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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
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o      http://www.archive.org/details/somelieserrorsofOOpars 


SOME   LIES  AND  ERRORS 
OF  HISTORY. 


BY 

REV,  REUBEN  PARSONS,  D,D. 

Author    of  "Studies   in  Church  History." 


L'homme  est  de  glace  aux  verites, 
II  est  de  feu  pour  le  mensoiige." 

Lafontaine. 


Rfprinted  from  the  "AVE  MABIA." 
Second  and  Enlarged  Edition. 


NOTRE  DAME,  IND. : 
OFFICE  OF  THE  "AVE  MARIA." 


*j  b  7i  y 


x"     I 


?3 


THE  LIBRARY  [ 
OF  CONGRESS 


WASHINGTON 
Copyright,  1893, 
By  DANIEL  E.  HUDSON. 


BECKTOLD  &  Co.,  Printers  and  Binders, 
St.  Louis,  Mo. 


PREFACE 


The  following  essays,  selected  from  among  those 
contributed  by  the  author  to  the  "Ave  Maria"  dur- 
ing the  last  few  years,  include  some  subjects  which, 
though  important,  are  seldom  brought  to  the  atten- 
tion of  any  but  the  lovers  of  the  recondite.  For 
the  presentation  of  these  no  explanation  need  be 
tendered;  but  others  are  introduced,  the  themes 
of  which  have  become  trite,  even  to  persons  of  no 
extraordinary  erudition.  Perhaps,  therefore,  indul- 
gence should  be  asked  for  an  apparently  reckless 
augmentation  of  the  mass  of  polemics  already  super- 
fluous and  tiresome.  Nevertheless,  such  an  apology 
shall  not  be  made.  The  fact  that  the  indicated 
errors  are  constantly  being  advanced,  despite  the 
multifarious  refutations  which  are  at  the  command 
of  the  sincere  investigator;  the  fact  that  these  er- 
rors too  often  meet  with  silence  on  the  part  of  those 
whose  highest  interests   demand  their  exposition; 


iv  Preface. 

these  strange  and  saddening  considerations  justify 
our  action,  and  preclude  any  fear  of  its  being  ascribed 
to  a  cacoethes  scribendi.  Again,  while  in  some  in- 
stances the  reader  may  find  nothing  new  presented 
for  his  reflections,  the  subject-matter  may  stand 
forth  in  a  new  light,  owing  to  the  method  of  its 
treatment;  and  thus  the  author  may  gain  his  ob- 
ject— the  elucidation  of  a  knotty  question,  or  the 
manifestation  of  a  hideous  lie,  in  a  mind  which 
other  writers  have  not  influenced. 

In  choosing  his  subjects,  the  author  has  suffered 
from  an  embarrassment  of  riches,  and  he  has  fan- 
cied that  he  was  about  to  imitate  the  child  who  tried 
to  clear  away  the  ocean  with  a  spoon.  Several  vol- 
umes would  be  required  for  an  exposition  of  merely 
the  most  prominent  of  the  Lies  and  Errors  of  His- 
tory. We  do  not  threaten  the  libraries  with  any 
polemical  avalanche,  but  we  do  propose  soon  to  put 
forth  another  effort  in  the  good  cause.  An  endeavor 
to  dislodge  the  spirit  of  falsehood  from  the  position 
to  which  it  has  been  elevated  by  those  writers  whom 
De  Maistre,  with  but  little  exaggeration,  charges 
with  having  entered  into  a  deliberate  conspiracy 
against  truth,  may  be  an  attempt  to  emulate  the 
labors  of  Sisyphus.  But  some  measure  of  success 
is  attainable.     "That  error  which  precedes  truth  is 


Preface.     .  v 

only  an  ignorance  of  it;    that  which  follows  is  a 

hatred  of  truth."     They  who  form  the  first  class 

of  the  two  into  whkh  Valery  would  thus  properly 

divide   the   victims    of   historical   heterodoxy,   are 

amenable   to    conviction,    and   to    their    assistance 

this  volume  is  dedicated.  ^    ^ 

±C.   Jr. 

New  York,  Jan.  18,  1S92. 


CONTENTS 


Pope  Alexander  VI.     .....  1 

The  Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Charles  V.         .  21 

Bruno  and  Campanella         ......  33 

St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria  and  the  Murder  of  Hypatia     .  44 

The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine      ...  54 

Fenelon  and  Voltaire  ....          .          .          .  6S 

Galileo 80 

The  Grey  Cardinal       . 104 

"I  am  the  State!  "—Did  Louis  XIV.  Ever  Say  So?     .  113 
The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition           .          .          .          .121 

Louis  XL;  The  Travestied  and  the  Real      .          .         .  159 

Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic          .....  170 

Louis  XIII.  as  He  Was 184 

The  Nature  of  Tasso's  Imprisonment   ....  197 

Wicked  Venice 207 

The  Last  Word  on  the  Massacre  of  Sr.  Bartholomew's 

Day .         .         .221 

The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night  .         .         .249 

The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mask 271 

The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results            .          .  286 
The  "Orthodox"   Russian,  and   the  Schismatic  Greek 

Churches 304 

Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes        ....  320 

Appendix     .........  335 

vii 


SOME  LIES  AND  ERRORS 
OF  HISTORY. 


POPE  ALEXANDER  VI. 

Accokding  to  the  majority  of  authors,  Pope 
Alexander  VI.  had  neither  the  virtues  which  befit 
the  Supreme  Pontificate  of  Christendom,  nor  those 
of  any  ordinary  man.  His  name  appears  synonymous 
with  simony,  treachery,  cruelty,  lust,  avarice,  and 
sacrilege.  Other  memories,  long  contemned  and 
even  accursed,  have  been  rehabilitated;  but  that  of 
Alexander  VI.  remains,  to  most  men,  foul  and  de- 
testable. Are  we,  therefore,  to  take  for  granted  all 
that  has  been  alleged  against  this  Pontiff?  Even 
Eoscoe  contends  that  "whatever  have  been  his 
crimes,  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  they  have  been 
highly  overcharged.  .  .  .  The  vices  of  Alexander 
were  accompanied,  although  not  compensated,  by 
many  great  qualities  which,  in  the  consideration  of 
his  character,  ought  not  to  be  passed  over  in  silence. 
Nor,  if  this  were  not  the  fact,  would  it  be  possible  to 
account  for  the  peculiar  good  fortune  which  attended 
him  to  the  latest  period  of  his  life ;  or  for  the  singu- 
lar circumstance  recorded  of  him :  that  during  the 

1 


2  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

whole  term  of  his  pontificate  no  popular  tumult  ever 
endangered  his  authority  or  disturbed  his  repose?" 
To  Burkhard,  master  of  ceremonies  in  the  court 
of  Alexander  VI.,  we  are  indebted  for  most  of  the 
information  which  blackens  the  character  of  the 
Pontiff.  But,  granting  that  we  possess  the  authen- 
tic work  of  Burkhard,  which  is  very  uncertain,*  of 
what  weight  is  his  authority  ?  A  master  of  ceremo- 
nies in  a  royal  court  does  not  fill  a  position  which 
would  of  itself  imply  a  possession  of  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  court's  secrets.  He  may,  at 
times,  come  into  some  kind  of  contact  with  great 
personages.  His  master,  with  that  shadow  of  inti- 
macy often  affected  with  a  superior  servant,  may 
condescend,  now  and  then,  to  display  good-humor 
in  his  presence.     A  foreign  ambassador,  daring  the 


*  Until  1696  the  "Diary"  was  known  only  by  a  fragment 
given  by  Godefroy,  in  his  "History  of  Charles  VIII.,"  published 
in  1684 ;  and  by  some  vague  citations  of  Rinaldi  in  his  continu- 
ation of  Baronio.  But  in  1696  Leibnitz  published  at  Hanover  a 
quarto  volume,  entitled :  "A  Specimen  of  Secret  History;  or, 
Anecdotes  of  the  Life  of  Alexander  VI. ;  Extracts  from  the  Di- 
ary of  John  Burkhard. "  In  his  preface  Leibnitz  regrets  that  he 
could  not  find  the  text  of  Burkhard;  but  a  few  years  afterward 
he  thought  that  he  had  found  the  true  text  in  a  MS.  given  him 
by  Lacroze,  and  would  have  published  it  had  not  death  inter- 
vened. Eccard  published  the  "Diary"  at  Leipzic  in  1732,  in 
his  "Writers  of  the  Middle  Age,"  following  a  Berlin  MS., 
which  may  have  been  the  one  handed  by  Lacroze  to  Leibnitz. 
According  to  Eccard's  own  admission,  this  MS.  was  very  de- 
fective, and  the  editor  had  frequent  recourse  to  the  extract  of 
Leibnitz  that  order  might  be  established.  In  Leibnitz  there 
are  articles  which  are  wanting  in  Eccard,  and  toward  the  end  the 
two  become  so  dissimilar  as  to  appear  utterly  different  works. 


Pope  Alexander  VI.  3 

intervals  of  a  tedious  levee,  may  deign  to  gossip  with 
him  about  unimportant  matters.  He  may  even  be 
a  great  dignitary  in  the  eyes  of  the  lackeys  on  the 
staircase,  or  in  the  estimation  of  the  dawdlers  in  the 
antechamber,  and  thus  he  may  pick  up  a  deal  of 
tavern  statecraft.  His  authority  may  be  overwhelm- 
ing when  he  decides  on  the  proper  color  of  a  ribband, 
or  even  in  a  question  of  precedency.  But  his 
"Diary"  can  scarcely  be  regarded  as  testimony  con- 
cerning the  secrets  of  the  court. 

Gregorovius,*  the  latest  Protestant  historian  to 
attack  the  memory  of  Alexander  VI.,  has  the 
assurance  to  say  that  the  "Diary"  of  Burkhard 
"is,  with  the  exception  of  the  journal  of  Infessura, 
which  ends  at  the  commencement  of  1494,  the 
only  work  concerning  the  court  of  Alexander  com- 
posed at  Eome;   and   it   has   even    an  official   (  !) 


Eccard  wished  that  some  one  would  discover  a  good  copy  of 
the  "Diary;"  and  finally  Lacurne  de  Sainte-Palaye  found  in 
the  library  of  Prince  Chigi  at  Rome  a  MS.  in  five  quarto 
volumes,  which  seemed  to  contain  the  entire  work, — begin- 
ning December  1, 1483  (the  date  of  Burkhard's  appointment  as 
master  of  ceremonies),  and  ending  May  31,  1506,  a  year  after 
his  death, — which  fact  demonstrates  that  the  diarist  had  a 
continuator.  In  our  day  a  third  editor  has  appeared.  Achille 
Gennarelli  (Florence,  1855,)  has  thought  to  produce  the  true 
text  by  uniting  the  dubious  ones  of  Leibnitz  and  Eccard,  and 
some  other  MSS.  He  admits,  and  most  ingeniously,  that  he 
has  filled  up  hiatuses  with  quotations  from  Summonte,  Infes- 
sura, etc.,  etc.  It  is  the  opinion  of  the  Abbe"  Clement  (de 
Yebron)  that  all  the  weight  of  erudition  displayed  by  Genna- 
relli does  not  add  one  particle  more  of  authenticity  to  the 
"Diary."     See  "Les  Borgia,"  Paris,  18S2. 

*  "Lucretia  Borgia,  according  to  Original  Documents  and 
Contemporary  Correspondence,"  1S76, 


4  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

character.  .  .  .  He  never  repeats  mere  rumors." 
The  '  'Diary"  is  before  us,  and  there  is  scarcely 
a  page  where  we  do  not  read:  "If  I  remember 
aright  (si  recte  memini}-"  or  "If  the  truth  has 
been  told  me  (si  vera  sunt  mihi  relata)-"  or  "It 
is  said  (fertur)."  Gregorovius  opines  that  the 
apologists  of  the  Holy  See  would  feel  less  con- 
tempt for  Burkhard  if  they  would  consult  the 
"Relations"  of  the  Venetian  ambassadors  to  their 
government.*  He  presents  the  "Relation"  of  Polo 
Capello  (ambassador  at  Rome  from  April,  1499,  to 
September,  1500)  as  manifesting  "the  intrigues  of 
the  court  of  Alexander  VI.,  the  long  series  of 
crimes  perpetrated  therein,  its  exactions,  the  traffic 
in  cardinals'  hats,  etc."  f  But,  setting  aside  the 
numerous  inexactnesses  of  this  "Relation"  of 
Capello,  and  not  a  few  gross  errors, J  we  must  re- 
gard it  as  of  little  value  in  the  premises ;  since  it 
was  writen,  not  by  Capello,  but  by  the   Senator 


*  Pasquale  Villari,  an  editor  of  these  "Relations,"  is  not 
such  an  apologist,  and  yet  he  says :  "Doubts  have  been  raised 
as  to  the  authenticity  of  the  'Diary'  of  Burkhard.  New  publi- 
cations have  lessened,  but  have  not  put  an  end  to,  these 
doubts."  See  Villari's  "Dispatches  of  Giustiniani,"  vol.  i,  in 
preface.    Florence,  1876. 

f  Loc.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  326. 

%  For  instance,  it  gives  to  Alexander  a  brother  named  Louis 
del  Mila,  while  no  such  brother,  but  a  cousin — John  delMila, — 
existed.  It  narrates  that  Cnpello,  before  his  departure  from 
Rome  on  September  19,  1500,  went  to  the  Vatican  to  inform 
the  Pontiff  of  the  surrender  of  Rimini  and  Faenza ;  but  Rimini 
did  not  fall  until  the  end  of  October,  while  Faenza  held  out 
until  the  following  April.  It  makes  Snnseverino,  instead  of 
Ascanio  Sforza,  vice-chancellor  of  the  Roman  Church. 


Pope  Alexander  VI.  5 

Marino  Sanuto,*  who,  while  often  furnishing  us 
valuable  historical  documents,  causes  one  to  smile 
at  his  frequent  credulity,  and  to  hesitate  to  accept 
him  as  an  authority. f 

After  Burkhard,  the  great  historian  Guicciardini 
is  the  chief  source  of  the  accusations  against  Alex- 
ander VI. ;  Guicciardini,  of  whom  even  the  arch- 
sceptic  Bayle  says  that  "he  merits  hatred"  because 
of  his  partiality, — "a  fault  of  gazetteers,"  but  one 


*  An  old  law  of  Venice  had  obliged  her  ambassadors,  after 
their  term  of  office,  to  deposit  in  the  Venetian  chancery  a 
"Relation"  of  all  they  had  learned;  but  toward  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  century  this  law  was  almost  entirely  ignored,  and 
was  enforced  again  only  in  1538.  Marino  Sanuto,  in  his 
"Diaries"  embracing  the  period  from  1496  to  1533,  filled  the 
hiatuses. 

f  The  Venetian  Senator  Malipiero,  in  his  "Chronicle," 
tells  us  that  Sanuto  informed  the  Venetian  Senate  of  the  find- 
ing in  the  Tiber,  in  January,  1496,  of  a  monstrosity  having  the 
head  of  an  ass,  a  right  arm  like  an  elephant's  trunk,  a  left  arm 
like  that  of  a  man,  one  foot  like  that  of  an  ox,  the  other  like 
that  of  a  griffin,  a  woman's  bosom,  and  the  lower  part  of  the 
body  like  that  of  a  dragon.  The  creature  emitted  fire  from 
its  mouth.  The  Abbe  Clement  thinks  that  these  details  came 
direct  from  Germany,  where,  in  1524,  Luther  published  his 
caricature  of  the  "Pope-Ass."  Rawdon  Brown,  in  his  "In- 
formation on  the  Life  and  Works  of  Marino  Sanuto,"  Venice, 
1837,  says  that  it  would  seem  that  such  tales  "were  written 
for  the  Lutherans;  but  for  historians,  they  failed  in  their 
object."  Nevertheless,  says  Clement,  "certain  candid  minds 
believe  the  narrations  of  these  pamphletary  chroniclers;  just 
as  in  Germany  some  persons,  full  of  faith  in  Luther  and  his 
works,  believe  in  the  finding  of  the  Pope- Ass  in  the  Tiber. 
But  one  would  suppose  that  Sanuto  would  not  be  so  exces- 
sively credulous.  Read  the  'Diaries'  now  made  public,  and 
you  will  find  the  contrary." 


6  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

"inexcusable  in  a  historian;"  whom  even  Yoltaire 
regards  as  mendacious ;  and  whose  own  conscience 
caused  him,  when  asked  on  his  death-bed  what  dis- 
position should  be  made  of  his  "History,"  then 
still  in  manuscript,  to  reply:  "Burn  it."  Cantii 
says  of  this  author:  "He  regards  the  success,  not 
the  justice,  of  a  cause.  .  .  .  He  not  only  ex- 
amines and  judges  the  Pontiffs  as  he  does  other 
rulers,  but  he  always  finds  them  in  the  wrong."* 
Capefiguej  regards  Guicciardini  as  "an  impas- 
sioned colorist,"  who  ever  "breathes  hatred  of 
the  Pope,  the  French,  the  Milanese,  and  Sforza. 
Florence,  a  city  of  pleasure,  of  libels,  and  of  dis- 
sipation, loved  the  licentious  tales  of  Boccaccio, 
the  policy  of  Machiavelli,  and  the  stories  of  poison 
and  treason  unfolded  in  the  books  of  Guicciardini." 
This  historian  was  devoted  to  the  Colonna  and  the 
Orsini  families,  and  was  also  a  partisan  of  Savon- 
arola :  quite  naturally,  therefore,  he  was  a  foe  to 
the  Borgias.  Add  to  this  that  his  hatred  served  his 
interests ;  for  by  exercising  it  he  pleased  the  Flor- 
entines, the  Venetians,  and  all  who  were  then  in 
opposition  to  the  court  of  Eome. 

The  authority  of  Paul  Jovius,  Bishop  of  Nocera, 
is  of  much  less  value  than  that  of  Guicciardini ;  for, 
being  most  venal,  he  is  always  either  panegyrizing 
or  calumniating.     One    day    he  was    reproved  for 


*  "Heretics  of  Italy,"  Discourse  IX.    Turin,  1865. 
t  "History  of  the  Church  during  the  Last  Four  Centuries." 
Paris,  1S55. 


Pope  Alexander  VI.  7 

having  narrated  falsely,  and  he  rejoined:  "No  mat- 
ter; three  hundred  years  hence  it  will  be  true."* 
Cantu  styles  Jovius  the  "lying  gazetteer  of  that 
epoch. "f  Audin  says  that  no  historian  ever  "cared 
so  little  for  his  reputation  as  Paul  Jovius.  He  rep- 
resents himself  as  languishing  with  inertness,  be- 
cause no  one  comes  to  purchase  him. "J  Jerome 
Muzio  asserted  that  Jovius  showed  diligence  "only 
in  obtaining  the  favors  of  the  great,  and  he  who 
gave  the  most  was  the  principal  hero  of  his  works."  § 
Vossius  says  that  "for  money  Jovius  would  furnish 
posterity  with  a  good  character  for  any  child  of 
earth,  but  that  he  would  calumniate  all  who  did  not 
pay  for  his  services."  || 

Very  little  need  be  said  of  Tomaso  Tomasi,  an- 
other of  the  sources  used  by  the  defamers  of  Alex- 
ander VI.  In  his  "Life"  of  Csesar  Borgia  he  had 
two  objects  in  view :  one  was  the  favor  of  a  princess 
of  the  Rovere  family,  which  favor  he  thought  to 
secure  by  decrying  the  Pontiff  whom  the  Cardinal 
of  St.  Peter's  ad  Vincula,  her  brother,  had  antag- 
onized; the  other  was  to  exhibit  in  Caesar  a  type 
of  monstrosity  which  would  exceed  the  efforts  of 
the  most  rampant  imagination.  Even  Gordon,  to 
whom  Roscoe  attributes  the  reduction  of  history  to 
below  the  level  of  romance,  distrusts  the  authority 
of  Tomasi. 


*  The  Emperor  Charles  V.  used  to  call  Jovius  and  Sleidan 
"his  two  liars,"  one  of  whom  spoke  too  well  of  him,  and  the 
other  too  ill. 

t  Log.  tit.,  Discourse  XIII.  X  "Leo  X." 

§  Tiraboschi,  "Ital.  Lit.,"  vol.  vii,  p.  2. 

||  "Art  of  History,"  c.  9. 


8  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

As  for  the  manuscript  notices  upon  which  many 
modern  authors  rely,  they  are  of  little  or  no  value. 
Very  few  of  them  bear  the  names  of  their  authors, 
and,  therefore,  they  are  unguaranteed.  Most  of 
them  are  diatribes,  not  narratives.  They  are  posi- 
tive where  matters  are  at  least  doubtful,  and  they 
carefully  avoid  everything  creditable  to  our  Pontiff. 
Many  of  them  are  needlessly  prodigal  with  their 
venom.  Casting  aside,  therefore,  all  such  alleged 
authorities,  and  recurring  only  to  facts  and  acts,  we 
find  that  Alexander  VI.  had  many  virtues  of  a 
Pope  and  a  sovereign;  that,  especially  as  king,  he 
was  more  than  ordinarily  active  and  prudent,  and 
nearly  always  successful  in  his  enterprises ;  that 
his  people  loved  him,  and  his  reign  was  profoundly 
tranquil.  One  great  fault  he  had,  and  perhaps 
this  one  was  the  source  of  all  the  others :  he  was 
passionately  attached  to  the  children — four  sons 
and  a  daughter — who  are  generally  supposed  to 
have  been  born  to  him,  but  before  he  received  Holy 
Orders ;  *  and  to  aggrandize  his  family  he  made  too 


*  While  yet  following  the  profession  of  arms,  according 
to  most  authorities,  he  fell  in  love  with  a  girl  whom  some 
called  Catharine,  others  Rose,  but  who  is  generally  known  as 
Vanozza.  Tomasi  says  that  Roderick  "regarded  her  as  a  legit- 
imate wife;"  but  if  any  espousals  were  effected— which  seems 
probable  from  the  fact  of  her  being  identified  by  Ribadeneira 
("Life  of  F.  Francis  Rorgia,"  Madrid,  1G05,)  as  a  Princess 
Farnese,  one  of  a  family  not  likely  to  brook  an  insult  even 
from  a  Borgia, — they  were  certainly  kept  secret.  In  1SS0 
Leonetti,  a  religious  of  the  Pious  Schools,  published  at  Bo- 
logna an  exhaustive  work,  highly  commended  by  Leo  XIII., 
contending  that  Caesar,  Lucretia,  etc.,  were  not  children  of 
Cardinal  Roderick  Borgia,  but  either  of  some  Borgia  espec- 
ially loved  by  him,  or  of  a  brother  who  remained  in  Spain, 


Pope  Alexander  VI.  9 

much  use  of  his  son  Caesar;  and  thus,  in  the  eyes 
of  posterity,  he  has  shared  the  odium  of  that  son's 
crimes. 

Roderick  Llancol  was  born  on  January  1,  1431, 
at  Xativa,  in  the  diocese  of  Valencia,  in  Spain. 
When  his  maternal  uncle,  Alfonso  Borgia,  was  ele- 
vated to  the  papacy  under  the  name  of  Calixtus  III. 
in  1455,  the  Llangol  family  assumed  the  name  and 
arms  of  the  Borgias,  and  only  as  such  are  they 
known  in  history.  The  young  Roderick  was  noted 
for  talent,  and  his  first  choice  of  profession  was  the 
bar,  but  he  soon  entered  on  the  career  of  arms. 
Called  to  Rome  by  his  uncle,  and  having  evinced 
great  aptitude  for  the  business  of  a  court,  Roderick 
accepted  offers  of  preferment,  and  was  made  suc- 
cessively commendatory  Archbishop  of  Valencia, 
Cardinal-Deacon,  and  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  Ro- 
man Church.  At  this  period,  at  least,  his  con- 
duct must  have  been  exemplary ;  for  a  contempo- 
rary writes  that  his  fellow  cardinals  were  "much 
pleased  to  have  in  their  midst  one  who  surpassed 
all  in  an  abundance  of   gifts."*     And  Duboulai, 


or  of  a  son  of  his  brother,  the  Perfect  of  Eome.  When  their 
father  had  died,  and  Vanozza  had  remarried,  these  children 
were  cared  for  by  Roderick.  The  arguments  of  Leonetti  seem 
to  us  irrefutable.  Certainly,  the  only  plausible  contradiction 
he  experienced — that  of  M.  de  l'Epinois,  in  the  Bevue  des 
Etudes  Historiques  for  April,  1881, — was  triumphantly  rebutted 
by  the  Canon  J.  Morel,  in  the  Univers  of  July  14,  1881.  One 
thing,  at  any  rate,  is  certain:  no  proof  can  be  given  that  Va- 
nozza ever  appeared  in  Rome  during  Roderick's  career  there, 
whether  as  Cardinal  or  as  Pope. 

*  "MS.  Life  of  Roderick  Borgia,  under  the  name  of 
Alexander  VI.,"  in  the  Casanatensian  (Minerva)  Library  at 
Rome. 


10  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

who  says  that  "if  the  memory  of  Borgia  had  per- 
ished we  would  not  know  how  corrupt  a  man  can 
be,"  admits  that  during  his  long  cardinalate  of 
thirty-five  years  Eoderick  never  gave  any  public 
scandal.*  The  rigid  Sixtus  IV.  (1471-84)  appointed 
him  legate  in  Spain  and  Portugal;  and  the  Cardi- 
nal of  Pavia,  a  man  of  recognized  sanctity,  wrote 
to  him  during  this  legation:  "I  advise  you  to  re- 
turn .  .  .  your  influence  here  is  sovereign  .  .  . 
by  your  persuasion  and  wise  opposition  you  can 
render  great  service  to  the  Holy  See."  This  same 
Cardinal  of  Pavia  slightly  blamed  Roderick  for  his 
ambition  and  a  love  of  pomp,  but  he  predicted  that 
he  would  become  Pope.j 

The  manners  of  Borgia  were  grand  and  fascinat- 
ing, J  and  even  Guicciardini  credits  him  with  rare 
powers  of  penetration,  great  tact  and  diplomatic 
talent.  Raphael  and  James  of  Volterra,  and  Peter 
Martyr  of  Anghiera,  §  waste  no  praise  on  Roderick, 
but  they  find  in  him  vast  genius  and  profundity  of 
thought.  Egidius  of  Viterbo  admires  his  eloquence 
as  natural  and  irresistible,  his  activity  as  indefati- 
gable, and  his  sobriety  as  exemplary.  ||  Tomasi  de- 
clares that  whoever  observed  the  Cardinal  could  see 
that  his  genius  marked  him  for  empire.     In  1476, 


*  "Life  of  Alexander  VI." 

f  Epist.  514,  670,  678.  and  in  "Additions  to  Aldoin." 

%  Philip  of  Bergamo  says  that  in  him  "there  was  a  celestial 
appearance  very  becoming  to  his  name  and  office." 

§  Not  to  be  confounded  with  Peter  Martyr  (Vermiglio)  of 
Lucca,  the  Augustinian  apostate  who  lectured  at  Oxford, 
1547-53. 

||  This  sobriety  is  admitted  by  Koscoe,  loc.'cit.  See  also 
Paris,  "Diary,"  at  year  1506. 


Pope  Alexander  VI.  11 

having  been  appointed  Cardinal-Bishop  of  Albano, 
Roderick  received  Holy  Orders. 

And  here  we  must  observe  that  if  the  reader  has 
imagined  that  the  offspring  born  to  Roderick  before 
this  date  (and  there  was  none  after  it)  was  necessa- 
rily sacrilegious,  he  has  been  deceived  by  the  title 
of  cardinal,  which  the  Pope  now  confers,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  present  discipline  of  the  Church,  only 
upon  persons  in  at  least  deacon's  Orders.  At  the 
time  of  which  we  are  treating  the  cardinalitial  scar- 
let did  not  always  presuppose  sacred  Orders ;  Maz- 
arin  and  many  other  cardinals  never  received  them. 
Nor  did  Roderick's  archiepiscopate  of  Valencia, 
confered  on  him  in  his  youth,  entail  upon  him  the 
necessity  of  taking  Orders.  His  prelacy  was  merely 
"commendatory," — that  is  according  to  a  detest- 
able custom  of  the  day,  he  enjoyed  the  emoluments 
of  the  benefice.* 

After  the  obsequies  of  Pope  Innocent  VIII. 
twenty-three  cardinals  entered  into  conclave,  and 
after  five  days  of  deliberation  raised  Roderick 
Borgia  to  the  Chair  of  Peter,  on  August  11,  1492. 
As  the^  foes  of  Borsria  have  tried  to  fasten  the 
stigma  of  simony  on  this  conclave,  it  is  well  to  note 


*  The  acting  beneficiary  was  supposed,  of  course,  to  be 
above  reproach;  the  commendatory,  especially  in  cases  of 
royal  patronage,  was  too  often  a  scandal.  The  title  of  abbe, 
abbate,  now  given  on  the  European  Continent  to  all  secular 
priests,  was  in  those  days  adopted  by  a  horde  of  pei fumed 
gallants,  who  hung  around  the  court  in  the  enjoyment  or  ex- 
pectancy  of  some  abbacy  "in  commandant."  One  must  there- 
fore be  careful  not  to  credit  the  priesthood  with  every  curled 
darling  of  an  abbe  of  whom  he  reads  in  works  of  that  time. 


12  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

its  members.  The  cardinal-bishops  were:  Eoderick 
Borgia,  then  Bishop  of  Porto;  Oliver  Caraffa, 
Archbishop  of  Naples,  whom  even  Roscoe  styles  a 
man  of  great  integrity;  Julian  della  Rovere,  the 
future  "Moses  of  Italy,"  as  Julius  II.;  Baptist 
Zeno,  Bishop  of  Tusculum,  whose  piety  and  inde- 
pendence, according  to  Ciacconius,  was  remarkable ; 
John  Michiele,  Bishop  of  Palestrina  and  Verona, 
who,  says  the  Cardinal  of  Pavia,  was  learned,  pious, 
and  the  friend  of  the  poor;  George  d'Acosta, 
Archbishop  of  Lisbon,  and  therefore,  by  national 
rivalry,  a  political  enemy  of  Borgia.  The  cardinal- 
priests  were:  John  dei  Conti,  venerated  by  all 
Rome;*  Paul  Fregoso,  Archbishop  of  Genoa,  and 
thrice  doge;  Lawrence  Cibo  and  Anthony  Pallavi- 
cini,  Genoese;  Scalefetano,  Bishop  of  Parma; 
Ardicino  della  Porta,  whose  virtues  even  Infessura 
praises;  Gherardo,  Patriarch  of  Venice, — a  holy 
Camaldolese  monk,  who  died  at  Terni  on  his  way 
home,  but  whom  Infessura  represents  as  having 
sold  his  vote  to  Borgia  for  five  thousand  ducats, 
and  as  therefore  deprived,  on  his  return  to  Venice, 
of  all  his  benefices.  The  cardinal-deacons  were: 
Francis  Piccolomidi,  afterward  Pope  Pius  III., 
lauded  by  Roscoe;  Raphael  Riario,  leader  of  the 
Rovere  party;  Ascinao  Sforza,  brother  of  the  Moro, 
Duke  of  Milan,  and  excessively  praised  by  Paul 
Jovius;  Frederick  da  San  Severino;  Colonna; 
Orsini ;  Savelli,  and  John  dei  Medici,  afterward 
Pope  Leo  X. 


*  Garimbertus,  b.  iv,  ch.  3. 


Pope  Alexander  VI.  13 

The  new  Pontiff  assumed  the  name  of  Alexander 
VI. , — a  name  famous,  thought  Roscoe,  as  "  a  scourge 
of  Christendom,  and  the  approbrium  of  the  human 
race."  Probably  no  new  Pontiff  ever  received  so 
much  flattery  as  that  accorded  to  Alexander  VI.,  at 
his  coronation ;  probably  such  wonderful  deeds  were 
never  expected  from  any  Pope  as  those  princes  and 
peoples  awaited  from  him.  The  orators  of  the  Italian 
States  all  vied  in  their  congratulations  with  Tigrini 
of  Lucca,  who  said  that  Christendom  had  a  guaran- 
tee of  its  hopes  in  the  Pontiff's  many  virtues  and 
profound  learning;  and  Nardi,  a  famous  Florentine 
historian,  wrote  shortly  afterward  that  everywhere 
it  was  thought  "that  God  had  chosen  this  prince  as 
His  peculiar  instrument  to  effect  something  wonder- 
ful in  His  Church,  so  great  were  the  expectations 
universally  conceived."  And  yet  Roscoe  asserts 
that  "when  the  intelligence  of  this  event  was  dis- 
persed through  Italy,  where  the  character  of  Rod- 
erick  Borgia  was  well  known,  a  general  dissatisfac- 
tion took  place." 

We  cannot  enter  into  the  details  of  this  eventful 
pontificate,  but  we  shall  touch  briefly  on  the  reputed 
simoniacal  nature  of  Roderick's  election,  and  on 
the  charge  that  he  met  his  death  by  poison — his 
own  weapon  turned  by  Providence  against  himself. 
Rinaldi,  the  continuator  of  Barinio,  is  chiefly  re- 
sponsible for  the  opinion  prevalent,  until  very  re- 
cent times,  concerning  the  purity  of  the  conclave 
of  1492.  If,  instead  of  blindly  relying  on  Infessura 
and  his  copyist  Mariana,  this  annalist  had  consulted 
contemporary  testimony  less  suspicious  than  that  of 


14  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

Infessura,  he  would  have  been  less  severe  toward 
this  conclave.  Michael  Fernus,  whom  Gregorovius 
calls  "by  no  means  a  fanatical  Papist,"  says  that  "in 
electing  this  Pontiff  the  cardinals  showed  that  they 
had  realized  the  appropriateness  of  the  advice  given 
them  by  Leonetti"  in  his  funeral  sermon  on  Inno- 
cent VIII.*  It  was  Borgia's  merit,  therefore,  and 
not  simoniacal  practices,  that  procured,  through 
Fernus,  his  elevation. 

Sigismund  dei  Conti  di  Foligno  tells  us  that  "the 
qualities  of  Cardinal  Roderick  caused  his  brethren  to 
esteem  him  as  worthy  of  the  Supreme  Pontificate." 
Hartmann  Schedel,  author  of  the  "Nuremberg 
Chronicle,"  published  in  1493,  ascribes  the  election 
of  Roderick  to  his  "learning,  excellent  conduct,  and 
great  piety."  Porcius,  a  contemporary  Auditor  of 
the  Rota,  says  :  "He  was  unanimously  elected,  unan- 
imously confirmed.  Concerning  this  election  I  shall 
say  only  this :  its  principal  authors  were  those  same 
cardinals  who  had  hitherto  resisted  all  of  Roderick's 
undertakings,  both  public  and  private. "f     Some  of 


*  Leonetti,  Bishop  of  Concordia,  had  thus  counselled  the 
Sacred  College :  "As  yet  we  know  not  whom  God  calls  to  suc- 
ceed Innocent  VIII. ;  what  man  is  destined  to  avert  the  dan- 
gers menacing  us.  .  .  .  Elect  a  man  whose  past  life  is  a 
guarantee;  one  who,  according  to  the  advice  of  St.  Leo,  has 
spent  his  days  in  the  practice  of  virtue,  and  who  merits  the 
elevation  because  of  his  labors  and  the  integrity  of  his  mor- 
als; one  without  ambition,  wise  and  holy;  in  a  word,  one 
worthy  of  being  the  Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ."  If  it  was  follow- 
ing this  advice  to  elect  Borgia,  then  the  Borgia  whom  Fernus 
knew  was  not  the  acquaintance  of  Roscoe,  Gregorovius,  etc. 

f  "Commentary  of  Jerome  Porcius,  Roman  Patrician  and 
Auditor  of  the  Pvota"  1493. 


Pope  Alexander  VI.  15 

these  cardinals  were  devoted  to  Julian  della  Rovere, 
Roderick's  competitor  in  the  conclave;  others  were 
on  the  brink  of  the  grave ;  but,  with  the  exception 
of  five — who,  according  to  Burkhard,  had  declared 
that  i 'votes  should  not  be  purchased," — none  de- 
nounced the  alleged  simony.  And  even  these  five 
voted  for  Borgia.  But  Infessura  tells  us  that  "it  is 
said"  that,  in  order  to  secure  the  votes  of  Ascanio 
Sforza  and  his  friends,  Roderick  sent,  during  the 
conclave,  four  mules,  laden  with  treasure  to  Sforza' s 
palace.  It  is  strange,  remarks  Clement,  that  the 
indiscretion  which  revealed  this  transaction  did  not 
betray  it  to  the  brigands  who  were,  just  then,  in  pos- 
session of  the  streets  of  Rome.  But  Manfredo  Man- 
fredi,  ambassador  of  Ferrara  to  the  court  of  Florence, 
writes  to  the  Duchess  Eleonora  that  it  can  not  be 
supposed  that  Cardinals  Colonna,  Savelli,  and  Or- 
sini,  would  have  voted  for  Borgia  unless  seduced  by 
money;  and  Manfredi  supports  his  charge  by  de- 
tailing the  benefices  given  to  these  cardinals  by 
Alexander  the  very  moment  of  his  enthronization. 
Well,  where  is  the  indication  of  simony  in  these 
appointments  ?  The  positions  were  necessarily  to  be 
filled.  The  chancery,  the  abbey  of  Subiaco,  given 
respectively  to  Sforza  and  Colonna,  had  lost,  the  first 
its  titular,  the  second  its  commendatory;  and  we  do 
not  hear  that  the  other  benefices  and  fiefs  were  not 
vacant.  Before  dismissing  this  charge  of  simony  we 
must  allude  to  a  discovery  made  by  some  Protestant 
polemics,  and  lately  revived  by  a  ministerial  ranter 
of  some  notoriety,  to  the  effect  that  since  the  death 
of   Innocent  VIII.  there  have  been  no  legitimate 


16  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

Popes,  even  according  to  Roman  principles.  A 
papal  decree  nullifies  any  election  procured  by 
simony;  therefore,  all  appointments  of  cardinals 
made  by  a  simonical  Pope  are  null;  therefore,  there 
has  been  no  legitimate  conclave  since  Alexander's 
delinquency.  A  mare's-nest  indeed ;  for  the  adduced 
decree  was  issued  by  Julius  II.  on  January  19,  1505, 
thirteen  years  after  Alexander's  alleged  simony. 

It  has  been  asserted  that  both  Alexander  VI.  and 
Csesar  Borgia  were  poisoned,  the  former  fatally; 
that,  through  either  error  or  treachery,  they  partook 
of  a  deadly  drug,  which  they  had  prepared  for  cer- 
tain cardinals  who  were  hostile  to  their  projects. 
Ranke,  whom  it  is  the  fashion  to  praise  as  a  wise 
investigator,  gives  credence  to  this  fable;  Roscoe 
rejects  it.  Now,  in  the  Ducal  Library  of  Ferrara 
there  is  a  manuscript  history  by  Sardi,  a  contem- 
porary of  Guicciardini  and  Paul  Jovius,  wherein  the 
author  speaks  of  ten  letters  written  by  their  agents 
to  Duke  Hercules  of  Ferrara  and  the  Cardinal 
d'Este,  in  which  it  is  shown  that  our  Pontiff  died 
of  tertian  fever,  then  rampant  in  Rome.  i ' Attacked 
by  this  fever  on  August  10  [1503],  he  was  relieved 
neither  by  bleeding  nor  by  use  of  manna,  and  he 
expired  on  the  night  we  mentioned  [August  18]. 
After  death  the  body  became  swollen  and  blackened, 
owing  to  the  putrefaction  of  the  blood;  and  hence 
there  originated,  among  such  as  knew  not  the  cause 
of  these  appearances,  a  rumor  that  the  Pope  had 
been  poisoned." 

In  a  manuscript  "Diary"  of  Burkhard,  preserved 
in  the  Corsini  Library,  may  be  read  the  following : 


Pope  Alexander  VI.  17 

"On  Saturday,  August  12,  1503,  the  Pope  fell  ill; 
and  in  the  evening,  about  the  twenty -first  or  twenty- 
second  hour,  there  came  a  fever  which  continually 
remained.  On  Tuesday,  August  15,  thirteen  ounces 
of  blood  were  drawn  from  him,  and  there  super- 
vened a  tertian  fever.  On  Thursday,  August  17,  at 
the  twelfth  hour,  he  took  some  medicine ;  and  on 
Friday,  August  18,  he  confessed  to  the  Lord  Peter, 
Bishop  of  Culm,  who  then  celebrated  Mass  in  his 
presence,  and  after  his  own  Communion  gave  the 
Holy  Eucharist  to  the  Pope,  who  sat  up  in  bed. 
There  were  present  five  cardinals.  .  .  .  At  the  ves- 
per hour,  having  received  Extreme  Unction  from 
the  Bishop  of  Culm,  he  expired. " 

And,  strange  to  say,  Voltaire  is  very  firm  in  as- 
cribing Alexander's  death  to  natural  causes.  Speak- 
ing of  the  report  of  poison,*  the  cynic  says:  "All 
the  enemies  of  the  Holy  See  have  believed  this 
horrible  tale ;  I  do  not,  and  my  chief  reason  is  that 
it  is  not  at  all  probable.  The  Pope  and  his  son  may 
have  been  wicked,  but  they  were  not  fools.  It  is 
certain  that  the  poisoning  of  a  dozen  cardinals  would 
have  rendered  father  and  son  so  execrable  that 
nothing  could  have  saved  them  from  the  fury  of  the 
Romans  and  all  Italy.  The  crime,  too,  was  directly 
contrary  to  the  views  of  Csesar.  The  Pope  was  on 
the  verge  of  the  grave,  and  Borgia  could  cause  the 
election  of  one  of  his  own  creatures ;  would  he  gain 


*  "Complete  Works,"  vol.  xx  ("Hist.  Miscel.,"  vol.  1),  p. 
241;  edit.  Paris,  1818.— "Customs  and  Spirit  of  Nations,"  ft, 
p.  445. — "Dissertation  on  the  Death  of  Henry  IV," 


18  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

the  Sacred  College  by  murdering  a  dozen  of  its 
members  ? ' ' 

Again,  contends  Voltaire — on  whom,  for  rarity's 
sake,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  reply ; — if  after  Alexander's 
death  the  cause  of  the  catastrophe  had  transpired, 
surely  it  would  have  been  learned  by  those  whom 
he  had  tried  to  murder.  Would  they  have  allowed 
Caesar  to  enter  peaceably  into  possession  of  his 
father's  wealth?  And  how  could  Caesar,  almost 
dying,  according  to  the  story,  go  to  the  Vatican  to 
secure  the  hundred  thousand  ducats?  They  say 
that  Caesar,  after  the  accident,  shut  himself  in  the 
stomach  of  a  mule;  for  what  poison  is  that  a 
remedy?  Finally,  Pope  Julius  II.,  an  unrelenting 
foe  of  the  Borgias,  held  Caesar  in  his  power  for  a 
long  time,  and  he  never  charged  him  with  the  sup- 
posed crime.  Well,  therefore,  did  Voltaire  ex- 
claim: "I  dare  to  say  to  Guicciardini:  Europe 
has  been  deceived  by  you,  as  you  were  deceived  by 
your  passion.  You  were  an  enemy  of  the  Pope, 
and  you  believed  your  hatred  too  readily." 

And  now  a  word  on  Alexander  VI.  as  Pontiff. 
The  assassination  of  the  Duke  of  Gandia  (1497) 
produced  a  profoundly  religious  impression  on  his 
mind;  he  even  thought  of  abdicating  the  Pontificate 
in  order  to  conciliate  the  divine  mercy.  Deterred 
by  Ferdinand  the  Catholic,  he  resolved  to  become 
a  more  worthy  Pope,  and  as  a  first  step  he  began 
to  correct  many  abuses  which  had  crept  into  the 
ecclesiastical  administration.  Among  the  abuses 
brought  to  light  by  an  opposite  commission  was  a 


Pope  Alexander  VI.  19 

systematic  series  of  forgeries,  or  rather  of  supposi- 
titious issue  of  dispensations  in  which  rascality  the 
chief  offender  was  found  to  have  been  Archbishop 
of  Cosenza,  Bartholomew  Florida,  the  Secretary  of 
Briefs.*  Much  good  was  effected  by  this  commis- 
sion, as  Paul  III.  afterward  indicated.  Upon  one 
point  the  zeal  of  Alexander  was  worthy  of  his  po- 
sition. As  a  defender  of  the  faith  he  was  never 
remiss.  One  of  his  first  efforts  was  for  the  pacifi- 
cation of  Bohemia,  then  ravaged  by  the  Hussites; 
and  it  was  owing  to  the  kindness  which  he  substi- 
tuted for  the  harshness  of  his  predecessors  that 
soon  the  scourge  vanished. 

In  1501  Alexander  issued  his  Bull,  "Inter  Mul- 
tiplies ,"  against  the  printing  and  reading  of  bad 
books.  One  of  the  most  importent  Bulls  issued 
by  this  Pontiff  was  the  "Inter  Coetera"  in  1493, 
whereby  he  drew  a  line  of  demarcation,  which  was 
to  form,  from  pole  to  pole,  the  limit  of  the  Spanish 
and  Portuguese  possessions  in  the  lately  discovered 
New  World.  It  required  no  small  amount  of  dar- 
ing to  proclaim,  as  he  thereby  equivalently  did, 
the  rotundity  of  the  earth, — a  truth  which  then, 
and  for  centuries  afterward,  no  scientific  academy 
would  have  unhesitatingly  patronized.  The  enemies 
of  the  Holy  See  have  affected  to  regard  this  par- 
tition as  a  crime;  indeed,  Marmontel  termed  it 
"the  greatest  of  all  the  crimes  of  Borgia."    But 


*  Florida  confessed  his  guilt,  was  deposed,  degraded,  and 
imprisoned  for  life,  on  a  diet  of  bread  and  water,  in  Castle 
San  Angelo, 


20  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

Alexander  simply  exercised  that  right  of  arbitration 
which  at  that  time  all  Christendom  admitted  as  res- 
ident in  the  incumbent  of  the  papal  throne.* 


*  Many  authors  illustrate  their  theory  of  Pope  Alexander's 
immorality  by  alleging  the  revolting  orgy  said  to  have  been 
celebrated  in  honor  of  the  prospective  marriage  of  Lucretia 
with  the  Duke  of  Ferrara — a  banquet,  etc.,  at  which  we  are 
asked  to  fancy  as  participants  the  aged  Pontiff,  Csesar,  Lucre- 
tia, and  fifty  respectable  (honestae)  prostitutes.  Gordon 
quotes  from  the  true  or  false  Burkhard  as  follows :  "Dominica 
ultima  mensis  Octobris  in  sero  fecerunt  coenam  cum  duce  Valen- 
tinensi  in  camera  sua  in  palatio  Apostolico,  quinquaginta  mere- 
trices  honestae,  cortegianae  nuncupatae.  .  .  .  Papa,  duce,  et 
Lucretia  sorore  sua,  praesentibus  et  aspicientibus ." 
Truly  these  females  were  honestae  beyond  the  want  of  that  ilk, 
and  the  favored  servants  were  gems  indeed,  when  all  Rome 
did  not  ring,  the  next  day,  with  the  echoes  of  such  bacchanalia. 
Excepting  Burkhard,  if  indeed,  he  speaks  in  the  cited  quota- 
tion, not  one  contemporary,  not  one  of  those  chroniclers  who 
dilate  so  circumstantially  on  all  the  festivities  given  at  the 
Vatican  in  honor  of  Lucretia's  espousals,  says  a  word  of  what 
would  have  been  a  mine  of  wealth  to  a  gossiper.  And  why 
such  silence  on  the  part  of  the  Ferrarese  envoys  who  were 
then  residing  in  the  Vatican,  awaiting  the  convenience  of 
Lucretia,  to  conduct  her  to  their  royal  master  as  a  bride?  They 
wrote  every  day  to  their  sovereign,  and  we  have  their  dispatches. 
Why,  again,  silence  on  the  part  of  the  secret  agent  sent  by 
the  Marchioness  of  Mantua,  sister  of  the  future  bridegroom, 
who  kept  his  mistress  informed  as  to  the  most  trivial  incidents 
of  the  papal  court? 


