SECTION I.
Whoever holds both the sceptre and the censer has his hands completely occupied. If he governs a people possessed of common sense he may be considered as a very able man; but if his subjects have no more mind than children or savages, he may be compared to Bernier's coachman, who was one day suddenly surprised by his master in one of the public places of Delhi, haranguing the populace, and distributing among them his quack medicines. "What! Lapierre," says Bernier to him, "have you turned physician?" "Yes, sir," replied the coachman; "like people, like doctor."
The dairo of the Japanese, or the grand lama of Thibet, might make just the same remark. Even Numa Pompilius, with his Egeria, would have answered Bernier in the same manner. Melchizedek was probably in a similar situation, as well as the Anius whom Virgil introduces in the following two lines of the third book of his "Æneid":
Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique sacerdos,
Vittis et sacra redimitus tempora lauro.—VIRGIL.
Anius, the priest and king, with laurel crowned
His hoary locks with purple fillets bound.—DRYDEN.
This charlatan Anius was merely king of the isle of Delos, a very paltry kingdom, which, next to those of Melchizedek and Yvetot, was one of the least considerable in the world; but the worship of Apollo had conferred on it a high reputation; a single saint is enough to raise any country into credit and consequence.
Three of the German electors are more powerful than Anius, and, like him, unite the rights of the mitre with those of the crown; although in subordination, at least apparently so, to the Roman emperor, who is no other than the emperor of Germany. But of all the countries in which the plenitude of ecclesiastical and the plenitude of royal claims combine to form the most full and complete power that can be imagined, modern Rome is the chief.
The pope is regarded in the Catholic part of Europe as the first of kings and the first of priests. It was the same in what was called "pagan" Rome; Julius Cæsar was at once chief pontiff, dictator, warrior, and conqueror; distinguished also both for eloquence and gallantry; in every respect the first of mankind; and with whom no modern, except in a dedication, could ever be compared.
The king of England, being the head also of the Church, possesses nearly the same dignities as the pope. The empress of Russia is likewise absolute mistress over her clergy, in the largest empire existing upon earth. The notion that two powers may exist, in opposition to each other, in the same state, is there regarded even by the clergy themselves as a chimera equally absurd and pernicious.
In this connection I cannot help introducing a letter which the empress of Russia, Catherine II., did me the honor to write to me at Mount Krapak, on Aug. 22, 1765, and which she permitted me to make use of as I might see occasion:
"The Capuchins who are tolerated at Moscow (for toleration is general throughout the Russian empire, and the Jesuits alone are not suffered to remain in it), having, in the course of the last winter, obstinately refused to inter a Frenchman who died suddenly, under a pretence that he had not received the sacraments, Abraham Chaumeix drew up a factum, or statement, against them, in order to prove to them that it was obligatory upon them to bury the dead. But neither this factum, nor two requisitions of the governor, could prevail on these fathers to obey. At last they were authoritatively told that they must either bury the Frenchman or remove beyond the frontiers. They actually removed accordingly; and I sent some Augustins from this place, who were somewhat more tractable, and who, perceiving that no trifling or delay would be permitted, did all that was desired on the occasion. Thus Abraham Chaumeix has in Russia become a reasonable man; he absolutely is an enemy to persecution; were he also to become a man of wit and intellect, he would make the most incredulous believe in miracles; but all the miracles in the world will not blot out the disgrace of having been the denouncer of the 'Encyclopædia.'