Everybody, besides, had reason to rejoice at seeing the clergy acquire wealth; for this wealth belonged to everybody. In fact, every man could enter into the clergy, and the clergy belonged to all families. This order, so powerful in the middle ages, was as a natural link, as an intermediate point, which drew together and united all the classes of society. In the quarrels which jealousy sometimes raised between the clergy and the nobility, the great vassals reproached the ecclesiastics with being the children of serfs. It was not uncommon to see men who had issued from the lowest class of the people, in the highest functions of the Church; a certain proof that the clergy offered every one a way by which he might elevate himself, and that they thus assisted in reëstablishing the harmony destroyed by feudal inequality.
The clergy—such as our fathers saw it—only now exists in the memory of men.[112] In proportion as this institution, with all the advantages we have spoken of, shall be further removed from us, we shall perhaps become the more aware of its value. There are things of which we judge more favourably when memory recalls them to us, than when they are present.
After a revolution which has ruined so many families, in which so many hopes have been deceived,—at a time in which a numerous youth is crowded in the confined circle of public employments,—in which the divers professions, among the enlightened class, by no means suffice for the vast number of the candidates,—let me ask whether the Church, with its riches and its consolatory morality, would not be as a port in the storm,—as a refuge always open for those to whom the world has nothing to give? At a time in which everything is uncertain, moving, and transitory,—in which no man is sure of his destiny, who but must envy those men whose fate never changed,—who lived always in the same manner,—who saw the present without complaining,—to whom the future gave no uneasiness, and who might justly be compared to the young ones of the birds, of which Scripture speaks? If I durst utter all my thought—and I speak less in the name of religion than in the names of philosophy and humanity—I should even regret those austere retreats, open to piety, and consecrated by peace and prayer. There, at least, a shelter was found from the passions which disturb society, as they trouble the heart of man. Why, in fact, should there not be hospitals for the miseries of the soul, as there are for other human infirmities? Why are not they who have suffered from the storms of life, and whose heart is torn by deep wounds, to find a refuge against their ills, as well as those whom indigence overtakes, or as well as the war-mutilated soldier? Who does not know that great revolutions, like great griefs, inspire a desire for concealing existence, and seeking repose in solitude? “When the storm growls,” says Pythagoras, “worship echo.” Let us look back to the times which preceded the middle ages,—to those times in which the world was ready to fall to pieces with the Roman empire: it was at this deplorable epoch that the deserts of the Thebais were peopled with pious cenobites, who were no longer able to support the spectacle of human passions. It was not only simple and vulgar men who flocked to the solitudes of Cetteus and Memphis, but learned men, warriors,—men who had been seen in the courts of emperors. Whilst society was shaken to its foundations,—whilst disorder and corruption spread their baneful influence everywhere, elevated minds, whom this state of things drove to despair, went to bury themselves in retirement, embracing the altars of that Christian religion which was the only support left to unfortunate virtue, and was the last hope of civilization.
The swords of knights and the maxims of the clergy, as we have seen, contended with advantage against the excesses of barbarism; but no institution had yet attained sufficient consistence to guarantee the security of European societies. In spite of all efforts for the reëstablishment of order, anarchy still subsisted. In order to know what, either in an age or a people, is the spirit of civilization, it is sufficient to be acquainted with the progress that has been made in that same age, or among that same people, in the administration of justice. Of all the monuments the human mind can raise, a civil and criminal code is that which requires the most extensive knowledge, and the profoundest acquaintance with the passions of man.
In the middle ages, society, immersed in darkness, had lost the lessons and examples of antiquity in all which concerned judicial order; and found itself, in a manner, reduced to the experience of the barbarians.
When the barons usurped from the crown the right of administering justice, there were as many jurisdictions in France as there were lordships. Judicial administration then lost that spirit of wholeness, that uniformity, which gives weight and rectitude to its decisions. Judgment was no longer given but according to local customs, or uncertain traditions.[113] When, in the seventeenth century, the judicial customs and traditions which had been found in preceding ages were collected, there were found two hundred and eighty-five of them; a certain proof that in the times of which we speak, there could be no fixed rule, and that anarchy had invaded the sanctuary of justice.
Royalty could not watch over seignorial jurisdictions, and the ordinances of the kings were powerless out of the domains of the crown. The great vassals had no mutual understanding that might modify or regulate legislation. It is a remarkable thing that France, after the decline of the empire of Charlemagne, remained more than two centuries without recognising any authority to which it could carry its griefs and its complaints,—without having, either in the person of the monarch or the assemblies of the great, a power which could establish regulations, repair injustices, correct abuses, and consecrate the maxims of experience. If the kingdom was able to subsist for so long a time in this state, have we not reason to believe that there is in every society an unknown force, which defends that society against its own excesses, and saves the people in spite of their passions,—in spite of all which seems calculated to bring on their ruin?
To decide in civil and criminal causes, there was no other guide, no other intelligence, but the instincts and the conscience of the judges. These feeble means were not competent, in complicated cases, to assign to actions their true intention, or to appreciate the language of innocence or the denegations of crime. All matters were then treated according to verbal conventions, and judged according to unwritten testimonies. Words, often ill-interpreted, sometimes partially effaced from the memory, frequently contradicted or falsified, could not enlighten justice. Good faith was implored; the consciences of witnesses and parties were appealed to; but it was too frequently perjury that answered, and which commanded the decisions of the judges. At length, it was believed that an infallible means was discovered for detecting falsehood and fraud; an appeal was made from the consciences of men to the justice of Heaven. He who was accused, he whose evidence was contradicted, submitted to the ordeals of fire, boiling water, or red-hot iron. It was believed that Heaven would not permit injustice, and that it would rather suspend the laws of nature than the laws of society.
These proofs, however, were abandoned to the vulgar; judicial combat was the ordeal of nobles or of freemen. This species of justice, in which every warrior had only his own valour as the arbiter of his destiny, conformed exceedingly well with the military spirit of the age.