THE  ALLEGED  ANTE-MORTEM  FUNERAL 
OF  CHARLES  V. 

The  thought  of  abdication  first  took  possession 
of  the  mind  of  Charles  V.  in  1535,  after  the  suc- 
cessful issue  of  his  expedition  against  Tunis,  and 
not,  as  is  generally  asserted,  at  a  time  when  re- 
verses had  disgusted  him  with  human  ambitions. 
This  is  shown  by  his  own  remarks  to  Lourenco  Pires 
de  Tavora,  Portuguese  envoy  at  his  court,*  and  to 
the  monks  of  San  Yuste.f  He  was  then  only  forty 
years  of  age,  and  at  the  height  of  his  power.  But 
not  until  1542  did  he  manifest  his  design  to  the 
Cortes  of  Aragon,J  and  not  before  1553  did  he 
begin  the  necessary  preparations.  From  among 
many  places  which  seemed  fitted,  naturally,  spirit- 
ually, and  artistically,  to  furnish  his  tired  and  then 
ascetically  inclined  mind  a  soothing  and  profitable 
retreat,  he  selected  the  Hieronymite  Monastery  of 
San  Yuste  in  Estremadura ;  §  and  as  he  did  not 
propose  to  become  a  monk,  or  even  to  follow  the 


*  Mignet,  "Charles-Quint,  son  Abdication,  et  son  Se^'our 
au  Monastere  de  Yuste,"  p.  6,  n.  1;  Paris,  1854. 

t  Sepulveda,  "Opera,"  vol.  ii,  b.  30;  Madrid,  1740. 

t  Ribadeneyra,  "Vida  del  Padre  Francisco  de  Borja,"  c. 
13;  Madrid,  1605. 

§  This  Spanish  congregation  was  approved  by  Pope  Gregory 
XI.  in  1374.  Its  first  members  had  belonged  to  the  Third  Or- 
der of  St.  Francis,  and  they  now  adopted  the  rule  of  St.  Augus- 

21 


22    Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Charles  V. 

community  life,  as  is  generally  believed,  and  as  he 
could  not  expect  the  religious  to  associate  familiarly 
with  his  retainers,  he  gave  orders,  in  1553,  for  the 
construction  of  a  becoming  habitation  contiguous  to 
the  monastery.  In  this  edifice  he  could  preserve 
his  own  independence,  and,  while  respecting  that  of 
the  monks,  he  could  occasionally  enjoy  their  com- 
panionship ;  while  his  proximity  to  the  church  en- 
abled him,  when  so  disposed,  to  join  in  the  offices 
of  the  choir. 

On  October  25,  1555,  Charles  resigned  his  crowns 
of  Naples,  Sicily,  and  Milan  in  favor  of  his  son 
Philip.  On  January  17,  1556,  he  ceded  to  the 
same  Philip  the  crown  of  Spain,  and  all  his  other 
dominions  in  the  Old  and  the  New  World;  and  on 
September  7  of  the  same  year  he  resigned  the  im- 
perial sceptre,  presuming,  in  defiance  of  the  rights 
of  the  Holy  See,  to  do  so  in  favor  of  his  brother, 
Ferdinand  of  Austria.*  On  February  3,  1557, 
Charles  arrived  at  San  Yuste,  accompanied  by  only 
twelve  domestics,  and  here  he  constantly  resided 
during  the  remaining  nineteen  months  of  his  life. 
He  generally  assisted  at  the  Office,  and  at  the  High 


tine.  Their  chief  houses  are  those  of  St.  Lawrence  at  the  Es- 
curial,  St.  Isidore  in  Seville,  and  this  of  St.  Justus.  Another 
congregation  of  Hieronymites  was  founded  in  Italy  in  1377  by 
the  Blessed  Peter  Gambacorti  of  Pisa. 

*  Pope  Paul  IV.  refused  to  acknowledge  Ferdinand's  claim 
to  the  crown  of  the  Holy  Koman  Empire;  for  the  consent  of 
the  Pontiff,  the  suzerain  of  that  Empire,  had  not  been  obtained 
by  Charles  Y.  for  his  action.  Ferdinand,  like  all  presumptive 
heirs  to  the  Empire,  had  been  elected  "King  of  the  Romans" 


Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Charles  V.     23 

Mass  which  was  celebrated  every  morning  in  the 
church.  He  frequently  communicated,  and  on  the 
Fridays  of  Lent  he  joined  the  monks  in  taking  the 
discipline.  Much  of  his  time  was  spent  in  the  study 
of  mechanics  and  in  clockmaking;  and  it  is  narrated 
that  one  day,  when  he  had  failed  to  make  two 
clocks  agree,  he  moralized:  "And  how  foolish  it 
was  in  me  to  think  that  I  could  produce  uniformity 
in  so  many  nations,  differing  so  much  in  race,  lan- 
guage and  character !  " 

During  the  early  summer  of  1558  the  health  of 
the  Emperor  caused  disquiet  to  his  attendants.  Ac- 
cording to  two  Hieronymite  chronicles,  which  have 
been  followed  by  most  historians,  and  highly  em- 
bellished by  Eobertson,  the  last  illness  of  Charles 
V.  was  preceded,  if  not  caused,  by  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  ceremonies  which  any  mind,  sane  or 
insane,  could  conceive.  The  Prior  Martin  de  Angulo 
narrates  that  the  monarch  observed  one  day  to  an 
attendant  that  he  could  not  devote  two  thousand 
crowns,  which  he  had  saved,  to  a  more  worthy 
object  than  his  own  funeral ;  he  added :  "In  travel- 
ing it  is  better  to  have  light  in  front  of  rather  than 


(1532),  and  had  been  confirmed  by  Pope  Clement  VII.;  but 
Paul  IV.  declared  that  a  "King  of  the  Romans"  could  succeed, 
ordinarily,  to  the  Empire  only  by  the  death  of  its  incumbent. 
The  cases  of  resignation  or  deprivation,  insisted  the  Pontiff, 
had  always  depended  on  the  will  of  the  Holy  See,  and  only  the 
Pontiff  could,  in  such  cases,  name  the  new  Emperor.  Again, 
the  resignation  of  Charles  was  null,  it  not  having  been  made  in 
the  hands  of  the  Pope.  However,  Pope  Pius  IV.  deemed  it 
prudent,  in  1560.  to  recognize  Ferdinand  as  Emperor. 


24    Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Charles  V. 

behind  one's  self."  It  was  then,  says  the  Prior, 
that  the  Emperor  gave  orders  for  the  obsequies  of 
his  wife,  his  parents,  and  himself.  Here  we  must 
note  that  Sandoval,  whom  historians  generally  cite 
in  proof  of  this  strange  event,  does  indeed  report 
the  above  remarks  as  made  by  Charles  V. ;  *  but  as 
he  says  nothing  about  the  anticipatory  obsequies  of 
the  Emperor  having  been  celebrated,  we  may  safely 
conclude  that  he  gave  no  credit  to  the  tale.  In  fact, 
Sandoval  tells  us  that  part  of  these  same  two  thou- 
sand crowns  saved  by  the  monarch  were  ultimately 
used  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  real  funeral. 
But  there  is  another  testimony  which  enters  more 
into  details. 

An  anonymous  Hieronymite,  whose  manuscript 
was  probably  copied  by  Siguenzaf  (another  author- 
ity adduced  in  favor  of  the  truth  of  the  story  in 
question),  and  published  also  by  Grachard,J  narrates 
that  while  Charles  was  still  in  perfect  health  he 
caused  Requiems  to  be  offered  in  his  presence  on 
three  successive  days — August  29,  30,  and  31, — for 
the  souls  of  his  father,  mother,  and  wife;  and  that 
on  the  last  day  he  called  for  his  confessor,  Juan  de 
Eegola,  and  asked  him :  "Do  you  not  think,  Father, 
it  would  be  well,  now  that  I  have  done  my  duty  by 
my  relatives,  if  I  were  to  cause  my  own  funeral  to 
be  celebrated,  and  thus  contemplate  what  will  soon 


*  "Vida  del  Emperador  Carlos  V.  en  Yuste,"  vol.  ii,  §3. 
t  "Historia  del  Orden  de  San  Geronimo,"  p.  3,  b.  i,  c.  308. 
%  "Retraite  et  Mort  de  Charles-Quint,"  vol.  i,  Appendix C. 


Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Charles  V.    25 

be  my  own  condition?"  Father  Juan  replied  in 
an  evasive  manner;  but,  continues  the  anonymous 
monk,  the  Emperor  pressed  his  confessor  as  to 
whether  the  proposed  obsequies  would  profit  him, 
even  though  still  on  earth.  "Certainly,  sire," 
Father  Juan  is  represented  as  answering;  "for  the 
good  works  which  one  performs  in  life  are  of  more 
merit  and  much  more  satisfactory  than  those  done 
for  him  after  his  death.  Would  to  God  all  of  us 
had  such  excellent  intentions  as  those  announced 
by  your  Majesty !  " 

Thereupon,  continues  the  chronicler,  "the  Em- 
peror commanded  that  everything  should  be  made 
ready  to  celebrate  his  obsequies  that  evening.  A 
catafalque,  surrounded  by  torches,  was  arranged  in 
the  church.  All  the  attendants  of  his  Majesty,  in 
full  mourning,  and  the  pious  monarch  himself,  also 
in  mourning  garments  and  with  a  candle  in  his 
hand,  came  to  celebrate  his  funeral  and  to  see  him 
buried.  The  spectacle  brought  tears  to  the  eyes  of 
all,  and  they  could  not  have  cried  more  if  the  Em- 
peror had  really  died.  As  for  his  Majesty,  after 
his  funeral  Mass  he  made  the  offering  of  his  candle 
in  the  hands  of  the  celebrant,  as  though  tie  had  al- 
ready resigned  his  soul  into  the  hands  of  God. 
Such  symbolical  actions  were  customary  among  the 
early  Christians.  Then,  without  waiting  for  the 
afternoon  of  August  31  to  pass,  the  Emperor  called 
his  confessor,  and  told  him  how  happy  he  felt  now 
that  he  had  celebrated  his  funeral."  The  anony- 
mous monk  then  tells  us  how  the  imperial  physician, 
Mathys,  discouraged  the  continuation  of  the  medi- 


26    Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Charles  V. 

tation  in  which  Charles  was  buried,  and  how  his 
Majesty  suddenly  experienced  a  chill.  "This  was 
on  the  last  day  of  August,  at  about  four  of  the 
night.  Mathys  felt  the  Emperor's  pulse,  and  dis- 
covered some  change.  Charles  was  therefore  borne 
to  his  chamber,  and  from  that  time  his  malady 
rapidly  gained  force." 

When  a  Hieronymite  monk  expects  us  to  credit 
this  fantastical  story,  we  need  not  wonder  that 
Robertson  (a  Protestant  of  more  than  ordinary 
prejudices,  and,  what  is  more  derogatory  from  any 
claim  to  impartiality,  a  royal  historiographer  in 
England,)  repeats,  colors,  and  renders  it  more 
acceptable  to  the  credulous  yearners  for  papistical 
absurdities,  by  his  own  exaggerations  and  even 
unwarranted  additions.  "The  English  do  not  love 
Charles  V.,"  remarks  Barthelemy;  "Protestants 
love  him  less;  and  finally,  a  writer  is  not  a 
historiographer  with  impunity.  Independence  and 
impartiality  can  scarcely  be  found  in  one  who  fills 
that  position."  Again,  Robertson  is  too  apt  to 
deduce  conclusions  such  as  are  formed  by  the 
Voltarian  school;  though  he  does  not  betray  the 
Satanic  spirit  of  these  gentry,  "he  has  all  their 
coldness,"  observes  Cantu,  "and  he  reflects  in  the 
same  manner."*     As  to  the  reliability  of  his  "His- 


*  "Storia  Universale,"  b.  xvii,  c.  20. — We  are  surprised  on 
finding  that  Cantu  receives  this  story  as  truth,  comparing  the 
fantasy  of  Charles  with  the  "melancholy"  freak  of  the  Em- 
peror Maximilian  I.,  who,  disgusted  with  his  newly-built  pal- 
ace at  Innsbruck,  resolved  on  providing  a  better  one;  and  ac- 
cordingly sent  for  a  coffin  and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  a 
funeral,  and  kept  them  always  with  him. 


Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Charles  V.     27 

tory  of  Charles  V.,"  one  of  the  most  impartial  his- 
torical writers  our  country  has  yet  produced — Henry 
Wheaton,  a  Protestant — pronounces  that  it  is  full 
of  errors.* 

According  to  Robertson,  the  Emperor  suffered 
from  gout  so  intensely  about  six  months  before  his 
death,  that  from  that  time  there  appeared  scarcely 
any  traces  of  that  healthy  and  masculine  reasoning 
power  which  had  distinguished  him;  a  timid  and 
servile  superstition  took  possession  of  his  mind,  and 
he  passed  nearly  all  the  time  in  chanting  hymns 
with  the  monks.  Eestlessness,  diffidence,  and  that 
fear  which  ever  accompanies  superstition,  continues 
Robertson,  diminished  in  his  eyes  the  merit  of  all 
the  good  he  had  performed,  and  induced  him  to 
devise  some  new  and  extraordinary  act  of  piety, 
which  would  draw  upon  him  the  favor  of  Heaven. 
He  resolved  to  celebrate  his  funeral  before  his  death, 
and  caused  a  catafalque  to  be  erected  in  the  church. 
His  domestics  repaired  thither,  carrying  black  can- 
dles in  their  hands,  and  he  himself,  wrapped  in  a 
shroud,  was  laid  in  the  coffin.  The  Office  for  the 
Dead  was  chanted  by  both  Charles  and  the  assem- 
blage, as  well  as  the  plentiful  tears  of  all  would 
allow.  At  the  end  of  the  ceremony  all,  save  the 
chief  participant  in  the  coffin,  left  the  church,  and 
the  doors  were  closed.  Then  the  poor  victim  of 
superstition  emerged  from  his  coffin  and  returned  to 


*  See  his  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  the  National  Institute  at 
Washington  (1843). 


£8    Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Cli  arles  V. 

his  apartments.  Probably  on  account  of  the  impres- 
sion produced  on  his  mind  by  the  fancied  contact 
with  death,  he  was  seized,  concludes  Eobertson,  with 
his  fatal  illness  on  the  following  day. 

Were  it  not  for  the  too  pronounced  pathos  of 
this  Eobertsonian  climax  of  Charles  coming  out  of 
his  coffin,  climbing  down  the  catafalque,  and  creep- 
ing home  stealthily,  lest  his  too  lively  appearance 
should  dispel  the  impression  supposed  to  have  been 
produced,  this  scene  would  furnish  elements  most 
attractive  for  some  ambitious  playwright  and  en- 
terprising manager.  As  for  historical  value,  the 
picture  of  Charles  in  his  shroud  and  coffin,  as  well 
as  that  of  his  being  left  alone  in  the  church  after 
the  ceremony,  has  none ;  the  Hieronymite  chronicles, 
the  only  sources  on  which  Eobertson  can  draw,  are 
precise  in  representing  Charles  as  assisting  at  the 
ceremony,  candle  in  hand,  and  as  giving  his  candle 
to  the  celebrant  at  the  close. 

We  shall  merely  allude  to  the  assertion  that 
during  the  last  six  months  of  his  life  the  Emperor 
had  lost  his  wonted  mental  acumen ;  that,  in  fact, 
he  was  little  better  than  insane.  Authentic  docu- 
ments are  adduced  by  Mignet*  to  show  that,  to  the 
very  last,  Charles  took  an  active  and  directive 
interest  in  the  affairs  of  his  late  Empire ;  and  that 
he  was  frequently  consulted,  especially  as  to  Spanish 
matters,  by  Philip  II.     Let  us  rather  see  whether 


*  Loc.  cit.—See  also  Stirling's  "Cloister  Life  of  Charles  V.," 
1852. 


Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Charles  V.    29 

there  is  any  truth  in  the  presumed  Hieronymite 
narration.  We  say  "  presumed;"  for  it  seems 
incredible  that  any  Catholic  writer  could  have 
penned  the  tale.  Protestant  polemics  regale  us, 
even  unto  nausea,  with  arguments  against  the  re- 
liability of  "monkish  chronicles;"  but  if  ever  any 
such  chronicle  merited  distrust,  nay,  to  be  despised — 
and  there  are  such, — these  by  the  Prior  Angulo  and 
his  anonymous  Brother  are  in  that  category ;  and  if 
they  are  authentic,  their  authors  deserved  what- 
ever severe  punishment  monastic  discipline  and  the 
proper  tribunals — ecclesiastical  and  lay — could  in- 
flict on  religious  who  elaborated  a  baseless  charge  of 
sacrilege  against  an  entire  community. 

To  have  sung  the  Office  of  the  Dead  for  the 
benefit  of  a  living  person  would  have  been  a  solemn 
mockery,  profanation;  but  we  are  told  that  the 
monks  of  San  Yuste  offered  a  Requiem  Mass  for 
the  repose  of  the  soul  of,  and  in  the  presence  of,  the 
living  Emperor.*  However,  this  reflection  on  the 
nature  of  the  ceremony  alleged  to  have  been  per- 


*  "How  can  we  admit  that  this  service  was  performed? 
The  Church  reserves  it  for  the  dead,  never  applying  it  to  the 
living.  Celebrated  without  an  object,  it  would  lose  its  efficacy 
with  its  only  motive,  and  would  become  a  kind  of  profanation. 
The  Church  prays  for  those  who  cannot  any  longer  pray  for 
themselves;  she  offers  for  their  intention  that  Sacrifice  in 
which  their  condition  will  not  allow  them  to  take  part.  This 
pious  and  solemn  association  with  the  soul  in  its  passage  from 
transient  to  eternal  life  has  its  merit  and  grandeur  only  when 
it  is  real.  Moreover,  Charles  V.  well  knew  that  it  is  much 
better  for  one's  self  to  pray  than  to  be  the  object  of  another's 


30    Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Charles  V. 

formed  would  not,  of  itself,  compel  us  to  reject  the 
tale  as  a  fabrication.  But  there  are  many  good 
reasons  why  this  course  should  be  taken.  The 
anonymous  monk  states  that  the  Emperor  caused 
Requiems  to  be  sung  on  August  29,  30,  and  31,  for 
the  souls  of  his  father,  mother,  and  wife;  that  after 
the  last  function  he  ordered  everything  to  be  pre- 
pared for  his  own  funeral  service  on  that  evening; 
and  he  expressly  states  that  not  only  the  Office  was 
chanted,  but  Mass  was  celebrated  at  that  service. 
Here,  then,  we  have  Mass  celebrated,  in  the  Western 
Church  in  the  sixteenth  century,  in  the  evening! 
This  is  an  absurdity.  Nor  can  it  be  alleged  that 
probably  the  Office  alone  was  recited  at  that  time, 
and  that  the  Requiem  was  celebrated  on  the  follow- 
ing morning,  September  1 ;  for  the  writer  says  that 
after  the  Mass  the  monarch  experienced  a  chill,  and 
was  removed  to  his  apartments;  adding  also  that 
"this  happened  on  the  last  day  of  August,  at  about 
four  of  the  night." 

Another  intrinsic  evidence  of  falsity  is  furnished 
by  the  magnitude  of  the  sum — two  thousand  crowns, 
— which  the  anonymous  chronicler  assigns  for  the 


prayers;  much  better  to  appropriate  to  one's  self  the  Holy 
Sacrifice  by  Eucharistic  Communion  than  to  be  indirectly  as- 
sociated with  it  by  a  merciful  attention  of  the  Church.  He 
had  done  so  a  fortnight  before,  and  he  did  so  again  very  soon." 
(Mignet,  loc.  cit.,  p.  414.) 

*  "Four  of  the  night"  (that  is,  four  hours  after  the  even- 
ing Angelus)  would  be,  as  moderns  measure  time,  about  eleven 
in  Spain,  during  August  and  September, 


Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Charles  V.    31 

expenses  of  the  service  in  question.  If  we  con- 
sider the  metallic  value  of  the  Spanish  crown  of 
that  day — eleven  francs, — and  then  note  its  rel- 
ative buying  capability,  we  must  conclude  that  the 
alleged  funeral  cost  more  than  twelve  thousand 
dollars,*  which  is  incredible.  The  only  real  ex- 
penses, since  there  was  no  royal  pomp,  etc.,  would 
have  been  that  of  candles  and  the  honorarium, 
Sandoval  says  that  these  "two  thousand  crowns, 
saved  by  the  Emperor,"  were  afterward  drawn  upon 
for  the  real  funeral ;  and  that  six  hundred  of  them 
were  sent,  just  before  the  monarch's  death  and  by 
his  order,  to  Barbara  Blomberg,  the  mother  of  Don 
John  of  Austria.f 

A  third  reason  for  rejecting  the  fable  of  the 
mock  funeral  is  found  by  Mignet  in  the  plrysical 
condition  of  Charles  V.  at  the  time  when  it  is  alleged 
to  have  been  held.  The  letters  of  his  physician 
and  his  secretary  all  show  that  he  could  not  have 
withstood  the  fatigue  of  four  consecutive  functions. 
On  the  15th  of  August,  wishing  to  communicate, 
he  had  to  be  carried  to  the  church,  and  he  received 
the  Blessed  Sacrament  in  a  sitting  posture.  On  the 
the  24th  the  gout  temporarily  ceased  from  troubling 
him;  but  an  eruption  in  the  legs  ensued,  and  he 
would  scarcely  have  been  able  to  participate  in  the 
supposed  services  of  the  29th,  30th,  and  31st. 
Charles    V.    was    not    of    such    calibre,    spiritually 


*  Barthelemy,  "Erreurs  et  Mensonges,"  vol.  iii,  p.  142. 
f  Log.  cit.,  vol.  ii.,  §3.     Letter  of   Quijada  to   Philip    II.  ? 
October  12,  155§. 


32    Alleged  Ante-Mortem  Funeral  of  Charles  V. 

speaking,  that  he  would  have  forced  weak  nature  to 
obey  his  pious  will,  having  himself  carried  to  cere- 
monies at  which  his  presence  would  have  been  su- 
perfluous. He  was  far  removed  from  those  saints 
who  have  asked  to  be  laid  on  ashes  to  meet  their 
deaths.  And  his  occupations  just  at  this  time, 
as  shown  by  his  intimate  attendants,  manifest  no 
extraordinary  detachment  from  the  affairs  of  earth ; 
still  less  do  they  indicate  any  of  that  semi-insane 
religiousness  by  which  Kobertson  would  account  for 
the  commission  of  the  freak  under  consideration. 
Down  to  the  very  day  before  the  fatal  attack  (Sep- 
tember 1)  he  was  engaged  in  business  of  state  and 
in  matters  of  family  interest.  Finally,  neither  the 
imperial  physician  nor  the  secretary,  whose  letters 
enter  into  the  most  trivial  details  of  their  master's 
life  at  San  Yuste,  especially  where  his  health  or  re- 
ligious dispositions  are  concerned,  say  anything 
about  this  ante-mortem  funeral. 


BRUNO   AND   CAMPANELLA. 

The  Italian  Government  has  permitted  the  erec- 
tion of  a  monument  to  Giordano  Bruno  in  the  capi- 
tal of  the  Christian  world.  We  understand  that 
the  work  is  sufficiently  artistic  to  bring  no  great 
discredit  on  the  mistress  of  the  fine  arts;  but, 
since  its  sole  reason  for  existence  is  based  on  an 
insecure  foundation,  we  are  not  surprised  that  the 
details  of  its  design  are  not  all  true  to  history.  It 
has  been  erected  only  because  of  the  presumed  fact 
that  Bruno  was  done  to  death  by  the  Papal  authori- 
ties. To  render  it  more  impressive,  and  to  illus- 
trate the  eventful  career  of  its  subject,  it  presents 
to  our  contemplation  some  bas-reliefs  of  other 
alleged  " martyrs  to  truth,"  suchasHuss,  Servetus, 
Arnold  of  Brescia,  and  Campanella. 

Now  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  Bruno  was  put 
to  death.  We  know  that  in  1592  he  was  arrested 
by  the  State  Inquisitors  of  Venice  on  the  charge  of 
heresy;*  that  after  six  years  of  imprisonment  he 


*  His  denouncer,  Giovanni  Mocenigo,  to  whom  he  had 
taught  his  system  of  artificial  memory,  accused  Bruno  of 
styling  the  Trinity  an  absurdity ;  of  calling  Transubstantiation 
a  blasphemy,  and  of  finding  truth  in  no  religious  system.  He 
had  said  that  Christ  seduced  the  Jews,  that  he  died  unwillingly, 
and  that  the  apostles  worked  no  miracles.  According  to  him, 
there  is  no  distinction  of  Persons  in  God.  The  words  are  in- 
finite and  eternal.    There  is  no  punishment  for  sin;  the  soul, 

33 


34  Bruno  and  Campanella. 

was  delivered  to  the  Holy  Office,  or  Roman  Inquisi- 
tion, tried,  (and  perhaps)  condemned  to  the  stake 
on  February  9,  1600.  But  was  the  sentence  ex- 
ecuted, or,  as  frequently  happened  in  similar  cases, 
was  Bruno  burnt  merely  in  ef^gj  ?  A  letter  pur- 
porting to  be  from  an  erudite  German  then  in 
Rome,  Gaspar  Schopp,*  describes  the  execution, 
but  many  good  critics  have  denied  the  authenticity 
of  this  epistle.  Again,  Schopp  is  alone  in  his 
assertion.  The  Vatican  Archives  contain  docu- 
ments of  the  trial,  but  not  of  the  condemnation,  nor 
is  there  any  account  of  the  execution ;  whereas,  in 
every  similar  case,  both  of  these  are  detailed. 
Again,  the  "Relations"  of  the  foreign  ambassadors 
resident  at  the  Holy  See,  which  never  omitted  any 
such  items,  say  nothing  of  this  event.  Not  even  in 
the  correspondence  of  the  Venetian  Ambassador, 
the  agent  of  that  Government  which  must  have  felt 


produced  by  nature,  passes  to  another  creature.  This  world 
shows  no  true  religion;  the  Catholic  is  the  best,  but  it  needs  a 
reformation;  and  he  (Bruno)  will  effect  this  with  the  aid  of  the 
King  of  Navarre,  (Henry  1Y.) 

*  Convinced  of  his  errors  by  the  study  of  Baronio's 
"Annals,"  this  Lutheran  scholar  became  a  Catholic.  Invited 
to  Kome  by  Clement  VIII.,  he  wrote  many  phamplets  in  de- 
fence of  Catholicism,  the  Papacy,  etc.  But  he  was  very 
litigious,  and  was  given  to  paradoxes.  In  his  presumed  letter 
he  says  of  Bruno's  errors:  "The  Inquisition  did  not  impute 
Lutheran  doctrines  to  him.  He  was  charged  with  having  com- 
pared the  Holy  Ghost  to  the  soul  of  the  world;  Moses,  the 
prophets,  the  apostles,  and  even  Christ,  to  the  pagan  hiero- 
phants.  He  admitted  many  Adams  and  many  Hercules.  He 
believed  in  magic,  or  at  least  he  upheld  it,  and  taught  that 
Moses  and  Christ  practised  it.    Whatever  errors  have  been 


Bruno  and  Campanella.  35 

an  especial  interest  in  the  fate  of  Bruno,  since  it 
had  initiated  his  downfall,  do  we  find  any  allusion 
to  the  alleged  catastrophe.* 

Cantu  cites  a  MS.  of  the  Medicean  Archives  (No. 
1608),  dated  at  Eome  on  the  very  day  of  Bruno's 
trial,  which  narrates  the  burning  of  an  apostate 
friar  a  few  days  before.  Here  some  mention  of 
Bruno's  condemnation  would  naturally  occur,  but 
there  is  not  a  word.  Finally,  the  celebrated  Servite, 
Friar  Paul  Sarpi,  who  never  missed  an  opportunity 
of  attacking  what  he  feigned  to  regard  as  Roman 
intolerance,  Roman  treachery,  etc.,  although  he 
continued  this  course  for  many  years  after  the  trial 
of  Bruno, t  and  although  his  own  position  of  antag- 
onism with  the  Roman  Curia  perforce  kept  him  on 
the  lookout  for  instances  which  might  inculpate 
Rome  and  justify  the  recent  rebellious  conduct  of 
Venice  toward  the  Holy  See,  never  alludes  to  the 
alleged  fate  of  Bruno.  The  same  silence  is  found 
in  Ciacconio,  Sandrini,  Alfani,  Manno,  and  Ossat, 
all  of  whom  would  scarcely  have  omitted  to  notice 


taught  by  the  ancient  pagans  or  by  the  most  recent  heretics 
were  all  advanced  by  this  Bruno."  (Cantu,  "Illustri  Itali- 
ani,"  art.  "Bruno.") 

*  The  "Kelations"  of  the  Venetian  ambassadors  to  the 
home  government  are  rightly  regarded  by  historians  as  the 
most  precious,  both  for  detail  and  accuracy,  of  all  available 
sources  for  a  knowledge  of  the  events  of  the  time. 

f  As  late  as  December  6,  1611,  we  find  Sarpi  describing  the 
execution  at  Rome  (by  strangling)  of  the  French  Abbe  Dubois, 
for  libels  against  the  Jesuits,  and  claiming  that  the  unfortunate 
had  received  a  safe-conduct  before  journeying  to  Rome.  At 
the  same  time  he  greatly  decries  Schopp,  whom  he  describes 
as  "meriting  a  greater  punishment  than  burning  in  effigy.''', 


36  Bruno  and   Campanella. 

so  important  an  event,  had  it  really  occurred.  And 
how  is  it  that  the  "Martyrology"  of  the  Protestants 
is  also  silent  on  this  matter?  Truly,  Bruno  was 
less  a  Protestant  Christian  than  he  was  a  Buddhist; 
but  in  those  days,  as  in  our  own,  any  person  of 
Christian  ancestry  who  antagonized  Rome,  and  did 
not  avow  himself  a  Jew  or  a  pagan,  was  claimed  for 
their  own  by  the  Protestants.* 

The  Bruno  monument  places  Huss,  Arnold  of 
Brescia,  Servetus,  and  Campanella,  in  the  same  cate- 
gory with  the  Philosopher  of  Nola.  There  may  be 
some  general  reason  for  so  treating  the  Bohemian 
fanatic  and  the  cut-throat  of  Brescia.  The  com- 
parison of  Bruno  with  Servetus,  the  victim  of  Cal- 
vin, may  be  tolerated,  with  a  smile  at  the  designer's 
ungrateful  disregard  of  the  feelings  of  Protestants. 
But  Campanella  and  Bruno!  "Hyperion  to  a 
satyr!"  Bruno  was  a  Christian  only  by  baptism; 
Campanella  was  ever  a  devout  Catholic.  Campa- 
nella, a  martyr  to  science  !  His  devotion  to  science 
caused  him  no  trouble  more  annoying  than  some 
cloister  squabbles;  politics,  mere  politics,  involved 
him  in  serious  difficulty.  As  well  ascribe  the  fate 
of  Savonarola  to  his  zeal  for  morals.  Campanella, 
a  victim  of  the  Inquisition !  His  only  relations 
with  that  tribunal  came  from  its  interposition  to 
save  him  from  the  Neapolitan  courts,  which  would 
have  consigned  him  to  the  scaffold  for  high  treason 
to  the  Spanish  crown. 


*  See  Appendix  for  later  information  on  Bruno's  execu- 
tion. 


Bruno  and  Campanella.  37 

Campanella  was  born  at  Stilo,  in  the  kingdom 
of  Naples,  in  1568.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  he 
entered  the  Dominican  Order,  and  in  the  course  of 
time  became  very  distinguished  in  the  public  dis- 
putes on  philosophical  questions,  which  were  then 
the  fashion  of  the  day  in  Italy.  But  his  attacks  on 
the  peripatetics*  procured  him  many  enemies  in 
his  own  Order,  and  in  1590  he  sought  the  protec- 
tion of  the  Marquis  Lavello,  one  of  his  Neapolitan 
admirers.  During  the  next  eight  years  we  find 
him  disputing  at  Koine  and  Florence,  and  teaching 
in  the  Universities  of  Pisa  and  Padua.  In  1598  he 
returned  to  Stilo,  and  it  was  soon  rumored  that  he 
was  occupied  in  projects  for  the  subversion  of  the 
Spanish  domination.  He  frequently  preached,  and 
wrote  that  the  year  1600  would  unfold  great 
changes  in  the  kingdom ;  that  recent  extraordinary 
inundations,  earthquakes,  and  volcanic  eruptions, 
prognosticated  a  coming  reformation  in  both  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  matters;  that  he  was  to  be  an  in- 
strument of  Providence  in  all  this,  for  he  "was 
born  to  abolish  three  great  evils — tyranny,  sophism, 
and  hypocrisy;  everything  was  in  darkness  when 


*  "Italy  produced  the  first  school  of  philosophy  of  a 
modern  character;  for  the  school  of  Telesius  soon  followed 
that  of  the  platonist  Marsilio  Ficino,  and  that  of  the  per- 
ipatetic Pomponazzi.  .  .  .  How  is  it  that  the  names  of 
Campanella  and  Bacon  are  so  diversely  regarded  :  the  latter  as 
of  one  who  opened  the  modern  era,  and  the  former  scarcely 
remembered?  Campanella  devoted  himself  to  all  the  know- 
able;  Bacon  confined  himself  to  the  natural  sciences."  Cantu, 
"Filosofia  Moderna,"  §i. 


38  Bruno  and   Campanella. 

he  struck  the  light."  *  He  reasoned  on  several 
recent  astronomical  discoveries,  and  announced  that 
his  studies  showed  him  the  near  advent  of  the  reign 
of  eternal  reason  in  the  life  of  humanity. f  Great 
revolutions,  he  said,  occur  every  eight  centuries, 
the  latest  previous  one  having  been  the  Incarnation 
of  the  World. 

Whether  Campanella  was  the  instigator  or  a 
tool  was  never  made  known ;  but  a  conspiracy  was 
formed  against  Spanish  rule,  and  four  bishops  and 
three  hundred  friars  of  various  orders  were  the 
leading  spirits.  Of  the  three  processes  of  the  trial 
now  extant,  one  tends  to  show  that  the  design  was 
to  establish  a  republic  in  Calabria ;  the  second  in- 
sists that  the  kingdom  was  to  be  given  to  the  Holy 
See;  and  the  third  indicates  a  wish  to  hand  the 
country  over  to  the  Turks;  but  it  is  noteworthy 
that  in  the  process  finally  extended  in  the  Holy 
Office  at  Rome  nearly  all  the  previous  witnesses 
retracted.  When  the  conspiracy  was  discovered 
the  viceroy's  forces  captured  nearly  all  the  leaders. 
Thelaics  were  hung,  and  the  "privilegiumfori"  con- 
signed the  ecclesiastics,  Campanella  excepted,  to 
the  Inquisition \%  the  viceroy  insisting  on  this 
exception,    probably  at  the  instigation  of  Campa- 


*  "Poesie  Filosonche." 

t  "De  Sensu  Rerum  et  Magia,"  iv,  20. 

%  Writing  to  Cardinal  Farnese,  Campanella  says  that  his 
clerical  comrades  pleaded  guilty  to  the  charge  of  "rebelling 
in  order  to  be  free  to  become  heretics."  Had  they  answered 
only  to  the  charge  of  treason,  he  says,  "all  would  have  been 
executed,  without  any  appeal  to  the  Pope." 


Bruno  and  Ca?npanelta.  39 

nella's  private  enemies.  Confined  in  Castel  Sant' 
Elmo  for  twenty-seven  years,  the  Holy  See  again 
and  again  vainly  endeavored  to  procure  his  release ; 
but  Pope  Paul  V. ,  who  sent  Schopp  to  Naples  for 
that  purpose,  succeeded  in  obtaining  permission 
for  him  to  correspond  with  his  friends,  and  to  re- 
ceive every  convenience  for  literary  work.  Finally, 
Pope  Urban  VIII.  availed  himsef  of  the  accusation 
of  magical  practices  made  against  the  philosopher, 
insisting  that  such  a  charge  placed  the  case  within 
the  sole  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition;  and  he 
succeeded  in  obtaining  the  friars  extradition. 

Campanella  was  at  once  enrolled  in  the  Papal 
household,  and  an  annual  pension  was  assigned  to 
him.  Caressed  by  all  that  was  learned  in  Rome,  he 
passed  several  years  in  happy  study ;  but  in  1634 
the  Spanish  residents,  who  continued  to  detest  his 
name,  made  an  open  attack  on  the  French  Embassy 
where  he  was  visiting,  and  tried  to  obtain  possession 
of  his  person.  He  was  saved  by  the  Papal  police, 
but  by  the  advice  of  the  Pontiff  he  at  once  betook 
himself  to  France.  Cardinal  Richelieu  received 
him  with  open  arms,  and  made  him  a  counsellor  of 
state.  He  was  also  elected  president  of  the  French 
Academy,  lately  founded  by  Richelieu.  To  the  day 
of  his  death,  on  May  21,  1639,  he  continually  cor- 
responded with  Pope  Urban  VIII.  What  is  there 
in  this  career  to  indicate  the  martyr  to  science,  the 
victim  of  papal  tyranny;  in  fine,  the  fit  com- 
panion of  Bruno  as  that  unfortunate  receives  the 
ignorant  or  diabolic  homage  of  so-called  liberalism? 


40  Bruno  and   Campanella. 

We  have  said  that  Bruno  is  wrongly  styled  a 
Protestant.  We  never  find  him  representing  him- 
self as  either  Calvinist,  Anglican,  or  Lutheran. 
While  he  resided  in  Geneva,  the  headquarters  of 
Calvinism,  he  attended,  he  says,  "the  sermons  of 
the  Italian  and  French  religionists.  But  when  I 
was  warned  that  I  could  not  remain  there  long  if  I 
did  not  adopt  the  creed  of  the  Genevans,  I  went  to 
Toulouse. "  He  stayed  but  a  short  time  in  Tou- 
louse, "the  Rome  of  the  Garronne,"  only  long 
enough  to  receive  the  doctor's  cap,  and  to  surprise 
both  the  Catholics  and  the  Calvinists  by  his  teach- 
ings. The  year  1579  found  him  at  Paris,  satisfying 
Henry  III.  that  his  phenomenal  memory  was  not 
the  effect  of  magic,  and  lecturing  at  the  Sorbonne. 
As  yet  no  sign  of  Calvinism.  During  the  three 
years  that  he  spent  in  England  he  greatly  lauded 
Queen  Elizabeth,  "the  unique  Diana,  who  is  to  us 
all  what  the  sun  is  to  the  stars,"  but  he  manifested 
no  leaning  to  Anglicanism.  At  Oxford  he  taught 
the  movement  of  the  earth ;  and  was  obliged  to  de- 
part. Arriving  in  Germany,  he  was  well  received 
at  Wittenberg,  and  he  highly  appreciated  the  toler- 
ation accorded  by  the  Lutheran  professors  to  him, 
"although  of  a  different  faith."*  In  fact,  Bruno 
taught  everywhere  the  Pythagorean  system  of  the 
world,  and  an  Eleatic  pantheism  dressed  in  Neo-~ 
Platonic  forms,  advancing  both  with  a  pride,  or 
rather  a  vanity, which  must  have  appeared  ridiculous. 


*  "Kon  vestrse  religionis  dogmateprobatum."    Thus  in  his 
work,  "De  lampade  combinatoria." 


Bruno  and  OampaneUa.  41 

He  announced  himself  to  the  Oxford  dons  as 
"doctor  of  the  most  elaborate  philosophy;  pro- 
fessor of  the  purest  and  most  harmless  wisdom; 
recognized  by  all  the  principal  Academies  of 
Europe;  unknown  only  to  barbarians;  the  weak- 
ener  of  sleeping  geniuses;  the  tamer  of  presump- 
tious  and  recalcitrant  ignorance ;  a  universal  philan- 
thropist, as  all  his  actions  proclaim.  One  who 
loves  an  Italian  no  more  than  an  Englishman,  a 
man  no  more  than  a  woman,  a  mitre  no  more  than 
a  crown,  a  lawyer  no  more  than  a  soldier,  the 
hooded  no  more  than  the  hoodless ;  but  who  loves 
him  the  most  whose  conversation  is  the  most  peace- 
ful, civil,  and  useful;  one  who  cares  not  for  an 
anointed  head,  or  marked  forehead,  or  clean  hands, 
but  only  for  the  mind  and  for  the  cultured  intellect ; 
one  who  is  detested  by  hypocrites  and  by  the  prop- 
agators of  insanity,  but  who  is  revered  by  the 
upright,  and  applauded  by  every  noble  genius." 
Could  Cagliostro  have  excelled  this  as  an  adver- 
tisement ? 

But  if  Bruno  was  neither  Catholic  nor  Protest- 
ant, his  forced  associate  in  the  Boman  monument 
was  a  profound  Catholic,  albeit  an  exceedingly  in- 
tolerant one.  He  would  have  no  dispute  with  an 
innovator.  He  would  ask:  "Who  sent  you  to 
preach,  God  or  the  devil?  If  God,  prove  it  by 
miracles."  And  if  he  fails,  said  Campanella, 
"burn  him  if  you  can.  .  .  .  The  first  error  com- 
mitted (during  the  Lutheran  movement)  was  in 
allowing  Luther  to  live  after  the  Diets  of  Worms 
and  Augsburg ;   and  if  Charles  V.  did  so,  as  they 


4=2  Bruno  and  Qampanella 

say,  in-order  to  keep  the  Pope  in  apprehension,  and 
thus  oblige  him  to  succor  Charles  in  his  aspirations 
to  universal  monarchy,  he  acted  against  every  rea- 
son of  state  policy ;  for  to  weaken  the  Pontiff  is  to 
weaken  all  Christianity,  the  people  soon  revolting 
under  pretext  of  freedom  of  conscience."*  He 
counselled  the  King  of  Spain  to  have  always  two  or 
three  religions — Dominicans,  Jesuits,  or  Francis- 
cans,— in  his  supreme  council ;  and  every  command- 
ing general,  he  said,  should  have  a  religious  ad- 
viser. |  Such  sentiments  must  sound  strange  to 
the  Italianissimi  of  to-day ;  but  they  came  natur- 
ally from  Campanella,  who  thought  that  "the  same 
constellation  which  drew  fetid  effluvia  from  the 
cadaverous  minds  of  heretics,  brought  forth  bal- 
samic exhalations  from  the  exact  minds  of  the 
founders  of  the  Minims,  Jesuits,  Capuchins,  etc. "J 
He  advises  all  Governments  to  allow  no  Lutherans 
within  their  limits ;  because,  he  contends,  these  sec- 
tarians deny  the  free-will  of  man,  and  can  excuse 
crime  by  the  plea  that  they  are  fated  to  sin.§  As 
for  the  Calvinist  dogma  of  predestination,  "it  ren- 
ders all  princes  wicked,  the  people  seditious,  and 
theologians  traitors."  || 

The  following  passage, If  if  read  by  the  committee 
before   it    accepted  Ferrari's    design   for    Bruno's 


*  "Civitas  Solis,"  c.  27. — "Delia  Monarchia  Spagnuola," 
c.  27. 

f  "Aforismi  Politici,"  passim. 

%  Idem,  70. 

§  Idem,  84,  87. 

||  "Lettere,"  passim. 

%  "Discorso  II.  sul  Papato." 


Bruno  and  Campanella.  43 

j  statue,  would  probably  have  caused  its  rejection : 
"The  Papacy  belongs  to  no  one  in  particular,  but  to 
all  Christendom,  and  whatever  the  Church  pos- 
sesses is  common  to  all.  The  Italians  ought  to 
encourage  the  wealth  of  religious  corporations,  be- 
cause it  belongs  to  them  all,  and  lessens  the  strength 
of  Italy's  rivals.  .  .  .  No  Italian  sovereign 
should  aspire  to  a  rule  over  the  others,  but  all, 
whenever  the  direct  line  of  succession  becomes 
extinct,  should  proclaim  the  Roman  Church  heir  to 
their  dominions.  Thus  in  course  of  time  an  Italian 
monarchy  would  be  established.  The  Italian  repub- 
lics ought  to  make  a  law  that  whenever  they  fall 
under  the  rule  of  tyrants  their  government  devolves 
on  the  Roman  Church." 

In  reality,  Campanella  aimed  at  a  reformation  of 
the  world,  and  by  means  of  Catholicism.  His  en- 
thusiasm descried  a  near  conversion  of  the  nations, 
as  prophesied  by  St.  Bridget  of  Sweden,  the  Abbot 
Joachim,  Dionysius  the  Carthusian,  St.  Vincent 
Ferrer,  and  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  the  last  of  whom 
had  predicted  that  the  sons  of  St.  Dominic  would 
carry  the  olive  of  peace  to  the  Turks.*  He  de- 
clared that  the  day  of  Antichrist  was  near,  if  not 
already  come, — "it  is  now  here,  or  will  come  in 
1630 ;"  and  he  "was  born  to  combat  the  schools  of 
Antichrist,"  which  schools  were  everywhere  active; 
for  "where  Mohammed  and  Luther  do  not  rule, 
there  dominate  Machiavelli  and  politicians. "f 

*Campanella's  words  as  given  in  a  contemporary  account 
of  the  Calabrese  conspiracy,  published  in  1845  by  Capialbi. — 
Cantu,  "Illustriltaliani,"  art.  "Campanella." 

t  "Letter  to  the  Pope  and  Cardinals." 


ST.   CYRIL  OF   ALEXANDRIA   AND   THE 
MURDER   OF   HYPATIA. 

