrounded the monarchy at divers epochs, merit still less the name of principles. Formerly these institutions had a reason for existing, but nothing proves that they should survive the circumstances which gave them birth. Neither the warlike feudalism of the middle ages nor the nobility disarmed, but still privileged, of later times, belongs to those elements essential to all society, to which we are bound to restore their energy as soon as possible, if we would not condemn ourselves to perish.
Nor can we give the name of principle to divine right as understood by the Gallican school. According to this school, Providence, at the commencement of society, chose a man or a family to exercise the supreme power. The course of events which decided the form of government of infant societies was, in its opinion, a manifestation of the divine will sufficient to invest with the right of commanding those who had the strength to enforce it. This right is then divine, since it is held immediately from God; and, in the language of theology, the power of divine right is that which comes from God without passing through any human intermediary. The Gallican school recognized two sovereignties of divine right: that of the temporal order, which was royalty; and the papal sovereignty, which was spiritual—if it was allowable to say in this system that the pope was sovereign, since, contrary to the policy which sustained absolute political power, they wished in the spiritual order that the pope should share his sovereignty with the episcopate.
To dissimulate nothing, let us say here that lately theologians and Catholic philosophers, strangers to the Gallican school, have defended the thesis of divine right. But their adhesion, in giving new weight to this doctrine, does not take it from the category of simple opinions. It has always against it the arguments and authority of our most illustrious doctors, according to whom the right of princes is divine only in its first origin and in its abstract essence; but in its immediate origin, its concrete form, and in the appointment of the subject to be invested with it, this right is human, since it would only receive the determinations indispensable to its exercise by the expressed or tacit consent of society. The providential events of which we have before spoken were more or less indicative of the divine will, but the majority of doctors refuse to see in them a sufficient motive for investing with the right of commanding a man previously supposed to be without it.
The doctrine of the absolute inamissibility of power generally maintained by the partisans of divine right should also be ranked among the disputed opinions. It is logic that he who has received power immediately from God can only be deprived of it by God. The defenders of the opposite opinion admit, on the contrary, that, in extreme cases, power can be withdrawn from him who abuses it by only using for the destruction of society what was given to him for its preservation. And as it is difficult to distinguish in such cases, as error on such occasions could only be disastrous, as anarchy could easily spring from the most legitimate resistance to tyranny, Catholic theologians do not wish that these doubtful cases of conscience should be left to the passions of parties or to the blind fury of the mob; but they find a guarantee qualified to defend every right and to reassure every interest in the authority, ever impartial and paternal, of the Vicar of Jesus Christ.
The first basis of social order which we are now seeking, can neither be found in the monarchical principle.
In reality, whatever may be to the minds of the greatest philosophers the prerogatives of a limited monarchy, they cannot maintain that it is the only legitimate form of government; and consequently, as the monarchical principle is neither universal, absolute, nor immutable, it has none of the marks of a true principle.
Besides, the firmest partisans of monarchy do not assume for it this universal necessity. In the states with which it is identified, by long and legitimate possession, with the principle of right, they justly claim for it all the prerogatives of that principle. Unreasonable as it would be to pretend that monarchy is the only legitimate government for all times and all peoples, equally absurd would it be to maintain that, when it is legitimately established, it can be legitimately combated and overthrown. There is no right against right. The monarchical principle thus defended has no adversaries but those fanatical adorers of the republican form whose absolutism is a hundred times more unreasonable than ever was that of the most servile worshippers of royal power.
These topsy-turvy legitimists condemn, from the height of their pride, the immense majority of the human race, arrogating to themselves in favor of their opinion the authority which they refuse to the church of God; and they take to themselves, in remaking it, the motto with which they have so often reproached us: No salvation outside of the republic! After twenty-five centuries, they renew the foolish enterprise of the Babylonian despot: they wish to compel all the nations under the sun to prostrate themselves before the statue of their republic, and acknowledge it as the only true divinity.
No more tyrannical intolerance can be imagined. Whence do these absolutists derive the right of imposing their opinions on their equals? From what have they taken the halo with which they surround the cap of liberty, after having trampled all crowns under their feet? Undoubtedly, government exists but for the people, but does it follow that it should necessarily be exercised by the people? To refute their exclusive theories, it would be sufficient to compel them to make an application of them in their own families. In fact, from the moment that the principle becomes absolute, it should be applied to all authority; and there is no reason why the family and the workshop should not share with the state the advantages of the republican form.
