Number of political writers. 18. The present period, especially after 1570, is far more fruitful than the preceding in the annals of political science. It produced several works both of temporary and permanent importance. Before we come to Bodin, who is its most conspicuous ornament, it may be fit to mention some less considerable books, which, though belonging partly to the temporary class, have in several instances survived the occasion which drew them forth, and indicate a state of public opinion not unworthy of notice.
Oppression of Governments. 19. A constant progress towards absolute monarchy, sometimes silent, at other times attended with violence, had been observable in the principal kingdoms of Europe for the last hundred years. This had been brought about by various circumstances which belong to civil history; but among others, by a more skilful management, and a more systematic attention to the maxims of state-craft, which had sometimes assumed a sort of scientific form, as in the Prince of Machiavel, but were more frequently inculcated in current rules familiar to the counsellors of kings. The consequence had been, not only many flagrant instances of violated public right, but in some countries, especially France, an habitual contempt for every moral as well as political restraint on the ruler’s will. |And spirit generated by it.| But oppression is always felt to be such, and the breach of known laws cannot be borne without resentment, though it may without resistance; and there were several causes that tended to generate a spirit of indignation against the predominant despotism. Independent of those of a political nature, which varied according to the circumstances of kingdoms, there were three that belonged to the sixteenth century as a learned and reflecting age, which, if they did not all exercise a great influence over the multitude, were sufficient to affect the complexion of literature, and to indicate a somewhat novel state of opinion in the public mind.
Derived from classic history. 20. I. From the Greek and Roman poets, orators, or historians, the scholar derived the principles, not only of equal justice, but of equal privileges; he learned to reverence free republics, to abhor tyranny, to sympathise with a Timoleon or a Brutus. A late English historian, who carried to a morbid excess his jealousy of democratic prejudices, fancied that these are perceptible in the versions of Greek authors by the learned of the sixteenth century, and that Xylander or Rhodomann gratified their spite against the sovereigns of their own time, by mistranslating their text in order to throw odium on Philip or Alexander. This is probably unfounded; but it may still be true that men, who had imbibed notions, perhaps as indefinite as exaggerated, of the blessings of freedom in ancient Rome and Greece, would draw no advantageous contrast with the palpable outrages of arbitrary power before their eyes. We have seen, fifty years before, a striking proof of almost mutinous indignation in the Adages of Erasmus; and I have little doubt that further evidence of it might be gleaned from the letters and writings of the learned.
From their own and the Jewish. 21. II. In proportion as the antiquities of the existing European monarchies came to be studied, it could not but appear that the royal authority had outgrown many limitations that primitive usage or established law had imposed upon it; and the farther back these researches extended, the more they seemed, according to some inquirers, to favour a popular theory of constitutional polity. III. Neither of these considerations, which affected only the patient scholar, struck so powerfully on the public mind as the free spirit engendered by the Reformation, and especially the Judaizing turn of the early Protestants, those at least of the Calvinistic school, which sought for precedents and models in the Old Testament, and delighted to recount how the tribes of Israel had fallen away from Rehoboam, how the Maccabees had repelled the Syrian, how Eglon had been smitten by the dagger of Ehud. For many years the Protestants of France had made choice of the sword, when their alternative was the stake; and amidst, defeat, treachery, and massacre, sustained an unequal combat with extraordinary heroism, and a constancy that only a persuasion of acting according to conscience could impart. That persuasion it was the business of their ministers and scholars to encourage by argument. Each of these three principles of liberty was asserted by means of the press in the short period between 1570 and 1580.
Franco-Gallia of Hottoman. 22. First in order of publication is the Franco-Gallia of Francis Hottoman, one of the most eminent lawyers of that age. This is chiefly a collection of passages from the early French historians, to prove the share of the people in government, and especially their right of electing the kings of the first two races. No one, in such inquiries, would now have recourse to the Franco-Gallia, which has certainly the defect of great partiality, and an unwarrantable extension of the author’s hypothesis. But it is also true that Hottoman revealed some facts as to the ancient monarchy of France, which neither the later historians, flatterers of the court, nor the lawyers of the parliament of Paris, against whom he is prone to inveigh, had suffered to transpire.
Vindiciæ of Languet. 23. An anonymous treatise, Vindiciæ contra Tyrannos, Auctore Stephano Junio Bruto Celta, 1579, commonly ascribed to Hubert Languet, the friend of Sir Philip Sydney, breathes the stern spirit of Judaical Huguenotism. Kings, that lay waste the church of God, and support idolatry, kings, that trample upon their subjects’ privileges, may be deposed by the states of their kingdom, who indeed are bound in duty to do so, though it is not lawful for private men to take up arms without authority. As kings derive their pre-eminence from the will of the people, they may be considered as feudally vassals of their subjects, so far that they may forfeit their crown by felony against them. Though Languet speaks honourably of ancient tyrannicides, it seems as if he could not mean to justify assassination, since he refuses the right of resistance to private men.