A  few  years  ago  the  Rev.  Charles  Kingsley,  £*n 
English  writer  of  some  reputation,  saw  fit  to  revive 
an  ancient  but  often  exploded  calumny  against  one 
of  God's  saints.  This  author  is  a  clergyman  of  the 
English  Establishment,  and  being  presumably  as 
well  as  pretendedly  a  man  of  education,  one  would 
have  expected  from  his  pen  at  least  a  moderately 
appreciative  treatment  of  the  grand  characters 
whom  he  selected  to  illustrate  an  important,  though 
little  understood,  period  of  history.  But,  according 
to  him,  the  great  Patriarch  of  Alexandria  "has 
gone  to  his  own  place.  What  that  place  is  in  his- 
tory, is  but  too  well  known ;  what  it  is  in  the  sight 
of  Him  unto  whom  all  live  forever,  is  no  concern  of 
ours.  May  He  whose  mercy  is  over  all  His  works 
have  mercy  upon  all,  whether  orthodox  or  unor- 
thodox, Papist  or  Protestant,  who,  like  Cyril,  begin 
by  lying  for  the  cause  of  truth ;  and,  setting  off 
upon  that  evil  road,  arrive  surely,  with  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees  of  old,  sooner  or  later,  at  their  own 
place.  True,  he  and  his  monks  had  conquered ;  but 
Hypatia  did  not  die  unavenged.  In  the  hour  of 
that  unrighteous  victory  the  Church  of  Alexandria 
received  a  deadly  wound.  It  had  admitted  and 
sanctioned  those  habits  of  doing  evil  that  good  may 

44 


St.  Cyril  and  the  Murder  of  Hypatia.        45 

come,  of  pious  intrigue,  and  at  last  of  open  perse- 
cution, which  are  certain  to  creep  in  wheresoever 
men  attempt  to  set  up  a  merely  religious  empire, 
independent  of  human  relationships  and  civil  laws ; 
to  establish,  in  short,  a  'theocracy,'  and  by  that 
very  act  confess  a  secret  disbelief  that  God  is  ruling 
already." 

Such  was  not  the  judgment  of  Kingsley's  fellow- 
sectarian,  Cave,*  nor  of  the  Lutheran,  John  Albert 
Fabricius,f  than  whom  Protestants  have  produced 
no  critics  more  erudite.  But  it  is  the  opinion  ex- 
pressed by  many  Protestant  polemics ;  for  St.  Cyril 
|  presided,  in  the  name  of  the  Roman  Pontiff,  at  the 
Council  of  Ephesus  (431),  which  confirmed  to  the 
Blessed  Virgin  the  title  of  Mother  of  God.J  It  is 
also  the  judgment  of  Voltaire  and  the  entire  school 
of  incredulists ;  for  St.  Cyril  triumphantly  refuted 
the  work  of  the  Emperor  Julian  against  Christianity. 


*  "Lit.  Hist.,"  article  "Cyrillus." 

f  "Bibl.  Graeca,"  pt.  iv,  b.  5. 

%  Writing  to  the  clergy  and  people  of  Constantinople,  Pope 
St.  Celestine  said :  "We  have  deemed  it  proper  that  in  so  im- 
portant a  matter  we  ourselves  should  be  in  some  sort  present 
among  you,  and  therefore  we  have  appointed  our  brother  Cyril 
as  our  representative."  And,  writing  to  St.  Cyril,  the  Pontiff 
says:  "You  will  proclaim  this  sentence  by  our  authority, 
acting  in  our  place  by  virtue  of  our  power;  so  that  if  JSTesto- 
rius,  within  ten  days  after  his  admonition,  does  not  anathe- 
matize his  impious  doctrine,  you  will  declare  him  deprived  of 
communion  with  us,  and  you  will  at  once  provide  for  the  needs 
of  the  Constantinopolitan  Church."  It  is  quite  natural  that 
Protestant  polemics  should  be  hostile  to  the  memory  of  the 
great  "Doctor  of  the  Incarnation,"  who  thus  apostrophized 


46        St.  Cyril  and  the  Murder  of  Hypatia. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  fifth  century  the  great 
city  of  Alexandria  in  Egypt  was  still  nearly  one 
half  pagan,  and  the  Jewish  population  also  was  very 
large.  No  populace  in  the  Empire  was  so  turbulent 
and  seditious,  and  therefore  the  emperors  had  in- 
vested the  patriarchs  with  extensive  civil  authority, 
although  the  force  at  the  prelates'  disposal  was  not 
always  sufficient  to  repress  the  disorders  of  the 
mob.  In  the  year  413  St.  Cyril  was  raised  to  the 
patriarchate,  and  was  almost  immediately  involved 
in  difficulty  with  Orestes,  the  imperial  prefect. 
Often  he  conjured  this  officer  on  the  Gospels  to  put 
an  end  to  this  enmity  for  the  good  of  the  city. 

At  this  time  the  chief  school  of  pagan  philosophy 
in  Alexandria  was  taught  by  Hypatia,  a  beautiful 
woman,  and  of  irreproachable  morals.  Among  her 
hearers  were  many  of  the  elite  of  paganism.  The 
celebrated  Synesius  had  been  her  pupil,  and  his 
letters  show  that,  although  he  had  become  a  Chris- 
tian bishop  in  410  he  still  gloried  in  her  friendship. 
But   her   most   important  scholar  was  the  prefect 


the  Blessed  Virgin  in  the  Council  of  Ephesus :  "I  salute  thee, 
Mother  of  God,  venerable  treasure  of  the  entire  universe!  I 
salute  thee,  who  didst  enclose  the  Immense,  the  Incompre- 
hensible, in  thy  virginal  womb!  I  salute  thee,  by  whose  means 
heaven  triumphs,  angels  rejoice,  demons  are  put  to  flight,  the 
tempter  is  vanquished,  the  culpable  creature  is  raised  to 
heaven,  a  knowledge  of  truth  is  based  on  the  ruins  of  idolatry! 
I  salute  thee,  through  whom  all  the  churches  of  the  earth  have 
been  founded,  and  all  nations  led  to  penance!  I  salute  thee, 
in  fine,  by  whom  the  only  Son  of  God,  the  Light  of  the  world, 
has  enlightened  those  who  were  seated  in  the  shadow  of  death ! 
Can  any  man  worthily  laud  the  incomparable  Mary?  " 


St.  Cyril  and  the  Murder  of  Hypatia.        ±7 

Orestes.  It  is  difficult  to  determine  what  was  the 
religion  of  this  man.  He  himself,  on  the  occasion 
of  an  attack  on  his  life  by  some  monks  from  Mt. 
Nitria,  had  proclaimed  his  Christianity,  but  his 
general  conduct  would  inspire  doubt  of  his  sincerity ; 
and  we  may  safely  accept  as  probable  the  conjecture 
of  the  English  novelist,  that  he  was  ready  to  renew 
the  attempt  of  Julian  the  Apostate.  The  obstinacy 
of  Orestes  in  refusing  a  reconciliation  with  their 
patriarch  was  ascribed  by  the  whole  Christian  com- 
munity to  the  influence  of  Hypatia;  and  one  day 
in  the  Lent  of  415  a  number  of  parabolani*  and 
laics,  led  by  one  Peter  the  Reader  and  some  Nitrian 
monks,  fell  upon  the  unfortunate  philosopher  as  she 
was  proceeding  to  her  lecture  hall,  dragged  her  from 
her  litter,  hurried  her  to  the  great  church  of  the 
Ceesareum,  and  there  literally  tore  her  to  pieces. 

Such,  in  a  few  words,  is  the  substance  of  the  ac- 
count of  this  horrible  event  as  given  by  the  historian 
Socrates, f  a  writer  contemporary  with  the  great  St. 
Cyril,  and  whom  Kingsley  professes  to  have  scrupu- 
lously followed.     But  Socrates,  hostile  though  he 


*  These  were  an  order  of  minor  clerics,  probably  only  ton- 
sured, who  were  deputed  to  the  service  of  the  sick  both  in 
hospitals  and  at  home.  Their  name  was  derived  from  their 
constant  exposure  to  danger.  The  first  mention  of  them  in  a 
public  document  occurs  in  an  ordinance  of  Theodosius  II.,  in 
416;  but  they  are  here  spoken  of  as  having  been  in  existence 
many  years,  and  probably  they  were  instituted  in  the  time  of 
Constantine.  In  course  of  time  they  became  arrogant  and  sedi- 
tious, and  were  finally  abolished.  At  Alexandria  they  num- 
bered six  hundred,  and  were  all  appointed  by  the  patriarch. 

f  "Hist.Eccl.,"b.  vii,  §15. 


48        St.  Cyril  and  the  Murder  of  Hypatia. 

ever  shows  himself  to  the  holy  patriarch,  does  not 
once  insinuate  that  this  prelate  was  the  instigator 
of  the  crime;  while  the  Anglican  minister  does 
imply  that  charge,  and  openly  lays  all  responsibility 
for  the  foul  deed  on  St.  Cyril. 

Voltaire,  the  prince  of  incredulists,  naturally 
gloats  over  one  of  the  most  delicious  morsels  ever 
furnished  to  his  school.  Having  compared  Hypatia 
to  Madame  Dacier,  a  learned  classicist  of  his  day,  he 
asks  us  to  imagine  the  French  Carmelites  contend- 
ing that  the  poem  of  "Magdalen,"  composed  in 
1668  by  Peter  de  Saint-Louis,  one  of  their  Order, 
was  superior  to  "Iliad"  of  Homer,  and  insisting 
that  it  is  impious  to  prefer  the  work  of  a  pagan  to 
that  of  a  religious.  Let  us  fancy,  then,  continues 
the  Sage  of  Ferney,  that  the  Archbishop  of  Paris 
takes  the  part  of  the  Carmelites  against  the  gov- 
ernor of  the  city,  a  partisan  of  Madame  Dacier, 
who  prefers  Homer  to  F.  Peter.  Finally,  let  us 
suppose  the  Archbishop  inciting  the  Carmelites  to 
slaughter  this  talented  woman  in  the  Cathedral  of 
Notre  Dame.  ' 'Such  precisely, ' '  concludes  Voltaire, 
"is  the  history  of  Hypatia.  She  taught  Homer 
and  Plato  in  Alexandria  during  the  reign  of 
Theodosius  II.  St.  Cyril  unleashed  the  Christian 
populace  against  her,  as  we  are  told  by  Damascius 
and  Suidas,  and  as  is  satisfactorily  proved  by  the 
most  learned  moderns,  such  as  Brucker,  La  Croze, 
Basnage,  etc."*     And   in  another  placef  Voltaire 

*  In  his  "DictioimairePhilosophique;"  article, ''Hypatia." 

*  "Examen  Important  de  Milord  Bolingbroke,"  chap.  34, 
"Des  Chretiens  jusqu'a  Theodose." 


St.  Cyril  and  the  Murder  of  Hypatia,        49 

dares  to  ask:  "Can  anything  be  more  horrible 
or  more  cowardly  than  the  conduct  of  the  priests 
of  this  Bishop  Cyril,  whom  Christians  st}de  St. 
Cyril?  .  .  .  His  tonsured  hounds,  followed  by  a 
mob  of  fanatics,  attack  Hypatia  in  the  street, 
drag  her  by  the  hair,  stone  and  burn  her,  and 
Cyril  the  Holy  utters  not  the  slightest  repri- 
mand." Again:*  "This  Cyril  was  ambitious, 
factious,  turbulent,  knavish  and  cruel.  .  .  .  He 
caused  his  priests  and  diocesans  to  massacre  the 
young  Hypatia,  so  well  known  in  the  world  of  let- 
ters. .  .  .  Cyril  was  jealous  because  of  the  prodi- 
gious attendance  at  the  lectures  of  Hypatia,  and  he 
incited  against  her  the  murderers  who  assassinated 
her.  .  .  .  Such  was  Cyril  of  whom  they  have  made 
a  saint."  And  as  late  as  1777,  when  the  octoge- 
narian cynic  was  already  in  the  shadow  of  death, 
he  wrote:  "We  know  that  St.  Cyril  caused  the 
murder  of  Hypatia,  the  heroine  of  philosophy. "f 

Since  such  is  the  judgment  expressed  by  Voltaire, 
at  once  the  most  shallow  and  most  influential  of 
all  modern  writers  on  historical  matters,  it  is  not 
strange  that  the  masses  have  accepted  the  romance 
of  Hypatia  as  recounted  by  most  of  those  fosterers 
of  shallowness,  the  encyclopaedias  and  dictionaries 
of  the  day.  Even  in  some  of  the  least  superficial  of 
these  presumed  authorities,  such  as  the  "NouvelleBi- 


*  "Discours  de  Julien  contre  ia  Secte  des  Galileans." 
f  L'Etablissement  du  Christianisme,"  chap.  24,  "Exc^s  de 
Fanatisme." 


50        St.  Cyril  and  the  Murder  of  Hypatia. 

ographie  Generate"  (Didot,  1858),  and  the  "Grand 
Dictionnaire  Encyclopedique  du  Dix-Neuvieme  Si- 
ecle"  (1873),  the  accusation  against  St.  Cyril  is 
clearly  put  forth.  In  the  former  work  we  read 
the  following  from  the  pen  of  a  celebrated  writer:  * 
"It  is  hard  to  believe  that  the  hands  of  St.  Cyril 
were  not  stained  in  this  bloody  tragedy.  The  his- 
torian Socrates,  who  gives  its  details,  adds  that  the 
deed  covered  with  infamy  not  only  Cyril  but  the 
whole  Church  of  Alexandria."  In  the  latter  we  are 
told:  "Hypatia  was  massacred  by  the  Christian  pop- 
ulace, at  the  instigation  of  St.  Cyril.  .  .  .  Accord- 
ing to  Damascius,  St.  Cyril,  passing  one  day  before 
the  residence  of  Hypatia,  noted  the  crowd  who  were 
waiting  to  hear  the  daughter  of  Theon,  and  he  there- 
upon conceived  such  jealousy  of  her  fame  that  he 
resolved  to  procure  the  death  of  the  noble  and 
learned  girl."  f 


*  M.  Aube\  in  vol.  xxv,  p.  712. 

f  Yol.  ix.,  p.  505 — Cantu  does  not  touch  the  question  of  St. 
Cyril's  responsibility  for  this  crime.  This  is  all  that  the  great 
historian  says  concerning  Hypatia:  "Theon,  a  professor  in 
Alexandria,  commentated  on  Euclid  and  Ptolemy,  but  became 
more  famous  on  account  of  his  beautiful  daughter  Hypatia. 
Taught  mathematics  by  him,  and  perfected  at  Athens,  she  was 
invited  to  teach  philosophy  in  her  native  city.  She  followed 
the  eclectics,  but  based  her  system  on  the  exact  sciences,  and 
introduced  demonstrations  into  the  speculative,  thus  reducing 
them  to  a  more  rigorous  method  than  they  had  hitherto  known. 
Bishop  Synesius  was  her  scholar,  and  always  venerated  her. 
Orestes,  Prefect  of  Egypt,  admired  and  loved  her,  and  followed 
her  counsels  in  his  contest  with  the  fiery  Archbishop,  St. 
Cyril.  It  was  said  that  it  was  owing  to  Hypatia's  enthusiasm 
f«»r  paganism  that  Orestes  became  unfavorable  to  the  Christians. 


St.  Cyril  and  the  Murder  of  Hypatia.        51 

Voltaire  tells  us  that  the  guilt  of  St.  Cyril  has 
been  proved  by  the  most  learned  men  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  "such  as  Brucker,  La  Croze,  Bas- 
nage,  etc.,  etc."  Let  us  pass,  with  a  doubting 
smile,  this  extravagant  encomium  on  writers  of 
very  ordinary  calibre,  and  see  how  these  Protestant 
authorities  arrive  at  their  horrible  conclusion.  It 
is  by  adducing  the  testimony  of  Socrates,  Suidas, 
Damascius,  and  Nicephorus  Callixtus.  But  in  vain 
do  they  call  on  Socrates.  This  historian,  although 
very  hostile  to  St.  Cyril,  as  he  constantly  shows 
himself,  and  although  his  Novatianism*  would  ren- 
der him  very  willing  to  incriminate  an  orthodox 
prelate,  does  not  charge  the  holy  patriarch  with 
either  the  instigation  or  an  approval  of  the  murder. 
And,  let  it  be  noted,  Philostorgius,  also  contempo- 
rary with  Hypatia,  and  an  historian  of  as  much 
reliability  as  Socrates,  narrates  her  death,  but  does 
not  even  mention  the  name  of  St.  Cyril  in  connec- 
tion with  it,  although,  indeed,  he  inculpates  the 
Catholics.    The  same  may  be  said  of  Suidas.    As 


Hence  certain  imprudent  persons  so  excited  the  people  against 
her  that  one  day,  while  she  was  going  to  her  school,  she  was 
dragged  from  her  litter,  stripped  and  killed,  and  her  members 
thrown  into  the  flames."  ("Storia  Universale,"  b.  vii,  c.  23. 
Edit.Ital.  10;  Turin,  1862.) 

*  This  heresy  was  an  outgrowth  of  the  schism  of  Novatian, 
who,  instigated  by  Novatus,  a  Carthaginian  priest,  tried  to 
usurp  the  pontifical  throne  of  St.  Cornelius  in  251.  Its  cardi- 
nal doctrine  was  that  there  were  some  sins  which  the  Church 
can  not  forgive.  It  subsisted  in  the  East  until  the  seventh 
century,  and  in  the  West  until  the  eighth, 


52        St.  Cyril  and  the  Murder  of  Hypatia. 

for  Nicephorus  Callixtus,  this  schismatic  author 
should  not  be  brought  forward  in  the  matter,  as  he 
lived  nine  centuries  after  the  event,  and  could 
know  nothing  whatever  concerning  it,  unless  from 
Socrates  and  Philostorgius.  Furthermore,  the  best 
critics  of  every  school  tax  this  writer  with  a  fond- 
ness for  fables. 

There  remains,  then,  only  Damascius,  on  whom 
Voltaire  and  his  latest  copyist,  Kingsley,  can  rely 
for  justification  in  their  ghoulish  task.  But  Damas- 
cius was  a  pagan,  a  declared  enemy  of  Christianity, 
and  it  was  the  interest  of  his  cause  to  besmirch  the 
fair  fame  of  Alexandria's  patriarch.  And  of  what 
value  is  his  assertion,  made  a  century  and  a  half 
after  the  death  of  Hypatia,  when  compared  with 
the  silence  of  her  contemporaries,  Socrates  and  Phi- 
lostorgius? Again,  the  very  passage  of  Damascius 
adduced  by  the  foes  of  St.  Cyril  betrays  the  shal- 
lowness of  this  author's  information.  He  repre- 
sents the  patriarch  as  surprised  at  the  numbers 
awaiting  the  coming  forth  of  Hypatia,  and  as  ask- 
ing who  it  was  that  could  attract  such  a  concourse. 
Is  it  possible  that  St.  Cyril,  the  best  informed  man 
in  Alexandria  concerning  even  its  most  trivial 
affairs,  the  all-powerful  patriarch  whose  spies  were 
everywhere  (according  to  Kingsley),  did  not  know 
the  residence  of  the  woman  who  disputed  with  him 
the  intellectual  empire  of  the  city?  And  Damascius 
makes  still  more  exorbitant  demands  on  our  credu- 
lity ;  for  he  gives  us  to  understand  that  until  St.  Cyril 
saw  that  crowd  of  her  enthusiastic  disciples,  he  had 


St.  Cyril  and  the  Murder  of  Sypatia.        53 

not  even  heard  a  name  which  for  years  had  been 
renowned  in  Egypt. 

We  are  not  writing  a  life  of  St.  Cyril,  still  less  a 
hagiological  essay;  but  we  must  remark  that  the 
general  tenor  of  this  prelate's  career,  his  exhibition 
of  constant  zeal  and  virtue  of  a  strikingly  heroic 
character,  "which  caused  his  enrollment  among  the 
canonized  saints,  would  prevent  us  from  supposing 
that  he  could  ever  have  been  a  murderer.  Of 
course,  absolutely  speaking,  no  metaphysical  impos- 
sibility is  involved  in  the  supposition  of  Voltaire, 
Kingsley,  etc. ;  but  if  it  were  accepted,  we  should 
expect  to  discover  some  trace  of  heroic  repentance 
in  the  after-life  of  the  patriarch.  Now,  in  the 
remaining  thirty  years  of  his  career,  active  and 
open  to  inspection  though  it  was,  we  can  find  neither 
the  slightest  trace  of  such  repentance  nor  even  any 
avowal  of  the  crime.  But  we  need  say  no  more. 
The  charge  is  as  gratuitous  as  it  is  malicious,  and 
will  thus  be  considered  by  all  fair  minds  until  at  least 
one  contemporary  or  gwa^'-contemporary  author- 
ity can  be  adduced  in  its  support. 


THE  DIVORCE  OF   NAPOLEON  AND 
JOSEPHINE. 

In  a  brochure  entitled  "Napoleon  and  His  Detrac- 
tors," Prince  Jerome  Napoleon  found  fault,  in  1887, 
with  Prince  Metternich  for  having  contended  that 
the  Emperor  Napoleon  had  never  been  sacramentally 
united  to  Josephine.  The  Austrian  diplomat  went 
so  far  as  to  declare  that  he  had  heard  from  the 
lips  of  Cardinal  Consalvi  that  Pius  VII.,  by  con- 
ferring the  imperial  consecration  on  Josephine,  an 
unmarried  wife,  had  sanctioned,  as  it  were,  her  con- 
cubinary  status.  It  was  quite  natural  that  Metter- 
nich should  wish  such  to  have  been  the  case ;  under 
no  other  supposition  could  he  uphold  the  honor  of 
Maria  Louisa  and  of  her  family.  If  Josephine  was 
ever  sacramentally  united  to  Napoleon,  the  proud 
Hapsburgs  had  simply  handed  over  one  of  them- 
selves to  be  the  concubine  of  the  Corsican  adven- 
turer; as  Catholics,  the  imperial  family  of  Austria 
were  compelled  to  acknowledge  this  degradation  of 
their  escutcheon.  Now,  says  Prince  Napoleon,  the 
Emperor  and  Josephine,  "who  had  been  only  civilly 
married  in  the  time  of  the  Directory,  were  united 
religiously  by  Cardinal  Fesch,  in  order  to  satisfy  the 
scruples  of  Josephine,  in  the  evening  preceding  the 
consecration,  and  in  the  presence  of  Talleyrand  and 

54 


The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine.      55 

Berthier,   in  the  chapel  of  the  Tuileries.     I  know 
this  from  the  traditions  of  my  family." 

Whether  because  they  really  ignored  the  cir- 
cumstances of  Napoleon's  marriage  and  divorce,  or 
because  they  dared  not  reveal  displeasing  details, 
the  memoirists  of  the  First  Empire  —  such  as  Bour- 
rienne,  Marco  Saint-Hilaire,  Loriquet,  Gallois,  the 
Continuator  of  Anquetil  —  have  given  us  either 
travestied  information  or  none  at  all.  Thiers  and 
d'Haussonville  afterward  narrated  a  part  of  the 
story.  But  in  1839  M.  d'Avannes,  vice-president 
of  the  tribunal  of  Evreux,  while  preparing  his 
< 'Sketches  of  Navarre,"  and  wishing  to  give  some 
place  to  Josephine,  who  had  received  the  ancient 
kingdom  as  a  kind  of  appanage,  asked  permission 
to  consult  the  documents  concerning  our  subject 
which  were  guarded  in  the  archives  of  the  Ministry 
of  Justice.  He  was  allowed  to  investigate,  but  not 
to  copy  them.  In  this  emergency  he  had  recourse 
to  the  friendly  offices  of  the  Abbe  Eudemare,  who 
had  been  promoter  of  the  diocese  of  Paris  under  the 
Empire ;  and  who,  more  liberal  than  the  state  author- 
ities, was  able  to  furnish  the  investigator  with 
even  more  information  than  that  hidden  in  the 
archives.  Add  to  this  source  the  narration  of  Rude- 
mare  himself,  as  given  among  the  "justificative 
pieces"  in  the  "History  of  Cardinal  Fesch,"  by 
the  Abbe  Lyonnet,  and  you  have  the  means  whereby 
to  construct  the  entire  history  of  the  Napoleonic 
matrimonial  complication. 


56       The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine. 

When  Napoleon  married  Josephine  de  Beauhar- 
nais,  on  March  9,  1796,  it  was  a  purely  civil  cere- 
mony which,  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  and  law 
of  the  Revolution,  united  the  pair.  At  that  time 
the  most  hellish  spirit  of  the  Revolution  had  sub- 
sided, and  it  would  not  have  been  difficult  to  find  a 
priest  to  bless  their  nuptials;  indeed,  during  the 
worst  days  of  the  Terror  few  good  Catholics  entered 
the  matrimonial  life  under  the  sole  auspices  of  the 
State,  dangerous  though  their  fidelity  generally 
proved.  Josephine  passed  for  a  virtuous  woman, 
and  even  showed  a  certain  amount  of  religious  devo- 
tion; on  her  part,  therefore,  this  neglect  may  have 
been  a  mere  worldly  weakness.  But  there  is  good 
reason  for  supposing  that  Bonaparte  was  actuated, 
if  not  from  the  very  day  of  his  betrothal,  at  least 
from  a  period  shortly  posterior  to  it,  by  a  design  to 
provide  himself  with  a  loophole  for  escape  from 
what  might  possibly  become  an  inconvenient  burden. 
In  vain  did  Josephine  beg  for  a  religious  authoriza- 
tion of  their  union ;  this  proved  to  be  one  of  the 
few  matters  in  which  her  influence  over  Napoleon 
was  null.  Eight  years  passed,  and  the  time  came 
for  the  coronation  of  Bonaparte  as  Emperor  of  the 
French.  Pope  Pius  VII.  came  to  Paris  for  the  great 
ceremony,  and  Josephine  succumbed  to  the  influ- 
ence of  that  mysterious  prestige  which  ever  sur- 
rounds the  Vicar  of  Christ.  Her  soul  was  in  agony. 
Could  she  bear  to  submit  her  head  to  the  blessing 
of  the  Supreme  Pontiff  of  that  Church  whose  laws 
she  was  defying?     Could  she  dare  to  receive  an 


The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine.      57 


almost  sacramental  consecration  while  living  in  the 
bonds  of  sin?  And  then  there  flashed  into  her  mind 
the  prospect  of  being  able  to  finally  dissipate  the 
cloud  which  had  so  long  hung  over  her  otherwise 
happy  life.  Her  purely  civil  marriage  might  be 
annulled  by  the  powerful  wish  of  that  ambitious 
husband,  whose  dearest  hopes  her  continued  child- 
lessness so  terribly  thwarted ;  but  would  even  Bona- 
parte succeed,  where  Philip  Augustus  had  failed,  in 
procuring  the  dissolution  of  a  Christian  matrimony? 
She  had  already  told  Bourrienne  that  from  the  day 
when  Napoleon  commenced  to  plot  for  the  imperial 
crown,  she  had  felt  herself  lost;  but  now  she  could 
put  an  end  to  this  anguish.  She  would  avow  her 
trouble  to  the  Pontiff  himself. 

Trembling  with  emotion  and  shame,  she  made 
her  avowal  on  December  1,  the  day  before  that 
appointed  for  the  coronation.  The  Pontiff  was 
thunderstruck.  In  common  with  all  of  Josephine's 
friends — nay,  with  all  France — he  had  believed  her 
marriage  to  have  been  sanctioned  by  the  Church. 
His  answer,  says  M.  d'Haussonville,  was  full  of  ten- 
derness for  the  weeping  woman,  and  of  consideration 
for  the  unscrupulous  man  who  would  have  deceived 
him,  while  it  manifested  the  tact  of  the  priest  and 
the  Pontiff.  "Canonicaliy,  the  situation  of  the 
Emperor  did  not  concern  him ;  that  was  an  affair  to 
be  arranged  between  the  potentate's  conscience  and 
himself.  But  now  that  he,  the  Pontiff,  knew  the 
true  state  of  affairs,  he  could  not,  much  as  he 
lamented  the  fact,  admit  the  Empress  to  a  share 


58      The  JJivorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine. 

in  the  consecration,  unless  she  were  first  united  to 
Napoleon  before  a  priest."  When  Napoleon  was 
informed  of  Josephine's  action  and  of  the  Pontifical 
decision,  his  rage  was  terrific;  but  what  could  he 
do  ?  Proceed  with  his  own  consecration,  and  ignore 
the  rights  of  Josephine?  The  scandal  was  not  to 
be  thought  of ;  and  the  displeasure  of  the  Pontiff, 
whose  friendship  he  sadly  needed,  was  not  to  be  un- 
necessarily incurred.  But  one  course  was  open  to 
the  schemer:  to  consent  to  the  proposed  nuptial 
benediction,  and  to  devise  some  means  for  its  nulli- 
fication. According  to  the  Canon  Law,  no  Christian 
matrimony  was  valid  unless  performed  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  pastor  of  one  of  the  contracting  parties  ; 
clandestine  matrimony,  such  as,  although  illicit,  is 
valid  in  most  of  the  States  of  the  American  Union, 
and  in  those  lands  where  the  Tridentine  decree  on 
matrimony  was  never  promulgated,  was  not  recog- 
nized by  the  Church  in  France.  Here,  then,  the 
astute  Bonaparte  imagined  that  his  security  was 
found.  His  union  with  Josephine  should  be  con- 
tracted without  the  presence  of  the  parish-priest 
or  of  witnesses;  there  was  no  time  for  the  one, 
and  necessary  secrecjr  precluded  the  attendance  of 
the  others,  as  he  told  his  uncle,  Cardinal  Pesch, 
on  whose  assistance  and  devotion  he  relied  in  his 
dilemma.  At  first  Fesch  refused  to  countenance 
what  he  rightly  asserted  would  be  a  mere  mockery 
of  a  religious  solemnization,  and  of  no  validity; 
but  he  yielded  sufficiently  to  propose  recurring  to 


The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine.      59 

the  Pope  for  the  powers  necessary  for  his  own  as- 
sumption of  the  office  of  the  cure  of  the  Tuileries, 
and  for  the  dispensation  with  witnesses.  Can  it  be 
possible  that  Napoleon  did  not  perceive  that  this 
action  of  his  uncle  promised  to  destroy  his  own 
hopes  ?  Did  he  not  realize  that  by  recurring  to  the 
Pontiff,  the  source  of  Canon  Law,  for  a  dispensa- 
tion from  the  provisions  of  that  Law,  he  was  cut- 
ting from  under  his  feet  the  only  ground  on  which 
he  could  securely  stand,  and  on  occupying  which 
he  had  just  resolved?  The  comedy  which  he  had 
been  enacting  from  the  day  of  his  marriage,  which 
he  was  now  developing  for  the  illusion  of  Jose- 
phine, of  the  Church  of  France,  of  his  future  Em- 
press, of  the  august  house  of  Hapsburg,  was 
certainly  threatened  with  collapse.  At  any  rate, 
the  Cardinal  proceeded  to  the  apartments  of  Pius 
VII.,  and  at  once  broached  the  subject  of  his 
quandary.  "Most  Holy  Father,  it  may  be  that  in 
the  exercise  of  my  duties  in  this  matter,  I  shall 
need  all  the  powers  of  your  Holiness."  "Very 
well,"  replied  the  Pontiff;    "I  accord  them  all." 

Here,  then,  is  the  solution  of  the  entire  question 
as  to  the  religious  marriage  of  Napoleon  and  Jose- 
phine, and  consequently  of  the  question  of  the 
validity  of  the  pretended  divorce  by  an  incompe- 
tent ecclesiastical  tribunal.  With  the  action  of  the 
civil  tribunals  we,  of  course,  have  nothing  to  do. 
The  sole  ground  for  the  acquiescence  of  the  di- 
ocesan tribunal  of  Paris  in  the  imperial  demands 


60      The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine. 

was  the  non-fulfillment,  at  the  religious  marriage, 
of  the  conditions  prescribed  as  essential  by  the 
Canon  Law.  But  the  Koman  Pontiff  had  dispensed 
with  these  conditions  in  this  particular  case;  he 
had  derogated,  in  favor  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine, 
from  the  obligatory  force  of  those  conditions,  just 
as  he  does  in  every  case  of  clandestine  matrimo- 
ny, not  otherwise  illegitimate,  celebrated  in  these 
United  States  and  in  other  countries  where  the 
Tridentine  decree  was  not  promulgated. 

As  soon  as  he  had  received  full  power  to  act  in 
the  premises,  Cardinal  Fesch  betook  himself  to  the 
apartments  of  the  Empress,  and  there  married  the 
imperial  couple.  Whether  there  were  any  witnes- 
ses or  not  to  the  ceremony  appears  to  be  doubtful. 
Capefigue,  following  Portalis,  names  that  person- 
age and  Duroc.  Thiers  at  first  mentioned  Talley- 
rand and  Berthier;  and  then,  on  the  testimony  of 
certain  original  documents,  denied  their  presence. 
The  depositions  of  Talleyrand  and  Berthier  before 
the  "officiality"  say  nothing  of  their  presence; 
but  of  course  it  was  to  the  interest  of  their  master 
that  they  should  hide  whatever  would  strengthen 
the  validity  of  the  religious  ceremony.  Just  before 
the  coronation  Pope  Pius  asked  Cardinal  Fesch 
whether  he  had  conferred  the  nuptial  benediction. 
"Yes,"  was  the  laconic  reply.  Two  days  after- 
ward Josephine  asked  the  Cardinal  to  give  her  a 
certificate  of  the  marriage ;  and  although  he  at  first 
demurred,  for  fear  of  offending  the  Emperor,  he 
yielded  to  her  entreaties  so  far  as  to  hand  her  a 


The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine.      61 

paper,  the  exact  contents  of  which  have  never  been 
made  known. 

It  was  in  1809,  after  the  treaty  of  Vienna,  that 
Napoleon  first  opened  his  mind  clearly  to  Camba- 
ceres, archchancellor  of  the  Empire,  on  the  matter 
of  the  divorce.  A  senatus-consultus  was  immedi- 
ately promulgated  (December  16)  proclaiming  the 
dissolution  of  the  Emperor's  civil  marriage.  Napo- 
leon had  flattered  himself  that  the  religious  mar- 
riage would  give  him  no  trouble  whatever;  it  was  a 
secret  among  the  Cardinal  his  uncle,  Josephine,  and 
himself.  But  when  he  learned  that  Fesch  had  in- 
discreetly mentioned  the  ceremony  to  Cambaceres, 
and  that  he  had  even  given  a  certificate  to  Jose- 
phine, he  found  himself  compelled  to  seek  from  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  a  declaration  of  the  nullity 
of  his  union.  Ignoring  the  existence  of  the  Pope, 
the  proper  judge  in  the  matrimonial  causes  of 
sovereigns,  recourse  was  had  to  the  diocesan 
tribunal  of  Paris  (not  to  a  reunion  of  bishops,  as 
Thiers  says), — a  body  established  to  judge  of 
similar  causes  between  private  individuals,  and  one 
composed  of  the  appellant's  subjects.  On  Decem- 
ber 22,  1809,  the  Abbe  Rudemare,  diocesan  promoter 
of  Paris;  his  colleague,  M.  Corpet;  and  the  two 
officials,  MM.  Lejeas  and  Boisleve,  were  summoned 
to  a  conference  with  Cambaceres,  in  the  presence 
of  the  Minister  of  Worship. 

"The  Emperor,"  said  Cambaceres,  "can  not 
abandon  the  hope  of  leaving  behind  him  an  heir 
who  will  assure  the  tranquility,  glory,  and  integrity 


62      The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine. 

of  the  Empire  which  he  has  founded.  He  intends 
to  marry  again,  and  he  desires  to  espouse  a  Cath- 
olic. Hence  his  union  with  the  Empress  Jose- 
phine must  be  annulled,  and  he  wishes  to  submit 
the  case  to  the  diocesan  tribunal." 

"But,  my  lord,"  returned  the  Abbe  Eudemare, 
"such  a  cause  as  this  is  reserved,  if  not  by  law,  at 
least  by  custom,  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff." 

"I  am  not  authorized  to  recur  to  Rome,"  replied 
the  archchancellor. 

"You  need  not  go  to  Eome;  the  Pope  is  at 
Savona,"  said  the  promoter. 

"I  am  not  told  to  treat  with  him,"  answered 
Cambaceres;  "and  it  is  impossible  to  do  so  under 
present  circumstances." 

"There  are  several  cardinals,  my  lord,  in  Paris; 
why  not  submit  this  affair  to  them?" 

"They  have  no  jurisdiction,  M.  TAbbe,"  re- 
turned the  imperial  confidant. 

"But  at  least,"  insisted  the  promoter,  "we  have 
here  a  commisson  of  cardinals,  archbishops,  and 
bishops,  assembled  for  affairs  of  the  Church." 

"They  do  not  constitute  a  tribunal,"  said  Camba- 
ceres; "whereas  the  'officiality'  is  one  formed  for 
the  cognizance  of  these  very  causes." 

"Yes,  prince,"  returned  the  Abbe;  "but  only 
for  those  of  private  individuals.  The  dignity  of 
the  parties  here  concerned  prevents  our  tribunal 
from  regarding  itself  as  competent  in  the  premises." 

"What ! ' '  exclaimed  the  archchancellor.  '  'Do  you 
means  to  say  that  his  Majesty  has  no  right  to  pre- 


The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine.      63 

sent  himself  before  a  tribunal  established  for  his 
subjects,  and  composed  of  his  subjects?  Who  con- 
tests his  right?" 

" He  may  present  himself,"  acknowledged  the 
promoter;  "but  such  a  course  would  be  so  con- 
trary to  custom  that  we  could  not  assume  the  re- 
sponsibility of  acting  as  his  judges  unless  the  epis- 
copal commission  decided  in  favor  of  our  compe- 
tency. Although  disposed  to  prove  our  devotion 
to  his  Majesty  in  every  possible  way,  we  must  take 
every  means  to  shield  our  own  responsibility,  and 
to  insure  the  repose  of  our  consciences.  In  under- 
taking this  case  we  become  a  spectacle  for  angels 
and  men." 

"But  this  affair  must  remain  secret,"  said  Cam- 
baceres;  "all  the  documents  shall  be  deposited  in 
the  cabinet  of  the  Emperor.  At  any  rate,  the 
Minister  of  Worship  will  see  that  you  receive  the 
approbation  that  you  desire." 

The  motives  for  the  nullification  of  the  religious 
marriage  having  been  submitted  to  the  diocesan 
tribunal,  the  promoter  exclaimed:  "But  we  all 
thought,  as  did  indeed  the  whole  Empire,  that  the 
marriage  of  their  Majesties  had  been  celebrated  in 
1796  with  all  the  canonical  forms." 

"That  is  a  mistake,"  observed  Cambaceres. 
"Foreseeing  what  has  now  happened,  his  Majesty 
would  never  receive  the  nuptial  benediction.  But 
on  Saturday,  December  1,  1804,  tired  of  the  entrea- 
ties of  the  Empress,  he  told  Cardinal  Fesch  to  give 
the  nuptial  blessing;  and  he  did  so  in  the  apart- 


64      The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine. 

ments  of  the  Empress,  without  any  witnesses,  and 
without  the  presence  of  the  cure." 

"Prince,"  asked  the  Abbe,  "where  is  the  record 
of  this  marriage?" 

"There  is  none,"  replied  the  archchancellor,  who 
knew  that  Josephine  had  a  certificate  of  the  mar- 
riage, if  indeed  the  imperial  familiars  had  not  found 
means  to  destroy  it. 

"This  affair,"  remarked  the  promoter,  "provid- 
ing, of  course,  that  our  competence  is  assured, 
must  be  conducted  precisely  as  though  it  were  the 
case  of  one  of  his  Majesty's  subjects." 

"What !  Follow  mere  forms  ?  They  take  too  much 
time.     I  have  been  a  lawyer,  and  I  know." 

"That  may  be,"  returned  Rudemare;  "but  forms 
often  lead  us  to  a  knowledge  of  the  truth;  and, 
besides,  we  can  not  ignore  them  without  risk  of 
nullifying  our  proceedings.  However,  there  is  no 
reason  why  this  second  question  should  not  also  be 
submitted  to  the  episcopal  commission." 

On  January  1,  Napoleon  obtained  from  seven 
prelates,  who  had  no  authority  whatever  in  the 
premises,  a  declaration  that  the  diocesan  tribunal 
was  competent  to  decide  his  matrimonial  cause. 
These  prelates  were  the  very  same  who  afterward 
pronounced  the  excommunication  of  Bonaparte 
null,  "because  it  had  been  launched  in  defence  of 
temporal  interests;"  and  who  added  to  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  august  prisoner  of  Savona  by  threat- 
ening, in  the  name  of  the  church  of  France,  to 
provide   for  its   necessities  if  he  did  not  yield  to 


The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine.      65 

the  schismatic  demands  of  Bonaparte.  They  were 
the  Cardinal  Maury;  the  Cardinal  Caselli,  bishop 
of  Parma;  de  Barral,  archbishop  of  Tours;  Cana- 
veri,  bishop  of  Vercelli ;  Bourlier  of  Evreux,  Manet 
of  Treves,  and  Duvoisin  of  Nantes.  In  accordance 
with  the  views  of  this  declaration,  the  tribunal  of 
Paris  listened,  on  January  6,  to  the  attestations, 
signed  and  sealed,  of  Cardinal  Fesch,  Talleyrand, 
Berthier,  and  Duroc,  to  the  effect  that  the  canoni- 
cal conditions  had  not  been  observed  in  the  religious 
marriage  of  the  Emperor,  and  that  his  Majesty 
had  intentionally  arranged  this  neglect;  for  he 
could  not  dream,  they  said,  of  binding  himself 
irrevocably  in  this  matter  at  the  moment  when  he 
was  founding  a  new  empire.  On  January  9,  the 
tribunal  heard  a  development  of  the  further  motive 
for  dissolution  which  had  been  hinted  in  this  last 
clause.  Napoleon,  the  master  of  Europe,  had 
been  constrained  in  the  exercise  of  his  free  will. 
He  had  not  consented  to  the  marriage.  The  of- 
ficial Peter  Boisleve  then  delivered  judgment  in 
favor  of  the  imperial  postulant,  but  with  the 
important  reservation  that  the  decision  was  pro- 
nounced by  him  because  of  the  difficulty  of  recur- 
ring to  the  Supreme  Pontiff,  to  whom  such  a  case 
should  by  right  have  been  referred.  The  promoter 
having  appealed  to  the  metropolitan  "officiality," 
its  members  confirmed  the  decision  already  given, 
but  referred  the  affair  for  final  adjudication  to  the 
primatial  tribunal  of  Lyons.  However,  it  was  an 
easy  matter  to  ignore  the  responsibility  thus  thrust 


66      The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine, 

upon  this  higher  court.     The  Archbishop  of  Lyons 
was  Cardinal  Fesch. 

Such  is  the  history  of  one  of  the  most  solemn 
burlesques  of  justice  ever  perpetrated  by  a  human 
tribunal.  An  incompetent  court,  listening  to  tes- 
timony evidently  false  as  well  as  interested,  and 
ignoring  the  manifest  suppression  of  what  would 
have  given  another  aspect  to  the  cause,  slavishly 
bent  to  the  will  of  an  autocrat,  and  passed  over  as 
never  having  occurred  a  marriage  sanctioned  by  the 
Vicar  of  Christ;  and,  turning  to  the  civil  union 
which  the  church  had  never  recognized,  pronounced 
the  contracting  parties  free  to  enter  upon  new  nup- 
tials. Had  Josephine  resisted  the  imperial  will — 
had  she  performed  her  duty  as  wife  and  woman, 
and  carried  her  case  before  its  proper  judge, — her 
rights  would  have  been  proclaimed,  even  though 
the  brute  force  of  her  husband  might  have  forced 
her  to  yield  her  place  to  another.  But  she  never 
appealed;  sure  of  her  husband's  invincible  determi- 
nation to  repudiate  her,  she  perforce  found  conso- 
lation in  an  empty  title  and  in  a  magnificent  estab- 
lishment. It  has  been  asserted  that  Josephine  was 
cognizant  of  reasons  for  preservation  of  silence; 
it  has  been  declared  that  there  was  a  real,  though 
secret,  impediment,  which  invalidated  her  union 
with  Napoleon,  and  of  which  the  Viennese  court 
was  informed  during  the  negotiations  for  the  hand 
of  Maria  Louisa.  So  say  Thiers  and  Rohrbacher. 
But  this  impediment  could  not  have  subsisted.  The 
existence  of  Eugene  and  Hortense,  taken  in  con- 


The  Divorce  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine.      67 

junction  with  Josephine's  own  frequent  anticipa- 
tions, as  evidenced  by  her  letters  to  her  husband 
and  her  friends,  forbid  such  a  supposition. 

We  would  remark  in  conclusion  that  the  term 
6 'divorce"  should  not  be  used  in  treating  of  this 
case.  When  concubinaries  are  separated,  they  are 
not  divorced;  they  are  simply  declared  not  bound 
to  each  other.  Here  a  sycophant  tribunal  denied 
the  existence  of  the  religious  marriage,  and  of 
course  it  could  not  recognize  the  civil  union.  In 
this  state  of  affairs  it  pronounced  the  parties  free 
from  matrimonial  obligations.  A  divorce  properly 
so  called — that  is,  the  dissolution  of  an  existing  tie 
(quoad  vinculum} — can  not  and  never  has  been 
granted  by  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  case  of  con- 
summated Christian  matrimony ;  and  we  know  of 
no  tribunal  calling  itself  Catholic,  in  the  Western 
Patriarchate,  whether  competent  or  incompetent, 
legitimate  or  illegitimate,  ever  having  pretended  to 
accord  such  a  separation.  As  to  the  contrary 
course  of  the  Oriental  Uniates,  even  the  judicious 
Perrone  can  only  remark,  6iipsi  viderint."  For  an 
instance  of  the  inflexibility  of  the  Holy  See  in  this 
regard,  even  in  the  case  of  the  mighty  ones  of  the 
earth,  the  mind  of  Josephine  had  not  to  travel  back 
many  centuries,  or  to  search  outside  the  annals  of 
her  husband's  family.  The  case  of  Jerome  Bona- 
parte and  his  Baltimorean  Protestant  spouse  was  of 
a  recent  date. 


FENELON   AND   VOLTAIRE. 

Few  modern  critics  will  refuse  to  Voltaire  the 
title  of  champion  historical  liar  of  the  world.  He 
has  had  hundreds  of  competitors,  and  perhaps  scores 
of  them  have  surpassed  him  in  barefacedly  gratu- 
itous assertion;  but  for  a  ' 'thumping"  lie,  so  well 
concocted,  so  attractively  dressed,  as  to  be  greedily 
swallowed  and  easily  digested  by  even  the  few 
fastidious  among  the  mob  who  yearn  for  pungent 
historical  titbits,  the  "Sage  of  Ferney"  need  fear  no 
rival.  Nearly  all  of  his  lies  were  exposed  during 
his  life-time  or  soon  after ;  *  but  so  true  is  his  own 
cynical  remark  as  to  the  sticking  qualities  of  plenti- 
fully-thrown mud,  that  even  in  our  day  many  of  his 
inventions  are  unwittingly  credited  by  thousands 
who  know  little  or  nothing  about  Voltaire  himself; 
for,  almost  without  exception,  writers  of  the  heter- 
odox and  freethinking  schools  have  transmitted  his 
fictions  from  generation  to  generation  as  universally 
admitted — nay,  indisputable — facts . 


*  Prominent  among  the  vindicators  of  truth  were  Nonotte, 
in  "Les  Erreurs  de  Voltaire,"  1762;  Foncemagne,  in  his 
"■Lettre  sur  le  Testament  Politique  du  Card,  de  Richelieu," 
1750;  the  Dictionnaire  Historique,  Litteraire,  et  Critique," 
by  the  Abbe  Barral  and  the  Oratorians  Guibaud  and  Valla, 
1758;  and  Chaudon,  in  his  "Les  Grands  Hommes  Venges,"  1769. 


