The Most Bitter Foe of Nations, and the Way to Its Permanent Overthrow

by Andrew Dickson White

Of all modern aristocracies, hers has probably been the most hated.[36] Guizot, in some respects its apologist, confesses this. Eugenie de Guerin—the most angelic soul revealed to this age—herself of noble descent—declares that the sight even of a ruined chateau made her shudder[37] But all that history, rich as it is in illustrations of the noxious qualities of an oppressive aristocracy, I will pass, save as it presents the dealing of statesmen with it, their attempts to thwart it and crush it.

A succession of monarchs and statesmen kept up these attempts during centuries. Philip Augustus, Louis VI. and Louis VII., Suger, St. Louis, Philip the Long, all wrought well at this.

The great thing to notice in that mediaeval French statesmanship is that they attacked the domineering caste in the right way. Every victory over it was followed not merely by setting serfs free, but by giving them civil rights, and, to some extent, political rights. When one of the Kings I have named gave a Charter of Community, he did not merely make the serf a nominal freedman; he also gave him rights, and thus wrought him into a bulwark between the central power and the rage of the former master.[38]

So far all was good. The great difficulty was that none of those monarchs or statesmen obtained physical power enough to enforce this policy throughout France. It was mainly confined to towns.

But in the middle of the Fifteenth Century came the most persistent man of all—Louis the Eleventh. He gained power throughout the kingdom. If a noble became turbulent, he hunted him; if this failed, he entrapped him. Cages, dungeons, racks, gibbets, he used in extinguishing this sort of political vermin; and he used them freely and beneficially.

His policy seems cruel. Our weak women of both sexes, with whom the tears of a murderer's mistress outweigh the sufferings of a crime-ridden community, will think so. It was really merciful. Louis was, probably, a scoundrel; but he was not a fool, and he saw that the greatest cruelty he could commit would be to make concessions and try to win over the nobility. His hard, sharp sense showed him—what all history shows—that an oppressive caste can be crushed, but that wheedled and persuaded it cannot be.

But Louis forgot one thing, and that the most important. Merely to defeat an aristocracy was not enough. He forgot to provide guarantees for the lower classes—he forgot to put rights into their hands which should enable them forever to check and balance the upper class when his hand was removed. You see that this mistake is just the reverse of that committed by previous statesmen.

Of course then, after the death of Louis, France relapsed into her old anarchy. Occasionally a strong King or city put a curb upon the nobles; but, in the main, it was the old bad history with variations ever more and more painful.

Over a hundred years more of this sort went by, and the rule of the nobles became utterly unbearable. The death of Henry the Fourth, in 1610, left on the throne a weak child as King, and behind the throne a weak woman as Regent. The nobles wrought out their will completely. They seized fortifications, plundered towns, emptied the treasury, domineered over the monarch, and impoverished the people. Curiously enough, too, to one who has not seen the same fact over and over in history, the nobles, during all these outrages of theirs, were declaiming, and groaning, and whining over their grievances and want of rights.[39]