World's Best Histories — Volume 7: France

by François Guizot; Madame de Witt

The Journal des Débats, in the first rank of the periodical press, under the intelligent direction of the Bertins, had already been favored with a special inspector, whose duty was to superintend its editing, and to whom the proprietors of the paper were forced to pay 12,000 francs a year. Fouché had menaced the other papers with this measure of discipline, by ordering them to "put into quarantine all news disagreeable or disadvantageous to France." This patriotic prudence did not long suffice for the master. "Let Fiévée know that I am very dissatisfied with the manner in which he edits his paper," he wrote, on the 6th March, 1808. "It is ridiculous that, contrary to the rules of good sense, he still continues to believe all that the German papers say to frighten us about the Russians. It is ridiculous to say that they put 500,000 men in the field, when, for the coalition itself, Russia only furnished 100,000 men, while Austria furnished 300,000. It is my intention that he should only speak of the Russians to humiliate them, to enfeeble their forces, to prove how their trashy reputation in military matters, and the praises of their armies, are without foundation." And the same day to Talleyrand: "It is my intention that the political articles in the Moniteur should be guided by the foreign relations. And after seeing how they are done for a month, I shall prohibit the other papers talking politics, otherwise than by copying the articles of the Moniteur."

We have known the dangers and the formidable effects of an unlimited liberty of the press. Never was it more licentious than when just recovered from a system arbitrarily oppressive. The fire which appears to be extinct smoulders under the ashes, to shortly break out with new fury. The thirty-three years of constitutional régime which France had enjoyed, powerfully contributed to the moderation of men's acts, and even their words, at the time of the revolution of 1848. The outburst of invectives and anger which saluted the fall of the Emperor Napoleon, had been slowly accumulated during the long silence imposed under his reign.

Arbitrary and despotic will succeeds in creating silence, but not in breaking it at a given time, and in a specified direction. In vain did Napoleon institute prizes every ten years; in vain did he demand from the several classes of the Institute reports on the progress of human thought since 1789. Literary genius remained deaf to his voice, and the real talent of several poets of a secondary order, Delille, Esmenard, Millevoye, Chênédollé, was not sufficient to triumph over the intellectual apathy which seemed to envelope the people he governed. "When I entered the world, in 1807," said Guizot, "chaos had reigned for a long time; the excitement of 1789 had entirely disappeared; and society, being completely occupied in settling itself, thought no more of the character of its amusements; the spectacles of force had replaced for it the aspirations towards liberty. In the midst of the general reaction, the faithful heirs of the literary salons of the eighteenth century remained the only strangers in them. The mistakes and disasters of the Revolution had not made the survivors of that brilliant generation abjure their ideas and desires; they remained sincerely liberal, but without pressing demands, and with the reserve of those who have succeeded little and suffered much in their endeavors after reform and government. They held fast to the liberty of speech, but did not aspire to power; they detested, and sharply criticised, despotism, but without doing anything to repress or overturn it. It was an opposition made by enlightened and independent spectators, who had no chance and no desire to interfere as actors."

Thus it was that the lassitude of the superior classes, decimated and ruined by the French revolution and the Terror, inspired by the splendid and triumphant military despotism, contributed together to keep the public mind in a weak and supine state, which the sound of the cannon alone interrupted. I am wrong; the great men, naturalists or mathematicians, who had sprung up, either young or already ripe, in the era of the French revolution—Laplace, La Grange, Cuvier—upheld, in the order of their studies, that scientific superiority of France which has not always kept pace with literary genius, but which has never ceased to adorn our country. The personal tastes of the emperor served and encouraged the learned men, even when their opinions had remained more independent than suited him. He sometimes reproached Monge, his companion during the campaign of Egypt, that he had remained in his heart attached to the Republic. "Well, but!" said the great geometrician, gayly, "your Majesty turned so short!"

Napoleon had certainly turned short, and he expected France to follow him in the rapid evolution of his thought. Jealous of his right to march in the van and show the way to all, he indicated to dramatic authors the draft of their theatrical pieces, and to painters the subject of their paintings. "Why," he wrote to Fouché, "should you not engage M. Raynouard to make a tragedy on the transition from the first to the second race? Instead of being a tyrant, his successor would be the saviour of the nation. It is in pieces of that kind that the theatre is new, for under the old régime they would not have been permitted." On the other hand, and by an unconscious return to that fear of the house of Bourbon which he always instinctively felt, Napoleon opposed the representation of a tragedy of Henry IV. "That period is not so remote but that it may awake the passions. The scene should be more ancient."

The passions sometimes awake easily, at points where no threatening or danger appeared. Immediately after the consecration and the Concordat, what could be more natural or simple than a wish to draw up a catechism for the use of all the schools? The organic articles had declared that there would be only one liturgy and one catechism for all the churches of France. At first the court of Rome made no difficulty. The Abbé Emery, Superior of St. Sulpice, gave an excellent piece of advice to Portalis, the Minister of Religion. "If I were in the emperor's place," said he, "I should take purely and simply the catechism of Bossuet, and thus avoid an immense responsibility." Napoleon had a liking for Bossuet's genius and doctrine, and the idea pleased him. The new catechism intended to form the minds and hearts of coming generations was placed under the patronage of Bossuet, "that celebrated prelate, whose science, talents, and genius have served the Church and honored the nation," said Portalis in his report. "The justice which all the bishops of Christendom had rendered to the memory of this great man, is to us a sufficient guarantee of his accuracy and authority. The work of the compilers of the new catechism is in reality but a second copy of Bossuet's work."

The great bishop would certainly have felt some difficulty in recognizing certain pages of the work so prudently presented under his aegis. Strictly faithful to the spirit of the Gospel as to the supreme equality of all men in the presence of God, whatever might occasionally have been his consideration for the wishes of Louis XIV., Bossuet, when expounding the fourth commandment, the respect and submission due by children to their parents, was satisfied with adding,—"What else is commanded to us by the fourth commandment? To respect all superiors, pastors, kings, magistrates, and others."

The submission of the subjects of Louis XIV. was known to him, and therefore that exposition was enough in his time. Portalis was of opinion that immediately after the French Revolution the principles of respect and obedience ought to be more exactly defined. "The point is," he wrote to Napoleon, on the 13th February, 1806, "to attach the conscience of the people to your Majesty's august person, by whose government and victories the safety and happiness of France are secured. To recommend subjects generally to submit to their sovereign would not, in the present hypothesis, direct that submission towards its proper end. I therefore thought it necessary to make a clear explanation, and apply the precept in a precise manner to your Majesty. That will prevent any ambiguity, by fixing men's hearts and minds upon him who alone can and really ought to fix their minds and hearts."

Napoleon readily coincided with the pious officiousness of his Minister of Religion, and undertook to draw up himself the question and answer in the new catechism. "Is submission to the government of France a dogma of the Church? Yes; Scripture teaches us that he who resists the powers resists the order of God; yes, the Church imposes upon us more special duties towards the government of France, the protector of religion and the Church; she commands us to love it, cherish it, and he ready for all sacrifices in its service." The theologians, whom Portalis said he always distrusted, pointed out that, the Church being universal, her dogmas could not inculcate respect for a particular government. It was therefore drawn up afresh, and was so extended that the commentary on the fourth commandment became longer than the exposition of the principle itself. I wish to give here the actual text as a curious document of the spirit of the time.

LESSON VII—Continuation of the Fourth Commandment.