Fenelon  and  Voltaire.  69 

"The  Age  of  Louis  XIV."  is,  among  all  the  works 
of  Voltaire,  probably  the  most  prolific  of  falsehood; 
scarcely  one  of  the  truly  great  personages  of  that 
period  is  not  covered  with  the  cynic's  venomous 
slime.  One  is  not  thunderstruck  when  he  reads 
the  worse  than  insinuations  as  to  the  sincerity  of 
Turenne's  conversion  to  Catholicism;  but  one  is 
dazed  when  he  beholds  Fenelon,  the  dove  of  sim- 
plicity, presented  to  a  hitherto  venerating  world  as 
a  probable  hypocrite,  a  freethinker,  and  a  philoso- 
phist.  Such  is  the  guise  in  which  we  are  invited  to 
regard  the  angelic  Archbishop  of  Cambria,  when 
his  defamer  tells  us  that  Ramsay,  a  pupil  of  our 
prelate,  wrote  to  him  (Voltaire)  that  "if  Fenelon 
had  been  born  in  a  free  country,  he  would  have  dis- 
played his  whole  genius,  and  given  a  full  career  to 
his  own  principles,  never  known"  (sic.)* 

Ramsay  had  been  intimate  with  Fenelon,  and 
when,  despite  the  efforts  of  the  best  theologians  of 
that  communion,  he  had  become  convinced  of  the 
baselessness  of  Anglicanism,  in  which  system  he 
had  been  bred,  he  was  saved  by  his  friend  from  the 
shoals  of  incredulity,  and  drawn  into  the  haven  of 
Catholicity  (1709).  Such  being  the  case,  is  it  likely 
that  Ramsay  would  have  proclaimed  his  religious 
mentor  as  a  mere  time-server,  a  devotee  of  policy,  a 
man  ready  to  abandon  his  convictions  for  petty 
interest?    Ramsay  could  not  refute  Voltaire's  asser- 


*  In  Preface,  Voltaire  himself  quotes  Ramsay's   alleged 
original  English. 


70  Fenelon  and  Voltaire. 

tion  ;  for  he  had  died  in  1743,  and  the  allegation  was 
not  made  until  1752.     It  is  the  opinion  of  Chaudon 
that  if  Ramsay  ever  wrote  the  adduced  letter,  the 
quoted  passage  alluded,  not  to  Fenelon's  religious 
principles,  but  to  those  "of  the  author  of  'Telema- 
chus'  on  the  authority  of  kings. "     At   any  rate, 
Ramsay's  Life  of  Fenelon*  shows  that,  to  use  the 
words  of  Sainte-Beuve,  Mgr.  de  Cambray  "was  not 
of  the  ordination  of  d'Alembert  and  Voltaire,  "f 
Barthelemy,  the  latest  author,  we  believe,  to  touch 
on  this  particular  audacity  of  Voltaire,  draws  exten- 
sively on  the  work  of  Chaudon,  who  himself  appeals 
to  Ramsay's  acknowledged  judgment  on  Fenelon,  as 
portrayed  in  his  detailed  account  of  his  own  argu- 
mentation  with  that   prelate.     We  submit  to  the 
reader's  attention  a  few  passages  of  this  interesting 
conversation,  which  certainly  indicates  none  of  those 
principles  which  Voltaire  would  attribute  to  Fenelon. 
Having  detailed  certain  objections  concerning  the 
Natural  Law  and  toleration  which  he  had  adduced  to 
the  Archbishop,  Ramsay  gives  the  prelate's  reply: 
"If  you  would  persist  in  your  philosophical  inde- 
pendence, and  if  you  would  tolerate  in  some  sort  all 
kinds  of  sects,  you  must  necessarily  regard  Chris- 
tianity as  an  imposture;    for  there  is  no  medium 
between  Deism  and  Catholicism."    As  this  seemed  a 
paradox  to  Ramsay,  the  Archbishop  explained  :    "In 


*  "Histoire  de  la  Vie  et  des  Ouvrages  de  Messire  F.  de  S. 
Fenelon."     La  Haye,  1723. 

f  "Causeries  du  Lundi"  (1  Avril,  1850). 


Fenelon  and  Voltaire.  71 

renouncing  all  supernatural  and  revealed  law,  you 
must  limit  yourself  to  Natural  Religion,  founded  on 
the  idea  of  God;  but  if  you  admit  a  revelation,  you 
must  recognize  some  supreme  authority  ever  prompt 
and  able  to  interpret  it.  Without  such  established 
visible  authority,  the  Christian  Church  would  be  like 
a  republic  having  wise  laws,  but  no  magistrates  to 
enforce  them.  What  a  source  of  confusion  !  Each 
citizen,  a  copy  of  the  law  in  hand,  disputing  its 
meaning !  .  .  .  Has  not  our  Sovereign  Legislator 
provided  better  than  this  for  the  peace  of  His 
republic  and  the  preservation  of  His  law?  Again, 
if  there  is  no  infallible  authority  to  say  to  all, 
'Behold  the  real  meaning  of  Holy  Writ,'  how  are 
the  ignorant  peasant  and  the  untutored  artisan  to 
decide  where  even  the  most  learned  can  not  agree  ? 
In  giving  a  written  law,  God  would  have  ignored 
the  needs  of  the  immense  majority  of  mankind,  had 
He  not  also  furnished  an  interpreter  to  spare  them  a 
task  the  peformance  of  which  would  be  impossible. 
You  must  reject  the  Bible  as  a  fiction,  or  submit  to 
the  Church." 

Ramsay  impetuously  rejoined : '  'Monseigneur,  you 
want  me  to  recognize  an  earthly  tribunal  as  infal- 
lible? I  have  gone  through  most  of  the  sects,  and 
permit  me  to  say,  with  all  due  respect,  that  the 
priests  of  all  religions  are  frequently  more  corrupt 
and  more  ignorant  than  other  men."  Fenelon 
sweetly  replied:  "If  we  do  not  rise  above  what  is 
human  in  the   most   numerous   assemblies   of  the 


72  Fenelon  and  Voltaire. 

Church,  we  shall  find  there  only  what  will  revolt  us 
and  nourish  our  incredulity ;  we  shall  see  only  pas- 
sions, prejudices,  human  imbecility,  political  schem- 
ing, cabals.  But  we  must  the  more  admire  the 
divine  omnipotence  and  wisdom,  since  they  accom- 
plish their  designs  by  means  which  appear  apt  only 
to  frustrate  those  designs."  Ramsay  yielded  to  the 
necessity  of  a  living  interpreter  for  a  revealed  law, 
but  still  clung  to  his  idea  of  Natural  Religion,  and 
asserted  that  one  need  only  to  enter  into  one's  self 
to  feel  the  truth  of  that  religion.  Fenelon  inquired : 
"And  how  many  men  are  capable  of  so  entering 
into  themselves  as  to  consult  pure  reason  ?  Granted 
that  some,  here  and  there,  may  enter  on  this  purely 
intellectual  road,  the  rank  and  file  can  not,  and  they 
need  external  aid."  But  hearken  to  the  prelate's 
resume  of  the  fall  of  man  and  the  economy  of  the 
Redemption : 

"Our  first  parents  having  abused  their  liberty  in 
a  paradise  of  immortality  and  pleasure,  God  changed 
their  probationary  state  for  a  mortal  one — one  of 
mixed  good  and  evil, — in  order  that  an  experience 
of  the  nothingness  of  creatures  might  prompt  us  to 
constantly  yearn  for  a  better  life.  From  that  time 
all  men  were  born  with  an  inclination  to  evil.  .  .  . 
We  are  born  sick,  but  a  cure  is  ever  ready  at  hand. 
The  light  which  enlightens  every  one  who  comes 
into  the  world  is  never  wanting  to  any  individual. 
Sovereign  Wisdom  has  spoken  differently,  accord- 
ing to  time  and  place ;  to  some  by  the  supernatural 


Fenelon  and  Voltaire.  73 

law  and  by  the  miracles  of  the  Prophets,  and  to 
others  by  the  natural  law  and  the  wonders  of 
creation.  Every  person  is  judged  by  the  law  he 
knows,  and  not  by  that  he  ignores.  At  length 
God  himself  assumed  flesh  like  our  own,  that  He 
might  satisfy  for  sin,  and  to  furnish  us  an  example 
of  the  worship  due  Him.  God  can  not  pardon  a 
criminal  without  also  manifesting  His  horror  for 
crime;  that  manifestation  He  owes  to  justice,  and 
it  can  be  given  only  by  Jesus  Christ.  .  .  .  The 
religion  of  this  Eternal  Pontiff  consists  of  charity 
alone;  the  Sacraments,  the  priesthood,  and  cere- 
monies, are  only  aids  to  our  weakness, — only  sen- 
sible signs  to  nourish  in  ourselves  and  others  the 
knowledge  and  love  of  our  common  Father;  in  fine, 
they  are  means  necessary  to  keep  us  in  order,  in 
unity,  and  in  obedience.  One  day  these  means  will 
cease,  the  figures  will  vanish,  the  true  temple  will 
be  opened;  our  bodies  will  arise  glorious,  and  God 
will  communicate  eternally  with  His  creatures.  Be- 
hold the  general  plan  of  Providence ;  behold,  so 
to  say,  the  philosophy  of  the  Bible.  Suppose  that 
its  truth  could  not  be  demonstrated.  Would  you 
not  wish  it  to  be  true?" 

In  three  different  places*  Yoltaire  descants  upon 
the  scepticism  of  Fenelon,  as  manifested  by  certain 


*  In  the  "Siecle  de  Louis  XIV.,"  in  1752;  in  the  "Examen 
du  Tableau  Historique,"  in  1763;  and  in  a  letter  to  Formey, 
perpetual  secretary  of  the  Academy  of  Berlin,  in  1752. 


?4  Fenelon  and  Voltaire. 

lines*  written  by  him,  says  the  "Sage,"  toward  the 
end  of  his  life.  Here  the  prelate  declares  that  he 
has  "arrived  at  old  age,  and  foresees  nothing;" 
therefore,  concludes  Voltaire,  he  was  a  sceptic. 
Now,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  these  verses 
were  composed  by  the  Archbishop  of  Cambrai, 
although  Voltaire  "swears  before  God,"  in  letters 
to  Formey  and  to  Courtivron,  that  the  prelate's 
nephew,  the  Marquis  de  Fenelon,  sang  them  as 
his  uncle's  production.  The  Marquis  could  not 
deny  this ;  for  he  had  been  killed  at  the  battle  of 
Rocoux  in  1746,  and  the  assertion  was  made  in 
1752  and  1755.  Voltaire  himself  admits  that  the 
verses  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  published  editions 
of  Fenelon's  works,  because,  he  says,  it  was  not 
deemed  desirable  that  the  Jansenists  should  have  an 
opportunity  to  accuse  their  great  adversary  of  scep- 
ticism ;  but  he  does  not  indicate  the  libraries  where 
may  be  found  any  of  the  suppressed  fifty  copies  of 
"Telemaque"  which,  as  he  insists,  do  contain  them. 
But  since  Voltaire  adduces  the  authority  of  the 
Marquis  de  Fenelon,  let  us,  with  Barthelemy,  quote 
another  nephew  of  the  Archbishop,  the  pious  Abbe 
de  Fenelon,  the  intimate  companion  of  a  great  part 
of  his  life. 

The  Abbe  seems  to  admit  his  uncle's  composition 
of  the  verses,  but  interprets  them  in  a  way  that  would 


*  Jeune,  j'elais  trop  sage 
Et  voulais  trop  savoir; 
Je  ne  veux  en  partage 

Que  badinage 
Et  touche  au  dernier  age 
Sans  rien  pre  voir. 


Fenelon  and  Voltaire.  75 

not  please  Yoltaire.  "An  historian,  a  bel  esprit,  but 
not  very  accurate,  has  made  it  to  appear  that  Fenelon 
died  like  a  'philosopher,'  yielding  blindly  to  destiny, 
with  neither  fear  nor  hope.  He  quotes  in  proof 
certain  verses  which  he  presents  Monseigneur  de 
Cambrai  as  repeating  during  his  last  illness ;  but  he 
takes  good  care  not  to  observe  that  these  verses  are 
part  of  a  canticle  by  M.  de  Fenelon,  treating  of  the 
simplicity  of  a  holy  and  divine  childlikeness,  which 
ignores  human  prudence  and  all  inquietude  for  the 
future,  in  order  to  abandon  itself,  without  any  useless 
and  often  harmless  surmises,  to  a  trust  in  the  mercy 
of  God  and  in  the  merits  of  Jesus  Christ."*  And 
Lepan.f  finding  fault  with  Yoltaire  as  a  falsifier  of 
other  men's  literary  productions,  adduces  these 
verses  as  an  instance;  showing  that  in  this  very  po- 
em, Fenelon,  if  its  author,  gave  good  proof  of  being 
actuated  by  most  Christian  sentiments.  Yoltaire 
shamelessly  omitted  to  notice  the  stanza  preceding 
the  proffered  lines,  and  there  it  is  proclaimed  that 
"human  prudence  is  vain,  that  ignorance  is  the 
writer's  science,  that  Jesus  and  His  simplicity  are 
his  all. "J     In  fact,  the  very  title  of  this  poem  is 


*  'wLa  Vie  de  Fenelon,  ecrite  par  l'Abbe,  son  neveu,"  pre- 
fixed to  the  works,  edit.  1787,  vol.  i,  p.  749. 

t  See  Lepan's-  "Vie  Politique,  Litteraire,  et  Morale,  de 
Voltaire,"  1817. 

%  Adieu,  vaine  prudence, 
Je  ne  te  dois  plus  rien ; 
Une  heureuse  ignorance 

Est  ma  science: 
J^sus  et  son  enfance 
Est  tout  mon  bien. 


76  Fenelon  and  Voltaire. 

opposed  to  the  "philosophy"  of  Voltaire:  "A  fare- 
well to  human  wisdom  in  order  to  live  like  a  child." 

The  reader  is  probably  familiar  with  Fenelon's 
history,  and  therefore  we  shall  spare  him  the  par- 
ticulars of  the  saintly  prelate's  quasi-ex\\e  from 
the  court  of  the  great  monarch.  That  he  expe- 
rienced grief  because  of  his  separation  from  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy — whom  he  had  so  carefully 
formed  for  the  throne,  and  who,  had  death  not 
intervened,  would  have  proved  a  more  than  ordi- 
narily worthy  successor  of  St.  Louis, — no  one  can 
doubt;  but  his  regrets  were  not,  as  Voltaire  would 
regard  them,  founded  on  a  chagrin  at  being  de- 
barred from  domination  over  his  quondam  pupil, 
or  on  a  hankering  after  the  allurements  of  a  court; 
but  rather  on  pure  affection,  which  naturally  yearns 
for  the  society  of  the  beloved  objects,  and  for 
opportunity  to  benefit  it.  Yet,  our  cynic  says: 
"In  his  philosophical  and  honorable  retreat,  Fene- 
lon learned  how  difficult  it  is  to  detach  one's  self 
from  a  court.  He  always  manifested  an  interest 
in  the  court,  and  a  taste  for  it  which  betrays  itself 
amid  all  his  resignation." 

This  charge  is  baseless ;  in  not  a  line  of  the 
prelate's  correspondence  can  be  found  a  single 
expression  which  would  give  even  coloring  to  it. 
Eamsay  says  that  Louis  XIV.,  having  overcome 
the  prejudice  against  Fenelon  with  which  he  had 
been  inspired,  "thought  seriously  of  recalling  the 
Archbishop;  he  wished  his  aid  in  terminating  an 
affair  (Jansenism)  which   agitated  the  church    of 


Fenelon  and  Voltaire.  77 

his  kingdom.  The  Archbishop  of  Cambrai  saw 
matters  shaping  themselves  for  his  return,  but 
with  sentiments  very  different  from  those  an  ordi- 
nary man  would  have  felt,  He  cherished  only  a 
desire  for  retirement.  Had  he  been  compelled  to 
return  to  the  court,  he  would  have  appeared  there 
only  to  manifest  his  views  concerning  the  best  way 
to  give  peace  to  the  Church,  and  would  have  retired 
immediately  on  perceiving  that  union  had  been  ef- 
fected." 

But  listen  to  Fenelon  in  reply  to  those  who, 
afflicted  by  the  prospect  of  schism  in  France,  would 
have  called  on  his  virtue,  his  sweetness,  and  his 
genius,  to  banish  the  spectre.  Had  he  been  ani- 
mated by  a  desire  to  play  a  prominent  part  on  the 
stage  of  affairs,  he  would  scarcely  have  answered: 
"I  admit  that  your  propositions  would  be  more 
readily  entertained  by  one  possessing  a  taste  for 
affairs.  But  my  opinion  of  myself  is  not  suffi- 
ciently exalted  to  warrant  me  in  supposing  that 
I  can  restore  peace  to  the  Church.  I  wish  not  to 
assume  the  grand  rdle  which  you  design  for  me; 
it  is  the  Cardinal  de  Noailles  who  can  give  peace 
to  the  Church.  I  know  no  secrets,  but  I  dare  to 
assert  that  he  can  effect  union  when  he  wishes  to 
do  so;  the  matter  is  entirely  in  his  hands.  I  wish 
for  him  all  the  glory,  all  the  merit  before  God 
and  men ;  and  I  would  die  content  if,  from  a  dis- 
tance, I  could  hear  of  his  having  perfected  the 
great  work."* 

*  When  the  dying  Fenelon  had  received  Extreme  Unction,  he 
wrote  to  the  royal  confessor,  saying :  "I  beg  of  his  Majesty  two 


78  Fenelon  and  Voltaire. 

But  there  is  one  fact  that  eloquently  shows  how 
little  rancor  Fenelon 's  dismissal  must  have  caused 
in  his  gentle  breast.  When  named  for  the  archi- 
episcopal  see  of  Cambrai,  he  could  have  enjoyed, 
in  accordance  with  a  detestable  and  too  prevalent 
custom  of  the  time,  the  emoluments  of  his  see, 
and  could  have  performed  his  duties  by  substitute, 
continuing  to  reside  nearly  always  at  court.  He 
accepted  his  promotion,  much  as  he  loved  his  royal 
pupils,  only  on  condition  that  he  might  reside  in 
his  diocese  at  least  nine  months  of  the  year.* 

Nor  does  the  life  led  by  Fenelon  at  Cambrai, 
as  depicted  by  himself  in  a  letter  to  one  of  his 
nephews — the  Abbe  de  Beaumont, — indicate  any 
discontent  with  his  lot.  His  gentleness  as  a  man, 
his  watchfulness  as  a  bishop,  had  plentiful  scope 
in  a  district  constantly  harassed  by  contending 
armies,  and  all, — English,  Germans,  Hollanders, — 
rivalled  his  own  diocesans  in  veneration  for  the 
saintly  shepherd.  His  recreation,  whenever  duty 
allowed  any,  was  a  visit  to  the  cabin  of  some  peas- 
ant, where  he  would  console  and  instruct,  and 
often  join  in  the  simple  feasts  and  meals  of  the 
poor.  Well  could  he  write  in  1710:  "I  have  no 
desire  to  change  my  situation.  I  never  sought  the 
court;  I  was  forced  to  it.  I  resided  there  for  ten 
years  without  concerning  myself  about  it — -not 
taking    one    step    for    my  own  interest,  not    ask- 

favors,  which  regard  neither  myself  nor  mine.     The  first  is 
that  the  King  will  give  me  a  successor  who  is  pious,  and  firm 
against  Jansenism,  now  so  prevalent  in  these  parts."     (See 
Bausset,  "Histoire  de  Fenelon."  1817). 
*  Bausset,  loc.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  318. 


Fenelon  and  Voltaire.  79 

ing  one  favor,  intervening  in  no  schemes,  and 
restricting  myself  to  conscientious  replies  when 
my  opinion  was  asked.  I  have  been  dismissed, 
and  it  is  my  duty  to  fill  my  present  position 
in  peace.  The  best  of  the  King's  servants  who 
know  me  are  well  acquainted  with  my  principles  as 
to  honor,  religion,  the  King,  and  my  country;  they 
know  my  profound  gratitude  for  all  the  King's 
favors.  Other  persons  may  easily  be  more  capable 
than  I  am,  none  can  be  more  truly  zealous."  * 

*  /&.,  vol.  iii,  p.  40. — According  to  Voltaire,  the  object  of 
Fenelon  in  writing  his  charming  classic,  "Telemachus,"  was  to 
satirize  his  sovereign,  benefactor,  and  then  friend,  Louis  XIV. 
But  when  was  "Telemachus,"  composed?  If  Fenelon's inten- 
tion was  to  satirize  his  king,  the  work  must  have  been  pro- 
duced when  he  was  suffering  from  some  real  or  fancied  injury 
at  the  hands  of  Louis.  Certainly  he  would  not  have  risked  the 
royal  resentment  when  he  was  in  full  favor,  and  had  every- 
thing to  lose  by  such  action.  But  Fenelon  himself  tells  us  that 
this  work  was  written  while  he  was  in  charge  of  the  education 
of  the  king's  grandson,  the  Ducde  Bourgogne;  and  during  the 
entire  period  of  his  tutorship  the  prelate  was  in  the  highest  fa- 
vor of  his  Majesty,  as  indeed  the  very  nature  of  his  office  would 
indicate.  Again,  the  testimony  of  Bossuet  shows  that  Fenelon 
composed  "Telemachus"  in  1693  or  '94,  that  is,  when  the  two 
bishops  were  on  terms  of  the  most  intimate  confidence.  Bossuet 
says  that  FCnelon  communicated  to  him  the  first  part  of  his  MS., 
and  it  is  scarcely  to  be  supposed  that  he  would  have  done  so, 
had  he  wished  to  attack  the  king  in  any  manner.  At  least  this 
participation  indicates  that  "Telemachus"  was  written  before 
any  coolness  had  arisen  between  the  two  prelates;  that  is,  be- 
fore the  period  (1699)  when,  and  after  which  only,  Fenelon 
could  have  felt  any  chagrin  toward  Louis  XIV.,  and  when  he 
might  have  acted  as  a  man  of  less  noble  spirit  than  his  own 
would  have  naturally  done,  if  opportunity  permitted.  There- 
fore Fenelon  shall  still  remain  for  us  the  "dove  of  Cambray;" 
and  the  school  of  Voltaire  shall  not  be  gratified  by  seeing  the 
hawk  assigned  as  his  emblem. 


GALILEO. 


School-childken  are  frequently  told  that  in  a 
time  of  most  dense  ignorance,  Galileo,  an  Italian 
astronomer,  discovered  that  the  earth  moves  around 
the  sun;  that  this  doctrine  was  contrary  to  that 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  that  therefore  the  un- 
fortunate scientist  was  seized  by  the  Inquisition, 
thrown  into  a  dungeon,  and  tortured;  that  finally 
he  retracted  his  teaching,  but  that,  nevertheless, 
even  while  ostensibly  yielding,  he  muttered:  "And 
yet  the  earth  does  move."  Very  few  Protestants 
even  suspect  any  exaggeration  in  these  assertions ; 
still  fewer  appear  to  know  that  Galileo  did  not 
discover  that  the  earth  moves  around  the  sun; 
that  this  doctrine  was  not  contrary  to  that  of 
the  Catholic  Church;  that  the  imprisonment  of 
Galileo  was  merely  nominal,  and  that  he  was  sub- 
jected to  no  torture  whatever;  that  the  famous  re- 
mark "HI  pur  si  muove"  is  a  work  of  imagination. 

Galileo  did  not  discover  that  the  earth  moves 
around  the  sun.  The  ancient  Greeks  certainly  knew 
that  the  earth  is  round,  that  it  is  isolated  in  space, 
and  that  it  moves.  Aristotle  and  Ptolemy  under- 
took to  refute  the  last  theory.  According  to  Cicero, 
Nicetas  asserted  the  motion  of  the  earth.    Philolaus, 

80 


Galileo  81 

says  Eusebius,  thought  that  the  earth  moved  around 
the  region  of  fire,  in  an  oblique  circle.  Aristarchus 
of  Samos,  says  Archimedes,  sustained  the  immo- 
bility of  the  sun,  and  that  the  earth  turned  around 
it  as  around  a  centre.  Seneca  thinks  it  "well  to 
inquire  whether  the  rest  of  the  universe  moves 
around  a  stationary  earth,  or  whether  the  earth 
moves  in  a  stationary  universe."*  The  Irish 
Ferghil  (Virgilius),  Bishop  of  Salzburg  in  the 
eighth  century,  taught  the  existence  of  the  anti- 
podes. Dante  certainly  believed  in  the  antipodes 
and  in  central  attraction,  f  Copernicus  himself 
never  pretended  to  be  the  author  of  the  system 
which  bears  his  name,  although  to  this  humble 
Polish  priest  belongs  the  glory  of  having  precisely 
formulated  that  system,  and  at  a  time  when  a 
knowledge  of  it  had  almost  vanished  from  among 
men.  Galileo  needs  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  prince 
among  astronomers  in  order  to  merit  the  homage 
of  the  scientific;  his  greatest  glory  is  that  of  a 
mechanician. 

The  heliocentric  system  was  not  contrary  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Catholic  Church.  She  never  has 
proposed  and  she  can  not  propose  to  her  children 
any  system  of  merely  physical  science  as  a  matter 
of  faith.  Certainly,  if  any  system  contradicts  her 
teachings  she  exercises  her  right  to  condemn  it. 
Most  churchmen  of  the  early  seventeenth  century, 


*  "Nat.  Questions,"  vii,  2. 
t  "Hell,"  canto  34. 


82  Galileo. 

quite  naturally  followers  of  the  generally  received 
scientific  theories  of  their  day,  rejected  the  idea  of 
a  motion  of  the  earth  around  the  sun;  but  the 
Church  did  not  force  them  to  such  rejection.  Had 
such  been  the  mind  of  the  Church,  Copernicus  and 
his  many  forerunners  would  not  have  been  regarded 
as  good  Catholics;  and  Copernicus  himself  would 
not  have  dedicated  his  "Revolutions  of  the  Heavenly 
Orbs"  to  Pope  Paul  III.,  saying:  "If  men  who  are 
ignorant  in  mathematics  pretend  to  condemn  my 
book,  because  of  certain  passages  of  Scripture  which 
they  distort  to  suit  themselves,  I  despise  their  vain 
attacks."  Calcagnini,  who  died  in  1540,  would  not 
have  pubicly  taught  at  Ferrara  that  "the  heavens 
stand,  but  the  earth  moves." 

But  if  the  Church  was  not  hostile  to  purely 
scientific  innovations,  Luther  and  Melancthon  were 
not  so  liberal.  In  his  "Table  Talk"  Luther  says: 
"Men  pay  heed  to  an  astrologer  who  contends  that 
it  is  the  earth  that  moves,  and  not  the  heavens  or 
the  firmament,  the  sun  and  the  moon.  If  a  man 
yearns  for  a  reputation  as  a  profound  scientist,  he 
should  invent  some  new  system.  This  madman 
would  subvert  the  whole  science  of  astronomy ;  but 
Scripture  tells  us  that  Joshua  bade  the  sun,  and  not 
the  earth,  to  stand  still."  In  his  "Principles  of  the 
Science  of  Physics,"  Melancthon  says:  "The  eyes 
testify  that  the  heavens  revolve  every  twenty-four 
hours ;  and  nevertheless  some  men,  either  from  love 
of  novelty  or  to  parade  their  genius,  insist  that  the 


Galileo.  83 

earth  moves,  and  that  the  eighth  sphere  and  the  sun 
do  not  revolve.  Every  true  believer  is  obliged  to 
accept  the  truth  as  revealed  by  God,  and  to  be  con- 
tented with  it." 

It  is  certain  that  for  many  years  Galileo  was  ad- 
mired and  cherished  by  the  most  learned  ecclesiastics 
of  Borne ;  that  three  successive  Pontiffs  gave  him 
many  tokens  of  esteem ;  that  he  was  one  of  the 
most  honored  members  of  the  celebrated  Academy 
of  the  Lincei.  The  Cardinal  del  Monte,  writing  to 
the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  says:  "During  his 
sojourn  at  Rome  Galileo  has  given  much  satisfac- 
tion, and  I  believe  that  he  has  received  the  same; 
for  he  has  enjoyed  good  opportunities  to  exhibit 
his  inventions,  and  the  best-informed  men  of  the 
Eternal  City  regard  them  as  most  wonderful  and 
accurate.  If  we  were  living  in  the  olden  days 
of  Rome,  the  worth  of  Galileo,  I  think,  would  be 
recognized  by  a  statue  on  the  Capitoline." 

A  famous  scientist,  the  Carmelite  Foscarini,  pub- 
lished in  1615 — only  a  year  before  Galileo's  first 
trouble  with  the  Inquisition — a  theological  apology 
for  the  philosopher  and  the  Copernican  system, 
which  was  dedicated  to  Fantoni,  General  of  the 
Carmelites,  and  approved  by  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities  of  Naples.  On  May  15  of  the  same  year 
Mgr.  Dini,  a  Roman  prelate  and  an  old  pupil  of 
Galileo,  writes  that  there  is  no  fear  that  the  Coper- 
nican system  will  be  condemned;  and  that  as  to 
Galileo  himself,  "he  should  fortify  his  position 
with  arguments  well-founded  both  in  Scripture  and 


84  Galileo, 

mathematics;"    and  that  in  the  meantime  he  may 

be  assured  of  the  writer's  own  influence  with  the 

Sacred  College  in  his  favor,  and  of  the  protection 

of  Prince  Cesi,  the  founder  and  president  of  the 

Lincei.     Indeed,    as   late    as   February    16,    1616, 

Galileo  wrote   to   Picchena  that  he  found  among 

the    highest    ecclesiastical    dignitaries   much    dis- 
cs o 

pleasure  because  of  "the  diabolic  opposition  of  his 
persecutors." 

Before  approaching  the  main  object  of  our  article 
we  must  reply  to  a  question  which  naturally  occurs 
to  one  who  observes  that  the  Church  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  was  not  hostile  to  the  Copernican 
system,  and  that  so  many  churchmen  were  favorable 
to  Galileo.  How  happened  it  that  Galileo  found 
himself  cited  before  an  ecclesiastical  tribunal?  In 
accounting  for  this  fact  little  weight  need  be  at- 
tached to  the  sentiments  and  conduct  of  those  who, 
in  his  day  as  at  all  times,  appear  to  be  tolerated 
by  God  for  the  trial  of  genius.  Men  who  argued 
against  the  movement  of  the  earth  because  the  earth 
has  no  limbs,  muscles,  and  sinews;*  men  who 
would  decry  the  heliocentric  system  with  the  words, 
"Ye  men  of  Galilee,  why  stand  ye  looking  up  to 
heaven  ?"  f — such  persons  could  have  had  no  influ- 


*  Thus  Chiaramonti  of  Cesena. 

f  Thus  the  Dominican  Caccini,  preaching  the  Advent 
course  in  S.  Maria  Novella  in  Florence.  But  Maraffi,  General 
of  the  Dominicans,  writing  to  Galileo  on  January  10,  1615, 
deplored  the  extravagance  of  Caccini,  who,  he  said,  had 
previously  hren  forced  to  apologize  in  Bologna  for  other 
absurdities  in  the  pulpit. 


Galileo.  85 

ence  upon  the  Eoman  Congregations.  Nor  would 
these  tribunals  have  exercised  their  power  merely 
because  Galileo  was  contradicted  by  Tassoni,  Vieta, 
Montaigne,  Bacon,  Pascal,  and  other  great  thinkers 
of  the  time.*  The  fault  of  Galileo  consisted  in 
his  confusing  revealed  truths  with  physical  discov- 
eries, and  in  teaching  in  what  sense  Scripture 
passages  were  to  be  taken,  explaining  them  by 
demonstrations  of  calculation  and  experience. 
Every  one  admits  with  Dante  f  that  the  Scriptures 
adopt  popular  ideas  for  the  sake  of  perspicuity. 
But  Galileo  said  that  in  the  Scriptures  "are  found 
propositions  which,  taken  literally,  are  false;  that 
Holy  Writ  out  of  regard  for  the  incapacity  of  the 
people,  expresses  itself  inexactly,  even  when  treat- 
ing of  solemn  dogmas ;  that  in  questions  concerning 
natural  things,  philosophical  argument  should  avail 
more  than  sacred." 

These  assertions  unsettled  all  science,  founded  as 
it  then  was  on  revelation;  "the earth,"  says  Cantu, 


*  Tassoni,  a  very  independent  thinker,  thus  reasoned: 
"Stand  still  in  the  middle  of  a  room,  and  look  at  the  sun 
through  a  window  opening  toward  the  south.  Now,  if  the 
sun  stands  still  and  the  window  moves  so  quickly,  the  sun  will 
instantly  disappear  from  your  vision."  Vieta,  a  consummate 
algebraist,  thought  the  Copernican  system  derived  from  a  fal- 
lacious geometry.  Montaigne  said  that  probably  before  a 
thousand  years  a  third  system  would  supplant  the  two  others. 
Descartes  sometimes  denied  the  Copernican  theory.  Bacon 
derided  it  as  repugnant  to  natural  philosophy.  Pascal,  in  his 
"Thoughts,"  deemed  it  "wise  not  to  sound  the  depths  of  the 
Copernican  opinion."  As  late  as  1806  the  Milanese  Pini,  in 
his  "Incredibility  of  the  Movement  of  the  Earth,"  sustained 
the  Ptolemaic  idea. 

f  "Paradise,"  iv,  43-45. 


86  Galileo. 

4 'ceased  to  be  regarded  as  the  largest,  warmest, 
and  most  illuminated  of  the  planetary  bodies.  It 
no  longer  enjoyed  a  pre-eminence  in  creation  as  the 
home  of  a  privileged  being,  but  became  one  of  many 
in  the  group  of  unexplored  planets  and  in  no  way 
distinguished  from  the  others.  Fearing  that  science 
was  aggrandizing  itself  only  to  war  on  God,  the 
timid  repudiated  it.  Only  later  did  the  better  minds 
understand  that  the  faith  fears  no  learning;  that 
historic  criticism  can  be  independent  and  impartial 
without  becoming  irreligious.  Then  good  sense 
estimated  at  their  true  value  the  accusations 
launched  against  the  Church  because  of  the  affair 
of  Galileo ;  it  distinguished  simple  assertions  from 
articles  of  faith,  positive  and  necessary  prohibitions 
from  prudential  and  disciplinary  provisions,  the 
oracles  of  the  Church  from  the  deliberations  of  a 
particular  tribunal.  To  such  a  tribunal  a  denun- 
ciation was  made  that  Galileo  or  his  disciples  had 
asserted  that  God  is  an  accident  and  not  a  substance, 
a  personal  being ;  that  miracles  are  not  miracles  at 
all.  Then  the  Pontiff  declared  that,  for  the  ter- 
mination of  scandal,  Galileo  should  be  cited  and 
admonished  by  the  Sacred  Congregation."* 

In  endeavoring  to  discover  what  followed  on 
Galileo's  second  summons  before  the  Inquisition 
(concerning  his  first  trial  in  1615  there  is  no  ques- 
tion as  to  either  imprisonment  or  torture),  it  would 


*  "Illustrious  Italians,"  Milan,  1879. 


Galileo.  87 

appear  to  us  that  no  better  source  of  information  can 
be  desired  than  the  original  "Process."  But  since 
Libri,*  Perchappe,f  Bertrand,J  and  others  insin- 
uate— according  to  what  principles  of  criticism  the 
reader  must  judge — that  as  this  record  has  been 
nearly  always  in  the  hands  of  ecclesiastics,  they 
may  have  destroyed  evidence  of  their  own  cruelty, 
we  will  here  adduce  the  testimony  of  the  Tuscan 
Ambassador,  Niccolini.  This  evidence  ought  to  be 
acceptabe  to  our  adversaries ;  for  the  writer  was  an 
intense  partisan  of  Galileo,  and  would  not  have 
hidden  anything  likely  to  excite  sympathy  for  his 
hero.  Acid  to  this  the  fact  that  these  dispatches 
are  directed  to  Galileo's  own  sovereign,  himself  a 
warm  admirer  of  the  philosopher.  Galileo  arrived 
in  Rome  on  February  13,  1633,  and  under  date  of 
March  13  Niccolini  writes : 

"The  Pope  told  me  that  he  had  shown  to  Galileo 
a  favor  never  accorded  to  another,  in  allowing  him 
to  reside  in  my  house  instead  of  in  the  Holy  Office. 
.  His  Holiness  said  that  he  could  not  avoid 
having  Galileo  brought  to  the  Holy  Office  for  the 
examination ;  and  I  replied  that  my  gratitude  would 
be  doubled  if  he  would  exempt  Galileo  from  this 
appearance,  but  he  answered  that  he  could  not  do 


*  "History  of  Mathematical  Science  in  Italy,"  Paris,  1841; 
vol.  iv,  pp.  155-294. 

t  "Galileo:  His  Life  and  Discoveries,"  Paris,  1S66. 

%  "Founders  of  Modern  Astronomy,"  Paris,  1865. — When 
Napoleon  invaded  Rome  in  1809,  among  the  literary  and  his- 
torical monuments  which  he  stole  was  the  original  Process  of 


88  Galileo. 

so.  .  .  .  He  concluded  with  the  promise  to  assign 
Galileo  certain  rooms  which  are  the  most  convenient 
in  the  Holy  Office."  On  April  16  the  Ambassador 
says:  "He  has  a  servant  and  every  convenience. 
The  reverend  commissary  assigned  him  the  apart- 
ments of  the  judge  of  the  tribunal.  My  own  serv- 
ants carry  his  meals  from  my  house. "     .     .     . 

About  two  months  later  (June  18)  Niccolini  con- 
tinues: "I  have  again  besought  for  a  termination  of 
the  cause  of  Galileo,  and  His  Holiness  replied  that 
the  affair  is  ended,  and  that  Galileo  will  be  sum- 
moned some  morning  of  next  week  to  the  Holy 
Office,  to  hear  the  decision.  .  .  .  In  regard  to  the 
person  of  Galileo,  he  ought  to  be  imprisoned  for 
some  time,  because  he  disobeyed  the  orders  of  1616 ; 
but  the  Pope  says  that  after  the  publication  of  the 
sentence  he  will  consider  with  me  as  to  what  can  be 
done  to  afflict  him  as  little  as  possible."  On  June 
26:  "Monday  evening  Galileo  was  summoned  to 
the  Holy  Office,  and  on  Tuesday  morning  he  pro- 
ceeded thither  to  learn  what  was  required  of  him. 
He  was  detained,  and  on  Wednesday  he  was  taken 


Galileo.  The  Holy  See  vainly  demanded  it  from  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Restoration.  While  it  was  yet  in  France  the 
astronomer  Delambre  consulted  it,  but  very  negligently,  as  is 
evinced  by  the  inexactness  of  his  quotations  when  writing  to 
Venturi  the  letter  published  iu  1821  by  the  latter.  Delambre 
did  not  appreciate  the  Process  very  highly,  probably  because, 
like  Barbier  ("Critical  Examination  of  Historical  Diction- 
aries, "Paris,  1820),  he  could  find  no  proof  of  his  own  assertion 
that  Galileo  had  been  tortured.  The  volume  was  finally  con- 
signed to  Count  Rossi,  to  be  restored  to  the  Vatican  in 
1846,  and  there  it  still  remains. 


Galileo.  89 

to  the  Minerva,  before  the  lords-cardinals  and  the 
prelates  of  the  Congregation,  where  the  sentence 
was  read,  and  he  was  forced  to  abjure  his  opinion. 
The  sentence  includes  the  prohibition  of  his  book, 
and  his  condemnation  to  the  prison  of  the  Holy 
Office  during  the  pleasure  of  His  Holiness,  because, 
as  they  declare,  he  disobeyed  the  order  given  him 
sixteen  years  ago  in  this  matter.*  But  his  con- 
demnation was  commuted  by  His  Holiness  to  a 
residence  in  the  gardens  of  the  Trinita  dei  Monti. " 
On  July  3:  "His  Holiness  told  me  that  although  it 
was  rather  early  to  diminish  the  penance  of  Galileo, 
he  had  been  content  to  allow  him  to  reside  at  first 
in  the  gardens  of  the  Grand  Duke,  and  that  now 
he  could  proceed  to  Sienna,  there  to  reside  in  a 
convent  or  with  my  lord  the  Archbishop."  f 

According,  therefore,  to  Niccolini,  the  imprison- 
ment of  Galileo  was  merely  nominal,  and  there  is 
no  mention  of  any  infliction  of  torture.  But  let  us 
examine  further  this  question  of  torture.  It  is  said 
that  the  Process  itself  furnishes  an  indication  of  the 


*  Of  the  ten  cardinals  forming  the  tribunal,  and  all  of 
whose  names  are  at  the  head  of  the  preamble,  three  did  not 
sign  the  document.  These  were  Gaspar  Borgia,  Zacchia,  and 
Francis  Barberini,  nephew  of  Urban  VIII.  One  of  the  signers, 
Anthony  Barberini,  a  brother  of  the  Pontiff  and  a  Capuchin 
friar,  tried  hard  to  obtain  a  remission  of  the  entire  penance. 

f  July  6  found  Galileo  at  Sienna,  dwelling  with  his  old 
friend  and  disciple,  the  Archbishop  Ascanio  Piccolomini. 
On  December  16,  the  Cardinal  Francis  Barberini  having 
obtained  this  favor,  he  arrived  at  his  own  villa  of  Arcetri,  and 
here  he  resided  almost  constantly  until  his  death  on  January 
8,  1642. 


&0  Galileo. 

infliction  of  torture ;  that  in  the  fourth  interroga- 
tory, on  June  21,  torture  was  menaced;  that  in  the 
sentence  the  judges  declared  that  they  had  "deemed 
it  necessary  to  proceed  to  a  rigorous  examination" 
of  the  accused.  It  is  true  that  torture  was 
threatened,  but  the  menace  was  not  executed.  In 
a  decree  issued  by  Urban  VIII.  on  June  16,  1633, 
and  first  published  by  L'Epinois,  it  was  ordered 
that  Galileo  "should  be  questioned  as  to  his  inten- 
tion [in  publishing  the  'Dialogue'],  and  that  he 
should  be  menaced  with  torture.  If  he  does  not 
yield  to  the  threat,  he  must  be  made  to  pronounce, 
in  full  session  of  the  Holy  Office,  an  abjuration  for 
strong  suspicion  of  heresy." 

On  June  21,  in  the  fourth  and  last  interrogatory, 
but  without  any  mention  of  the  above  decree, 
Galileo  was  questioned  as  to  his  intention  in  the 
"Dialogue"  in  regard  to  the  Copernican  system. 
In  reply  he  would  only  admit  that,  cherishing 
his  hypothesis,  and  feeling  proud  of  the  arguments 
adduced  for  it  before  1616,  he  had  given  in  the 
"Dialogue"  more  strength  to  the  Copernican  than 
to  the  other  opinion.  Kef  using,  therefore,  to  avow 
the  imputed  intention,  he  was  threatened  with  tor- 
ture. Then  he  replied — with  what  truth  let  his 
ultra-admirers  imagine:  "I  have  not  held  the 
Copernican  system  since  I  was  ordered  to  abandon  it 
[seventeen  years  before].  But  I  am  in  your  hands. 
Do  with  me  what  you  will."  This  refusal  to 
acknowledge  the  imputed  intention  had  been  fore- 


Galileo.  91 

seen  by  Pope  Urban,  and,  as  he  had  provided  for 
the  contingency,  the  tribunal  did  not  fulfill  the  threat 
of  torture,  but  proceeded  to  the  act  of  abjuration. 
As  for  the  words  "rigorous  examination"  used  in 
the  sentence,  they  do  not  necessarily  imply  that  tor- 
ture had  been  inflicted ;  they  can  easily  refer  to  the 
threat  pronounced  in  the  fourth  interrogatory. 

But,  according  to  the  code  of  laws  binding  upon 
the  inquisitors,  which  are  fully  given  in  the  "Direc- 
tory" of  Eymeric,*  the  official  guide  of  the  Holy 
Office,  torture  could  not  have  been  inflicted  on  Gali- 
leo. It  is  prescribed  that  when  the  accused  denies 
the  charges,  and  they  have  not  been  substantiated, 
and  he  has  not  yet  furnished  a  good  defence,  he 
shall  "be  put  to  the  question,  in  order  that  the 
truth  may  be  reached,"— provided,  however,  that 
the  consulters  so  advise.  Now,  Galileo  was  not 
obstinate ;  he  had  no  inclination  to  become  a  martyr 
for  science.  In  his  sentence  the  judges  say:  "We 
deemed  it  necessary  to  proceed  to  a  rigorous  ex- 
amination, and  thou  didst  reply  like  a  Catholic — 
respondisti  Catholice.'>'>  Having  thus  answered,  he 
could  not  be  tortured.  It  is  sad  to  hear  him  utter- 
ing what  his  judges  must  have  known  to  be  a  lie: 
"For  some  time  before  the  determination  of  the 


*  "Directory  for  Inquisitors,  by  Friar  Nicholas  Eymeric, 
of  the  Order  of  Preachers;  Commentated  by  Francis  Pegna, 
S.  T.  D.  and  J.  U.  D.,  Auditor  of  Causes  in  the  Apostolic 
Palace."  Part  III.,  on  the  "Practice  of  the  Inquisitorial 
Office,"  chapter  on  the  "Third  Way  of  Ending  a  Trial  for 
Faith."    Venice,  1595. 


92  Galileo. 

Holy  Office,  and  before  I  received  that  command 
[the  order  of  1616],  I  had  been  indifferent  as  to  the 
two  opinions  of  Ptolemy  and  Copernicus,  and  had 
held  that  both  were  disputable  and  that  both  could 
be  true  in  nature.  But  after  the  above  mentioned 
determination,  being  assured  by  the  prudence  of 
my  superiors,  all  my  doubts  ceased,  and  I  held,  as  I 
now  hold,  the  theory  of  Ptolemy  as  true, — that  is, 
that  the  earth  does  not,  and  the  sun  does  move."  If 
Galileo  had  undergone  torture,  he  would  scarcely 
have  omitted  to  mention  it  among  his  many  griev- 
ances, when,  a  few  days  after  his  departure  from 
Rome,  on  July  23,  he  wrote  from  Sienna  to  Gioli, 
minister  of  the  Grand  Duke:  "I  address  you, 
prompted  by  a  desire  to  escape  from  the  long  weari- 
ness of  a  more  than  six  months'  imprisonment,  and 
from  the  trouble  and  affliction  of  mind  of  a  whole 
year,  coupled  with  many  inconveniences  and  bodily 
dangers." 