Contr’Un of Boetie. 24. Hottoman and Languet were both Protestants; and the latter especially may have been greatly influenced by the perilous fortunes of their religion. A short treatise, however, came out in 1578, written probably near thirty years before, by Stephen de la Boetie, best known to posterity by the ardent praises of his friend Montaigne, and an adherent to the church. This is called Le Contr’Un, ou Discours de la Servitude Volontaire. It well deserves its title. Roused by the flagitious tyranny of many contemporary rulers, and none were worse than Henry II., under whose reign it was probably written, La Boetie pours forth the vehement indignation of a youthful heart, full of the love of virtue and of the brilliant illusions which a superficial knowledge of ancient history creates, against the voluntary abjectness of mankind, who submit as slaves to one no wiser, no braver, no stronger than any of themselves. “He who so plays the master over you has but two eyes, has but two hands, has but one body, has nothing more than the least among the vast number who dwell in our cities; nothing has he better than you, save the advantage that you give him, that he may ruin you. Whence has he so many eyes to watch you, but that you give them to him? How has he so many hands to strike you, but that he employs your own? How does he come by the feet which trample on your cities, but by your means? How can he have any power over you, but what you give him? How could he venture to persecute you, if he had not an understanding with yourselves? What harm could he do you, if you were not receivers of the robber that plunders you, accomplices of the murderer who kills you, and traitors to your own selves? You, you sow the fruits of the earth, that he may waste them; you furnish your houses, that he may pillage them; you rear your daughters, that they may glut his wantonness, and your sons, that he may lead them at the best to his wars, or that he may send them to execution, or make them the instruments of his concupiscence, the ministers of his revenge. You exhaust your bodies with labour, that he may revel in luxury, or wallow in base and vile pleasures; you weaken yourselves, that he may become more strong, and better able to hold you in check. And yet from so many indignities, that the beasts themselves, could they be conscious of them, would not endure, you may deliver yourselves, if you but make an effort, not to deliver yourselves, but to show the will to do it. Once resolve to be no longer slaves, and you are already free. I do not say that you should assail him, or shake his seat; merely support him no longer, and you will see that, like a great Colossus, whose basis has been removed from beneath him, he will fall by his own weight, and break to pieces.”[1070]
[1070] Le Contr’Un of La Boetie is published at the end of some editions of Montaigne.
25. These bursts of a noble patriotism, which no one who is in the least familiar with the history of that period will think inexcusable, are much unlike what we generally expect from the French writers. La Boetie, in fact, is almost a single instance of a thoroughly republican character till nearly the period of the Revolution. Montaigne, the staunchest supporter of church and state, excuses his friend, “le plus grand homme, a mon avis, de notre siècle,” assuring us that he was always a loyal subject, though if he had been permitted his own choice, “he would rather have been born at Venice than at Sarlat.” La Boetie died young in 1561; and his Discourse was written some years before; he might have lived to perceive how much more easy it is to inveigh against the abuses of government, than to bring about anything better by rebellion.
Buchanan, De Jure Regni. 26. The three great sources of a free spirit in politics, admiration of antiquity, zeal for religion, and persuasion of positive right, which separately had animated La Boetie, Languet, and Hottoman, united their streams to produce, in another country, the treatise of George Buchanan (De Jure Regni apud Scotos), a scholar, a protestant, and the subject of a very limited monarchy. This is a dialogue elegantly written, and designed first, to show the origin of royal government from popular election; then, the right of putting tyrannical kings to death, according to Scripture, and the conditional allegiance due to the crown of Scotland, as proved by the coronation oath, which implies, that it is received in trust from the people. The following is a specimen of Buchanan’s reasoning, which goes very materially farther than Languet had presumed to do:—“Is there then,” says one of the interlocutors, “a mutual compact between the king and the people? M. Thus it seems.—B. Does not he, who first violates the compact, and does anything against his own stipulations, break his agreement? M. He does.—B. If then, the bond which attached the king to the people is broken, all rights he derived from the agreement are forfeited. M. They are forfeited.—B. And he who was mutually bound becomes as free as before the agreement? M. He has the same rights and the same freedom as he had before.—B. But if a king should do things tending to the dissolution of human society, for the preservation of which he has been made, what name should we give him? M. We should call him a tyrant.—B. But a tyrant not only possesses no just authority over his people, but is their enemy? M. He is surely their enemy.—B. Is there not a just cause of war against an enemy who has inflicted heavy and intolerable injuries upon us? M. There is.—B. What is the nature of a war against the enemy of all mankind, that is, against a tyrant? M. None can be more just.—B. Is it not lawful in a war justly commenced, not only for the whole people, but for any single person to kill an enemy? M. It must be confessed.—B. What, then, shall we say of a tyrant, a public enemy, with whom all good men are in eternal warfare? may not any one of all mankind inflict on him every penalty of war? M. I observe that all nations have been of that opinion, for Theba is extolled for having killed her husband, and Timoleon for his brother’s, and Cassius for his son’s, death.”[1071]