But it is waste of time to dwell on this fanaticism, of which, thank God, we do not find a trace among the partisans of monarchy. The necessity which they attribute to it is not absolute, but hypothetical. They affirm that monarchy is the only form of government suited to the characters, defects, customs, and traditions of certain peoples. They say that nations, like individuals, have different temperaments; and, consequently, it would be absurd to impose the same rule on all. Nations, like individuals, when the constitution is formed, when inveterate habits have become a second nature, cannot, without danger, suddenly adopt new customs. What would become of a people who should persist in making this dangerous experiment? Against their will, they would carry their old customs into the new system; they would preserve their monarchical manners in the midst of a nominal republic; and this bastard government would have all the inconveniences of the monarchy, without its stability and other advantages.
More even than individuals, nations live by traditions. By them, the past extends its influence over the present, illumines it with the reflection of its glory, and animates it with its spirit. Traditions bind together the successive periods in a nation’s existence, and preserve among its children the unity produced by a long community of dangers and struggles, of triumphs and reverses. A people that breaks with tradition is like an uprooted tree; its existence is similar to that of a man, who, having lost his memory, cannot connect the present with the past. Now, it is evident that a nation whose institutions and customs for centuries have reposed on monarchy cannot have this basis overthrown without breaking all traditions, and throwing society entirely out of its beaten tracks.
These observations are evidently the dictates of good sense and experience. It is impossible not to be vividly struck by them, when one has lived among a people faithful to its traditions; as the English, for example. Nothing is more striking than the contrast between the general security, the vitality, the friendly enjoyments, whose source is respect for tradition, with the instability and anxiety which the Revolution has produced in our French society, formerly so calm and joyous.
But however well grounded may be this induction, it cannot take the place of the absolute and indisputable principle by which we wish to bind together all true and earnest men.
Let us pursue our research, and congratulate ourselves on being dispensed in our present position from pausing at the thorny distinction between the power of right and the power of fact. For too long a period has this been a cause of incurable division between the most honest and religious men. Of all the problems which belong to the social order, it is perhaps the most difficult to resolve practically. On one side, it is certain that the violation of right cannot destroy it, and that the usurper who, to gratify his ambition, imperils the gravest interests of society, does not become legitimate, even though his attempt be crowned by success. On the other side, however, the maintenance of public order being the reason of the existence of the rights of power, obedience cannot be refused to him who alone has the strength and the means of attaining this indispensable end.
From this springs one of those conflicts of opinion which make the social question so difficult. The same public order which commands obedience to the usurper alone capable of defending it, forbids encouraging the ambition of future usurpers by the full acceptation of triumphant crime. The friends of order can then follow different paths, according to the preference they may have for either of these interests. The power of fact will attract men who, most affected by present necessity, will hope to find in their adhesion to the established order a safeguard against new convulsions. Others will see in this adhesion to the revolution consummated an anticipated sanction of future revolutions, and will think themselves obliged to provide for the permanent necessities of society by remaining faithful to the fallen power.
This is not the place to decide such a difficult question, where even the supreme authority of the church has thought it often wiser to abstain. We need only state as a fact, unfortunate as inevitable, the division which springs from this conflict of duty. It will last until the illegitimate power is overthrown, or until, by the lapse of time, all trace of its origin is lost. In the first case, the transitory right which the usurping government borrowed from fact having disappeared with the fact, the power of right recovers its preponderance. In the second case, fact is transformed into right by becoming alone capable of defending society; and legitimacy, of which social interest was the base, will disappear with the real possibility of saving this supreme interest.
It is what happened in England, where the tories, the former partisans of the Stuarts, have long since adhered to the reigning dynasty. But in France, neither of the two dynasties which succeeded to that of our ancient kings established its domination firmly enough, or sufficiently renounced its revolutionary principle, to render evident to all eyes this union of right and fact. For fifty years, we have seen conservatives, religious men, and even the clergy, divided into two or three political fractions; and this division has not been one of the least causes of our weakness, and of the growing strength of the Revolution.
The evil appeared irremediable, and each day it acquired fresh gravity; for the government of fact, instead of seeing in the adhesion of men of order a motive for returning openly to conservative principles, believed it to be their interest to conciliate the men of disorder by supporting the principle of the Revolution.
Providence has drawn us from this position, apparently inextricable, and, by the result even of our faults, has made the cause of our divisions disappear. The Revolution has destroyed the governments blind enough to lean upon her. The power which exists to-day, and whose strength lies in the Assembly, has more than once acknowledged its provisional character. France is, then, free to return to the true principles of order, and to reunite under one flag all those who are sincerely devoted to the holy cause. Nothing prevents her fulfilling a celebrated prediction, and to close, by the proclamation of the rights of God, the revolution which opened with the proclamation of the rights of man.