And  now  a  few  words  as  to  the  authenticity  of 
the  "E  pur  si  muove."  In  the  formula  of  abjura- 
tion, after  having  avowed  that  his  "Dialogue"  favors 
the  "false"  doctrine  of  the  movement  of  the  earth 
around  the  sun,  and  having  admitted  his  violation  of 
the  prohibition  of  1616,  Galileo  "affirms  and  swears, 
with  his  hand  on  the  holy  Gospels,"  that  "with  a 
sincere  heart  and  unfeigned  faith  he  abjures,  anathe- 
matizes and  detests  the  aforesaid  errors  and  here- 
sies," for  which  he  has  been  justly  condemned  as 
"strongly  suspected  of  heresy."  And  he  promises 
not   only  to   abstain  hereafter  from    all   heretical 


Galileo.  93 

doctrine,  but  also  to  denounce  all  heretics  to  the 
Inquisition  or  to  the  ordinary  of  the  locality.  Mo- 
tives of  both  personal  and  general  interest  certainly 
decided  an  act  of  apparent  submission;  but  in 
performing  it  Galileo  could  not,  without  risk  of 
destroying  himself,  have  given  himself  the  ques- 
tionable satisfaction  of  a  merely  childish  contra- 
diction. Undoubtedly  he  thought  that  the  earth 
moved,  and  probably  the  inquisitors  knew  that  he  so 
thought.  But  had  he  made  the  famous  remark,  he 
would  not  have  been  dismissed  two  days  afterward. 
If  Galileo  risked  so  much  by  the  quoted  ebullition 
at  so  fatally  decisive  a  moment,  how  comes  it  that 
never  after,  either  by  speech  or  in  writing,  did  he 
expressly  contradict  his  abjuration  by  openly  pro- 
fessing his  system?  Certainly,  when  writing  in 
confidence  to  some  intimates,  he  would  insist  upon 
his  innocence  from  a  religious  point  of  view ;  but 
in  all  other  instances  his  reticence  was  persistent. 
Every  opportunity  and  temptation  to  break  this 
imposed  silence  was  presented  when  he  wrote  to 
Diodati,  then  in  Paris,  on  July  25,  1634,  complain- 
ing of  the  violence  of  his  enemies  toward  himself 
and  his  teachings, — a  violence  which  he  would 
answer  only  by  silence.  Nor  does  he  contradict  his 
abjuration  in  his  letter  written  in  1637  to  King 
Ladislaus  of  Poland,  whom  he  asks  to  compare  his 
"Dialogue"  with  the  sentence  pronounced  against 
its  author,  and  to  see  if  its  doctrine  is  more  perni- 
cious than  that  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  as  Urban 
VIII,  was    said  to  believe.     Nor,  again,  does  he 


94  Galileo. 

advocate  his  system  in  his  letter  to  Pieresc  on  Feb- 
ruary 21,  1636,  in  which  he  insists  on  the  injustice 
of  his  condemnation.  When  he  writes  to  Rinuccini 
on  March  29,  1641,  he  evades  a  direct  answer  to  an 
attempt  to  obtain  an  avowal  of  his  real  mind. 


II. 

Having  shown  in  the  previous  pages  that  the  im- 
prisonment of  Galileo  was  merely  nominal,  and  that 
no  torture  was  inflicted  upon  him,  we  must  now 
briefly  examine  the  decisions  of  the  Roman  Con- 
gregations in  his  case,  with  a  view  to  their  doctrinal 
consequences.  Protestant  polemics  gladly  proclaim 
these  decisions  as  destructive  of  the  Catholic  doc- 
trine of  Infallibility.  Certain  Catholic  writers  have 
enunciated  views  on  the  matter  which  can  serve  only 
to  confirm  the  opinion  that  the  Church  and  science 
are  implacable  foes.  For  instance,  the  Viscount  de 
Bonald,  with  that  severity  which  is  generally  char- 
acteristic of  lay  theologians,  insists  that  the  double 
movement  of  the  earth  has  never  been  and  never  can 
be  proved;  that  even  to-day  he  who  defends  the 
Copernican  system  is  ' 'guilty  of  rashness"  in  con- 
tradicting the  natural  sense  of  the  Scriptures;  that 
if  the  old  system  was  an  illusion,  the  Bible  favors 
said  illusion.*    This  author  would  advise,  therefore, 


*  "Galileo,  the  Holy  Office,  and  the  System  of  the  World," 
in  the  Correspondent  of  Dec.  25,  1854.  See  also  this  author's 
"Moses  and  Modern  Geologists,"  Avignon,  1835, 


Galileo.  95 

if  he  were  logical,  the  Pope  and  the  Roman  In- 
quisition to  revoke  the  decree  of  toleration  issued  in 
favor  of  the  Galilean  theory  on  September  17, 1822, 
and  would  have  them  condemn  the  many  scientific 
ecclesiastics,  like  Secchi  and  Matignon,  who  "rashly 
oppose  the  natural  sense"  of  the  Scriptures.* 

Again,  there  are  other  Catholic  critics  whose 
views,  though  far  more  moderate  than  those  of  De 
Bonald,  are  almost  equally  untenable.  Thus  it  is 
quite  common  to  hear  that  Galileo  was  always 
allowed  to  teach  his  system  "as  an  astronomical 
supposition;"  whereas  the  official  documents  show 
that  our  philosopher  was  prohibited,  in  1616,  to 
uphold  "said  opinion  in  any  way  whatsoever;" 
and  that  in  1633  he  was  punished  for  having 
disobeyed  this  injunction  by  publishing  a  work 
in  which  there  were  no  interpretations  of  sacred 
texts.  Among  the  critics  of  this  class  the  most 
eminent  are  the  astronomer  Lalande,  |  the  Abbe 
Berault-Bercastel,J  Bergier,§  and  Feller,  || — all  of 
whom  copy  the  Protestant  Mallet  du  Pan,  whose 
errors  are  carefully  noted  by  Theodore  Martin. H 


*  In  1842  a  certain  Abbe"  Matalene  published  in  Paris  abook 
entitled  "Anti-Copernicus,  a  New  Astronomy;"  but  bis  ec- 
clesiastical superiors  sharply  reminded  him  that  he  had  no 
right  to  compromise  the  clergy  by  such  extravagancies. 

f  "Voyage  in  Italy,"  1786.  %  Eccl.  Hist.,  177S-S5. 

§  Diet.  Theol.  ||  Diet.  Hist.,  art.  "Galileo." 

If  "Galileo  and  the  Rights  of  Science,"  Paris,  1S68. — Among 
the  errors  of  Mallet  du  Pan,  which  Martin  with  undue  sever- 
ity stigmatizes  as  "lies,"  are  to  be  noted  his  pretence  that 
Bellarmine  did  not,  in  1G16,  interdict  any  astronomical  hy- 


96  Galileo. 

Other  Catholic  polemics,  such  as  Alzog*  and 
Hoffler,f  hold  that  the  Copernican  system,  having 
been  advanced  too  soon,  was  dangerous  to  both 
science  and  religion,  and  that  this  pretended  fact 
justifies  the  action  of  the  Inquisition.  But  the 
official  records  evince  that  the  new  system  was  con- 
demned as  « 'false  and  altogether  contrary  to  Scrip- 
ture," and  not  as  a  mere  matter  imprudently  or 
prematurely  advanced.  Nay,  more :  the  sentence  of 
1633  expressly  states  that  even  though  Galileo  had 
presented  his  system  only  as  probably  true,  still  he 
would  have  offended ;  for,  in  the  words  of  the  de- 
cree, "an  opinion  cannot  be  probable  when  it  has 
been  declared  and  defined  to  be  contrary  to  Sacred 
Scripture." 

M.  Adolphe  Yalson  J  contends  that  the  Coperni- 
can proposition  concerning  the  movement  of  the 
earth  was  not  condemned  as  "heretical,"  if  taken  by 
itself ;  and  that  in  condemning  the  other  Copernican 


pothesis;  the  assertion  that  Galileo  caused  his  apologetic  let- 
ter to  Christendom  to  be  printed  before  his  condemnation;  the 
declaration  that  no  imprimatur  was  really  given  for  the  publi- 
cation of  Galileo's  "Dialogue."  Pretending  to  give  extracts 
from  a  certain  dispatch  of  Guicciardini,  Mallet  du  Pan  asserts 
that  they  show  that  Galileo  wished  to  force  the  Pontiff  to 
make  a  religious  dogma  of  his  system ;  whereas  the  reading 
of  the  dispatch  causes  one  to  almost  justify  Martin  when  he 
says  that  Mallet  "not  only  mistakes,  but  is  an  imposter." 

*  Church  Hist.,  Fr.  transl.,  Paris,  1855,  vol.  iii,  p.  249. 

t  Encyc.  Diet.  Theol.  Cath.,  art.  "Galileo." 

%  In  the  "Review  of  Christian  Economy"  for  Dec,  1865,  and 
Jan.  and  Feb.,  1866. 


Galileo.  97 

theory  on  the  non-movement  of  the  sun,  the  In- 
quisition was  right,  since  the  sun  has  a  movement  of 
its  own.  As  to  the  first  assertion,  it  is  true  that  the 
theory  of  the  earth's  movement  was  not  condemned 
as  "heretical,"  but  it  was  declared  "false  and  al- 
together contrary  to  Scripture."  As  to  Yalson's 
second  remark,  there  was  no  question  of  this  special 
movement  of  the  sun;  this  movement,  toward  the 
constellation  of  Hercules,  was  utterly  unknown  at 
that  time ;  but  what  the  Inquisition  forbade  Galileo 
to  deny  was  the  movement  of  the  sun  around  the 
earth. 

Yery  different  from  the  opinions  of  the  above 
critics  is  that  of  Tiraboschi,*  who  admits  that  vulgar 
prejudices  caused  the  prohibition  of  1616,  and  the 
condemnation  of  1633,  and  declares  that  these  de- 
cisions were  pronounced  by  a  fallible  tribunal,  and 
not  by  the  Church.  He  shows  that  at  first  Galileo 
found  his  discoveries  favorably  received  in  Rome, 
but  that  the  angry  Peripatetics  soon  adopted  the 
Bible  as  a  weapon  against  him.  However,  being 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  Preface  to  the  con- 
demned "Dialogue' '  had  been  written,  not  by  Galileo, 
but  by  the  examiner  Riccardi,  Tiraboschi  accuses 
the  scientist  of  bad  faith.  He  declares  that  the 
Congregations  erred  because  of  a  too  great  devotion 
to  Peripateticism. 


*  "First  Historical  Memoir,  on  the  First  Advocates  of  the 
Copernican  System,"  read  in  the  Modenese  Academy  del  dis- 
sonanti  in  1792,  inserted  in  the  Venetian  edition  of  the  '"Hist. 
Ital.  Litt.,"  1796.  "Second  Memoir,  on  the  condemnation  of 
Galileo  and  the  Copernican  System,"  read  in  1793. 


98  Galileo. 

About  the  year  1825  Olivieri,  General  of  the  Do- 
minicans and  commissary  of  the  Holy  Office,  wrote 
a  dissertation  on  the  affair  of  Galileo,*  in  which 
he  gave  a  very  curious  apology  for  the  Congre- 
gations. The  teachings  of  Copernicus  and  Galileo, 
said  Olivieri,  were  not  condemned  because  they  did 
not  agree  with  the  Bible,  but  because  these  two 
scientists  upheld  them  with  bad  arguments,  which, 
being  contrary  to  sound  philosophy,  seemed  there- 
fore opposed  to  Scripture.  If  Galileo,  continued 
Olivieri,  had  known  the  gravity  of  the  air,  and  had 
not  obstinately  attributed  the  tides  to  a  combination 
of  the  diurnal  and  annual  revolutions  of  the  earth, 
things  would  have  gone  differently ;  for  the  Church 
has  ever  encouraged  any  real  progress — one  which 
is  free  from  errors.  Olivieri  also  contended  that  the 
real  cause  of  all  the  misfortunes  of  Galileo  was  his 
having  provoked  the  " vengeance"  of  Urban  VIII.  f 


*  Not  edited  until  1855,  in  the  "Universite  Catholique." 
f  In  his  "Dialogue  on  the  Two  Principal  Mondial  Sys- 
tems," published  in  1632  with  the  approbation  of  the  Master 
of  the  Apostolic  Palace,  Galileo  assigns  the  exposition  of  his 
opinions  to  his  friend  and  pupil,  Salviati  of  Florence,  then 
some  time  dead.  Galileo  himself  is  not  named,  but  he  is  often 
indicated  by  the  title  of  Linceo.  The  part  of  an  investigator,  im- 
partial and  judicious,  is  filled  by  the  Venetian  senator,  Sagredo, 
another  deceased  friend  of  the  author.  The  defence  of  the 
Peripatetic  system  is  confided  to  one  Simplicius,  who  uses 
absurd  arguments  and  will  yield  to  none;  who  is,  in  fine,  a 
fair  representative  of  many  of  Galileo's  opponents.  Whether 
or  not  Urban  VIII.  credited  the  assertion  of  Galileo's  enemies, 
that  under  the  guise  of  Simplicius  he  himself  was  held  up  to 
ridicule,  it  is  certain  that  now  he  manifested  less  sympathy 


Galileo.  99 

A  decisive  refutation    of    all   these  assertions   has 
been  given  by  Govi.* 

From  the  beginning  of  the  affair  of  Galileo,  re- 
marks Theodore  Martin,  five  courses  were  open  to 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  The  philosopher  and 
his  friends  would  have  been  satisfied  if,  firstly,  it 
were  acknowledged  that  the  new  system  was  not 
contrary  to  Catholic  faith;  secondly,  if  liberty  of 
discussion  were  allowed  in  its  regard;  and,  thirdly, 
if  both  the  Copernicians  and  Peripatetics  were  for- 
bidden to  adduce  Biblical  texts  in  their  debates. 
Certainly  ecclesiastical  tradition  as  well  as  prudence, 
both  ever  favorable  to  toleration  in  such  matters, 
would  seem  to  have  counselled  one  of  these  three 
courses.  Cardinal  Matthew  Barberini,  afterward 
Pope  Urban  VIII.,  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  and  other 
moderate  Peripatetics,  preferred  a  fourth  course, — 
namely,  to  leave  liberty  only  to  the  Peripatetics, 
and,  while  not  deciding  against  the  new  system, 
to  interdict  it  as  rash  and  dangerous  under  the 
circumstances.     In    1632   Urban   VIII.  adopted  a 


for  the  philosopher.  Just  previous  to  this  period  the  Pontiff 
had  declared  to  the  Benedictine  Castelli  that  if  it  had  de- 
pended on  him,  the  decree  of  1616  would  not  have  been  issued. 
On  March  16,  1630,  Castelli  wrote  to  Galileo  that  in  an  inter- 
view with  the  celebrated  Campanella,  "his  Holiness  used 
these  very  words:  'We  never  desired  that  decree;  and  had  it 
depended  on  us  it  would  not  have  been  issued.'  "  This  letter 
is  found  in  Alberi's  edition  of  the  "Works  of  Galileo,"  vol.  ix, 
p.  196. 

*  "The  Holy  Office,  Copernicus,  and  Galileo,  considered  in 
reference  to  a  posthumous  dissertation  of  Father  Olivieri," 
Turin,  1872. 


100  Galileo. 

fifth  course, — namely,  to  procure  the  condemnation 
of  the  Copernican  system  as  false  in  philosophy, 
erroneous  in  theology,  and  contrary  to  Sacred 
Scripture. 

Now  arises  the  question :  By  whom  was  the  doc- 
trine of  the  movement  of  the  earth  thus  condemned  ? 
Certainly,  it  was  through  the  influence  of  Paul  V. 
and  of  Urban  VIII.,  respectively,  that  the  decisions 
of  1616  and  1633  were  rendered;  but  neither  their 
authority  as  Pontiffs  nor  that  of  the  Church  was 
implicated.  As  men  these  Popes  were  opposed  to 
the  system  of  Galileo,  but  as  Popes  their  names  are 
not  signed  in  the  famous  decisions.  Both  are  pub- 
lished only  in  the  name  of  the  Congregations.  This 
absence  of  the  Pontifical  ratification  is  remarked 
by  Descartes  in  three  letters  to  Mersenne,  and  by 
Gassendi.*  The  Jesuit  Riccioiif  invokes  against 
the  teachings  of  Galileo  the  authority  of  "the  Con- 
gregations delegated  by  the  Pope,"  but  he  does  not 
contend  that  the  Pope  can  delegate  his  infallibility. 
The  absence  of  the  Pontifical  ratification  in  the 
decisions  against  Galileo  is  noted  by  the  Benedic- 
tine Caramuel,t  who,  after  declaring  that  the  new 
system  is  absurd,  asks  himself  what  the  Church 
would  do  if,  "which  is  impossible,"  the  movement 
of  the  earth  were  ever  demonstrated.  He  replies 
that  the  Church  would  declare  that  "the  Roman 


*  "Impressed  Motion,"  Lyons,  1658,  vol.  iii,  epist.  2. 

t  "Almagestum  Novum,"  Bologna,  1651,  vol.  i,  pt.  2,  p.4S9. 

X  "Fundamental  Theology,"  Lyons,  1676.  The  passages 
are  cited  by  Bouix,  in  his  "Condemnation  of  Galileo,"  Arras, 
1866,  pp.  25-29. 


Galileo.  101 

Congregations,  having  decided  without  the  Papal 
ratification,  were  mistaken." 

In  fine,  let  it  be  remembered  that  neither  in  1616 
nor  in  1633  did  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Church 
pronounce  a  decision  concerning  the  Copernican 
system.  Muratori,  writing  in  Italy  a  century  before 
the  works  of  Galileo  were  removed  from  the  Index, 
says  that  the  Copernican  system  was  condemned 
"not  by  an  edict  of  the  Supreme  Pontiff,  but  by 
the  Congregation  of  the  Holy  Office.  .  .  .  To-day 
this  system  is  everywhere  in  vogue,  and  Catholics 
are  not  forbidden  to  hold  it.  "*  Tiraboschi  specially 
insists  on  our  admiring  the  "Providence  of  God  in 
favor  of  His  Church;  since,  at  a  time  when  the 
majority  of  theologians  firmly  believed  that  the 
Copernican  system  was  contrary  to  the  Sacred  Scrip- 
tures, the  Church  was  not  permitted  to  give  a  solemn 
decision  on  the  matter."!  No  Catholic  will  assert 
that  the  Roman  Inquisition  has  never  committed 
any  errors ;  and  in  the  case  of  Galileo  it  was  the 
Inquisition  that  erred,  and  not  the  Pontiff;  and 
even  though  the  Pontiff  had  erred,  the  decision  was 
not  one  concerning  faith  or  morals, — one,  that  is, 
which  can  form  the  object  matter  of  Infallibility. 

"Whenever,"  says  Cantu,  "there is  opened  anew 
scientific,  or  philosophical  horizon,  even  the  most 
elevated  intellects  are  stricken  with  fright,  as  when 
America  was  discovered,  and  when  steam  and  elec- 


*  "Annals  of  Italy,"  at  year  1633. 
f  "Memoir  II.,"  loc.  cit. 


102  Galileo. 

tricity  were  first  applied.  What  wonder  if  contra- 
diction befell  the  Copernican  system,  which  ap- 
peared to  subvert  the  order  not  only  of  the  physical 
but  of  the  moral  world ;  which  seemed  to  threaten 
faith  and  morals,  just  as  it  changed  the  reciprocal 
position  of  the  heavenly  bodies?  What  wonder  if 
it  seemed  impious  and  scandalous  to  subject  man 
and  his  habitation  to  the  same  laws  which  regulate 
the  other  phenomena  of  nature?  Was  it  not  for 
this  reason  that,  quite  recently,  Hegel  denied  the 
movement  of  the  earth?  When  the  Reformation 
had  spread,  and  men  were  substituting  their  in- 
dividual for  the  canonical  interpretation  of  the 
Scriptures,  churchmen  were  frightened  on  seeing 
certain  verses  interpreted  in  a  new  manner,  and 
they  went  so  far  as  to  condemn  Galileo.  Nor 
should  we  forget  that  until  Faucolt  furnished  it,  in 
our  own  days,  there  was  no  physical  proof  of  the 
movement  of  the  earth.  Faucolt  gave  it  in  the 
progressive  deviation  of  the  oscillating  plane  of  a 
pendulum  suspended  from  a  fixed  point.  But  no 
serious  person  will  repeat  the  absurdities  of  Libri,* 
of  Arduini,  f  and  of  similar  writers,  confuted  by 
Biot,J  Alberi,  Martin,  and  by  common-sense." 

He  who  would  understand  the  great  catastrophe 
in  the  life  of  Galileo  must  consult  the  writings  of  the 


*  Loc,  cit. 

t  "The  first  Born  of  Galileo,"  Florence,  1864. 
t  In  Michaud's  "Universal  Biography,"  and  in  two  disser- 
tations in  the  Journal  des  Savants  for  March,  July  and  October, 

1858. 


Galileo.  103 

scientist,  and  the  invaluable  documents  published 
by  Alberi  in  his  great  edition  of  the  "Works."* 
It  is  not  true,  as  Libri  and,  after  him,  many 
Protestants  insist,  that  the  officers  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion destroyed  or  secreted  nearly  all  the  papers  of 
Galileo.  All  his  principal  works  remain,  and  nearly 
all  the  minor  ones.  A  few  of  his  MSS.  were  de- 
stroyed by  one  of  his  grandsons,  who  felt  some 
scruples  about  preserving  any  writings  of  one  con- 
demned by  the  Holy  Office.  Most  of  the  important 
works  and  of  the  correspondence  were  collected  by 
Galileo's  disciple,  Viviani,  who  bequeathed  them  to 
a  nephew,  Panzanini ;  the  heirs  of  this  nephew  sold 
some  of  them  as  waste-paper,  but  nearly  all  were 
recovered  by  Giambattista  Nelli,  whose  son  Clement 
used  them  and  part  of  Viviani's  collection  in  his 
"Life  of  Galileo,"  published  in  1793.  When 
publishing  his  edition  of  the  "Works,"  Alberi 
promised  to  give  to  the  world  a  Life  based  upon 
documents  in  his  hands,  but  he  failed  to  do  so. 
However,  this  Life  would  not  have  been  complete, 
as  there  were  many  documents  which  he  could  not 
procure.  Thanks  to  Father  Theiner,  Prefect  of 
the  Vatican  Archives,  who  communicated  these 
papers  to  M.  Henri  de  1'Epinois,  the  world  received, 
in  1867,  much  light  on  the  affairs  of  the  great 
scientist,  in  the  valuable  work  of  L'Epinois.f 


*  la  sixteen  large  volumes,  Florence,  1S42-56. 
f  "Galileo  :     His  Process  and  Condemnation,  According  to 
Unedited  Documents." 


THE   GREY   CARDINAL. 

As  has  been  the  case  with  nearly  all  great  men, 
Cardinal  Eichelieu  had  his  alter  ego3  to  whom  he 
perhaps  owed  much  of  his  success  and  celebrity, 
and  to  whom  he  was  certainly  indebted  for  aid  in 
bearing  burdens  such  as  probably  have  fallen  to  the 
lot  of  no  other  Minister  of  State.  During  the 
greater  part  of  his  official  career,  wherever  was  dis- 
cerned the  sheen  of  the  great  Minister's  carclinali- 
tial  red,  not  far  off,  although  generally  in  the  back- 
ground, was  the  ashenhued  tunic  of  Friar  Joseph. 
"I  have  lost  my  consolation  and  my  support," 
moaned  Eichelieu  when  death  laid  his  hand  on  the 
Capuchin. 

Few  historians  have  given  much  time  to  Friar 
Joseph.  His  constant  devotion  to  the  great  Minis- 
ter, his  invariable  connection  with  every  political 
act  of  that  prelate,  gave  him  the  designation  of 
the  Grey  Cardinal — "son  Eminence  grise" — and 
he  was  the  red  cardinal's  familiar  demon.  This  is 
about  all  which  is  told  us  by  Bazin*  and  by  Henri 
Martin, f  who  have  dwelt  more  on  this  subject  than 
other  writers.  The  impressive  play  of  Bulwer  is  the 
source  of  the  ideas  that  most  people  have  concerning 
both  Eichelieu  and  his  Capuchin  secretary,  and  these 


*  "Histoire  de  France  sous  de  Louis  XIII,"  vol.  iv,  p.  115. 
t  "Histoire  de  France,"  4nie  edit.,  vol.  xi,  p.  491. 
104 


The   Grey   Cardinal.  105 

ideas  are  as  just  as  would  be  an  estimate  of  Joan  of 
Arc  derived  from  the  absurd  play  of  Schiller  or  the 
obscene  poem  of  Voltaire.  According  to  Bulwer, 
the  friar-secretary  was  a  man  of  low  cunning  —  a 
sneak,  but  at  the  same  time  ambitious,  and  he  was 
as  ready  to  betray  the  secrets  of  the  confessional  as 
his  master  was  to  use  them. 

In  a  future  article  we  shall  have  occasion  to  speak 
of  the  morality  of  Richelieu,  but  at  present  we  would 
ask  the  reader's  attention  to  a  brief  sketch  of  the 
career  of  the  humble  Capuchin,  who  may  well  be 
numbered  among  the  many  celebrated  statesmen 
that  have  been  found  in  the  cloister.  Although  less 
famous,  because  the  subject  of  less  attention,  than 
the  two  Abbots  Suger,  than  St.  John  Capistrano, 
than  the  Franciscans  Calatagirone  andXimenes,his 
career  must  be  interesting,  if  only  because  of  its 
connection  with  that  of  the  great  Richelieu. 

Francois  le  Clere  du  Tremblay  was  born  of  noble 
parents  in  1577.  From  his  sixteenth  year  he  desired 
to  become  a  religious,  but  to  please  his  family  he 
entered  the  army,  and  at  the  siege  of  Amiens 
was  noticed  for  his  bravery  by  the  Constable  de 
Montmorency.  When  his  relative,  M.  de  Mesle  de 
Berzean,  was  sent  as  extraordinary  ambassador  to 
Elizabeth  of  England,  the  young  Francois  accom- 
panied him,  and  the  woes  of  the  English  Catholics 
and  the  many  devastations  of  heresy  so  excited  the 
zeal  of  the  apostolate  in  his  heart,  that  on  his  return 
to  France  in  1599  he  joined  the  Capuchin  branch  of 
the  Franciscan  Order.     He  soon  acquired  fame  as 


106  The   Grey  Cardinal. 

a  preacher  and  controversialist,  and  it  was  while 
engaged  in  a  mission  at  Poitou,  in  1619,  that  he 
formed  his  first  relations  with  Armand  du  Plessis  de 
Richelieu,  then  Bishop  of  Lucon. 

Friar  Joseph  (for  such  was  the  name  adopted  by 
Du  Tremblay  in  religion)  soon  became  cognizant  of 
the  sublime  genius  and  extraordinary  administrative 
talent  of  the  provincial  prelate,  and  he  drew  the 
attention  of  the  Queen,  Marie  de  Medici,  to  his  dis- 
covery. This  was  the  starting  point  of  Richelieu's 
glorious  career.  But  Friar  Joseph  had  been  known 
as  a  zealous  churchman  and  as  an  accomplished 
diplomatist  several  years  before  he  became  connected 
with  Richelieu.  In  1615  Rome  had  appreciated  his 
apostolic  spirit,  when,  bearing  letters  of  approba- 
tion from  Louis  XIII.,  he  laid  before  the  Holy  See 
three  grand  projects — viz.,  the  establishment  of 
permanent  missions  to  combat  heresy  in  France ;  a 
new  crusade  against  the  Crescent;  and  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Daughters  of  Calvary,  a  society  destined 
to  perpetual  meditation  on  the  woes  of  Mary  at  the 
feet  of  her  crucified  Son.* 

Joseph's  first  diplomatic  achievement  was  the  ef- 
fecting of  the  Treaty  of  Loudun,  in  1615,  between  the 
court  and  the  faction  of  the  Prince  du  Conde,  with- 


*  The  Holy  See  accorded  Friar  Joseph  full  powers  for  the 
establishment  of  missions  in  France.  As  for  the  crusade,  the 
Pontiff  gave  him  briefs  ad  hoc  for  the  Kings  of  France  and 
Spain,  and. undertook  to  influence  the  Emperor,  the  Italian 
princes,  and  the  King  of  Poland,  in  the  scheme.  The  crusade 
was  a  failure,   but  the  missions  and  the  foundation  of  the 


The   Grey  Cardinal.  107 

out  that  schismatic  clause  which  the  Third  Estate — 
then  composed  chiefly  of  heretics  and  bad  Catholics 
— wished  to  insert:  i.  e.,  that  the  King,  being  sover- 
eign in  his  realm,  could  recognize  in  it  no  superior, 
spiritual  or  temporal.*  To  compass  the  withdrawal 
of  this  clause,  the  royal  Minister  Villeroi  sought 
the  aid  of  our  friar,  then  making  his  provincial 
visitation  to  the  houses  of  his  order  in  Poitou. 
The  Nuncio  Ubadani  also  added  his  entreaties,  and 
Joseph,  who  had  long  ago  gained  the  esteem  of 
Conde,  began  a  series  of  negotiations  which  finally 
succeeded ;  and  thus  was  obviated  a  danger  which 
threatened  France  with  the  same  horrors  as  those 
experienced  by  England  at  the  hands  of  Henry  VIII. 
That  this  blessing  was  due  to  the  exertions  of  the 
Capuchin  Provincial,  was  openly  acknowledged  by 
Villeroi,  who,  entering  Tours  after  the  signature  of 
the  treaty,  cried  out  to  the  applauding  citizens : 
"Thank  not  me,  but  Friar  Joseph!" 

Marie  de  Medici  did  not  forget  the  warm  recom- 
mendation of  the  Bishop  of  Lugon  proffered  by  the 
humble  Capuchin.  It  was  through  her  influence 
that  Eichelieu  was  raised  to  the  cardinalate  in  1622, 
and  two  years  afterward  was  made  Prime  Minister 
of  France.  One  of  his  first  acts  was  to  send  the 
following  letter  to  Friar  Joseph : 


Daughters  of  Calvary  succeeded.  The  name  of  one  of  the 
Boulevards  of  Paris  perpetuates  to  this  day  the  memory  of 
this  pious  foundation. 

*  Against  this  proposition  Cardinal  du  Perron  delivered 
one  of  his  most  powerful  discourses. 


108  The   Grey   Cardinal 

As  you  have  been  the  chief  agent  used  by  God  in  according 
me  my  present  honors,  I  feel  it  a  duty  to  inform  you,  before 
all  others,  that  the  King  has  hearkened  to  the  Queen's  prayer 
to  appoint  me  his  Prime  Minister.  I  also  beg  you  to  make  all 
possible  haste  to  come  and  share  with  me  the  management  of 
affairs,  some  of  which  are  of  such  a  nature  that  I  can  confide 
them  to  no  other  person.  Come,  then,  at  once  to  receive  the 
proof  of  the  esteem  in  which  you  are  held  by  the 

Cardinal  de  Kichelieu. 

Joseph  obeyed  the  summons,  but  as  he  never, 
amid  all  his  occupations,  forgot  his  duty  to  his 
Order,  he  prepared  to  journey  to  Eome  to  attend 
the  approaching  General  Chapter  of  the  Francis- 
cans. The  Cardinal  Minister  made  no  objections, 
but  availed  himself  of  the  opportunity  to  entrust  his 
secretary  with  the  settlement  of  many  difficulties 
then  troubling  his  Italian  policy,  notably  the  ques- 
tion of  the  Valteline — a  knotty  dispute  between  the 
Grisons  and  Valtelins,  principally  owing  to  religious 
differences.  In  this  controversy  were  involved  the 
King  of  France  and  the  House  of  Austria-Spain, 
the  Duke  of  Savoy  and  the  Holy  See.  So  well 
did  Joseph  acquit  himself  of  his  difficult  task  that 
he  merited  the  encomiums  of  all  the  disputants, 
and  strengthened  his  influence  for  evermore  with 
Richelieu. 

We  can  not,  of  course,  follow  the  details  of  Friar 
Joseph's  political  career,  but  we  must  not  omit  to 
notice  one  of  his  most  brilliant  strokes  of  statesman- 
ship— the  reduction  of  La  Rochelle.  This  bulwark 
of  Calvinism  in  France,  this  centre  of  rebellion  and 
constant  menace  against  the  integrity  of  French 
nationality,  had  defied  the  crown  for  two  hundred 


The   Grey   Cardinal.  109 

years.  From  the  day  of  its  revolt  against  Louis  XI. 
in  favor  of  his  brother,  the  Duke  of  Guyenne,  down 
to  the  capture  of  Amiens  by  Henry  IV.,  devotion 
to  France  had  been  an  unknown  quantity  to  the 
Rochellois ;  and  as  soon  as  the  latter  event  ceased 
to  impress  their  minds,  they  made  war  on  Louis 
XIII.  Many  good  patriots  deemed  the  reduction 
of  La  Rochelle  impossible ;  many  also  thought  that 
Louis  would  do  better  by  aiding  Mantua  and  Mont- 
ferrat  against  Spain  than  by  warring  against  his 
own  subjects,  rebels  though  they  were.  But  Friar 
Joseph  realized,  and  he  forced  the  King,  Richelieu, 
and  the  great  Cardinal  de  Berulle  to  realize,  that  La 
Rochelle  was  a  hot-bed  of  discord  for  France,  that  it 
was  a  port  of  entry  for  hostile  foreigners,  especially 
for  the  English,  whose  Queen  had  been  convinced  by 
Blancard,  the  Rochellois  deputy,  that  it  was  better 
for  her  to  lose  Ireland  than  to  permit  the  surrender 
of  La  Rochelle  to  King  Louis;  that  Huguenot  re- 
bellion and  Protestant  arrogance  would  continue  to 
torment  France  so  long  as  the  formidable  rock  re- 
mained the  arsenal  of  treason. 

The  celebrated  siege  of  La  Rochelle  was  under- 
taken, and  Friar  Joseph — present  to  the  end — was 
its  moving  spirit :  advising  with  the  engineers  whom 
he  had  employed  to  construct  the  famous  dike; 
animating  the  spirits  of  the  soldiers,  and  working 
as  indefatigable  as  did  Angouleme  or  Bassompierre. 
Of  course  Richelieu  was  also  on  the  spot,  and  had 
been  intrusted  by  Louis  XIII.  with  absolute  com- 
mand; but  so  great  was  the  part  of  the  Capuchin 


110  The  Grey  Cardinal. 

secretary  in  the  siege,  that  after  it  had  been  brought 
to  a  successful  issue,  the  King  publicly  avowed  that, 
like  Abraham,  the  friar  had  hoped  against  hope, 
that  God  had  rewarded  his  faith,  and  that  history 
would  accord  to  him  an  equal  share  with  the  Cardi- 
nal de  Berulle  of  the  glory  attending  the  enterprise. 

Friar  Joseph  has  been  called  ambitious,  and  yet 
he  constantly  refused  many  dignities  offered  him. 
The  See  of  Albi  was  tendered  him  in  vain,  as  well 
as  the  projected  diocese  of  La  Rochelle.  Certainly 
King  Louis  XIII.  again  and  again  named  him  to 
the  Holy  See  (firstly  in  1635)  for  a  cardinal's 
hat,*  but  we  know  not  whether,  if  accorded  him, 
he  would  have  accepted  the  honor  voluntarily;  he 
always  protested  to  Richelieu  that  the  habit  of  St. 
Francis  was  the  dearest  thing  to  him  on  earth.  In 
view  of  the  prevalent  idea  that  the  friar-secretary 
was  an  unscrupulous  intriguer  and  an  associate  of 
roysterers,  it  is  curious  to  note  that,  according  to 
the  records  of  the  time,  he  was  as  faithful  to  his 
monastic  duties  as  any  friar  in  the  cloister. 

We  take  from  Barthelemyf  a  summary  of  our 
friar's  daily  life  at  court.  He  arose  at  four,  prayed 
for  an  hour,  and  then  recited  the  Office  as  far  as 
Sext  with  his  constant  companion,  Father  Ange. 
Then  he  labored  at  his  multifarious  correspondence 


*  '-Memorie  Kecondite  dalP  Anno  1601  fino  al  1610,"  in  the 
"Negociations  duMarechal  d'Estrees  et  Siri,"  Paris,  1677. 

t  "Mensonges  et  Erreurs  Historiques,"  6me  edit.,  Paris, 
1880. 


Tlie   Grey   Cardinal  111 

with  the  French  agents  at  foreign  courts,  generally 
conducted  in  cipher;  and  this  work  must  have  been 
immense,  for  he  received  a  duplicate  of  every  dis- 
patch sent  to  the  King.  At  nine  he  gave  audience 
to  ambassadors  and  to  the  secretaries  of  state,  con- 
ducting them,  when  necessary,  to  Eichelieu.  Only 
at  midday  did  he  celebrate  Mass,  the  Cardinal  gen- 
erally assisting.  After  breakfast — which,  like  all 
his  meals,  was  taken  with  Father  Ange,  and  during 
which  some  pious  book  was  always  read, — audiences 
occupied  him  until  four,  when  he  finished  the  Office 
and  made  a  meditation.  From  five  until  eight  he 
shut  himself  in  his  library.  At  eight  he  supped  or 
dined,  and  the  rest  of  the  day  was  spent  in  the 
cabinet  of  Eichelieu ;  and  probably  these  final  hours 
were  the  most  laborious  of  all. 

Friar  Joseph  was  sixty-one  years  of  age  when,  a 
stroke  of  apoplexy  warning  him  to  prepare  for  death, 
he  retired  to  a  house  of  his  Order  in  the  Eue  Saint- 
Honore,  despite  the  solicitations  of  Eichelieu.  But 
the  Cardinal  availed  himself  of  an  important  busi- 
ness conference  with  the  Cardinal  de  Bichi  to  insist 
on  Joseph's  return.  The  friar  acquiesced,  attended 
the  conference,  but  was  seized  the  same  day  by  a 
second  stroke,  and  died  three  days  afterward, 
December  18,  1638.  He  was  buried  with  all  the 
honors  due  to  a  cardinal,  and  was  followed  to  the 
tomb  by  the  Parliament  and  all  that  was  noble  in 
Paris.  Eichelieu  composed  the  following  epitaph, 
which  was  engraved  on  the  tomb : 


112  The   Grey  Cardinal. 

"In  everlasting  memory  of  the  Rev.  Father  Jo- 
seph le  Clerc,  Capuchin.  —  Here  lies  one  whose 
virtues  will  never  be  forgotten;  one  who,  in  order 
to  bear  the  yoke  of  the  Lord,  abandoned  in  his 
youth  parents,  titles,  and  wealth,  and  lived  very 
poor  in  a  very  poor  Order.  Made  Provincial  in 
that  Order,  he  benefited  the  Church  by  his  writings 
and  his  discourses.  He  filled  many  public  offices, 
to  which  he  was  providentially  called  by  the  Most 
Christian  King  Louis,  in  a  holy  and  a  prudent  man- 
ner; carefully  serving  God,  his  prince,  and  his 
country,  with  seraphic  devotion  and  wonderful 
tranquillity  of  spirit.  He  observed,  to  the  last  day 
of  his  life,  the  entire  rule  to  which  he  had  dedicated 
himself;  although,  for  the  good  of  the  Church,  he 
had  been  dispensed  from  it  by  three  successive 
Pontiffs.  By  his  missions  and  his  advice  he  re- 
sisted heresy  in  France  and  in  England,  and  he 
sustained  the  courage  of  the  Christians  in  the  East. 
Amid  the  wealth  and  the  allurements  of  the  court 
he  led  a  life  of  poverty  and  austerity,  and  before 
his  death  had  been  named  to  the  cardinalate." 


"I  AM  THE  STATE!"— DID   LOUIS  XIV. 
EVER   SAY   SO? 

"The  Guard  dies,  it  never  surrenders!"  Many 
of  us,  in  the  days  of  our  youth,  have  cherished  this 
saying;  and  when  cold  investigation  proved  that 
Cambronne  gave  a  much  less  theatrical,  although 
more  military,  reply  to  the  English  summons,  we 
felt  something  like  real  grief  on  our  disenchant- 
ment. And  such  has  been  the  fate  of  many  other 
wordy  sparks  which  served  to  shed  a  deceitful  light 
on  our  boyish  conceptions  of  history.  Now  that  we 
are  more  ready  to  doubt,  now  that  we  realize  that  the 
reality  generally  differs  from  the  ideal,  we  hesitate  to 
accept  as  authentic  many  of  the  verbal  scintillations 
which  some  would-be  historians  ascribe  to  their 
heroes.  Of  course,  the  world's  greatest  ones  must 
necessarily  let  fall  some  observations  which  are 
really  indicative  of  their  role  on  the  stage  of  life ; 
but,  alas !  too  many  of  their  imputed  sayings  have 
no  foundation  better  than  the  imagination  of  a  bi- 
ographer; or,  at  best,  no  better  than  that  furnished 
by  the  theories  of  partisans,  who  have  fancied  that, 
in  similar  circumstances,  they  themselves  would  have 
so  spoken. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  "UEtat — c'est  mot9' 
ascribed  to  Louis  XIV.    So  firmly  are  most  moderns 

113 


114  "I  am  the  State:' 

convinced  that  the  great  monarch  was  guilty  of  this 
arrogance,  that  they  adduce  it  as  a  verbal  picture  of 
his  entire  reign ;  and  if  perchance  any  one  doubts 
that  the  very  words  were  uttered,  they  are  at  least 
accepted,  in  accordance  with  the  Italian  proverb,  as 
"if  not  true,  certainly  well  invented."  But  did 
Louis  XIV.  ever  use  this  phrase?  Did  the  self- 
contained,  dignified,  and  gentlemanly  sovereign  of 
then  polite  France  descend  so  low  as  to  use  such 
language,  and  in  circumstances  and  with  adjuncts 
befitting  a  guard-room,  perhaps,  but  assuredly  not 
appropriate  in  the  presence  of  a  parliament?  Vol- 
taire tells  us  that  in  1655  the  seventeen-year-old 
King  rushed  into  the  parliament  chamber,  "in  top- 
boots,  and  whip  in  hand,"  and  ordered  the  president 
to  put  an  end  to  such  assemblages.*  But  Voltaire 
gives  no  authority  for  this  assertion,  and,  as  has 
been  well  observed,  his  own  age  renders  it  improb- 
able that  he  had  heard  of  the  event  from  an  eye- 
witness, f  If  he  did,  it  is  strange  that  not  one 
contemporary  author  mentions  the  supposed  fact. 
The  younger  Lacretelle,  writing  in  1820  in  the 
"Biographie  Michaud"  (vol.  xxv),  repeats  the 
story  of  Voltaire,  and  so  does  Sismondi  in  his 
"History  of  the  French"  (vol.  xxiv). 

Henri  Martin  carefully  notes  the  King's  whip  and 
top-boots ;  but  it  is  strange  that  so  grave  an  author 


*  "Steele  de  Louis  XIV.,"  chap.  25. 

f  Barthelemy:  "Erreurs  etMensongesHistoriques,"  vol.ii; 
Paris,  1886,  5th  edit, 


ul  am  the  State"  115 

should  confound  the  "bed  of  justice" —  a  solemn 
session  of  Parliament,  during  which  the  King  sat  on 
a  pile  of  cushions — with  a  piece  of  bedroom  furni- 
ture, and  that  he  should  find  fault  with  the  royal 
uncouthness  in  going  to  bed  with  boots  and  spurs 
unremoved.*  Then  Martin  informs  us  that  Louis 
prohibited  all  self-initiated  meetings  of  Parliament, 
in  "four  words;"  that  is,  this  author  insinuates 
that  the  monarch  cried,  "I  am  the  State,"  when  the 
president  pleaded  that  the  good  of  the  country 
might  require  such  meetings.  Lavalee  |  and  Bonne- 
chose  %  also  harp  on  the  boots,  spurs,  and  whip  of 
the  young  King,  "who  could  well  say,  'L'Etat — 
c'est  moi;'  "  that  is,  according  to  these  writers,  if  he 
did  not  use  these  very  words,  he  might  well  have 
done  so ;  "for  they  were  the  sincere  expression  of  a 
belief,  and  even  the  simple  expression  of  a  fact." 

Dareste  observes  (  "Histoire  de  France,"  vol.  v,  p. 
353),  that  the  first  writer  to  mention  the  whip  in 
the  hand  of  Louis  on  this  occasion  was  the  Abbe 
Choisy,  who  wrote  about  the  year  1700 ;  but  who, 
admits  Dareste  (who  believes  in  the  boots  and 
spurs),  was  by  no  means  a  reliable  authority.  But 
Barthelemy  says  that  he  read  and  re-read  the 
"Memoirs"  of  the  Abbe,  published  in  the  "Collec- 
tion Petitot"  (series  ii,  vol.  lxiii),  without  finding 
any   mention  of  the  whip.     As  for  the  top-boots 


*  "Histoire  de  France,"  vol.  xii,p.467;  Paris,  185S,  4th  edit, 
f  "Histoire  des  Francais,"  vol.  iii,  p.  197;  Paris,  1847. 
t  In  the  "Biographic  Didot,"  article  "Louis  XIV," 


116  "I  am  the  State" 

which  displeases  so  many,  and  which  Voltaire  puts 
on  the  King  during  his  supposed  outburst  against 
the  Parliament  in  April,  1655,  one  of  the  most 
impartial  writers  of  modern  France,  A.  Cheruel, 
draws  our  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  King  was 
hunting  when  he  suddenly  resolved  on  facing  his 
Parliament;  and  that,  at  any  rate,  if  he  had  not 
gone  in  his  carriage,  he  would  necessarily  have  been 
in  top-boots,  for  these  were  then  the  habitual  foot 
gear  of  three-fourths  of  the  population.  And,  after 
reminding  us  that  Paris  still  deserved  its  ancient 
name,  Lutetian,  this  author  cites  the  commissary  La- 
Mare,  who  says  that  "those  of  us  who  saw  the  com- 
mencement of  the  reign  of  his  Majesty  Louis  XIV., 
remember  how  the  streets  of  Paris  were  so  muddy 
that  it  was  necessary  to  wear  top-boots.* 

Now,  there  is  no  good  foundation  for  this  story 
of  whip,  boots,  and  spurs ;  nor  is  there  any  at  all 
for  its  adorning  phrase,  "I  am  the  State."  The 
Duke  de  Noailles,  who  was  the  first  to  draw  atten- 
tion to  this  matter, f  says:  "Louis  XIV.,  resolute 
in  abolishing  the  political  pretensions  advanced  by 
the  Parliament  after  the  Fronde,  and  in  restricting 
that  body  to  its  judiciary  functions,  may  have  shown 
some  passion  in   the  execution  of  his  task,  but  he 


*  "Traits  de  la  Police."  Cheruel:  "Histoire  de  r Ad- 
ministration Monarchique  en  France  depuis  l'Avenement  de 
Phillippe  Auguste  jusqu'a  la  Mort  de  Louis  XIV.,"  vol.  ii,  p. 
32;  Paris,  1855. 

f  "Histoire  de  Mme.  de  Maintenon,"  vol.  iii?  p.  667; 
Paris?  1848-58. 


