A few, by dint of endless study and contemplation and the serious searching of their immortal souls will be able to arrive at certain temperate philosophical conclusions which will place them above and beyond the common worries of mankind.
But the vast majority of the people are not contented with a mild diet of spiritual “light wines.” They want something with a kick to it, something that burns on the tongue, that hurts the gullet, that will make them sit up and take notice. What that “something” is does not matter very much, provided it comes up to the above-mentioned specifications and is served in a direct and simple fashion and in unlimited quantities.
This fact seems to have been little understood by historians and this has led to many and serious disappointments. No sooner has an outraged populace torn down the stronghold of the past (a fact duly and enthusiastically reported by the local Herodoti and Taciti), than it turns mason, carts the ruins of the former citadel to another part of the city and there remolds them into a new dungeon, every whit as vile and tyrannical as the old one and used for the same purpose of repression and terror.
The very moment a number of proud nations have at last succeeded in throwing off the yoke imposed upon them by an “infallible man” they accept the dictates of an “infallible book.”
Yea, on the very day when Authority, disguised as a flunkey, is madly galloping to the frontier, Liberty enters the deserted palace, puts on the discarded royal raiment and forthwith commits herself to those selfsame blunders and cruelties which have just driven her predecessor into exile.
It is all very disheartening, but it is an honest part of our story and must be told.
No doubt the intentions of those who were directly responsible for the great French upheaval were of the best. The Declaration of the Rights of Man had laid down the principle that no citizen should ever be disturbed in the peaceful pursuit of his ways on account of his opinion, “not even his religious opinion,” provided that his ideas did not disturb the public order as laid down by the various decrees and laws.
This however did not mean equal rights for all religious denominations. The Protestant faith henceforth was to be tolerated, Protestants were not to be annoyed because they worshiped in a different church from their Catholic neighbors, but Catholicism remained the official, the “dominant” Church of the state.
Mirabeau, with his unerring instinct for the essentials of political life, knew that this far famed concession was only a half-way measure. But Mirabeau, who was trying to turn a great social cataclysm into a one-man revolution, died under the effort and many noblemen and bishops, repenting of their generous gesture of the night of the fourth of August, were already beginning that policy of obstructionism which was to be of such fatal consequence to their master the king. And it was not until two years later in the year 1791 (and exactly two years too late for any practical purpose) that all religious sects including the Protestants and the Jews, were placed upon a basis of absolute equality and were declared to enjoy the same liberty before the law.
From that moment on, the rôles began to be reversed. The constitution which the representatives of the French people finally bestowed upon an expectant country insisted that all priests of whatsoever faith should swear an oath of allegiance to the new form of government and should regard themselves strictly as servants of the state, like the school-teachers and postal employees and light-house keepers and customs officials who were their fellow-citizens.