Now I take the Roman or imperial royalty, and find it perfectly distinct. It was the impersonation of the state, the inheritor of the sovereignty and majesty of the Roman people. In the royalty of Augustus and Tiberius, the emperor was the representative of the senate, of the comitiæ, of the entire republic; them he succeeded, and combined in his own person. The modest pretensions of the first emperors, of those at least who were men of sense, and understood their position, give proof of this fact. They felt themselves before the people so lately supreme, and who had abdicated in their favour; they addressed them as their representatives and ministers. But in reality they exercised the whole power of the people, and in the most formidable intensity. Such a phenomenon is easy for us to comprehend, as we have ourselves witnessed it: in the history of Napoleon we have seen the sovereignty pass from the people into the hands of one man. He also was the impersonation of the sovereign people, as he perpetually said. 'Who ever was elected, like me, by eighteen millions of men! Who is so perfect a representative of the people as I!' he was accustomed to exclaim. And when we read on his coins, 'The French republic' on one side, and 'Napoleon, emperor,' on the reverse, does it not prove the fact as I describe it, the people merged into a king?
In this was exemplified the fundamental character of the imperial royalty, which it preserved for the three first centuries of the Empire, as it was only under Diocletian that it took its definitive and complete form. At that time, however, it was on the point of undergoing a great modification; a new species of royalty was about to appear. Christianity had laboured for three centuries to introduce the religious element into the Empire; and under Constantine it succeeded, not in making it paramount, but in enabling it to perform an important part. Then royalty presented itself under a totally different aspect; its origin ceased to be of the earth; the prince was not the representative of the public sovereignty, but the image of God, the delegate and representative of Heaven. Power came down to him from on high, whilst in the imperial royalty it had come up from below. These two positions were quite distinct, and had analogous results. The rights of liberty and political guarantees were difficult to combine with the principle of religious royalty; but the principle itself was elevated, moral, and salutary. Let us see the idea formed of the prince in the seventh century, amid the system of religious royalty. I take it from the canons of the council of Toledo.
'The king is called king (rex) because he governs justly (recte). If he acts with justice (recte), he possesses legitimately the name of king; if he acts with injustice, he perishes miserably. Therefore our fathers rightly said, "Thou wilt be king if thou perform just actions; but if thou do not so act, king thou wilt not be." [Footnote 12] The two principal royal virtues are justice and truth (the science of truth, reason).
[Footnote 12: Rex ejus eris si recta facis; si autem non facis, non eris. (The reverend fathers of Toledo have here indulged a sort of play on the words rex and recta.)]
'The royal power is bound, like the whole body of the people, to pay respect to the laws. Obeying the behests of Heaven, we give, as well to ourselves as to our subjects, wise laws, to which our own majesty and that of our successors is bound to render submission, as well as all the population of our kingdom.
'God, the creator of all things, in disposing the structure of the human body, has placed the head on high, and has willed that thence should proceed the nerves of all its members. And he has placed in the head the torch of the eyes, in order that thence should be discerned all things that might be noxious. And he has there established the seat of intelligence, imposing on it the duty of governing all the members, and discreetly regulating their action. Therefore is it necessary, in the first place, to make order for what concerns princes, to provide for their safety and protect their lives, and afterwards to prescribe what affects the people; so that by guaranteeing, as is fitting, the safety of kings, that of the people may be at the same time and more effectually secured.' [Footnote 13]
[Footnote 13: Forum Judicum, tit. i. 1. 2; tit. i. 1. 2. 1. 4.]
But another element besides royalty itself almost always intruded itself into the system of religious royalty. A new power seated itself by its side, a power more connected with God, and therefore with the source whence the royalty emanated, than royalty itself. This was the ecclesiastical power, which came forward to interpose between God and kings, and between kings and people, so that royalty, the image of the Divinity, ran the chance of sinking to a mere instrument of human interpreters of the Divine will. Here was a new cause of diversity in the destinies and effects of the institution.
Such were the various orders of royalty which manifested themselves amid the wreck of the Roman Empire in the fifth century—namely, the barbarian royalty, the imperial royalty, and the rising religious royalty. Their fortunes were as diverse as their principles.
In France, under the first race, the barbarian royalty prevailed. There were several attempts on the part of the clergy to impress on it the imperial or the religious character; but election in the royal family, with some mixture of hereditary right and religious ideas, remained predominant.