" t  am  the  State."  117 

never  acted  in  the  cavalier  fashion  attributed  to 
him — a  fashion  so  little  consistent  with  his  ideas  of 
the  royal  dignity,  and  with  his  respect  for  the  great 
bodies  of  the  State.  He  executed  his  design,  firstly, 
in  the  session  of  December  22,  1665,  with  all  the 
solemnity  of  a  'bed  of  justice;'  and,  secondly, 
without  that  solemnity,  in  the  session  of  April  20, 
1667.  .  .  .  These  were  the  only  sessions  at  which 
Louis  XIV.  assisted,  and  the  'Journal'  of  Olivier  d' 
Ormesson,  which  enters  into  minute  details  of  them, 
makes  no  mention  of  the  arrogant  speech-  which 
has  been  so  much  censured."  And  it  is  to  be  noted 
that  the  "Journal"  cited  by  De  Noailles  is  most 
favorable  to  the  parliamentary  cause,  and  therefore 
it  would  not  have  omitted  to  record  any  arrogance 
on  the  part  of  the  monarch. 

Nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  the  supposition 
fostered  by  our  modern  doctrinaires,  and  almost 
universally  accepted,  that  all  France  was  submis- 
sive to  the  nod  of  Louis  XIY.  "When  we  see  the 
royal  power  so  extensive  and  so  effective,"  says  De- 
Tocqueville,  "we  might  be  led  to  believe  that  all 
independence  of  spirit  had  disappeared  with  public 
liberty,  and  that  the  French  had  become  used  to 
subjection ;  if  so,  we  would  be  greatly  mistaken,  for 
the  old  regime  was  not  one  of  servility.  Amid  many 
institutions  already  prepared  for  absolute  power, 
liberty   survived."*      Louis  XIV.  well  knew,  re- 


*  "Ancien  Regime  et  la  Revolution,"  chap,  xi;    Paris, 
1856. 


'%i 


118  "I  am  the  State." 

marks  De  Carne,*  "how  to  direct  reform  without 
unchaining  revolution;  and  he  was  always  influ- 
enced by  the  truly  liberal  ideas  which  had  slowly 
but  surely  made  their  way  from  the  time  of  St. 
Louis  to  that  of  Eichelieu." 

No  ruler  has  ever  been  so  much  and  perhaps  so 
extravagantly  praised  by  the  literary  men  of  his  day 
as  Louis  XIV. ;  but,  to  use  the  words  of  De  Noailles, 
the  universal  hymn  was  sincere,  and  it  contained 
many  daring  expressions  which  excluded  all  ser- 
vility. The  duties  of  a  sovereign  have  seldom  been 
more  clearly  enunciated  than  they  were  by  Racine, 
in  his  great  play  of  "Athalie"  (act  4,  scene  3), 
which  was  first  presented,  before  the  grand  mon- 
arch's whole  court,  in  1691;  that  is,  at  a  period 
when  he  was  in  the  very  zenith  of  his  glory,  and 
therefore,  as  is  presumed,  at  the  culmination  of  his 
arrogance.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  address 
of  Boileau  to  the  King,  in  1669,  one  year  after  the 
taking  of  Aix-la-Chapelle ;  and  of  many  sentiments 
in  the  "Characters"  of  LaBruyere.  Let  the  reader 
examine  these  passages,  and  then  decide  whether 
it  is  at  all  probable  that  the  monarch  who  per- 
mitted, nay  gladly  acclaimed,  such  sentiments, would 
have  exclaimed :   "£' Etat — c'est  moi." 

While  Louis  XIV.  was  yet  a  boy.  Cardinal  Maz- 
arin  said  of  him  that  "he  had  in  him  the  material 


*  "L'Ecole  Administrative  de  Louis  XIV.,"  in  the  Revue 
des  Deux  Mondes,  July,  1857. 


"1  am  the  State"  119 

for  four  kings  and  an  honest  man;"*  and  if  we 
read  the  "Memoirs"  which  the  King  prepared  for 
the  guidance  of  his  heir,  we  shall  not  only  find 
much  truth  in  the  saying  of  the  Cardinal-Minister, 
but  we  will  agree  with  the  not  too  partial  Sismondi 
when  he  says  that  "these  'Memoirs'  give  an  exalted 
idea  of  the  extent  and  accuracy  of  the  King's  views, 
and  show  us  how  hard  he  labored  to  perform  his 
duty  as  a  ruler,  and  also  how  profound  was  the 
moral  sentiment  which  animated  him.  "f  In  these 
"Memoirs,"  remarks  Barthelemy,  Louis  shows  us 
the  sense  in  which  he  would  have  used  the  famous 
phrase,  if  it  ever  could  have  been  uttered  by  him. 
He  would  simply  have  meant  to  express  the  idea  of 
a  community  of  interest  subsisting  between  king  and 
country:  "My  son,  we  must  think  much  more  of 
the  welfare  of  our  subjects  than  of  our  own.  It 
would  seem  that  they  are  a  part  of  ourselves,  for 
they  are  the  members  of  a  body  of  which  we  are 
the  head.  It  is  only  for  their  advantage  that  we 
should  make  laws  for  them,  and  our  power  over 
them  should  be  exercised  solely  for  their  well  being. 
.  .  .  The  position  of  a  king  is  great,  noble,  and 
flattering,  when  the  king  feels  that  he  can  fulfill  all 
the  engagements  into  which  he  has  entered.  .  .  . 
When  the  king  has  the  State  before  his  mind,  he 
labors  for  himself :  the  welfare  of  one  is  the  glory 


*  Saint-Simon:  "Memoires,"  vol. xxiv, p.  84, edit.  1840.   See 
"Letters  of  Guy  Patin,"  vol.  ii,  cited  by  Barthelemy,  loc.  cit, 
f  Loc.  cit.,  p.  3. 


120  "7  am  the  State.'9 

of  the  other.     When  the  State  is  prosperous  and' 
powerful,  he  who  is  the  cause  of  all  this  is  glorious, 
and   he    consequently  enjoys,  even  more  than  his 
subjects,  the  agreeable  side  of  life." 

And  Henri  Martin  admits  that  in  these  '  'Mem- 
oirs," "Louis  reveals  himself  entirely,  as  he  was 
during  the  first  and  best  part  of  his  reign.  He 
shows  great  good  sense,  an  honesty  which  fails  only 
in  some  thorny  paths  of  diplomacy,  very  religious 
sentiments,  and  ideas  as  clear  as  his  views  are  firm. 
We  realize  that  the  man  was  truly  born  for  empire 
who  could  write  such  words  concerning  the  severe 
enjoyments  of  labor  and  of  duty,  and  on  the  noble 
pleasure  of  governing.  He  seemed  to  thoroughly 
understand  the  obligations  of  the  head  of  the  State, 
and  that  the  national  unity  was  personified  in  him- 
self. He  feared  flatterers,  and  tried  to  avoid  them. 
The  pride  which  sometimes  manifests  itself  in  his 
grave  and  haughty  language  may  be  accounted  for 
by  the  testimony  of  his  satisfied  conscience."* 


*  "I  have  almost  had  to  wait — J'ai  failli  attentive,"  is  an- 
other phrase  which  is  often  ascribed  to  the  exquisitely  polite 
Louis  XIV.  Such  a  petitesse  would  not  have  escaped  the 
notice  of  the  crotchety  Duke  de  Saint-Simon,  but  he  tells  us, 
on  the  contrary,  in  his  "Memoires,"  vol.  xii,  that  "the  king 
never  allowed  an  uncomplaisant  word  to  escape  him,  and  if 
he  had  to  reprimand  or  correct,  which  rarely  happened,  he 
always  did  so  with  more  or  less  of  kindness,  never  with  anger, 
and  seldom  with  asperity." 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  INQUISITION. 

I. 

Since  the  Church  is  the  sole  depositary  and  inter- 
preter of  revealed  divine  truth  on  earth,  ought  she 
not  use  every  legitimate  means  to  prevent  the  propa- 
gation of  error?  This  is  the  most  available  argu- 
ment wherewith  to  defend  the  Inquisition;  and  its 
force  can  be  diminished  only  by  insisting  on  the 
illegitimacy  of  the  tribunal,  and  of  its  methods,  as 
means  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  the  Christian 
body .  In  the  Middle  Age  every  person  who  impeded 
the  progress  of  religion,  or  who  placed  an  obstacle 
in  his  neighbor's  path  to  heaven,  was  regarded  as  an 
enemy  to  society.  The  civil  law  was  supposed  to 
protect  the  faith  as  much  as,  if  not  more  than,  life 
or  property.  The  use  of  force  to  prevent  a  heretic 
from  sowing  the  seeds  of  religious  dissension  in  a 
united  community,  seemed  to  be  no  less  legitimate 
than  resistance  to  a  foreign  invader  or  a  domestic 
highwayman.  Nor  did  this  idea  first  manifest  itself 
in  the  so-called  Dark  Ages:  from  the  day  when 
Constantine  gave  liberty  to  the  Church,  we  hear  the 
Fathers  insisting  that  repression  of  error  is  a  proper 
defence  against  persecution  and  seduction.  This 
repression  was  not  always  exercised  in  the  same 
manner:  it  varied  according  to   the  exigencies  of 

121 


122  The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition* 

the  public  weal.  We  find  instances  of  "conten- 
tious" and  coercive  jurisdiction  enforced  by  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  in  the  very  first  days  of 
Christianity.  The  lying  Ananias  and  Saphira  fall 
dead  at  the  imperious  voice  of  St.  Peter;  an  inces- 
tuous man  is  consigned  to  the  vexations  of  the 
demon  ;  St.  Polycarp  styles  Marcion,  who  seeks  his 
friendship,  the  first-born  of  Satan  ;*  and  St.  Ignatius 
commends  the  zeal  of  those  Corinthians  who  so 
detested  heresy  that  they  would  not  allow  its  pro- 
fessors to  pass  through  their  territories.!  In  the 
Code  of  Justinian  we  read  many  decrees  of  the  early 
Christian  emperors  in  defence  of  the  integrity  of 
the  faith;  Constantine  issued  two,  Valentinian  I. 
one,  Gratian  two,  Theodosius  I.  fifteen,  Yalentinian 
II.  three.  Constantine  pursued  the  Donatists  with 
fines  and  confiscations, %  and  burned  the  books  of 
the  Arians.  Theodosius  banished  heretics, §  and 
Honorius  ordered  the  scourging  and  imprisonment 
of  Jovinian  and  his  followers,  after  their  condemna- 
tion by  Pope  Siricius.||  St.  Augustine  speaks  of 
having  received  from  the  deacon  Quod  Vult  Deus 
a  copy  of  the  proceedings  of  an  inquisition  held  at 
Carthage  against  certain  Manicheans;H  and  he  him- 
self proceeded  against  the  subdeacon  Yictorinus,  a 
Manichean,  and  after  a  formal  trial  degraded  him 


*  Irenseus,  b.  iii,  c.  3.  f  Epist.  to  Ephes. 

%  Optatus  of  Milevi,  b.  iii. 

§  Baronio,  y.  383,  no.  34.  ||  Idem,  y.  390,  no.  47. 

1  "Heresies,"  to  Quod  Vult  Deus,  c.  46. 


The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition.  123 

and  procured  his  banishment  from  Hippo.*  St. 
Epiphanius  gives  an  account  of  the  process  insti- 
tuted by  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria  against  Arius, 
which  is  interesting  because  of  the  close  resem- 
blance of  its  forms  to  those  used  by  the  modern 
Inquisition.!  The  same  Saint  tells  us  that  he  en- 
deavored to  discover  Gnostics,  and  that  hence 
6  i fifty  were  exiled,  leaving  the  city  free  from  their 
thorns. "J  In  fact,  there  occur,  during  the  first 
centuries  of  Christianity,  so  many  instances  of 
inquisitorial  action  against  heretics,  that  the  Fran- 
ciscan De  Castro,  writing  at  the  time  of  the  Kefor- 
mation,  could  well  say  that  the  system  "was  not 
introduced  only  three  hundred  years  ago,  as  Luther 
asserts:  it  originated  a  thousand  years  ago,  and 
we  may  infer  that  it  came  down  from  apostolic 
times."  § 

The  Inquisition  never  attempted  to  force  a  pro- 
fession of  Christianity  on  infidels  or  Jews;  in  order 
that  heresy  should  be  punishable,  it  was  necessary 
that  a  sufficiently  instructed  Christian  should  per- 
severe in  error,  and  manifest  in  action  his  opposition 
to  the  authority  of  the  Church.  St.  Thomas  of 
Aquin,  asking  whether  infidels  can  be  compelled  to 
accept  the  faith,  replies  that  "they  are  in  no  way  to 
be  forced  to  believe,  for  belief  is  from  the  will;"|| 
and  he  contends  that  the  worship  of  heretics  is  to 


*  Epist.  236  alias  74.  t  4tHeresies,"  69. 

t  Ibi.,  26,  no.  17. 

§  "Just  Punishment  of  Heretics,"  Paris,  1565. 

||  Surama  Theol.,  q.  10,  art.  8. 


124         The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition, 

be  tolerated,  just  as  God  tolerates  certain  evils,  that 
man  may  not  lose  his  liberty.  Suarez  gives  as  the 
common  teaching  of  theologians  the  doctrine  that 
* 'infidels  who  are  not  apostates  ought  not  to  be  com- 
pelled to  embrace  the  faith,  even  though  they  have 
acquired  a  suflicient  knowledge  of  it . "  The  Council 
of  Trent  declares  that  "the  Church  judges  no  one 
who  has  not  entered  her  fold  by  Baptism."* 

In  the  early  ages  of  the  Church  the  penalty  of 
death  was  seldom  inflicted  upon  heretics.  The 
Emperor  Maximus  was  the  first  Christian  prince 
to  adopt  this  questionable  method  of  preserving 
religious  unity.  In  385  he  put  to  death  Priscillian, 
Bishop  of  A vila,  two  priests,  two  deacons,  the 
poet  Latronianus,  and  Eucrosia,  a  matron ;  and  it 
is  to  be  noted  that  the  bishops  who  took  part 
in  this  condemnation  were  reproved  by  their  col- 
leagues. Again,  when  the  tribune  Marceliinus  was 
about  to  condemn  certain  Donatists  who  had  shed 
Catholic  blood,  St.  Augustine  interceded  for  them; 
and  when  Honorius  published  a  bloody  law  against 
Donatists  and  Jews,  the  same  Saint  wrote  to  the 
proconsul  that  if  any  death  sentences  were  executed 
no  ecclesiastic  would  ever  again  denounce  heretics.! 
However,  this  holy  Doctor  afterward  approved  of 
the  imperial  rigor,  J  and  in  his  "Ketractations"  he 
wrote:  "I  composed  two  books  against  the  Donat- 
ists,  in   which   I   said  that   I   did  not  like  to  see 


Sess.4,c.  2.  f  Epist.  100.  %  Epist.93. 


The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition,         125 

secular  force  used  to  compel  schismatics  to  com- 
munion ;  for  I  had  not  yet  discovered  how  impunity 
adds  to  the  audacity  of  evil,  and  how  quickness  of 
punishment  helps  to  ameliorate."*  And  elsewhere : 
"See  what  they  do,  and  what  they  suffer.  They 
kill  souls,  and  suffer  in  their  bodies;  they  produce 
eternal  death,  and  complain  of  a  temporal  one.  .  .  . 
If  thou  hast  suffered  affliction  from  the  Catholic 
Church,  oh,  faction  of  Donatus !  thou  hast  suffered 
like  Hagar  from  Sarah.     Return  to  thy  mistress  ! " f 

The  first  modern  law  decreeing  death  as  penalty 
for  heresy  was  promulgated  by  the  Emperor  Fred- 
erick II.,  who,  strange  to  say,  was  himself  strongly 
suspected  of  infidelity,  and  is  lauded  by  our  con- 
temporary liberals  as  a  model  for  anti-clericals.  In 
1220,  at  the  time  of  his  coronation,  this  monarch 
declared  that  he  "would  use  the  sword  received  by 
him  from  God  against  the  enemies  of  the  faith;" 
and  he  orderd  that  all  heretics  in  Lombardy  should 
be  burned,  or  deprived  of  their  tongues.  In  1231, 
publishing  his  "Constitutions  for  the  Kingdom  of 
Sicily,"  the  same  Frederick  placed  heresy  "among 
other  public  crimes,"  and  ranked  it  as  more  grievous 
than  high-treason. 

It  has  been  asserted  that  Pope  Innocent  III. 
founded  the  Inquistion ;  that  he  received  the  idea 
from  St.  Dominic,  and  that  this  holy  man  was  the 
first  inquisitor.     Innocent  III.  certainly  appointed 


*  B.  ii,  c.  5.  f  Tract  on  John,  no.  15, 


126         The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition, 

Rainer  and  Guy  as  inquisitors  of  the  faith  during 
the  Albigensian  troubles ;  but  the  Inquisition  does 
not  appear  as  a  recognized  tribunal  before  the  pon- 
tificate of  Gregory  IX.,  and  in  the  year  1229.  As 
for  St.  Dominic,  he  died  in  12215  and  the  Preaching 
Friars  were  not  entrusted  with  the  Inquisition  until 
1233.  Again,  Theodoric  of  Apolda  tells  us  that  the 
Saint  opposed  the  Albigensians  with  " words,  exam- 
ple, and  miracles ; "  and,  finally,  these  heretics  then 
needed  no  Inquisition ;  they  were  not  occult,  but  de- 
claimed their  errors  in  public.  The  origin  of  the 
Inquisition  is  found  in  the  synod  held  at  Toulouse 
in  1229,  under  the  presidency  of  the  Cardinal  Ro- 
mano di  Sant'  Angelo,  who  had  accompanied  the 
reconciled  Count  Raymond  VII.  to  his  restored 
capital,  in  order  to  see  that  he  fulfilled  his  promises. 
The  Cardinal  ordained  that  the  bishops  should  ap- 
point, in  each  parish,  a  priest  and  two  or  three 
laymen  of  good  standing,  who  would  swear  to 
' 'inquire  for"  heretics,  and  to  make  them  known 
to  the  magistrates;  the  harborers  of  heretics  were 
to  be  punished,  and  the  houses  in  which  they  were 
voluntarily  received  were  to  be  destroyed.  The  in- 
stitution of  this  tribunal  was  certainly  an  improve- 
ment on  the  previous  system ;  for  thenceforth  an 
inquiry  was  conducted  by  ecclesiastics,  more  learned 
and  less  harsh  than  the  civil  authorities.  The  in- 
quisitors admonished  twice  before  they  proceeded 
to  arrests.  Whoever  abjured  was  pardoned;  fre- 
quently moral  punishment  only  was  inflicted,  whereas 
the  secular  tribunals  would  inevitably  have  imposed 


The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition.         127 

corporal  chastisement.  At  the  instance  of  St.  Ray- 
mond of  Pennafort,  Pope  Gregory  IX.  deprived  the 
bishops  of  the  right  of  inquisition,  and  conferred  it 
on  the  friars,  whose  power  was  felt  not  only  by 
every  layman,  but  by  all  the  clergy.  When  the 
inquisitor  arrived  in  a  town,  he  convoked  the 
magistrates  and  caused  them  to  swear  to  execute 
the  decrees  against  heresy;  in  case  of  refusal, 
suspension  from  office  was  the  lot  of  the  recalcitrant ; 
and  if  the  pople  interfered,  an  interdict  was  launched 
against  the  place.  The  denunciations  could  not  be 
anonymous,  and  a  period  was  accorded  to  the 
accused  within  which  to  present  himself  at  the 
tribunal;  if  he  did  not,  he  was  cited.  In  the  pre- 
paratory examination,  the  witnesses  were  heard  be- 
fore a  notary  and  two  ecclesiastics ;  if  the  accused 
appeared  guilty,  he  was  arrested,  his  residence  was 
searched,  and  his  property  sequestrated. 

In  the  "Maestruzza" — a  summary  on  the  Sacra- 
ments and  Commandments,  written  in  1338  for  the 
use  of  the  inquisitors,  by  the  Dominican  Barthol- 
omew da  San  Concordio — we  read:  " According  to 
the  civil  law,  soothsayers  and  witches  should  be 
burned;  but  according  to  the  Church,  they  should 
be  deprived  of  Communion,  if  their  crime  be  notori- 
ous ;  if  it  is  secret,  they  should  receive  a  penance  of 
forty  days  (c.  42).  The  inquisitors  can  not  inter- 
fere with  soothsayers  and  sorcerers,  unless  heresy  is 
plainly  to  be  feared.  Those  who  relapse  into  heresy 
after  having  abjured  it,  should  be  delivered  to  the 


128         The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition, 

secular  power  (c.  91)."  The  crime,  therefore,  was 
a  civil  one.  The  Church  mitigated  its  punishment; 
for  she  absolved  the  penitent,  and  even  tried  to 
regain  the  relapse.  The  inquisitor  had  to  declare 
that  the  accused  was  really  a  heretic,  and  therefore 
separated  from  the  Church;  from  that  moment  he 
was  a  criminal  before  the  State;  and,  as  Cantu  re- 
marks, the  State  did  not  execute  the  sentences  of 
the  Inquisition,  but  applied  the  penalties  established 
by  the  law. 

In  1255  Pope  Alexander  III.  established  the 
Inquisition  in  France,  with  the  consent,  or  rather  at 
the  request,  of  St.  Louis ;  and  the  office  of  grand- 
inquisitor  was  conferred  on  the  Dominican  pro- 
vincial and  on  the  guardian  of  the  Franciscans  of 
Paris.  According  to  the  Bull  of  their  institution, 
these  inquisitors  were  independent  of  the  bishops ; 
but  so  displeasing  was  the  new  jurisdiction  to  both 
the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  authorities,  that  the  friars 
soon  found  themselves  adorned  with  a  useless  title.* 
In  Venice  the  Inquisition  was  introduced  in  1289 ; 
but  it  should  not  be  confounded  with  the  Venetian 
Inquisition  of  State,  a  purely  political  institution, 
founded  in  1454.  The  Inquisition  in  Venice  was, 
from  its  very  commencement,  dependent  upon  the 


*  Bergier,  art.  "Inquisition." — Bergier  complacently  con- 
gratulates his  countrymen  upon  their  freedom  from  the 
obnoxious  tribunal,  but  he  omits  to  state  that  the  civil  authori- 
ties of  France  furnished  the  world  with  spectacular  "acts  of 
faith"  in  quite  modern  times.  Thus,  on  Feb.  17,  1525,  in  the 
Place  Maubert  at  Paris?  the  licentiate.  Master  William  Joubert, 


Tlie   Truth  About  the  Inquisition.  129 

civil  authorities;  and  in  the  sixteenth  century  it  was 
prevented  from  undertaking  any  process  whatever 
without  the  assistance  of  three  senators.  In  English 
history  this  tribunal  does  not  figure,  although  the 
English  bishops,  like  all  the  other  ordinaries  of 
Christendom,  frequently  exercised  inquisitorial 
power.  In  Germany  it  never  obtained  a  foothold, 
and  consequently  heresy  was  left  to  the  rigors  of 
the  imperial  laws  in  those  regions. 

The  "Supreme  Eoman  Inquisition,"  or  tribunal  of 
the  "Holy  Office,"  was  created  on  July  21, 1542,  by 
a  Bull,  "Licet  ab  initio ,"  of  Pope  Paul  III.,  and  at 
the  suggestion  of  Cardinal  Caraffa,  afterward  Pope 
Paul  IV.  At  Koine  it  was  composed  of  Domin- 
icans; but  in  some  countries,  of  Franciscans. 
Paul  IV.  decreed  that  the  Inquisition  should  here- 
after depend,  not  from  each  bishop,  but  from  this 
Congregation,  which  was  authorized  to  judge  defin- 
itively in  all  matters  of  heresy  on  both  sides  of  the 
Alps.  Sixtus  V.  reorganized  the  Holy  Office,  con- 
stituting twelve  cardinals  as  its  members,  under  the 
presidency  of  the  Pontiff.  It  received  faculties  to 
inquire  for  heretics,  or  those  suspected  of  heresy, 
and  their  abettors;  to  prosecute  magicians,  astrol- 
ogers, etc. ;  also  to  prosecute  all  abusers  of  the 
Sacraments,  all  writers  or  possessors  of  prohibited 
books,  all  who  abstained  from  confession  or  who  ate 


after  having  made  a  public  recantation  in  the  Church  of  St. 
Genevieve,  was  given  to  the  flames  because  of  his  former 
Lutheranism. 


130         The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

forbidden  food,  polygamists,  and  many  other  offend- 
ers. That  the  methods  of  the  Holy  Office  were 
only  the  customary  ones  of  the  time,  and  by  no 
means  secret,  is  evident  from  its  Code.  We  have 
the  ' 'Directory  for  Inquisitors,"  by  the  Dominican 
Eymeric  (Rome,  1587);  the  "Duty  of  the  Holy 
Inquisition,  and  its  Mode  of  Proceeding  in  Causes 
of  Faith"  (Cremona,  1641),  by  Carena  Cesare; 
and  the  "Compendium  of  the  Art  of  Exorcism," 
by  Mengius.  The  "Directory"  was  translated  in 
1762,  by  Morellet,  with  intent  to  injure  the 
Church;  but  the  celebrated  Malesherbes  said  to 
him:  "You  think  that  you  have  collected  extra- 
ordinary facts,  unheard  of  proceedings.  Know, 
then,  that  this  jurisprudence  of  Eymeric  and  of  the 
Inquisition  is  very  nearly  our  own."*  From  these 
documents  we  learn  that  the  Holy  Office  allowed  to 
each  of  the  accused  a  "procurator,"  who  had  full 
liberty  to  communicate  with  his  client,  and  to  con- 
duct his  defence;  but  we  must  admit  that  some- 
times the  inquisitors  did  "not  allow  the  notaries  to 
give  copies  of  the  Acts  of  the  Holy  Office,  unless 
to  the  accused;  and  then  without  the  names  of 
the  witnesses,  and  without  any  particulars  which 
might  indicate  the  names  to  the  accused. "t     How- 


*  Morellet  says,  in  his  "Memoirs,"  vol.  i,  59:  "I  was  con- 
founded at  this  assertion,  but  afterward  I  found  that  he  was 
right." 

f  "Short  Account  of  the  Manner  of  Prosecuting  the  Causes 
of  the  Holy  Office,  by  the  Kev.  Vicars  of  the  Holy  Inquisition 
of  Modena,"  cited  by  Cantu,  in  his  "Heretics of  Italy^"  disc. 
32,  note  63. 


The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition.         131 

ever,  this  now  reprehensible  secrecy  was  com- 
mon to  all  the  tribunals  of  those  days;  and  the 
Protestant  Jeremy  Bentham  admits  that,  in  many 
cases,  such  secrecy  may  be  absolutely  necessary 
to  public  security.*  The  Inquisition  was  extended 
also  to  the  Jews,  not  to  persecute  them,  but  to 
prevent  them  from  propagating  their  errors,  and 
from  committing  the  alleged  crimes  against  which 
the  credulous  then  raged,  just  as  to-day  the  cred- 
ulous fume  on  recalling  the  6 'atrocities"  of  the 
Holy  Office.t 

There  is  a  great  diversity  of  opinion,  even  among 
Catholic  authors,  as  to  the  severity  or  mildness  of 
the  Roman  Inquisition.  Bergier  says  that  "no 
instance  is  known  of  an  execution  (for  heresy)  at 
Rome."  The  late  Archbishop  Spalding,  in  an  ad- 
mirable refutation  of  Prescott's  allegations  against 
the  Spanish  Inquisition,  says  that  "though  three 
hundred  years  have  elapsed  since  the  establishment 
of  this  court  (the  Holy  Office),  it  would  be  difficult 
to  point  to  an  instance  in  which  it  ever  pronounced 
sentence  of  capital  punishment."  De  Maistre  tells 
us  that  "it  is  impossible  to  ascertain  precisely  at 
what  epoch  the  inquisitorial  tribunal  first  pronounced 
a  capital  condemnation.  It  is  fully  sufficient  for 
our  purpose,  however,  to  be  convinced  of  an  incon- 
testable fact :  that  it  never  could  have  acquired  this 


*  '-Works,"  vol.  ii,  p.  191;  and  passim. 

f  The  good  Sadoleto,  called  the  Italian  Fenelon,  in  a  letter 
to  Cardinal  Farnese,  laments  that  the  Jews  were  treated  too 
kindly  at  Rome,  and  protected  by  Paul  III. 


132         The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition, 

right  until  it  became  exclusively  a  royal  or  political 
institution  ;  and  that  every  judgment  which  affects 
life  in  any  degree  was,  is,  and  must  ever  be,  most 
conscientiously  discountenanced  by  the  Church.  .  .  . 
The  Inquisition  never  condemns  to  death."  But 
Cantu  gives  many  instances  of  capital  punishment 
awarded  by  the  Roman  Inquisition.  Tiepolo,  Vene- 
tian ambassador  at  Eome,  describes  an  "Act  of 
Faith"  (auto  dafe,  atto  di  fede)  performed  in  that 
city  on  September  27, 1567,  when  the  famous  Mgr. 
Carnesecchi,  together  with  a  friar  of  Belluno,  having 
persisted  in  heresy,  were  decapitated  and  their 
bodies  burned.  Averardo  Serristori,  Florentine  am- 
bassador, writes  that  the  sentence  of  Carnesecchi 
was  pronounced  by  the  Cardinals  of  Trani  and  of 
Pisa,  Paceco  and  Gambura.*  Cantu  cites  another 
dispatch  of  Tiepolo,  describing  an  Act  of  May  28, 
1569,  when,  in  presence  of  twenty-two  cardinals, 
four  impenitents  were  given  to  the  flames.  In  a 
dispatch  of  February  24, 1585,  the  Venetian  resident 
at  Eome  speaks  of  a  "publication"  of  seventeen 
inquisiti  by  the  Holy  Office  in  presence  of  many 


*  "Embassy  of  Averardo  Serristori,  ambassador  of  Cosimo 
I.  to  Charles  V.  and  at  the  Court  of  Eome,"  1537-1568;  Flor- 
ence, 1853 — Carnesecchi  had  been  excommunicated  as  con- 
tumacious by  Paul  IV.;  under  Pius  IV.  he  defended  himself 
so  well  that  he  was  absolved  and  acknowledged  as  a  good 
Catholic.  But  he  soon  became  notorious  as  a  teacher  of  the 
Reformed  doctrines,  and  Pius  V.  obtained  his  extradition  from 
the  Grand-Duke  Cosimo  I.,  whose  subject  he  was.  His  pro- 
cess is  very  interesting,  as  furnishing  many  particulars  con- 
cerning Cardinal  Pole,  Victoria  Colonna,  and  others  of  the 
same  school. 


The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition.  133 

cardinals ;  three  of  the  accused  were  condemned  to 
the  stake.  In  fine,  although  many  letters  of  the 
time  narrate  alleged  atrocities  of  the  Holy  Office 
which  are  merely  founded  on  the  exaggerations  of 
the  mob,*  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  the 
Roman  tribunal  condemned  many  heretics  to  death. 
It  is  certain,  however,  that  mildness  was  the  general 
characteristic  of  the  Holy  Office.  Cousin,  in  his 
"Memoire  on  Vanini,"  shows  that  the  friends  of  this 
wretched  hypocrite  f  tried  to  have  his  case  trans- 
ferred to  the  Roman  Inquisition,  feeling  that  thus 
he  would  escape  capital  punishment.  And  history 
furnishes  many  instances  of  criminals  feigning  guilt 
of  heresy,  sorcery,  or  similar  crimes,  in  order  to 
pass  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisition.  The 
case  of  Campanella  is  celebrated.  His  clerical  com- 
rades in  the  Calabrian  conspiracy  against  the  Spanish 
crown  escaped  death  by  pleading  guilty  of  heresy, 
and  being  therefore  consigned  to  the  Inquisition ; 
while  he  himself,  after  twenty-seven  years  of  con- 
finement, was  saved  by  Pope  Urban  VIII.  having 
insisted  on  his  trial  on  the  charge  of  sorcery.  J 

The  word  "inquisition,"  as  met  in  history,  has 
three  very  different   significations.     It  may  mean 


*  De  Thou  writes  that  during  the  reign  of  Sixtus  V.  Mureto 
told  him :  "Whenever  I  awake  I  dread  lest  I  shall  hear  that 
such  a  one  is  no  more."  The  assertion  is  false;  for  Mureto 
died  in  1585,  shortly  after  the  election  of  Sixtus  V.,  and  De 
Thou  was  then  residing  in  France. 

f  Leibnitz  deemed  him  insane. 

X  The  great  mathematician  was  acquitted;  he  was  enrolled 
in  the  Papal  household,  and  an  annual  pension  assigned  him. 


134  The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition, 

either  a  religious,  apolitical,  or  a  mixed  tribunal. 
All  bishops,  as  inquirers  into  the  purity  of  faith 
in  their  respective  dioceses,  exercise  a  religious  in- 
quisition. The  political  inquisition  can  meet  with 
no  opposition,  unless  from  those  who  decry  every 
species  of  government,  even  such  as  obtains  among 
savages;  for  all  governments  employ  some  sort  of 
police.  But  when  there  is  question  of  the  mixed 
inquisition,  such  as  Eome  sanctioned  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  13th  century,  our  ears  are  deafened  with 
clamor.  When  the  Inquisition  is  condemned  by  a 
Catholic,  contending  that  the  Gospel  of  love  should 
have  prevented  violent  proceedings,  the  idea  may 
not  be  utterly  unreasonable;  but  we  must  remember 
that  intolerance  seems  to  be  inseparable  from  pro- 
found belief.  In  the  Middle  Age  faith  was  the 
very  life  of  society,  the  necessary  and  only  tie  which 
constituted  it;  it  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  the 
guardians  of  society  proceeded  to  the  last  extremity 
against  the  violators  of  the  faith.  Such  is  the 
explanation  which  we  tender  to  the  Catholic  who 
condemns  the  Inquisition.  But  when  a  Protestant 
attacks  this  tribunal,  he  betrays  either  ignorance 
and  misplaced  complacency  in  his  religious  prede- 
cessors, or  a  desire  to  prescribe  one  code  of  morality 
for  his  own  and  another  for  the  Catholic  Church. 


But  the  Spanish  residents  having  mobbed  him  several  times, 
he  repaired  to  France,  where  he  was  received  with  open  arms 
by  Cardinal  Richelieu,  and  made  a  counsellor  of  state.  He 
became  president  of  the  newly  founded  Royal  Academy  of 
France. 

J 


The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition.         135 

Luther,  according  to  his  enthusiastic  apologist, 
Seckendorf,  would  have  imprisoned,  banished,  and 
despoiled  all  the  Jews,  and  would  even  have  de- 
prived them  of  the  Bible.  Calvin  banished  the 
Carmelite  apostate,  Bolsec,  because  this  unfortunate 
proved  that  the  heresiarch's  doctrines  made  God  the 
author  of  sin ;  and  it  was  not  Calvin's  fault  that  the 
daring  man  was  not  capitally  punished  as  a  Pelagian. 
The  death  of  Servetus  at  the  stake;  the  condem- 
nation of  Gentile  to  death,  which  he  avoided  for  a 
time  by  recantation;  the  banishment  of  Ochino; 
the  persecutions  of  Biandrata;  and  Calvin's  own 
book  on  the  errors  of  Servetus,  in  which,  according 
to  the  title-page,  "it  is  taught  that  heretics  are  to 
be  coerced  by  the  sword," — all  these  facts  should 
cause  the  Protestant  polemic  to  be  less  bitter  in  his 
diatribes  against  the  Inquisition.*  The  "gentle" 
Melancthon  hoped  that  some  brave  man  would 
merit  glory  by  assassinating  Henry  VIII. ,  and  he 
himself  approved  the  execution  of  Servetus:  "The 
magistracy  of  the  republic  of  Geneva  gave,  by  put- 
ting Servetus  out  of  the  way,  a  pious  and  memorable 


*  The  reforming  princes  of  Germany  and  Sweden  were  foes 
to  toleration ;  they  had  arrogated  to  themselves  all  power  in 
religious  matters,  and  would  have  but  one  religion  in  their 
dominions.  Their  motto  was  Ejus  religio  cujus  regio.  Calvin, 
most  stubborn  of  foes  to  a  separation  of  Church  and  state,  in- 
voked against  dissenters  the  penalty  of  death,  because,  as  he 
asserted,  no  one  can  refuse  to  acknowledge  the  authority  of 
princes  over  the  Church  .without  injury  to  the  governments 
established  by  God.  Those  Protestants  who  would  claim 
Savonarola  as  one  of  the  precursors  of  the  Lutheran  revolt 
should  know  that  the  friar  was  no  friend  to  toleration.     Dis- 


136  The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

example  to  all  posterity."*  Beza  wrote  a  book  in 
defence  of  the  thesis  that  "liberty  of  conscience  is 
a  doctrine  of  the  devil;"  and  article  36  of  the 
"Helvetic  Confession"  reads:  "Let  the  magistrates 
draw  the  sword  against  all  blasphemers,  and  coerce 
the  heretics."!  But  we  do  not  wish,  in  this  matter, 
to  reprove  Protestants  or  to  excuse  Catholics ;  we 
rather  say  with  Cantu:  "We  seek  and  explain  the 
truth ;  and,  reflecting  that  persecution  was  peculiar 
to  that  time,  as  toleration  is  said  to  be  peculiar  to 
ours,  and  that  the  fury  of  the  persecutors  attests 
their  sincerity,  we  lament  the  facts,  and  recur  to 
that  principle  which  is  infallible.  The  Council  of 
Trent  speaks  not  of  Inquisition  or  of  stakes,  though 
it  pronounces  anathema  on  the  unbeliever;  but 
whenever  humanity  carries  out  a  great  design,  it 
becomes  prodigal  of  blood." 


II. 

We  now  approach  the  subject  of  the  Spanish 
Inquisition,  a  tribunal  which  is  often,  and  wrongly, 
confounded  with  the  Eoman,  and  about  which, 
reprehensible  though  it  was,  there  are  probably  as 

puting  against  astrologists,  he  exclaimed:  "Oh,  ye  foolish 
and  insensate  astrologists !  the  only  way  to  argue  with  you  is 
the  use  of  fire."     ("Tract  against  Astrologers,"  c.  3.) 

*  "On  Servetus,"  1555. — "Corpus  Keform,"  viii,  523;  ix, 
133. 

t  At  this  day,  says  Cantu,  they  show  at  Dresden  the  axe 
which  the  Lutherans  used  against  dissenters,  and  on  it  is  in- 
scribed: „$uf  bttfj,  (Satuurift!" 


The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition.         137 

many  popular  misconceptions  as  upon  any  matter 
of  history.  The  misstatements  of  all  modern  en- 
emies of  the  Church  concerning  this  tribunal  are 
traceable  either  to  Mme.  d'Aunoy's  Hispanophobic 
book,  or  to  Philip  Limborch,  or  to  John  Anthony 
Llorente.  The  falsehoods  of  Mme.  d'Aunoy  and 
of  Limborch  were  admirably  refuted  by  De  Vayrac,* 
and  his  work  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  ever  writ- 
ten on  the  subject.  Hefele's  book  on  "Cardinal 
Ximenes,"  etc.,  can  not  be  too  warmly  recom- 
mended to  the  student.  Cantu  is  by  no  means 
sparing  of  the  Spanish  tribunal ;  but  the  thoroughly 
Catholic  tone  of  his  philosophical  reflections,  and 
his  evident  impartiality,  render  an  attentive  study 
of  his  views  on  this  subject  more  satisfactory,  at 
least  to  our  mind,  than  that  of  any  other  author. 

After  780  years  of  combat,  the  Spaniards  had 
saved  their  Catholicism  and  nationality — with  them 
the  two  were  thoroughly  identified  —  from  the 
Moors.  At  first  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion 
was  allowed  to  the  conquered ;  but  after  they  had 
repeatedly  revolted,  and  had  made  many  attempts  to 
procure  another  Mohammedan  invasion  from  Africa, 
the  Spanish  sovereigns  ordered,  in  1501,  that  all 
the  Moors  should  leave  Castile  and  Granada,  sav- 
ing those  who  would  embrace  Christianity.  Most 
of  the  Moors  received  baptism,  but  many  secretly 
apostatized,  while  others  adulterated  their  Christian 


"Present  State  of  Spain,"  Amsterdam,  1719. 


IBB  The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

rites  with  Mohammedan  practices.  At  this  time  the 
Spanish  government,  which  for  more  than  a  century 
had  resisted  the  popular  demands  for  the  banish- 
ment of  the  Jews,  resolved  to  acquiesce,  alleging 
as  a  reason  a  league  of  all  the  foes  of  Christianity 
against  the  freedom  of  Spain.  All  good  Spaniards 
yearned  for  a  means  of  cementing  the  religious  and 
political  unity  of  the  nation ;  and  that  means  seemed 
to  be  offered  by  the  Inquisition,  which  had  been  in- 
troduced into  Spain  in  1480  in  the  following  man- 
ner :  The  island  of  Sicily  having  been  added  to  the 
Spanish  dominions  in  1479,  the  Sicilian  inquisitor, 
De  Barbaris,  asked  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  for  a 
confirmation  of  the  right,  granted  by  Frederick  II. 
to  the  Inquisition,  to  appropriate  a  third  of  all  the 
property  confiscated  from  heretics.  While  urging 
his  demand,  De  Barbaris  advised  the  sovereigns  to 
introduce  the  Inquisition  into  Spain,  as  a  measure 
against  the  Moorish  and  Jewish  apostates,  who, 
even  at  this  time,  long  before  the  decree  of  banish- 
ment, were  numerous,  and  about  whom  every  in- 
famy was  narrated.  Isabella  opposed  the  project 
until  she  was  persuaded  that  it  would  further  the 
salvation  of  souls ;  Ferdinand  saw  in  it  a  means  to 
replenish  his  treasury,  and  immediately  consented.  ' 
When  Pope  Sixtus  IV.  heard  of  Ferdinand's  action,  " 
he  was  so  displeased  that  he  placed  the  Spanish  . 
ambassador  under  arrest ;  in  retaliation,  Ferdinand 
arrested  the  papal  envoy,  and  recalled  all  his  sub- 
jects from  the  Eoman  States. 


The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition.  139 

The  Pontiff  afterward  yielded,  and  allowed  the 
Inquisition  to  be  introduced  into  Castile  and  Ara- 
gon  (1480)  ;  later  on,  however,  touched  by  the  com- 
plaints that  reached  him  concerning  the  rigor  of  the 
tribunal,  he  declared  that  the  Bull  of  institution  was 
surreptitious.  He  admonished  the  inquisitors,  order- 
ing them  to  proceed  only  in  accord  with  the  bishops, 
and  not  to  extend  their  inquiries  into  the  other  prov- 
inces; he  also  instituted  a  papal  judge  to  hear  all 
appeals  from  the  Spanish  tribunal,  and  he  quashed 
many  of  its  indictments.  Ferdinand  and  Isabella, 
as  well  as  their  successor,  Charles  V.,  constantly  en- 
deavored to  elude  these  provisions  of  the  Holy  See; 
but  even  Llorente  admits  that  the  papal  appellate 
judges  often  restored  property  and  civil  rights  to 
those  whom  the  Inquisition  had  condemned;  and 
that  they  often  compelled  the  inquisitor,  to  absolve 
the  accused  privately,  in  order  to  save  them  from 
legal  punishment  and  public  ignominy. 

The  Dominican  friar  Thomas  de  Torquemada,*  of 
Valladolid,  was  chosen  to  preside  over  the  Supreme 
or  Royal  Council  of  the  Inquisition  of  Castile  and 
Aragon,  the  members  of  which  had  a  deliberative 
voice  in  all  matters  of  civil  law,  and  a  consultative 
one  in  affairs  of  canon  law.  Seville,  Cordova,  Jaen, 
and  Toledo  had  dependent  tribunals;  and  the  in- 
quisitors, with  two  royal  assessors,  published  a  code 


*  Not  to  be  confounded  with  his  uncle,  the  great  theologian, 
John,  Cardinal  Torquemada,  who  died  in  1468. 


140  The    Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

of  procedure.*  From  this  time  the  cloak  of  re- 
ligion covered  many  acts  of  tyranny  in  Spain.  The 
Eoman  Pontiffs  frequently  interfered ;  indeed  as  far 
back  as  the  pontificate  of  Nicholas  V.  (1447-55)  all 
distinction  between  new  and  old  Christians  had 
been  condemned.  Sixtus  IV.,  Innocent  VIII.,  and 
Leo  X.  received  appeals  from  the  decisions  of 
the  inquisitors,  and  reminded  them  of  the  prodigal 
son.  Julius  II.  and  Leo  X.  dispensed  many  from 
the  obligation  of  wearing  the  sambenito,  or  peni- 
tential sack,  which  the  tribunal  imposed  on  all  the 
reconciled;  and  these  Pontiffs,  in  several  cases, 
ordered  the  signs  of  reprobation  to  be  removed 
from  the  tombs  of  the  condemned.     Leo    X.,    in 


*  The  first  three  articles  treated  of  the  composition  of  the 
tribunal  in  cities;  the  publication  of  censures  against  heretics 
and  apostates,  who  did  not  voluntarily  denounce  themselves; 
and  prescribed  a  further  term  of  grace  by  which  confiscation 
might  be  avoided.  IV.  Voluntary  confessions,  made  within 
the  term  of  grace,  were  to  be  written  in  answer  to  questions  of 
the  inquisitors.  V.  Absolution  could  not  be  given  iu  secret, 
unless  the  crime  was  secret..  VI.  A  reconciled  person  was  de- 
prived of  every  office  of  honor,  and  could  not  use  gold,  silver, 
pearls,  silk,  or  fine  wool.  VII.  Pecuniary  penances  were 
given  to  those  who  voluntarily  confessed.  VIII.  A  voluntary 
penitent,  presenting  himself  after  the  term  of  grace,  could  not 
be  exempted  from  the  confiscation  incurred  on  the  day  of  his 
apostasy  or  heresy.  IX.  Only  a  light  penance  was  given  to 
voluntary  penitents  who  were  not  yet  20  years  of  age.  X.  The 
time  of  a  penitent's  first  fall  was  to  be  particularized,  that  it 
might  be  ascertained  what  proportion  of  his  goods  should  be 
confiscated.  XI.  If  a  heretic,  confined  by  the  Inquisition, 
should  demand  absolution,  being  touched  by  sincere  repent- 
ance, it  was  to  be  granted;  but  his  penance  should  be  impris- 
onment for  life.   XII.   The  inquisitors  were  allowed  to  use  tor- 


The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition.  141 

spite  of  Charles  V.,  excommunicated  the  inquisitor 
of  Toledo  in  1519.  Paul  III.  encouraged  the 
Neapolitans  to  resist  Charles  V.  when  he  wished 
to  introduce  the  tribunal  among  them ;  and  when 
the  learned  Vives  was  condemned  as  suspected  of 
Lutheranism,  the  same  Pontiff  declared  him  in- 
nocent. Mureto,  the  great  Latinist  whom  the 
Spanish  Inquisition  would  have  sent  to  the  stake, 
was  called  to  Rome,  and  made  a  professor  in  the 
University. 

