The lifeless body of the king was immediately taken to the Tuileries and placed upon a bed. Surgeons and physicians hurried to the room only to gaze upon his corpse. No language can depict the grief and despair of France at his death. He had won the love of the whole nation, and, to the present day, no one hears the name of Henry the Fourth mentioned in France but with affection. He was truly the father of his people. All conditions, employments, and professions were embraced in his comprehensive regard. He spared no toil to make France a happy land. He was a man of genius and of instinctive magnanimity. In conversation he had no rival. His profound and witty sayings which have been transmitted to us are sufficient to form a volume. His one great and almost only fault sadly tarnishes his otherwise fair and honorable fame.
In Henry commenced the reign of the house of Bourbon. For nearly two hundred years the family retained the crown. It is now expelled, and the members are wandering in exile through foreign lands.
The truth to be enforced.
There is one great truth which this narrative enforces: it is the doctrine of freedom of conscience. It was the denial of this simple truth which deluged France in blood and woe. The recognition of this one sentiment would have saved for France hundreds of thousands of lives, and millions of treasure. Let us take warning. We need it.
Let us emblazon upon our banner the noble words, "Toleration—perfect civil and religious toleration." But Toleration is not a slave. It is a spirit of light and of liberty. It has much to give, but it has just as much to demand. It bears the olive-branch in one hand, and the gleaming sword in the other. I grant to you, it says, perfect liberty of opinion and of expression, and I demand of you the same.
Free speech.
Free press.
Free men.
Let us then inscribe upon the arch which spans our glorious Union, making us one in its celestial embrace, "Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and free men."
Then shall that arch beam upon us like God's bow of promise in the cloud, proclaiming that this land shall never be deluged by the surges of civil war—that it never shall be inundated by flames and blood.
The human mind is now so roused that it will have this liberty; and if there are any institutions of religion or of civil law which can not stand this scrutiny, they are doomed to die. The human mind will move with untrammeled sweep through the whole range of religious doctrine, and around the whole circumference and into the very centre of all political assumptions.