Diego  Deza,  successor  to  Torquemada,  persuaded 
the  Spanish  sovereigns  to  establish  the  tribunal  also 


ture  in  the  case  of  a  reconciled  person  whose  confession  they 
deemed  imperfect,  and  whose  penitence  they  deemed  it  neces- 
sary to  stimulate.   XIII.  Torture  was  also  permitted  in  the  case 
of  one  who  had  boasted  of  having  concealed  crimes  in  his  con- 
fession.    XIV.     A  convicted  person,  persisting  in  a  denial  of 
guilt,  was  to  be  condemned  as  impenitent.    XY.     If  a  per- 
son under  torture  confessed,   and  afterward    confirmed    his 
avowal,  he  was  to  be  condemned  as  one  convicted;  if  he  re- 
tracted, he  was  to  be  again  interrogated.    XVI.    It  was  pro- 
hibited to  furnish  the  accused  an  entire  copy  of  the  testimony 
against  him.     XVII.     The  witnesses  were  to  be  questioned 
by  the  inquisitors  themselves.    XVIII.     One  or  two  inquisi- 
tors were  to  be  present  at  every  examination.  XIX.  An  accused 
who  did  not  obey  a  formal  citation  was  to  be  condemned  as  a 
convicted  heretic.    XX.    If  his  conduct,  while  living,  showed 
that  any  person,  now  dead,  was  a  heretic,  he  was  to  be  con- 
demned as  such ;  his  body,  if  in  consecrated  ground,  was  to  be 
disinterred,  and  his  property  confiscated.    XXI.    The  inquisi- 
tors were  ordered  to  exercise  their  powers  over  the  vassals  of 
the  lords,  and  to  censure  the  latter  if  they  resisted.    XXII.    A 
portion  of  all  confiscated  property  was  to  be  given,  as  alms, 
to  the  heirs  of  the  condemned.    The  remaining  six  articles  re- 
garded the  conduct  of  the  inquisitors  among  themselves  and 
toward  their  subordinates. 


142  The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition, 

in  Granada,  but  Isabella  insisted  that  it  should  be 
confined  to  Cordova ;  afterward,  following  the  advice 
of  Ximenes,  the  sovereigns  bought  and  emancipated 
all  Moorish  slaves  who  would  become  Christians, 
and  thus  were  obtained  fifty  thousand  "new  Chris- 
tians." Under  Charles  V.  the  Inquisition  increased 
in  activity,  but  under  Philip  II.  it  attained  its  great- 
est development.  When  dying,  Charles  Y.  had 
earnestly  impressed  upon  the  mind  of  his  heir  the 
necessity  of  preserving  the  tribunal ;  and  so  well  did 
Philip  fulfill  his  father's  desire  that  the  power  of  the 
Inquisition  became  so  great  as  to  overshadow,  in 
some  respects,  that  of  Rome.  This  antagonism  is 
illustrated  by  the  celebrated  process  of  Carranza. 
Carranza  was  a  Dominican,  and  had  greatly  distin- 
guished himself  in  the  Council  of  Trent.  His  merit 
caused  him  to  be  promoted  to  the  see  of  Toledo  in 
1557 ;  but  his  genius  drew  upon  him  the  jealousy  of 
many,  and  he  was  accused  of  heresy.  For  this 
reason  Charles  Y.  received  him  rather  coldly  when 
he  approached  the  monarch's  death-bed  to  adminis- 
ter the  last  Sacraments.  The  accusers  of  Carranza 
insisted  that  after  the  death  of  the  Emperor  the 
Archbishop  lifted  a  crucifix  and  exclaimed  :  '  'Behold 
Him  who  has  saved  us  all !  Everything  is  forgiven 
through  his  merits;  there  is  no  longer  any  sin." 
For  such  expressions,  as  though  he  excluded  the  co- 
operation of  man  in  the  work  of  justification,  he  was 
arrested  on  August  22,  1559,  and  confined  in  the 
inquisitorial  prison  of  Yalladolid.  The  Holy  Office 
had  already  placed  .on  the  Index  his  "Comments  on 
the  Christian  Catechism,"  although  the  book  was 


The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition.  143 

dedicated  to  Philip  II.,  and  had  been  approved  by  a 
commission  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  Pius  IV.,  rig- 
orous though  he  was,  disapproved  of  the  conduct  of 
the  Inquisition,  and  called  the  casetoEome.  Philip, 
however,  declared  that  the  first  prelate  of  Spain 
should  be  tried  only  in  Spain,  and  the  Pontiff  com- 
promised by  sending  a  legate  and  two  other  judges 
to  conduct  the  examination.  But  the  inquisitors  con- 
trived to  prolong  the  investigation  until  St.  Pius  V. 
ascended  the  papal  throne.  This  Pontiff  repeat- 
edly complained  to  Philip  that  he  was  not  kept 
informed  of  the  progress  of  the  cause ;  and  finally, 
by  threatening  the  monarch  with  excommunication, 
succeeded  in  having  Carranza  sent  to  Eome.  This 
was  in  May,  1567,  after  nearly  eight  years  of  im- 
prisonment under  the  Spanish  inquisitors.* 


*  Carranza  was  honorably  lodged  in  Castel  San  Angelo. 
Four  cardinals,  four  bishops,  and  twelve  theological  doctors 
were  deputed  for  his  trial.  The  Pope  plainly  manifested  his 
indignation  at  the  conduct  of  the  Inquisition;  he  declared  that 
far  from  prohibiting  the  "Comments"  of  the  Archbishop,  he 
was  much  inclined  to  approve  of  the  work  by  a  motu-proprio . 
But  it  appears  certain  that  Carranza  had  at  least  rendered  him- 
self liable  to  suspicion.  In  1539  he  had  assisted,  as  "qualifica- 
tor"  of  the  Inquisition,  at  a  general  chapter  of  the  Dominican 
Order  at  Rome,  and  had  become  very  intimate  with  Flaminius 
and  other  suspects,  and  even  with  the  noted  heretic,  Carnesec- 
chi.  The  process  at  Rome  lasted  three  years ;  three  more  were 
spent  in  the  law's  delays,  and  only  in  1576  was  definitive  sen- 
tence pronounced  by  Gregory  XIII.  On  his  knees  before  the 
Pope,  Carranza  made  an  abjuration  of  all  heretical  doctrine, 
and  withdrew  fourteen  "evil-sounding"  propositions  taken 
from  his  writings.  He  was  suspended  from  episcopal  func- 
tions, and  ordered  to  reside  in  a  house  of  his  Order  at  Orvieto 
for  five  years,  after  having  visited  the  seven  basilicas  of  Rome. 
However,  he  died  a  few  days  afterward,  and  the  Pope  gave 
him  a  splendid  funeral. 


144         The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

Since  the  work  of  Llorente  is  generally  adduced 
as  an  authority  in  all  matters  concerning  the  Spanish 
Inquisition,  it  is  well  to  give  some  account  of  this 
famous  writer.  Born  of  a  noble  family  of  Aragon 
in  1756,  he  entered  the  priesthood  in  1779,  became 
vicar-general  of  the  diocese  of  Calahorrain  1782,  and 
was  appointed  secretary-general  of  the  Inquisition 
at  Madrid  in  1789.  From  his  early  manhood  he 
was  a  Freemason,  and,  of  course,  a  "Liberal," 
which  term  was  then—as  even  now  it  sometimes  is— 
synonymous  with  anti-Catholic.  When  Napoleon 
commenced  his  experiment  of  planting  his  own 
dynasty  on  the  throne  of  Spain,  Llorente  became  an 
enthusiastic  Afrancesado,  as  all  patriotic  Spaniards 
styled  the  adherents  of  the  Josephine  administra- 
tion. It  has  always  been  a  favorite  trick  with  usurpers 
to  ransack  the  archives  of  dispossessed  princes,  and 
to  publish  to  the  world  whatever  might  turn,  or  might 
be  twisted,  to  the  discredit  of  the  latter.  In  accord- 
ance with  this  idea,  the  intruding  Joseph  Bonaparte 
in  1809  commissioned  Llorente,  the  ex-secretary  (he 
had  been  dismissed  for  sundry  irregularities)  to  show 
up  the  secrets  of  the  Inquisition,  that  the  Spaniards 
might  learn  to  love  the  tyranny-crushing  rule  of  a 
foreigner.  When  the  venal  Afrancesado'' 's  work 
appeared,  it  was  found  to  be  an  insult  to  Rome,  to 
Spain,  and  to  the  Spanish  Church.  Hef ele  proffers 
the  following  judgment  on  Llorente:  "A  promi- 
nent feature  in  his  writings  is  their  great  bitterness 
toward  the  Church,  and  this  sentiment  impels  him 


The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition.  145 

to  many  inexact  and  even  false  assertions.  The 
shallowness  and  inaccuracy  of  Llo rente,  as  a  his- 
torian, are  no  less  evident  than  his  hatred  of  the 
Church.  In  his  'Portraits'  he  informs  us  that  Paul 
of  Samosata  embraced  the  heresy  of  Sabellius :  an 
assertion  the  absurdity  of  which  brings  a  smile  to 
the  face  of  the  veriest  tyro  in  ecclesiastical  history. 
He  also  tells  us  that  St.  Justin  (d.  167)  wrote  his 
works  before  the  time  of  St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch 
(d.  107  or  116);  that  Apollonius  of  Tyana  Was  a 
heretic,  etc.  No  less  full  of  errors  is  his  'History 
of  the  Inquisition . '  However,  this  work  is  valuable, 
inasmuch  as  it  furnishes  us  with  numerous  extracts 
of  original  documents  of  the  Inquisition ;  and  they 
enable  us  to  form,  concerning  the  Spanish  tribunal, 
a  more  exact  judgment  than  one  could  have  formed 
before  Llorente  wrote."  The  Protestant  Eanke 
says  that  Llorente  "gave  us  a  famous  book  on  this 
subject;  and  if  I  may  presume  to  say  anything  that 
contravenes  the  opinion  of  such  a  predecessor,  let 
my  excuse  be  that  this  well-informed  author  wrote 
in  the  interest  of  the  Afrancesados  of  the  Josephine 
administration.  In  that  interest  .  .  .  he  looks  on 
the  Inquisition  as  a  usurpation  of  the  spiritual  over 
the  secular  authority.  Nevertheless,  if  I  am  not 
altogether  in  error,  it  appears,  even  from  his  own 
facts,  that  the  Inquisition  toas  a  royal  court  of  judi- 
cature, although  armed  with  ecclesiastical  weapons." 
Eelying  implicitly  on  the  authority  of  the  salaried 
sycophant  of  Joseph  Bonaparte,  many  later  writers 


146  The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

regard  the  establishment  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition 
as  due  to  the  influence  of  the  court  of  Rome.  They 
assert  that  the  severities  of  this  tribunal  were  but 
consequences  of  Catholic  intolerance  and  of  the 
Roman  mania  for  persecution ;  they  depict  the  In- 
quisition in  such  lurid  colors  as  to  lead  the  reader 
to  believe  it  the  monster,  without  a  rival  in  cruelty, 
among  all  tribunals,  ancient  or  modern,  civilized  or 
barbarous, — Christian,  Mussulman,  or  pagan.  Llo- 
rente  is  a  great  favorite  with  Prescott ;  consequently 
when  the  latter  treats  of  the  Inquisition,  many  of 
his  facts  are  miscolored,  and  not  a  few  perverted. 
Now,  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the  Spanish 
tribunal  was  mainly  a  political  institution.  The 
king  appointed  the  grand-inquisitor;  he  confirmed 
the  nomination  of  the  assessors,  two  of  whom  were 
always  taken  from  the  supreme  council  of  Castile ; 
the  tribunal  depended  from  the  sovereign,  who  thus 
became  master  of  the  lives  and  property  of  his  sub- 
jects;* the  king  reserved  to  himself  a  share  of  the 
funds  of  the  Inquisition,  and  often  the  inquisitors 
had  not  enough  for  their  expenses.  The  Protestant 
Schrock,  in  his  "Universal  History,"  admits  that 
this  tribunal  was    secular,   and   wonders   that  the 


*  Anthony  Perez,  pursued  for  his  life  by  Philip  II.,  and  es- 
caping to  France,  published  some  "Relations,"  in  which  he 
tells  how  the  papal  nuncio  disapproved  of  this  notion  of  the 
royal  power,  and  adds:  "While  I  was  at  Madrid  a  certain 
party,  whom  I  need  not  name,  preaching  before  the  Catholic 
King,  asserted  that  'kings  have  absolute  power  over  the  per- 
sons and  goods  of  their  subjects.'  This  proposition  was  con- 
demned by  the  Inquisition;  and  the  preacher  was  compelled, 


The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition.         147 

Pontiff  allowed  it  to  become  such.  But  let  us  hear 
Ranke  on  this  matter:  "In  the  first  place,  the  in- 
quisitors were  royal  officers.  The  kings  appointed 
and  dismissed  them;  among  the  various  councils  at 
their  court  the  kings  had  likewise  one  of  the  Inqui- 
sition ;  the  courts  of  the  Inquisition,  like  other  mag- 
istracies, were  subject  to  royal  visitation  ;  the  same 
men  who  sat  in  the  supreme  Court  of  Castile  were 
often  accessories  of  the  Inquisition.  To  no  purpose 
did  Ximenes  scruple  to  admit  into  the  council  of 
the  Inquisition  a  layman  nominated  by  Ferdinand 
the  Catholic.  'Do  you  not  know,'  said  the  king, 
'that  if  the  tribunal  possesses  jurisdiction,  it  derives 
it  from  the  king?'  ...  In  the  second  place,  all 
the  profit  of  the  confiscations  by  this  court  accrued  to 
the  king.  ...  It  was  even  believed  and  asserted 
from  the  beginning  that  the  kings  had  been  moved 
to  establish  this  tribunal  more  by  a  hankering  after 
the  wealth  it  confiscated  than  by  motives  of  piety. 
.  .  .  Segni  says  that  the  Inquisition  was  in- 
vented to  rob  the  wealthy  of  their  property,  and  the 
powerful  of  their  influence.*     As  Charles  V.  knew 


in  the  same  place,  and  with  all  the  juridical  formalities,  to 
retract  it.  He  did  so  in  the  same  pulpit,  adding,  'Kings  pos- 
sess over  their  subjects  only  that  authority  which  is  accorded 
them  by  divine  and  human  law,  and  not  any  derived  from 
their  own  absolute  will.'  The  delinquent  was  made  to  repeat 
these  words  by  order  of  Master  Fernan  del  Castillo,  consultor 
of  the  Holy  Office." 

*  Ranke  might  have  stated  that  the  Florentine  historian 
adds:  "It  was  based  on  the  omnipotence  of  the  king,  and  it 
worked  everything  to  the  profit  of  the  royal  power,  to  the 
detriment  of  the  spiritual.    In  its  first  idea  and  in  its  object 


148         The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

no  other  means  of  bringing  certain  punishment  on 
the  bishops  who  had  taken  part  in  the  insurrection 
of  the  Communidades,*  he  chose  to  have  them 
judged  by  the  Inquisition.  .  .  .  Under  Philip  it 
interfered  in  matters  of  trade  and  of  the  arts,  of 
customs  and  marine.  How  much  further  could  it 
go,  when  it  pronounced  it  heresy  to  sell  horses  or 
munitions  to  France?  ...  In  spirit,  and  above  all 
in  tendency,  it  was  a  political  institution.  The 
Pope  had  an  interest  in  thwarting  it,  and  he  did  so 
as  often  as  he  could,  "f 

In  1812  the  Spanish  Cortes,  having  assembled  to 
arrange  a  new  constitution  for  the  kingdom,  ap- 
pointed a  committee  to  report  on  the  Inquisition. 
This  document  shows  that  its  authors  were  no 
friends  of  the  tribunal,  but  it  asserts  that  the 
Inquisition  "was  an  institution  demanded  and 
established  by  the  Spanish  monarchs  in  difficult 
circumstances;"  and  that,  furthermore,  the  tribunal 
"could  decree  nothing  without  the  consent  of  the 
king."  Nay,  according  to  the  committee,  "the 
Inquisition  is  a  royal  authority,  the  inquisitor  is  a 
royal  agent,  and  all  his  ordinances  are  null  and 
void   unless   they  have   the   royal    sanction.     The 


it  is  a  political  institution.  It  is  the  interest  of  the  Pope  to 
put  obstacles  in  its  way,  and  he  does  so  whenever  he  can;  but 
it  is  the  interest  of  the  king  to  maintain  it  in  continual  pro- 
gress." 

*  Alluding  to  the  struggle  of  the  Communes  for  their 
fueros,  or  privileges,  a  struggle  in  which  the  clergy  sided  with 
the  people. 

f  Loc.  cit, 


The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition.         149 

king's   power   suspends  and  revokes  at  will  every 
member  of  the  tribunal ;  and  the  very  moment  royal 
authority  would  disappear,  the  tribunal  would  ac- 
company it."     The   Calvinist  Limborch,   who    is, 
after  Llorente,  the  most  bitter  of  all  polemics  who 
have  written   on   the  Inquisition,   narrates    a   fact 
which  also  proves  that  the  Spanish  tribunal  was  a 
local  political  institution.     When  Philip  II.  sought 
to  establish  it  in  Milan,  the  people  revolted,  declar- 
ing that  "in  a  Christian  city  it  would  be  tyranny 
to  establish  a  form  of  Inquisition  designed  for  Moors 
and  Jews."     The  conduct  of  the  Neapolitans,  ever 
averse  to  the  introduction  of  the  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion, though  they  willingly  received  the  Koman,  as 
well  as  the  ordinary  Inquisition  of  their  own  bishops, 
also  proves  that  the  Spanish  tribunal  was  regarded 
as  a  royal  one.    Many  attempts,  met  by  insurrection 
and  bloodshed,  had  been  made  by  the  viceroys  of 
Charles  V\  and  Philip  II.  to  introduce  it;    and  in 
1564,  when  several  of  the  friends  of  Victoria  Colonna 
and  Julia  Gonzaga*  had  been  cited  by  the  archiepis- 
copal  vicar,  and  when  two  others  had  been  beheaded, 
the  citizens  demanded  of  the  viceroy,  the  Duke  of 
Alcala,  whether  he  intended  to  force  the  obnoxious 
tribunal  upon  them.     A  negative  answer  reassured 


*  The  Princess  Victoria  Colonna,  born  1490,  at  Marino,  a 
fief  of  her  family,  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  women 
of  her  day.  Loved,  after  the  manner  of  Petrarch,  by  Michael 
Angelo,  and  intimate  with  Pole,  Morone,  Flaminio,  and  other 
great  spirits  of  the  time,  she  exercised  more  influence  than 
any  other  one  person  of    her  circle.    Her  correspondence, 


150         The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

them ;  and  a  few  years  afterward  the  citizens  sent 
deputies,  "with  orders  to  thank  the  illustrious 
Archbishop  for  his  many  demonstrations  against 
heretics  and  Jews,  and  to  request  him  to  inform  his 
Holiness  that  the  entire  city  is  wTell  pleased  with 
the  chastisement  and  extirpation  of  such  persons 
by  the  hand  of  our  own  ordinary,  as  is  quite  proper; 
this  we  have  always  prayed  for:  that  the  canons 
should  be  observed,  and  that  there  should  be  no 
interference  of  a  secular  court." 


III. 

We  must  now  say  a  few  words  in  conclusion  upon 
the  severity  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition.  Many  of 
the  apologists  of  this  tribunal  point  to  the  words 
"Mercy  and  Justice"  emblazoned  on  its  banner, 
and  insist  on  the  fact  that  the  consignment  of  a  cul- 
prit to  the  secular  arm  was  always  accompanied  by 
a  strong  recommendation  to  mercy.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  mercy  was  generally  shown  to  the  repent- 
ant, and  that  in  their  case  the  auto  da  fe  consisted 
in  the  burning  of  the  candles  which  they  held  in 
their  hands.  But  we  lay  no  stress  on  the  recommen- 
dation to  mercy ;   we  agree  with  those  who  regard 


redolent  of  mysticism,  is  orthodox;  but  she  did  not  escape  the 
suspicion  of  heresy.  Julia  Gonzaga,  Countess  of  Fonda, 
another  famous  princess  of  the  day,  had  to  hear  the  same 
accusation;  but,  as  Pompeo  Litta  says  ("Celebrated  Italian 
Families,"  no.  33),  this  was  common  to  all  the  learned  per- 
sonages who  then  contended  for  a  reform  of  ecclesiastical 
discipline. 


The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition.         151 

this  phrase  as  a  mere  form.  The  inquisitors  well 
knew  that  their  condemnation  and  their  abandon- 
ment of  the  accused  to  the  civil  power  was  equiva- 
lent to  a  sentence  of  death ;  that  all  hope  of  mercy 
rested  with  themselves  alone.  We  prefer  to  con- 
fine ourselves  to  an  inquiry  into  the  truth  of  the 
popular  estimate  of  the  cruelties  of  the  tribunal. 

The  reader  may  rest  assured  that  in  this  exhibi- 
tion, with  which  popular  prejudice  has  long  been 
regaled,  there  is  nothing  behind  the  curtain  that 
might  further  satisfy  the  morbid ;  everything  that 
could  contribute  to  render  the  scene  more  impressive 
has  been  artistically  presented.  Outside  of  Spain, 
few  authors,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  have  attempted 
to  explain,  still  fewer  to  defend,  the  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion. In  France,  for  a  long  time  after  the  days  of 
Philip  II.,  it  was  the  fashion  to  ridicule  everything 
pertaining  to  Spain.  In  England,  commercial  rivalry 
and  religious  rancor,  aided  by  a  consciousness  of 
England's  own  superior  cruelty  in  religious  persecu- 
tion, caused  those  writers  on  whom  moderns  have 
relied  for  information  to  misrepresent  everything 
emanating  from  his  Catholic  Majesty.  In  Germany, 
until  very  recent  times,  the  calumnies  of  the  first 
"reformers"  had  so  firm  a  hold  on  the  popular  and 
even  on  the  cultivated  mind,  that  no  horror  narrated 
of  a  Catholic  people  or  of  a  Catholic  ruler  appeared 
incredible.  But  even  Voltaire,  of  course  an  implac- 
able foe  of  the  Inquisition,  admits  that  "without 
doubt  this  justly  detested  tribunal  has  been  charged 
with  horrible  excesses  that  it  did  not  always  commit ; 


152         The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

it  is  foolish  to  clamor  against  the  Inquisition  because 
of  doubtful  facts,  and  still  more  foolish  to  search 
for  lies  with  which  to  render  it  hateful."*  And 
hearken  to  the  opinion  of  Bourgoing,  Minister  of 
the  first  French  Eepublic  to  Spain,  and,  from  the 
very  nature  of  his  associations,  an  opponent  of  the 
Inquisition:  "I  publicly  avow,  in  order  to  pay 
homage  to  truth,  that  the  Inquisition  might  be 
cited,  in  our  days,  as  a  model  of  equity. "f  Even 
Limborch  admits  that  during  a  very  long  period 
only  fifteen  men  and  four  women  were  executed, 
and  most  of  these  for  treason,  witchcraft,  sacrilege, 
or  other  crimes  different  from  heresy. t  Llorente 
cites  an  auto  da  fe  of  1486  at  Toledo,  when  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  were  condemned,  but  not  one  to 
capital  punishment ;  another  of  nine  hundred,  also 
without  a  death;  another  where  three  thousand 
three  hundred  were  condemned,  but  only  twenty- 
seven  suffered  death.  And  we  must  remember  that, 
beside  heresy,  the  Inquisition  had  jurisdiction  over 
sins  against,  nature,  solicitation  in  tribunate,  blas- 
phemy, robbery  of  churches,  and  even  over  the 
furnishing  of  contraband  goods  to  the  enemy. 

Let  us  examine  the  mode  of  procedure  adopted 
and  constantly  followed  by  the  Spanish  Inquisition. 
According  to  Simancas,§  one  of  the  first  lawyers 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  no  one  was  arrested  until 

*  In  the  French/'Dictionary  of  Sciences." 
t  "A  Voyage  in  Spain,"  by  M.  Bourgoing,  reviewed  in  the 
"Journal  of  the  Empire,"  Sep.  17,  1805. 
%  Spalding,  loc.  cit. 
§  "Catholic  Institutions  against  Heresy,"  1552. 


The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition.         153 

accused  by  three  different  witnesses,  each  of  whom 
swore  that  he  was  not  acting  in  collusion  with  any 
other,  and  that  he  was  not  actuated  by  malice.*  So 
careful  was  the  tribunal  to  exclude  malice,  that  both 
witnesses  and  inquisitors  were  subject  to  excom- 
munication if  they  yielded  to  it.  When  the  accused 
appeared,  if  he  could  disprove  the  charges,  he  was 
released;  if  he  could  not  disprove  them,  but  avowed 
his  repentance,  he  was,  even  then,  released.  Even 
if  he  relapsed,  and  being  again  committed,  repented, 
he  was  again  released. f  Only  on  the  third  convic- 
tion, and  by  three  different  sets  of  witnesses,  each 
generally  consisting  of  three  (sometimes  only  two 
were  required),  the  accused  was  finally  consigned 
to  the  civil  court  for  judgment.  Much  fault  has 
been  found  with  the  Inquisition  for  sometimes  ad- 
mitting the  evidence  of  disreputable  persons,  such 
as  courtesans,  etc. ;  but  all  tribunals  do  so  to  this 
day ;  and  Simancas  says  that  such  testimony  was 
received  only  "for  what  it  was  worth,"  and  that,  to 
condemn  the  accused,  evidence  "clearer  than  light" 
was  required. % 

So  far,  we  think,  the  reader  will  find  no  fault 
with  the  proceedings  of  the  Inquisition,  unless  he 
is  violently  affected  by  the  fact  of  the  crime  being 
a  religious  one,  and  therefore — as  he  may  have  been 
accustomed  to  think — one  beyond  the  cognizance 
of  a  human  tribunal.     Let  him  remember,  however, 


*  Ibi.  tit.  xliv. 

f  Limborch  admits  these  two  consecutive  pardons. 

X  Loc.  cit.,  tit.  li. 


154         The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

that  positive  law  is  conventional;  that  "to-day  dif- 
ferent crimes  are  punished,  but  this  proves  only 
that  social  interests  are  not  always  the  same ;  those 
of  to-day  have  the  advantage  of  being  actual,  while 
those  of  the  olden  time  have  the  disadvantage  of 
having  passed  away."*  But  the  reader  will  probably 
condemn  the  practice  of  torturing  the  convicted  who 
would  not  confess  their  guilt.  The  more  enlightened 
jurisprudence  of  our  day  recognizes  the  foolishness, 
as  well  as  the  cruelty,  of  such  practice;  but  at  the 
time  of  the  Inquisition  the  custom  of  applying  the 
"question"!  at  the  trial  of  imputed  criminals  was 
universal,  and  had  been  recognized  from  the  days 
of  Justinian.  Men  seem  not  to  have  perceived 
its  absurdity  and  inhumanity  until  a  very  modern 
period;  most  of  the  European  States  continued  its 
use  until  the  end  of  the  last  century.  But  there 
are  two  points  concerning  the  use  of  torture  by 
the  Spanish  Inquisition  which  are  too  frequently 
ignored.  Torture  was  applied  by  the  civil,  not  by  the 
ecclesiastical  court;  and  if ,  as  we  learn  from  Art. 
18  of  the  code  established  by  Torquemada,  one  or 
two  ecclesiastics  were  always  present  at  the  ques- 
tion, they  were  there  merely  to  witness  the  avowals, 
and  not — as  popular  fancy  has  pictured  them — to 
gloat  over  the  agonies  of  their  victims.     Again,  a 


*  Cantu,  "Heretics  of  Italy,"  disc.  5. 

t  There  were  two  kinds  of  "question,"  the  ordinary  and 
extraordinary;  the  former  being  a  mild  use  of  the  instru- 
ments employed  "to  elicit  the  truth,"  while  the  latter  involved 
the  utmost  extreme  of  torment. 


The   Truth  About  the  Inquisition.  155 

confession  extorted  by  torture  was  of  no  avail  to 
the  prosecution,  unless  it  was  voluntarily  confirmed 
three  days  afterward. 

Concerning  the  number  of  the  victims,  whether 
by  death  or  by  exile,  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition, 
Balmes  says  that  he  defies  England  or  France — the 
two  nations  who  now  claim  to  be  at  the  head  of 
civilization — to  show,  and  to  compare  with  the 
Spanish,  their  statistics  on  the  subject  of  religious 
persecution  :  "We  do  not  fear  the  parallel."  The 
Continuator  of  Fleury  gives  us  a  discourse  of  the 
celebrated  Chancellor  de  l'Hopital,  who  was  strongly 
suspected  of  Calvinism,  which  indicates  that  in  the 
sixteenth  century  the  dreaded  tribunal  was  not 
painted  in  colors  so  sombre  as  it  wears  at  present. 
At  the  Colloquy  of  Poissy  there  was  a  debate  on 
the  propriety  of  establishing  the  Inquisition  in 
France ;  and  the  Chancellor  avowed  that  he  would 
vote  for  it,  "had  not  the  evil  of  religious  dissen- 
sion already  taken  so  deep  a  root  in  his  country, 
and  were  it  likely  that  France  would  secure  that 
benefit  of  unity  of  faith  which  Philip  had  secured 
for  Spain  at  the  cost  (during  his  reign)  of  forty- 
eight  capital  executions."  Llorente  contends  that, 
during  its  career  of  three  hundred  and  thirty  years, 
the  Spanish  tribunal  put  more  than  thirty  thousand 
persons  to  death;  but  when  we  analyze  his  details, 
we  find  that  his  figures  are  not  to  be  trusted. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  assertion  that  during  the 
first  year  of  its  existence  (1481)  the  sole  tribunal 
of  Seville  burned  two  thousand,  all  of  whom,  he 


156         The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

says,  belonged  to  the  dioceses  of  Seville  and  Cadiz. 
In  support  of  this  charge  he  cites  Mariana;  but  a 
consultation  of  that  historian  will  reveal  that  the 
number  of  two  thousand  includes  all  the  persons 
executed  under  Torquemada,  and  throughout  his 
entire  jurisdiction — that  is,  in  the  whole  of  Castile 
and  Leon  during  his  fifteen  years  of  inquisitorship. 
After  narrating  how  Torquemada  founded  inquisi- 
torial tribunals  in  Castile,  Aragon,  Valencia,  and 
Catalonia,  Pulgar,  a  contemporary  historian,  justi- 
fies the  remarks  of  Mariana:  "These  tribunals 
summoned  all  heretics  to  present  themselves ;  and 
fifteen  thousand  having  obeyed,  they  were  recon- 
ciled to  the  Church  by  penance.  As  for  those 
who  waited  for  prosecution,  the  convicted  were 
consigned  to  the  secular  authority,  and  about  two 
thousand  of  them  were  burned  at  different  times  in 
various  districts." 

Llorente  himself  shows,  in  another  passage,  that 
his  figures  concerning  the  victims  of  the  year  1481 
are  falsified ;  for  there  he  states  that  in  that  very 
year  the  new  tribunal  executed  two  hundred  and 
ninety-eight  persons.  He  perceived  the  contradic- 
tion, and  tried  to  escape  by  remarking  that  seven- 
teen hundred  and  two  other  victims  belonged  to 
other  places  than  Seville — "to  the  surrounding 
districts  and  the  diocese  of  Cadiz."  But  the  for- 
getful historian  had  already  told  us,  and  rightly, 
that  before  1483  there  was  but  one  inquisitorial 
tribunal  in  all  Andalusia,  and  that  it  was  at  Seville, 
whither  the  accused  were  sent  from  all  parts.     So 


The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition.         157 

much  for  Llorente's  statistics  of  the  first  year  of 
the  Spanish  Inquisition,  and  nearly  all  his  other 
calculations  are  made  with  similar  disregard  for 
truth.  Listen  to  the  following  argument:  "When 
the  number  of  tribunals  was  increased  from  three 
to  eleven,  the  number  of  executions  must  have 
increased  in  the  same  proportion;"  and  then  he 
builds  up  his  figures.  Must  we  suppose  that  eleven 
tribunals  necessarily  have  eleven  times  the  number 
of  capital  sentences  hitherto  pronounced  by  one? 

Again,  the  bad  faith  of  Llorente  is  plain  when  he 
says  that  his  thirty  thousand  victims  were  all  here- 
tics,— "unfortunates,  who  had  committed,  perhaps, 
no  other  crime  than  that  of  better  interpreting  the 
Bible,  and  of  having  a  faith  more  enlightened  than 
that  of  their  judges."  According  to  his  own 
admission,  the  Spanish  tribunal  took  cognizance  of 
many  crimes  besides  heresy :  of  sins  against  nature ; 
of  ecclesiastical  and  monastic  immoralities ;  of  blas- 
phemy, usury,  and  sacrilegious  theft;  of  all  crimes 
connected  with  the  employees  or  affairs  of  the  tri- 
bunal ;  of  traffic  in  contraband  of  war ;  and  of  every 
kind  of  sorcery  and  superstition — which  last  crimes, 
thanks  to  the  Moors  and  Jews,  caused  more  trouble 
in  Spain  than  all  the  others  produced.  Finally, 
Hefele  shows  that  at  Nordlingen — a  Protestant 
town  of  Germany,  having  then  a  population  of 
six  thousand — the  Protestant  authorities  burned 
in  four  years  (1590-94)  thirty-five  sorcerers.  Ap- 
plying these  proportions  to  Spain,  where  sorcery 
was  then  at  least  as  prevalent,  there  should  have 


158         The  Truth  About  the  Inquisition. 

been,  in  four  years,  fifty  thousand  sorcerers  exe- 
cuted in  that  country ;  that  is,  twenty  thousand 
more  than  Llorente  assigns  as  victims  of  every 
kind  to  the  Spanish  Inquisition  during  its  career  of 
three  hundred  and  thirty  years.  Let  the  reader 
reflect  as  to  the  probable  proportion  of  heretics  in 
Llorente' s  thirty  thousand  victims.* 


*  Yoltaire  says  of  the  Spauisli  Inquisition: 

"Ce  sanglant  tribunal, 
Ce  monument  ajfreux  du  pouvoir  monacal, 
Que  VEspagne  a  recu,  mats  qu'elle-meme  abhorre 
Qui  venge  les  autels,  mais  qui  les  deslwnore; 
Qui,  tout  couvert  de  sang,  de  flammes  entoure. 
Egorge  les  mortels  avec  unfer  sacre.'9'' 
And  yet,  this  same  Voltaire,  becoming,  to  use  the  words  of  M. 
deMaistre,  "a  remarkable  monument  of  that  good  sense  which 
perceives  facts,   and  of  that  passion  which  is  blind  to  their 
causes,"  does  not  hesitate  to  admit,  in  his  "Essai  sur  l'His- 
toire  Ge^rale,"  vol.  iv,  ch.  177,  that  "In  Spain,  during  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  there  were  none  of  those 
bloody  revolutions,    those  conspiracies  and  cruel  visitations 
which  were  seen  in  the  other  countries  of  Europe.    In  fact, 
were  it  not  for  the  horrors  of  the  Inquisition,  we  could  not  re- 
proach the  Spain  of  that  day  With  anything."    That  is,  ob- 
serves M.  de  Maistre,  the  Sage  avows  that,  were  it  not  for  the 
horrors  of  the  Inquisition,  we  could  not  reprove  that  nation 
which,  only  by  means  of  the  Inquisition,  escaped  those  hor- 
rors which  dishonor  all  the  others.    At  the  commencement  of 
the    sixteenth    century,    adds    the    Catholic    publicist,    the 
Spaniards  saw  the  rest  of  Europe  in  flames  because  of  the  wars 
of  religion.     They  sustained   the  Inquisition    as   a  political 
means  to  prevent  those  wars. 


LOUIS  XL;   THE  TRAVESTIED  AND 
THE   REAL. 

Among  the  great  calumniated  of  history  a  place 
in  the  very  front  rank  must  be  assigned  to  King 
Louis  XI.,  of  France.  Not  only  has  he  been  visited 
with  what  Macaulay  would  style  historical  decapita- 
tion, but  he  has  been  utterly  travestied  until  he 
excites  ridicule  in  schoolboy  and  philosopher  alike. 
One  of  the  most  salient  characteristics  of  this  mon- 
arch was  religious  devotion,  and  it  actuated  itself 
especially  in  regard  to  the  Mother  of  God.  Protes- 
tant and  f reethinking  writers  have  therefore  endeav- 
ored to  render  his  memory  odious.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  his  contemporary  Commines,  all  historians, 
down  to  our  own  day,  have  sinned  in  their  treatment 
of  Louis  XL ;  some  have  yielded  to  blind  hatred, 
others  being  victims  of  ignorance  or  of  superficiality. 
Claude  de  Seyssel,  who  has  been  justly  styled  the 
mitred  valet  of  Louis  XII.,  but  obeyed  the  will  of 
his  master  in  decrying  the  reign  of  that  master's 
enemy.  Peter  Mathieu  thought  that  he  could  best 
write  for  Henry  IV.  by  writing  against  Louis  XL 
That  writers  of  the  calibre  of  Mezeray  and  Garnier 
should  blindly  follow  the  crowd  is  to  be  expected ; 
but  one  is  pained  on  seeing  Bossuet  compromising 
his  great  name  by  crediting  the  hideous  story  which 
will  form  the  main  object  of  this  article.     When  so 

159 


160   Louis  XI. ;   The  Travestied  and  the  Heal. 

great  an  aberration  is  encountered,  no  wonder  that 
the  gentle  author  of  "Quentin  Durward"  should 
feel  justified  in  exhibiting  the  enormities  of  Louis 
XI.  by  the  light  of  the  burning  human  torches  at 
Plessis,  and  that  Casimir  Delavigne  and  Boucicault 
should  have  trasferred  the  bloody  shower  of  the 
scaffold  of  Nemours  to  the  stage.  But  had  Scott 
written  his  entrancing  novel  some  years  later,  we 
doubt  whether  he  would  have  represented  Louis  XI. 
as  a  mocking  Tiberius  and  a  bloody  Rabelais,  as 
a  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing,  and  as  a  superstitious 
driveller.  For  the  nineteenth  century,  redolent  of 
humbug  as  it  is,  has  witnessed  the  revelation  of 
many  historical  shams,  and,  e  converso,  a  number 
of  wonderful  rehabilitations,  among  which  not  the 
least  striking  is  that  of  the  man  of  Montlhery. 

During  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe  there  appeared 
a  History  of  Louis  XL,  which  would  have  been  ex- 
pected, because  of  its  solidity,  rather  from  the  pen 
of  a  Benedictine  than  from  that  of  a  professor  of 
the  modern  University  of  Paris.  Its  author,  Urban 
Legeay,  had  spent  ten  years  in  its  composition  ;  and 
his  aim  was  to  conduct  his  work  just  as  Louis  XL 
presided  over,  nay  made  his  monarchy, — seeing 
nothing  but  its  interest ;  so  true  is  it  that  there  are 
often  similarities  between  the  subject  and  the  worthy 
writer  of  a  history.  M.  Barbey  d'  Aurevilly,  one 
of  the  most  judicious  of  modern  critics,  drawing  at- 
tention lately  to  this  unfortunately  neglected  work, 
sees  in  the  qualities  of  Louis  XL,  one  of  the  most 
sensible  of  men,  the  most  sure  of  his  own  actions, 


Louis  XI. ;   The  Travestied  and  the  Real.    161 

the  "most  desirous  of  the  one  thing,"  an  attraction 
"for  all  the  faculties  of  this  Urban  Legeay,  who 
was  also  sensible,  who  also  applied  himself  to  his 
task,  never  turning  off  to  side-issues;  and  resem- 
bling Louis  XI.  also  by  that  which  was  wanting  in 
that  great  man — for  the  grandeur  of  Louis  XL, 
equal,  for  him  who  knows  how  to  measure  it,  to 
that  of  Charlemagne,  seems  inferior  to  the  great- 
ness of  Charlemagne  only  in  that  which  captivates 
the  imagination  at  a  distance— external  eclat  and 
poetry."*  The  work  of  Legeay  has  yet  to  be  ap- 
preciated ;  he  was  no  eagle,  and  his  style  was  ordi- 
nary. But  the  future  historian  of  Louis  XL  will 
find  in  his  book  the  material  for  a  successful  one. 
It  is  something  more  than  a  history  of  Louis  XL : 
it  is  a  history  of  the  histories  of  the  monarch,  and 
his  criticism  of  these  confirms  the  judgments 
emitted  in  his  own.  He  presents  to  us  a  Louis  XL 
of  whom  we  have  not  even  dreamt,  and  sets  forth 
in  all  its  merited  grandeur  a  reign  the  glory  of 
which  could  not  be,  after  all,  entirely  abolished, 
since  it  left  France  prosperous  and  aggrandized; 
whereas  monarchs  like  Louis  XIV.  and  Napoleon, 


*  M.  d'Aurevilly  says:  "It  is  said  that  Montesquieu,  at  the 
time  of  his  death,  had  the  intention  of  writing  the  Life  of 
Louis  XL  Certainly  it  would  have  been  more  brilliant  than 
the  work  of  M.  Legeay;  it  would  have  shown  more  style, 
and  even  of  perception.  It  would  have  presented  Montes- 
quieu; but  would  it  have  better  presented  Louis  XI?  Would 
it  have  shown  more  historic  reality?  That  is  doubtful."  Cf. 
vol.  viii. 


162   Louis  XI. ;   The  Travestied  and  the  Real. 

whose  greatness  is  not  contested,  left  her  bleeding 
and  diminished. 

To  proclaim  the  greatness  of  Louis  XI.,  in  face  of 
the  universal  contempt  shown  for  him,  as  at  least 
equal  to  that  of  Charlemagne,  was  to  declare  one's 
fitness  for  a  lunatic  asylum ;  but  Legeay,  very  unlike 
a  modern  universitarian,  thought  of  nothing  but 
truth.  He  realized  that  Charlemagne  had  to  do  with 
barbarians,  whom  he  defeated  and  baptized;  Louis 
XL  had  to  do  with  civilized  lords,  many  of  whom 
were  as  powerful  as  himself.  The  glories  of  Charle- 
magne had  been  prepared  by  Charles  Martel  and 
Pepin,  and  above  all  by  the  Papacy,  then  all-power- 
ful and  unresisted,  even  in  whispers;  Louis  XL  fol- 
lowed immediately  upon  imbeciles,  and  was  forced 
to  contend  with  memories  of  Crecy  Poitiers,  Azin- 
court,  and  of  the  murdered  Maid  of  Orleans.  During 
his  entire  reign  the  great  lords,  no  longer  loyal  chev- 
aliers after  the  fashion  of  the  Paladins,  were  allied 
with  the  English  and  Burgundians,  and  leagued 
in  revolt  against  the  crown ;  but  he  defeated  their 
projects  as  Charlemagne  never  defeated  his  barba- 
rians, by. force  of  intellect.  But  although  intellect- 
uality was  the  special  characteristic  of  the  greatness 
of  Louis  XL,  he  did  not  confine  his  sword  to  its 
scabbard ;  he  was  a  thorough  soldier,  and  he  would 
not  have  his  sword  forgotten  when  designing  his 
statue  for  his  tomb  in  Notre-Dame  de  Clery.  That 
he  could  be  brave  even  to  audacity  is  shown  by  the 
interview  of  Peronne.  Nor  was  Louis  XL  the  mon- 
ster of  duplicity  which  history  has  depicted  him  as 


Louis  XI. ;   The  Travestied  and  the  Real.    163 

being ;  Legeay  proves  that  among  the  rulers  of  his 
time  this  sovereign  was  perhaps  the  only  just  one, 
and  the  only  one  faithful  to  his  word.  Louis  XI.  was 
every  inch  a  king;  a  greater  one  than  Louis  XIV., 
who  was  more  of  a  sultan,  and  more  "the  sun," 
but,  to  use  the  words  of  D'Aurevilly,  less  a  king 
in  permanent  action  and  incessancy  of  function. 
Charlemagne  in  his  old  age  cried  at  the  window 
from  which  he  gazed  on  the  river  by  which  he 
expected  the  Norman  ships  to  arrive:  but  when 
dying,  Louis  XI.  wept  not  at  the  thought  of  the 
coming  of  those  Yalois  who  were  worse  than  Nor- 
mans for  France,  but  counselled  his  son  in  regard  to 
the  evils  he  foresaw.  Charlemagne  was  the  Empire, 
Louis  XL  was  France.  The  grand  monarque  Louis 
XIV.  had  many  mistresses,  and  the  most  costly 
of  all,  Versailles;  Louis  XL  had  no  mistress  but 
France;  he  was  without  love,  save  for  his  state, 
remarked  Commines,  who  knew  him  well.  Legeay 
finds,  and  D'Aurevilly  agrees  with  him,  in  Charle- 
magne, St.  Louis,  Louis  XIV.,  and  Napoleon,  an 
imagination  which  frequently  carries  them  away; 
but  Louis  XL  was  always  master  of  himself. 

We  have  been  led  to  these  reflections  while  mak- 
ing some  researches  in  reference  to  an  almost  uni- 
versally credited  charge  against  Louis  XL ,  to  the 
effect  that  the  children  of  the  Duke  of  Nemours  were 
placed  under  the  scaffold  of  their  father,  there  to 
receive  on  their  white  robes  the  trickling  blood  of 
the  victim.  Michelet  admits  that  the  historians  con- 
temporary with  Louis  XL,  even  the  most  hostile,  do 


164   Louis  XI. ;   The  Travestied  and  the  Real, 

not  allude  to  such  a  horror.  But  such  silence  does 
not  prevent  the  champion  liar  of  the  universe,  Vol- 
taire, from  accrediting  the  accusation .  He  says  that 
46 all  the  grace  accorded  to  this  unfortunate  prince 
was  that  he  might  be  buried  in  the  habit  of  a  Fran- 
ciscan,— a  grace  which  was  worthy  of  these  atrocious 
times,  and  which  equalled  their  barbarity.  But  what 
was  not  usual,  and  was  introduced  by  Louis  XI., 
was  the  placing  of  the  young  children  of  the  Duke 
under  the  scaffold,  to  be  covered  there  with  their 
father's  blood.  .  .  .  The  unheard-of  torments 
suffered  by  the  princes  of  Nemours-Armagnac  would 
be  incredible,  if  they  were  not  attested  by  the  re- 
quest presented  by  the  unfortunate  princes  to  the 
Estates,  after  the  death  of  Louis  XL,  in  1483."* 
And  Duclos  says:  "The  children  of  the  culprit 
were  placed  under  the  scaffold,  in  order  that  the 
blood  of  their  father  should  fall  upon  them."f  One 
would  have  expected  better  things  of  Gamier,  but 
he  says:  "By  a  barbarity  hitherto  unexampled  in 
our  history,  the  unfortunate  children  of  the  Duke 
of  Nemours  were  placed  under  the  scaffold,  that  the 
blood  of  their  father  might  flow  on  their  heads.  "J 
Before  we  refute  this  allegation,  let  us  consult 
Duclos,  an  historian  not  suspected  of  devotion  to 


*  "Essai  sur  les  Mceurs,"  etc.    See  also  letter  to  Linguet, 
June,  1776. 

t  "Histoire  de  Louis  XL,"  vol.  ii,  p.  297. 

%  "Histoire  de  France,"  ed.  176S,  vol.  xviii,  p.  339 


Louis  XI. ;    The  Travestied  and  the  Heal.    165 

Louis  XI.,  in  order  to  learn  the  crime,  the  expiation 
of  which  has  furnished  material  to  novelist  and 
dramatist  for  a  superlatively  harrowing  scene.  The 
Duke  of  Nemours,  in  spite  of  the  obligations  binding 
him  to  Louis  XL,  entered  into  nearly  all  the  plots 
against  that  monarch,  and  finally  joined  the  faction 
of  the  Count  d'Armagnac,  head  of  his  house.  "Ar- 
magnac  was  one  of  those  who  prove  that  tyranny  is 
sustained  by  baseness,  and  that  legitimate  power, 
when  its  possessor  does  not  abuse  it,  is  favorable  to 
the  happiness  of  the  people."  The  King,  informed 
of  the  excesses  of  the  Count,  and  suspecting  him  of 
relations  with  the  English,  entrusted  the  Count  de 
Danimartin  with  full  powers  for  investigation.  The 
result  was  a  declaration,  on  the  part  of  the  royal 
council,  that  the  Duke  of  Nemours  having  obtained 
his  duchy  from  the  King,  and  having  been  loaded 
with  favors,  had  been  one  of  the  chief  inciters  of 
civil  war;  and  that  having  received  pardon,  and 
having  sworn  to  serve  his  Majesty  against  all  per- 
sons, he  had  again  excited  insurrection  and  had 
joined  the  Count  d'Armagnac.  Consequently  Ne- 
mours was  declared  guilty  of  high-treason.  But 
Nemours  begged  the  intercession  of  Dammartin ;  and 
Louis  again  pardoned  the  rebel  Duke,  "on  condition 
that  if  he  again  swerved  in  his  fidelity  he  should  be 
punished  for  the  crimes  already  committed.  .  .  . 
He  was  ungrateful,  and  was  one  of  the  first  to  declare 
himself  in  the  war  of  the  'Public  Weal. '  "  He  even 
sought  the  assassination  of  his  sovereign.  Finally, 
Louis  caused  his  arrest ;  he  was  condemned  to  de- 


166    Louis  XI. ;    The  Travestied  and  the  Beat. 

capitation,  and  executed  in  the  Halles  de  Paris  on 
August  4,  1477. 

''Lie,  lie  bravely:  something  will  always  remain. 
Fling:  mud:  some  of  it  will  stick."  Yoltaire  was 
never  more  fully  actuated  by  his  cynically  daring 
axiom  than  when,  in  his  anxiety  to  asperse  the  mem- 
ory of  Louis  XL,  he  said  that  "the  unheard-of  tor- 
ments suffered  by  the  princes  of  Nemours-Armagnac 
would  be  incredible,  if  they  were  not  attested  by  the 
request  presented  by  the  unfortunate  princes  to  the 
Estates  after  the  death  of  Louis  XL,  in  1483."  The 
request  to  which  the  Sage  of  Ferney  alludes  was 
presented  by  the  lawyer  Masselin,  and  in  the  time  of 
Duclos  and  Garnier  it  was  preserved  in  the  Royal 
Library  at  Paris;  these  authors  knew  it  well,  and 
the  latter  made  a  lon^  extract  from  it  in  the  nine- 
teenth  volume  of  his  work.  Now,  in  the  pleading  of 
Masselin  there  is  not  a  word  such  as  Voltaire  insin- 
uates as  existing,  and  which  Duclos  and  Garnier 
implicitly  recognize  as  existent ;  even  the  rhetorical 
figures  employed  by  the  interested  advocate  to  excite 
sympathy  for  his  unfortunate  clients  can  not  be 
twisted  so  as  to  justify  the  anecdote  so  eagerly  used 
by  the  romancists.  Hence  it  is  that  Henri  Martin, 
the  pet  historian  of  modern  freethinkers,  whose 
writings  are  marked  by  error,  hatred,  and  prejudice, 
in  things  both  little  and  great,  is  compelled  to  reject 
it.  "It  is  a  fable  invented  by  the  reaction  against 
the  memory  of  Louis  XL ' '  *    And  Fournier  admits : 


"Histoire  de  France,"  4th  ed.,  vol.  vii,  p.  135. 


Louis  XI. ;   The  Travestied  and  the  Heal.    167 

"the  execution  of  Nemours  was  very  different  from 
that  which  is  generally  described ;  the  frightful  de- 
tails, the  children  kneeling  under  the  scaffold,  the 
shocking  deluge  of  blood,  as  Casimir  Delavigne 
represents  it,  form  a  mass  of  melodramatic  para- 
phernalia which  must  now  be  relegated  to  the 
'Crimes  Celebres.'"* 

As  to  the  crimes  so  freely  ascribed  to  Louis  XI., 
for  which  he  is  said  to  have  begged  pardon  in 
advance  from  the  saints  whose  leaden  images  he 
carried  on  his  hatband,  many  of  them  are  either 
without  any  historical  foundation,  or,  when  properly 
investigated,  prove  to  have  been  not  crimes,  but 
justifiable  actions  on  the  part  of  a  monarch.  Duclos 
did  not  err  on  the  side  of  devotion  or  in  appre- 
ciation of  true  devotional  character;  but  he  had 
enough  good  sense  to  remark:  "I  need  not  allude 
to  the  monstrous  alliance  of  cruelty  and  superstition 
which  is  ascribed  to  Louis  XL  in  the  charge  that  he 
was  wont  to  ask  permission  from  the  Blessed  Virgin 
for  his  assassinations ;  those  nonsensical  tales  merit 
no  refutation. "f  If  there  was  one  quality  which 
supereminently  shone  in  Louis  XL,  one  which 
stamped  him  as  a  born  ruler  of  men,  it  was  that  of 
knowing  how  to  choose  his  instruments.  All  those 
whom  he  raised  to  eminent  positions  of  trust  were 
men  of  great  capacity.  Some,  like  Cardinal  Balue, 
were  traitors — for  the  fifteenth  century,  the  moral 


*  "L'Esprit  clans  THistoire,"  2d  ed.,  p.  113. 
t  Loc.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  p.  514. 


168   Louis  XI. ;   The  Travestied  and  the  Meal, 

decadence  and  vital  end  of  the  Middle  Age,  was  the 
period  of  traitors, — but  he  who  sought  only  the 
good  of  France  was  never  deceived  as  to  their  fit- 
ness for  their  positions.  Romancists  like  Scott  may 
be  prodigal  of  sneers  for  Tristan  1'Herniite,  "the 
executioner/'  We  are  not  astounded  when  we  hear 
the  American  journalist  vituperate  a  President  of 
the  United  States  as  an  "ex-hangman,"  on  account 
of  his  having  been  a  sheriff  of  his  county.  But 
when  grave  historians  hold  up  Louis  XI.  to  ridi- 
cule for  his  confidence  in  Tristan,  they  betray  their 
own  unfitness  to  lift  the  torch  of  investigation. 
This  "hangman"  was  a  brave  ofiicer,  a  master  of 
artillery,  a  tried  servant  of  the  crown,  who  had  sub- 
dued the  men  of  Liege  in  1457,  and  who,  as  the 
executor  of  the  high  justice  of  the  King,  deserved 
as  much  respect  as  any  Minister  of  the  Interior  who 
is  responsible  for  the  internal  order  of  a  nation. 

Much  has  been  said  of  the  absolutism  of  Louis 
XL,  but  the  truth  would  be  better  consulted  if  we 
were  to  say  that  for  the  mixture  of  feudality  and 
government  by  Estates,  which  had  obtained  in 
France  since  the  reign  of  Philip  the  Fair,  he  sub- 
stituted a  new  form  of  government  which  may  be 
called  a  limited  monarchy;*  a  form  which  is  as 
essentially  different  from  the  absolute  as  from  the 
constitutional.     The  limited  monarchy  is  different 


*  By  a  limited  monarchy  we  understand  one  in  which  the 
national  assemblies,  convoked  at  long  intervals,  have  neither 
their  own  will  nor  action,  and  meet  only  to  sanction  the  pro- 
jects of  the  ruler;  one  in  which  the  head  of  the  state  possesses 


Louis  XI. ;   The  Travestied  and  the  Real.    169 

from  the  constitutional,  inasmuch  as  in  the  latter 
the  national  assemblies,  periodically  gathered,  enjoy 
political  rights,  the  exercise  of  which  gives  to  the 
nation  a  share  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs.  The 
limited  differs  from  the  absolute  monarchy,  because 
it  respects  the  organic  laws  already  issued  by  the 
various  powers  of  the  state,  because  it  tolerates 
local  liberties,  such  as  provincial  and  municipal 
privileges,  etc.  A  few  of  the  acts  of  Louis  XI. 
were  violently  despotic ;  but  he  cannot  be  said  to 
have  established  a  despotic  monarchy,  for  he  found 
in  the  prerogatives  of  parliament  and  in  the  national 
customs  an  impediment  to  the  erection  of  the  royal 
will  into  a  supreme  law.  His  excesses  remained 
excesses,  and  not  until  the  reign  of  Francis  I. 
(1515-47)  did  France  see  the  royal  will  become 
legality.  During  the  reign  of  Louis  XI.  the  prog- 
ress of  the  Third  Estate  was  constant,  and  that  by 
the  very  nature  of  events.  According  as  a  greater 
number  of  capable  men  were  formed  in  its  bosom, 
its  influence  became  more  considerable,  and  the 
administration  passed,  to  a  great  extent,  into  its 
hands.  .The  policy  of  Louis  XI.  contributed  greatly 
to  this  result:  he  diminished  the  power  of  the 
nobles,  whom  he  did  not  love,  and  proportionably 
elevated  the  others.  He  augmented  the  liberties  of 
the  communes,  and  was  the  real  King  of  the  people. 


all  the  legislative  and  executive  power,  disposes  of  the  public 
revenue  without  rendering  any  account,  and  can  levy  taxes  at 
his  own  will."  Poirson:  "Precis  de  l'Histoire  de  France 
pendant  les  Temps  Modernes."    Paris,  1840. 


RICHELIEU  AS  AN   ECCLESIASTIC. 

Few  of  the  world's  great  ones  have  been  sub- 
jected to  such  contrary  judgments  as  those  passed 
on  the  character  of  the  Minister  of  Louis  XIII. 
In  his  own  day  the  flattery  and  hatred  he  experi- 
enced were  equally  blind  and  equally  interested; 
many  declared  that  he  was  the  visible  hand  of 
Providence  exalting  France,  while  many  others  saw 
in  him  only  an  intriguer,  a  debauchee,  and  the  evil 
genius  of  Europe.  He  was  an  ecclesiastic  as  well 
as  a  statesman ;  and  in  its  criticism  of  churchmen 
the  world  readily  verifies  that  saying  which  La- 
fontaine  applied  to  the  generality  of  its  judgments. 
It  pays  but  little  attention  to  favorable  truth,  but 
eagerly  credits  any  disparaging  lie : 

"L'homme  est  de  glace  aux  Veritas, 
II  est  de  feu  pour  le  mensonge."  • 

But  upon  whose  authority  do  they  rely  who 
decry  the  private  character  of  Richelieu?  Chiefly 
on  that  of  Henri  de  Lomenie,  Comte  de  Brienne, 
a  writer  who  was  not  born  at  the  time  of  the  sup- 
posed events  he  narrates,  who  adduces  no  proofs 
whatever,  and  who,  remarks  the  most  painstaking 
of  all  Richelieu's  modern  critics,  probably  wrote 
his  anecdotes  in  the  prison  of  St.  Lazare,  in  which 
his  other  insane  ebullitions  had  caused  him  to  be 

170 


Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic.  Ill 

immured.*  Paul  de  Gondi,  Cardinal  de  Retz,  the 
Jansenistic  coadjutor  of  Paris,  is  also  brought  for- 
ward; but  the  historical  authority  of  this  too  fa- 
mous "Frondeur"  must  be  regarded  as  nil.  In 
his  "Memoires,"  observes  Sainte-Beuve,  ' 'where  he 
speaks  so  candidly  of  himself,  he  continually  uses 
such  expressions  as  'theatre'  and  'comedy;'  he  re- 
gards everything  simply  as  a  play;  and  frequently, 
when  speaking  of  the  principal  personages  with 
whom  he  has  to  deal,  he  treats  them  exactly  as  a 
stage-manager  would  his  actors.  .  .  .  He  openly 
presents  himself  as  an  able  impressario ,  arranging 
his  work.  .  .  .  There  are  some  passages  in  his 
'Memoires'  where  he  seems  to  try  to  rival  Moliere 
rather  than  to  combat  Mazarin."f  In  Book  I.  he 
tells  us  that  when  made  coadjutor  to  his  uncle, 
he  "ceased  to  frequent  the  pit,  and  went  on  the 
stage."  When  this  work — which  so  many  regard 
as  an  arsenal  of  weapons  against  Richelieu  and 
his  policy — was  read  by  the  poet  J.  B.  Rousseau, 
he  declared  that  it  was  "a  salmagundi  of  good 
and  bad,  written  sometimes  well  and  sometimes 
miserably  and  very  tedious.  ...  I  am  astonished 
when  I  see  a  priest,  an  Archbishop,  a  Cardinal,  a 
gentleman,  a  man  of  mature  age,  describing  him- 
self, as  he  does,  as  a  duellist,  a  concubinary,  and, 
what  is  worse,   a  deliberate  hypocrite, — one  who, 


*  Avenel :  "Lettres,  Instructions  Diplomatiques,  et  Papiers 
Etat.,  du  Cardinal  de  Richelieu;' 
t  "Causeries  du  Lundi,"  vol.  v. 


172  Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic. 

during  a  retreat  made  in  the  seminary,  took  a  res- 
olution to  be  wicked  before  God  and  good  before 
the  world."  In  1675  the  Duke  de  la  Rochefou- 
cauld, in  his  "Maximes,"  said  of  De  Retz :  "His 
imagination,  rather  than  his  memory,  supplies  him 
with  facts."  Mme.  de  Sevigne,  writing  to  her 
daughter  concerning  her  correspondence  with  De 
Eetz,  said:  "If  anything  foolish  drops  from  your 
pen,  he  will  be  as  much  charmed  as  if  it  were 
serious."  One  or  two  exquisite  morsels  of  this 
famous  authority  will  illustrate  his  honesty :  "Scru- 
ples and  greatness  have  always  been  incompatible." 
"The  crime  of  usurping  a  crown  is  so  grand  that 
it  may  pass  for  a  virtue."  Speaking  of  his  con- 
spiracy against  the  life  of  Richelieu  (1636),  he 
said:  "The  crime  appeared  to  me  to  be  consecrated 
by  grand  examples,  and  justified  and  honored  by 
great  risks."  Truly  did  De  Retz  say  of  himself 
(B.  I.)  that  he  possessed  "Fame peul-Mre  la  moins 
ecclesiastique  qui  fut  dans  Vunivers."  And  let  us 
not  forget  that  this  precious  intriguer  was  a  youth- 
ful abbe  at  the  time,  and  that  it  is  very  unlikely 
that  such  secrets  would  have  been  confided  to  him 
during  the  lifetime  of  Richelieu ;  while  if  he  knew 
of  them  only  after  the  great  Minister's  death,  the 
escapades  in  question  could  not  have  been  so  "no- 
torious" as  Voltaire  would  have  us  believe.  Again, 
De  Retz  himself  tells  us  that  Richelieu  preserved 
appearances — "11  avait  assez  de  religion  pour  le 
monde." 


Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic.  173 

Griff  et,  in  his  refutation  of  Voltaire's  reasons 
for  denying  the  authenticity  of  Richelieu's  ''Polit- 
ical Testament"  (addressed  to  Louis  XIII.,  and 
a  monumental  proof  of  the  Cardinal's  sincerity  and 
wisdom),  speaks  of  authentic  records  which  detail 
the  complaints  concerning  Richelieu  often  made  by 
Louis  XIII.  to  his  confessor,  F.  Caussin.*  The 
King  blamed  the  Cardinal  for  prodigality  and  love 
of  display,  and  was  scandalized  because  his  Emi- 
nence had  procured  from  the  Holy  See  a  dispensation 
from  the  recitation  of  the  Office;  but  not  a  word 
did  his  Majesty  drop  in  derogation  from  the  moral 
character  of  his  Minister.  Griffet  quotes  the  "Me- 
moires"  of  the  contemporary  Montchal,  Archbishop 
of  Toulouse,  who  says  that  Richelieu  " asked  the 
Holy  See  for  a  Brief  authorizing  him  to  prosecute 
some  dissolute  bishops."  Now,  is  it  likely  that  the 
Cardinal  would  have  so  acted  if  his  own  guilt  was 
"notorious?"  And  it  is  to  be  noted  that  Montchal 
shows  great  hostility  to  Richelieu;  nevertheless,  he 
fails  to  remark  any  such  inconsistency.  Voltaire 
affected  to  disbelieve  in  the  authenticity  of  Riche- 
lieu's magnificent  "Political  Testament"  to  Louis 
XIII.,  because  of  its  eloquent  exhortations  to  virtue, 
"ostensibly"  written  by  one  who  was  "notoriously" 
delinquent;!   and,   notwithstanding  this   assertion, 


*  "Traite"  des  differentes  sortes  de  preuves  qui  servent  a 
£tablir  la  v^rite  de  l'Histoire."    Liege,  1770. 

f  "Doutes  nouveaux  sur  le  testament  attribue'  au  Card,  de 
Kihcelieu,  et  Arbitrage  entre  M.  Yoltaire  et  M.  de  Fonce- 
magne." 


174  Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic, 

the  Sage  of  Ferney  says  elsewhere*  that  our  Car- 
dinal's errors  were  "hidden  weaknesses,  which,  in 
spite  of  all  the  care  taken  to  cover  them,  show 
the  littleness  of  greatness."  We  are,  therefore, 
justified  in  concluding  that  Richelieu  was  not  an 
immoral  man.  But  we  should  like  to  draw  the 
attention  of  the  reader  to  a  point  which  is  seldom 
or  never  noticed — his  character  as  a  bishop. 

Armand  Jean  du  Plessis  de  Richelieu  was  born 
in  Paris  on  September  9,  1585.  Like  nearly  all 
persons  whose  mature  age  showed  them  to  be  truly 
great,  his  childhood  exhibited  no  precocity ;  he  was 
an  ordinarily  gifted  boy.  His  first  lessons  were 
received,  under  the  eyes  of  his  mother,  from  the 
Prior  of  St.  Florent  de  Saumur;  and  at  the  age  of 
twelve  he  was  sent  to  the  College  of  Navarre,  then 
one  of  the  most  famous  in  Paris.  Having  completed 
the  ordinary  course,  he  entered  the  "Academy," 
or  military  school.  Avenel  speculates  as  to  the 
future   of  young   Richelieu   had  he   followed   the 

*  "Histoire  Universelle,"  vol.  iv,  p.  89.— The  ''Political 
Testament,"  one  of  the  most  solid  instructions  ever  addressed 
to  royalty,  was  drawn  up  by  Richelieu  in  duplicate, — one  copy 
going  to  his  Majesty,  the  other  to  the  Cardinal's  niece,  the 
Duchess  d'Aiguillon,  who,  dying  in  1675,  left  it  to  her  con- 
fidante, Mme.  du  Vigean.  It  was  published  in  1688,  went 
through  many  editions,  and  finally,  in  1749,  Voltaire  attacked 
its  authenticity  in  a  dissertation  subjoined— why,  he  alone 
knew — to  his  tragedy  of  "SCmiramis."  He  afterward  repub- 
lished this  dissertation,  "Des  Mensonges  Imprimes,"  in  his 
"Essai  sur  l'Histoire  Generate. "  Of  the  fifteen  objections  of 
which  it  consists,  the  one  noticed  above  is  probably  the  strong- 
est; but  all  were  triumphantly  refuted  by  Foncemagne  in 


Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic.  175 

career  for  which  he  seemed  destined.  "He  admired 
the  military  profession,  and  in  certain  circumstances 
he  bore  arms ;  he  always  superintended  the  direc- 
tion of  the  army,  its  organization,  its  commissariat, 
etc.  Frequently  he  laid  aside  the  red  cassock  and 
donned  the  surcoat  of  the  soldier;  often  he  com- 
manded in  person ;  and  we  constantly  find,  in  his 
papers,  plans  of  battles  and  of  fortifications  designed 
by  him.  In  councils  of  war  his  opinion  often  pre- 
vailed over  that  of  experienced  generals, — not  be- 
cause of  any  deference  to  his  rank,  but  because 
of  the  conviction  that  his  perceptions  were  just  and 
his  judgment  solid."* 

However,  the  young  cadet  left  the  Academy  when 
eighteen  years  of  age,  and  entered  the  theological 
schools  of  the  Sorbonne.  In  1606  Henry  IV.  named 
him  for  the  bishopric  of  Lugon,  although  he  was 
then  only  a  deacon ;  "and  since  the  said  Du  Plessis," 
wrote  the  King  to  d'Halincourt,  his  ambassador  to 
the  Holy  See,  "has  not  yet  reached  the  age  re- 
quired by  the  canons,  and  since  I  am  quite  sure 
that  his  merit  and  ability  supply  this  defect,  you 
will  beg  his  Holiness  to  grant  the  necessary  dis- 


1750.  The  latest  author  of  note  to  treat  of  the  "Political  Tes- 
tament" was  La  Bruyere,  and  he  declared  that  "the  man  who 
performed  such  wonders  (as  Richelieu  did)  either  never  wrote 
at  all,  or  he  must  have  written  this  document."  Montesquieu 
agreed  with  La  Bruyere.  In  fine,  this  work  will  hear  compar- 
ison with  the  similar  ones  composed  by  Fenelon  and  Bossuet 
for  the  guidance  of  their  royal  pupils. 

*  uLa  Jeunesse  de  Richelieu,"  in  the  "Revue  des  Quest. 
Hist.,"  1869,  vol.  vi,  p.  164. 


176  Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic. 

pensation ;  for  the  said  Du  Plessis  is  in  every  way 
capable  of  serving  the  Church  of  God."*  The 
royal  request  was  granted,  and  the  young  abbe 
was  consecrated  at  Rome  on  April  17,  1607,  and 
immediately  returned  to  the  Sorbonne  to  take  his 
degrees.  His  assiduity  in  study  had  told  on  his 
health,  and  he  was  unable  to  make  the  journey  to 
his  diocese  until  December,  1608.  Received  as  was 
customary  by  the  chapter  and  magistracy,  he  al- 
luded to  the  Huguenots  of  Lucon  in  these  words : 
"Many  there  are  who  differ  with  us  in  belief;  I 
trust  that  we  shall  all  be  united  in  affection." 
And  while  ever  firm  in  insisting  on  the  rights  of 
Holy  Mother  Church,  his  entire  career  at  Lucon 
showed  him  the  defender  of  those  of  Protestants ;  f 
although,  as  he  was  once  forced  to  lament  to  a 
Huguenot  friend,  his  sentiments  were  seldom  re- 
ciprocated. 

The  diocese  of  Lucon  was  one  of  the  poorest  in 
France,  and  it  is  interesting  to  read  Richelieu's 
own  description  of  some  of  his  privations.  JSToblesse 
oblige,  and  the  new  prelate,  a  member  of  one  of 
the  first  families  in  France,  was  expected  to  make 
an  appropriate  entry  into  his  episcopal  city.  But 
he  had   no   carriage,  and  it  would  have  been  in- 


*  Berger  de  Xivrey,  "Lettres  de  Henri  IV.,"  vol.  vii,  p.  53. 

f  Cardinal  Richelieu's  impartiality  was  especially  mani- 
fested in  his  letters  to  Pontchartraiu,  secretary  of  state  for 
Protestant  affairs,  guaranteeing  the  fidelity  of  the  famous 
ministers  du  Plessy-Mornay  and  Chamier. 


Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic,  111 

decorous  to  use  a  hired  one;  he  therefore  borrowed 
an  equipage  from  a  friend.  On  arriving  at  the 
episcopal  palace,  he  found  it  uninhabitable  and 
almost  beyond  repair,  and  he  was  compelled  to  hire 
apartments  and  buy  all  necessary  furniture.  Even 
the  vestments  of  his  pontifical  office  were  wanting, 
and  he  thought  himself  fortunate,  after  a  time, 
in  procuring  them  in  two  colors.  "Certainly,"  he 
wrote  to  a  friend,  "this  is  the  most  wretched  bish- 
opric in  France;  but,  then,  you  know  what  kind 
of  man  the  Bishop  is."  Eichelieu  could  rely  on 
little  or  no  revenue  in  a  diocese  poor  at  all  times, 
and  then  impoverished  by  war;  and  his  own  means 
were  small,  for  he  was  a  younger  son.  He  there- 
fore, as  he  said,  was  as  poor  as  a  monk,  though 
without  any  vow  of  poverty ;  and  on  one  occasion 
he  was  compelled  by  need  to  sell  a  valuable  tap- 
estry, a  family  heirloom.  But,  despite  his  small 
resources,  he  was  a  father  to  the  poor,  and  did  all 
he  could  to  relieve  their  necessities. 

Scarcely  had  he  settled  down  in  his  new  home 
when  he  made  an  episcopal  visitation  of  the  whole 
diocese;  and  he  wrote  to  the  Cardinal  de  la 
Rochefoucauld,  one  of  the  most  zealous  bishops 
of  the  time,  that  he  found  "ecclesiastical  discipline 
and  authority  everywhere  weakened."  To  remedy 
the  evil  he  called  on  the  Capuchins  (whom  the 
famous  Friar  Joseph,  the  future  "Grey  Cardinal," 
was  then  exciting  to  renewed  zeal)  for  missions; 
and  he  immediately  established,  with  his  own  money, 
a  new  seminary,  saying  to  its  president  that  "no 


178  Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic. 

act  of  his  life  had  afforded  him  so  much  pleasure." 
The  first  establishment,  after  the  mother-house, 
possessed  by  the  famous  Oratorians  founded  by  De- 
Berulle,  was  given  them  in  his  diocese  by  Riche- 
lieu, and  he  justly  prided  himself  on  this  fact  in 
his  "Memoires."  When  a  parish  became  vacant,  he 
invariably  conferred  it  by  concursus;  but  if,  as  was 
often  the  case,  some  powerful  laic  held  the  right 
of  presentation,  he  insisted  on  a  proper  nomination. 
A  certain  Madame  de  Sainte-Croix  having  presented 
an  unworthy  candidate,  he  wrote  to  her:  "I  beg 
you  to  properly  regard  my  fulfillment  of  duty  when 
I  refuse  to  entrust  to  this  person  the  care  of  souls 
redeemed  by  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ.  By  making 
another  selection,  you  will  also  set  a  good  example 
to  others  who  enjoy  the  right  of  presentation." 

Work  was  always  a  passion  with  Richelieu,  and, 
as  the  documents  published  by  Avenel  prove,  when 
he  was  not  occupied  in  the  public  affairs  of  his 
diocese,  he  was  engaged  in  the  direction  of  souls, 
in  settling  quarrels  and  preventing  duels,  in  con- 
soling the  afilicted,  and  in  study.  Those  who  have 
never  regarded  him  in  any  other  light  than  that 
of  a  courtier  may  smile  at  the  idea  of  Richelieu 
the  student,  and  yet  the  future  Minister's  studious 
habits  were  well  known  to  his  compeers.  The 
famous  Gabriel  de  l'Aubespine  (Albaspinseus), 
Bishop  of  Orleans,  certainly  a  competent  judge,* 


*  De  l'Aubespine  was,  according  to  "Gallia  Christiana,' 
lvir  totius  antiquitatis  ecclesiasticce  peritissimus," 


Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic.  179 

wrote  to  him  on  one  occasion:  "I  have  always 
counted  much  on  your  talent  for  ecclesiastical  and 
spiritual  matters ;  and  now  that  you  study  so  unin- 
termittingly,  my  estimation  is  increased,  and  I  feel 
that  you  would  not  take  such  pains  if  you  were  not 
meditating  some  great  design." 

Even  the  illustrious  theologian,  Cardinal  Du- 
perron,  admired  the  zeal  of  the  Bishop  of  Lugon. 
In  a  letter  written  to  Richelieu  in  1610,  when  the 
prelate  was  but  twenty-five  years  of  age,  a  mutual 
friend  said:  "The  Cardinal  seizes  every  occasion  to 
manifest  his  esteem  for  you.  A  certain  person  hav- 
ing praised  you  as  eminent  among  young  prelates, 
his  Eminence  declared  that  you  ought  not  be  men- 
tioned among  young  prelates,  for  the  oldest  might 
well  yield  you  precedence;  and,  for  his  part,  he 
wished  to  set  the  example."  Praise  from  Sir  Hu- 
bert is  praise  indeed. 

During  his  seven  years'  charge  at  Lugon,  Riche- 
lieu made  several  trips  to  Paris ;  but  on  all  these 
occasions  he  kept  his  episcopal  position  ever  in 
mind,  and  frequently  he  preached  in  the  principal 
pulpits  of  the  capital.  Aubery,  who  drew  his  in- 
formation from  the  family  of  Richelieu,  says  that 
the  King  and  Queen  often  attended  these  sermons, 
and  that  "they  nearly  always  declared  that  no 
preacher  ever  made  more  impression  on  their 
hearts."  The  sermons  of  Cardinal  Richelieu  have 
not  come  down  to  us,  but  we  must  suppose  that, 
whatever  may  have  been  his  merits  as  a  poet  and 
playwright,  they  were  good  ones.     He   certainly 


180  Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic. 

possessed,  remarks  a  judicious  critic,*  the  chief 
requisites  of  a  fine  preacher — force  of  logic,  ele- 
vation of  thought,  and  energy  of  expression. 

The  assiduity  displayed  by  Richelieu  in  his 
studies  while  Bishop  of  Lucon  was  the  more  ad- 
mirable because  much  of  the  time  left  him  by  the 
cares  of  his  diocese  had  to  be  given  to  an  exten- 
sive correspondence  with  many  Roman  cardinals 
and  with  the  Papal  Nuncio  at  Paris.  Again — and 
this  fact  is  worthy  of  note  by  those  who  believe 
him  to  have  been  a  debauchee, — from  his  twenty- 
third  year  until  his  death  in  1642,  Richelieu  was 
nearly  always  in  physical  pain.  The  first  letter 
(1605)  published  by  Avenel  shows  him  in  a  pain- 
ful convalescence  after  a  long  illness;  and  so  on 
through  the  entire  series  we  find  him  generally  a 
victim  to  bodily  suffering ;  his  last  attack  continued 
more  than  a  year. 

Richelieu  resigned  his  diocese  in  1616  to  become 
Prime  Minister  of  France ;  and  he  himself,  toward 
the  close  of  his  life,  well  epitomized  his  later  career 
when  he  said  to  the  King:  "I  promised  your 
Majesty  that  I  would  use  all  my  ability,  and  all  the 
power  you  would  give  me,  to  crush  the  Huguenot 
party,  to  lay  low  the  pride  of  the  nobles,  to  force 
all  your  subjects  to  do  their  duty,  and  to  cause 
foreign  nations  to  properly  respect  your  Majesty's 
name;   and  to  effect  these  ends  I  insisted  that  I 


Barthelemy,  "Caractere  de  Kichelieu," 


Itichelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic.  181 

should  have  your  entire  confidence."*  Concerning 
this  better  known  portion  of  the  life  of  Richelieu, 
we  would  merely  remark  that  few  French  historians 
have  avoided  either  blind  hatred  or  blind  praise  in 
treating  of  it;  and  foreigners,  especially  English- 
men and  Germans,  can  not  allude  to  it  with  equa- 
nimity; for,  as  Malherbe  said  in  1627,  "the 
space  between  the  Ehine  and  the  Pyrenees  appeared 
to  Eichelieu  as  a  field  too  small  for  the  lilies  of 
France ;  he  wanted  them  to  wave  on  both  shores  of 
the  Mediterranean,  and  wished  their  odor  to  be 
wafted  even  to  the  farthest  Orient." 

From  the  "Memoires"  of  Richelieu,  published 
in  the  collection  of  Petitot  (Series  II.,  vol.  x), 
Paris,  1823,  we  take  the  following  particulars  of  the 
Cardinal's  daily  life  while  Minister:  He  retired  at 
eleven  o'clock,  and,  having  slept  three  or  four 
hours,  called  for  his  dispatches,  and  then  wrote  or 
dictated  the  replies.  At  six  he  slept  again,  and  at 
eight  arose.  After  prayers  his  secretaries  came  for 
instructions;  then  he  received  the  Ministers  of 
State  until  eleven.  At  midday  he  heard  Mass,  cel- 
ebrated by  Friar  Joseph.  Then  he  took  a  short 
walk,  giving  audience  to  special  and  important 
parties.  Then  he  lunched — fourteen  covers  being 
laid  at  his  own  table,  thirty  for  invited  guests  at 
another,  and  a  larger  number  at  a  third  for  his 
pages  and  the  officers  of  his  household.  After 
lunch  he  conversed  for  a  couple  of  hours  with  his 


"Testament  Politique." 


182  Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic. 

familiars  and  with  literary  men,  and  the  remainder 
of  the  day  he  worked  at  affairs  of  state.  In  the 
early  evening  he  took  a  walk,  meanwhile  again 
giving  audiences.  The  evening  hours  were  passed 
with  music,  reading,  or  general  talk,  as  the  Cardinal 
thought  that  sleep  was  better  wooed  by  previous 
conversation  of  a  character  neither  sad  nor  rollick- 
ing. He  seldom  said  Mass,  but  he  confessed  every 
week,  receiving  Holy  Communion  from  his  chaplain. 
We  may  not  dwell  on  the  great  Cardinal's  career 
as  statesman,  but  we  close  our  article  with  a  pic- 
ture of  his  final  hours  as  man.*  When  it  became 
evident  that  Richelieu  had  but  a  short  time  to 
live,  the  King  paid  him  a  farewell  visit,  and  was 
thus  addressed  by  the  dying  man:  "Sire,  in  taking 
farewell  of  your  Majesty  I  have  the  consolation 
of  knowing  that  I  leave  your  kingdom  in  a  more 
glorious  condition,  and  with  a  greater  reputation 
than  it  ever  hitherto  enjoyed.  All  your  enemies 
are  humiliated.  Only  one  reward  for  all  my  serv- 
ices do  I  ask  from  your  Majesty,  and  that  is 
your  good-will  and  protection  for  my  nephews; 
and  I  give  them  my  blessing  only  on  condition 
that  they  are  ever   your   faithful    subjects."     He 


*  "Recit  de  ce  qui  s'est  passe  un  peu  avant  la  mort  de  M. 
le  Cardinal  de  Richelieu,  arrivee  le  jeudi,  4  Dec,  1642,  sur  le 
midi"  (Bibl.  Nat.  MSS.  Fonds  Dupuy,  vol.  DXC,  fol.  298, 
recto);  Griffet,  "Histoire  de  Louis  XIII.,"  vol.  Ill,  p.  576; 
Lettre  d'Heuri  Arnauld,  Abbe  de  Saint-Nicolas,  au  president 
Barillon,  Dec.  6,  1642  (Bibl.  Nat.  Fonds  Francais,  vol.  XX, 
DCXXXV)  ;  cited  by  Barthelemy,  loc.  cit. 


Richelieu  as  an  Ecclesiastic.  183 

then  conjured  his  physician  to  tell  him  frankly  how 
long  he  might  expect  to  live,  and  hearing  that  in 
twenty-four  hours  he  would  be  dead  or  well,  he  de- 
manded Extreme  Unction.  When  the  parish  priest 
of  Saint-Eustache,  approaching  with  the  holy  oils, 
remarked  that  his  high  ecclesiastical  rank  dispensed 
him  from  answering  the  customary  questions,  Riche- 
lieu insisted  on  being  treated  "like  an  ordinary 
Christian.' '  The  priest  then  recited  the  principal 
articles  of  faith,  and  asked  him  if  he  believed  in 
them  all.  "Absolutely,"  he  replied;  "and  would 
that  I  had  a  thousand  lives  to  give  for  the  faith 
and  the  Church  !" — "Do  you  forgive  all  your  ene- 
mies?" asked  the  priest.  "With  all  my  heart,"  he 
answered;  "and  I  call  God  to  witness  that  I  have 
ever  intended  only  the  good  of  religion  and  of  the 
State."  Being  requested  to  pray  to  God  for  his 
recovery,  he  protested :  "God  forbid !  I  pray  only 
to  do  his  will."  In  a  few  hours  the  King  heard  of 
his  bereavement,  and  exclaimed :  "The  enemies  of 
France  will  not  profit  by  the  death  of  Richelieu.  I 
shall  go  on  with  all  he  has  begun." 


LOUIS   XIII.   AS   HE  WAS. 

History  has  involved  the  characters  of  some  per- 
sons in  an  obscurity  as  impenetrable  to  our  inspec- 
tion as  that  mask  with  which  the  famous  prisoner 
of  Pignerol  and  the  Bastile  was  made  to  hide  his 
identity  from  not  only  his  contemporaries,  but,  it 
would  seem,  from  all  future  investigators.  One  of 
these  subjects  is  Louis  XIII.  But  critics  have  suc- 
ceeded in  showing  at  least  whom  the  iron  mask  did 
not  conceal,  though  they  have  failed  in  determining 
whom  it  did;  and  just  so  we  of  the  present — pro- 
vided, of  course,  that  we  wish  to  see — can  unmask 
the  countenance  of  Louis  XIII. ,  and  regard  him, 
not  as  the  puppet  of  Eichelieu,  not  as  a  mere  non- 
entity among  kings,  but  as  a  monarch  worthy  of 
serious  consideration. 

Louis  XIII.  had  the  misfortune  of  being  born  be- 
tween two  consummately  great  sovereigns:  he  was 
the  son  of  Henry  IV.  and  the  father  of  Louis  XIV. ; 
and  we  are  tempted  to  discern,  in  all  the  grandeur 
of  his  reign,  either  af  continuation  of  the  work  of 
the  Bearnais  or  a  preparation  for  the  glories  of  the 
grand  monarque.  At  most,  we  echo  the  mass  of  his- 
torians, and  regard  him  as  a  Eoi  Faineant,  dropped 
out  of  the  eighth  century,  obeying  a  red-cassocked 
Master  of  the  Palace  with  all  the  nonchalance  of  a 
true  Merovingian — albeit,  not  lolling  in  an   oxen- 

184 


Louis  XIII.  as  He  Was.  185 

drawn  car ;  for  his  warlike  qualities  are  never  denied. 
Again,  while  Henry  IV.,  in  comparison  with  Sully, 
can  hold  his  own  in  our  estimation,  the  personality 
of  Louis  XIII.  is  nearly  obliterated  by  that  of 
Richelieu;  and  we  forget  that  just  as  we  think  no 
less  of  Sully  because  of  the  greatness  of  Henry  IV., 
so  the  greatness  of  Richelieu  should  not  lessen  that 
of  Louis  XIII. ;  for  in  the  case  of  each  pair  the  two 
chief  constituents  of  true  greatness  were  allies,  not 
rivals.  Henry  IV.  was  a  man  of  genius,  Sully  one 
of  common-sense ;  Louis  XIII.  possessed  common- 
sense,  Richelieu  genius. 

Louis  XIII.  has  been  well  styled  the  Just,  and  he 
would  have  merited  the  title  had  he  been  known 
for  nothing  else  than  his  steadfast  confidence  in  his 
Cardinal-Minister.  But  his  contemporaries  inform 
us  that  the  monarch  chafed  under  the  yoke  of  the 
great  statesman  whom  he  could  not  but  admire. 
We  are  told  that  he  both  envied  and  feared  him, 
without  whom,  to  use  the  words  of  Mme.  de  Motte- 
ville  (the  first  to  affirm  this  aversion),  "he  could 
not  live,  nor  with  him . ' '  La  Rochefoucauld,  another 
contemporary,  says  that  the  King  '  'bore  the  yoke  im- 
patiently;" and  that  "he  hated  Richelieu,"  though 
"he  never  ceased  to  bend  to  the  Cardinal's  will." 
Montglat  is  illogical  enough  to  insist  that  although 
Louis,  after  the  death  of  his  minister,  assured  the 
mourning  relatives  that  he  could  never  forget  the 
prelate's  great  services,  nevertheless  "he  was  very 


186"  Louis  XIII.  as  He  Was. 

glad  to  be  rid  of  him."  *  Omer  Talon  tells  us  that 
"master  and  valet  worried  each  other  to  death." 
Pontis  makes  of  Louis  a  man  without  gratitude ;  for 
he  describes  the  King  as  coolly  remarking,  when  he 
heard  of  the  Cardinal's  demise,  "A  great  politician 
has  gone;"t  and  nearly  all  writers  from  Pontis  to 
Bulwer  have  consecrated  the  phrase  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  King's  real  appreciation  of  Richelieu. 
Bazin  goes  so  far  as  to  proclaim  that  Louis  XIII. 
entertained  no  friendship  whatever  for  the  Cardi- 
nal.:]: Guizot  would  have  us  believe  that  "Louis 
experienced  an  instinctive  repugnance  for  his  Min- 
ister, and  he  never  showed  more  than  a  reasonable 
fidelity  toward  a  servant  whom  he  did  not  love." 
Well,  if  Louis  XIII.  felt  all  the  jealousy  for 
Richelieu  that  these  authors  discern,  if  he  was 
merely  what  most  small-minded  men  are  in  the 
face  of  the  great,  then  he  exercised  a  magnanimity 
toward  his  bete  noir  which  ought  to  excite  our  ven- 
eration. By  keeping  power  in  the  hands  of  one 
who  dwarfed  him,  when  by  a  word  he  could  have 
relegated  him  into  obscurity;  by  sacrificing  his 
jealousy  to  the  glory  of  France,  he  gained  a  victory 
over  self  such  as  we  may  seldom  find  in  the  annals 
of  monarchy.  But  alas  !  this  picture  is  imaginary. 
Louis  XIII.  was  simply  the  friend  of  Richelieu. 


*  "M^moires  de  Montglat,"  idem. — Brienne  uses  almost  the 
same  terms :  "Le  roi  flit  tout  ravi  d'en  etre  defait." 

t  "M^moires  de  Pontis,"  idem,  vol.  ii. 

%  "Histoire  de  France  sous  Louis  XIII.,"  in  preface,  and  in 
vol.  ii,  p.  456.    Paris,  1842. 


touts 


XIII.  a*  He  Was.  187 


In  1875  M.  Marius  Tophi  published  two  hundred 
and  fifty-eight  letters  of  Louis  XIII.  to  Richelieu, 
which  he  had  dug  out  of  the  achives  of  the  For- 
eign Office  at  Paris,  that  immense  sleeping  chamber 
of  history.  These  letters  are  authentic  in  style, 
orthography,  and  signature ;  and  they  completely 
destroy  the  common  idea  concerning  the  relations 
of  Louis  with  his  great  Minister,  while  they  furnish 
a  view  of  the  King's  character  which  differs  much 
from  that  obtained,  for  instance,  from  the  impressive 
drama  of  Bulwer.  They  show  us  that  Louis  never 
ceased  to  love  the  Cardinal,  or  to  confide  entirely 
in  him.  Every  line  manifests  the  fact  that,  while 
their  minds  were  of  very  unequal  calibre,  they  were 
equally  devoted  to  the  welfare  of  their  country. 
And  what  was  the  secret,  demands  M.  Topin,  by 
which  Richelieu  ever  preserved  the  full  confidence 
of  his  sovereign?  He  never  acted  but  for  the 
good  of  the  State,  and  he  never  kept  the  King 
in  ignorance  of  his  projects.  This  is  proved  also 
by  the  seven  enormous  volumes  of  the  Cardinal's 
letters,  published  by  Avenel. 

The  most  ambitious  and  able  intriguer  could 
scarcely  hope  to  supplant  Richelieu  in  the  heart  of 
him  who  was  informed  of  every  project  immediately 
on  its  conception.  When  separated  far  from  each 
other,  even  though,  as  was  generally  the  case,  the 
Cardinal  enjoyed  unlimited  powers,  couriers  were 
constantly  bearing  from  Richelieu  to  the  King  de- 
tailed accounts  of  the   public   business.     And  we 


188  Louis  XIII.  as  He  Wt 


as. 


notice  that  generally  it  was  Louis  who  formed  the 
decisive  resolution,  even  though  the  genius  of  his 
Minister  may  have  prepared  the  royal  mind  for  such 
action.  In  fact,  many  reports  of  the  Cardinal  bear 
marginal  notes  which  indicate  that  Louis  frequently 
resolved  on  a  course  diametrically  opposite  to  that 
advised  by  the  former.  When  the  King  was  not 
with  the  army,  he  assisted  at  every  meeting  of  his 
council,  and  clearly  asserted  his  will. 

"Richelieu,"  says  Topin,  after  having  carefully 
examined  these  letters  of  both  Cardinal  and  King, 
"while  charging  himself  with  the  execution  of  the 
royal  will,  of  course  gave  to  it  the  imprint  of  his 
own  strength ;  and  hence  he  appeared  as  its  origi- 
nator to  the  governors,  intendants,  generals,  ambas- 
sadors, etc.,  to  whom  he  communicated  his  develop- 
ment of  the  royal  opinion.  Doubtless  the  salient 
trait  of  the  royal  policy  were  the  Cardinal's  own 
insinuation,  and  it  was  nearly  always  his  genius 
which  discerned  the  means  most  adapted  to  secure 
the  end  in  view.  But  for  persistence  in  following 
the  path  once  chosen,  for  firmness  and  energy  in 
maintaining  their  common  system,  we  must  place 
Louis  XIII.  alongside  his  Eminence." 

It  might  interest  the  reader  were  we  to  quote 
extensively  from  the  correspondence  so  fortunately 
rescued  from  oblivion  by  the  researches  of  M.  Topin, 
but  our  space  confines  us  to  one  letter.  In  1626  the 
French  court  was  divided  as  to  the  feasibility  of  a 
marriage  which  had  been  projected  by  Henry  IV. 


Louis  XIII.  as  He  Was.  189 

between  Gaston  d' Orleans,  the  brother  of  Louis, 
and  Mile,  de  Montpensier.  Richelieu  and  the  King 
favored  this  union,  while  the  Cardinal's  foes  per- 
suaded Gaston  that  his  own  treacherous  ambition 
would  be  better  advanced  by  an  alliance  with  some 
foreign  princess.  As  a  coup  de  main,  Richelieu  ten- 
dered his  resignation,  whereupon  Louis  wrote  thus : 
"My  cousin,*  I  have  read  your  reasons  for  seeking 
repose.  I  desire  your  comfort  and  health  more  than 
even  you  can  desire  them,  provided  that  you  find 
them  in  the  guidance  of  my  affairs.  Since  you 
have  been  with  me  all  has  gone  well,  under  the 
divine  blessing,  and  I  have  full  confidence  in  you. 
Never  have  I  been  served  so  well  as  by  you. 
Therefore  I  beg  of  you  not  to  retire.  ...  Be 
assured  that  I  shall  protect  you  against  all  persons 
whomsoever."  Nor  was  his  promise  mere  empty 
words;  Louis  XIII.  could  enforce  respect  to  his 
will.  "It  is  enough  that  it  is  I  who  wish  it,"  he 
once  said  to  the  Cardinal,  when  making  a  similar 
promise.  We  shall  give  another  instance  of  the 
King's  solicitous  affection  for  Richelieu. 

The  war  for  the  Mantuan  succession,  begun  in 
1629,  was  at  its  height  when  the  King  was  seized 
by  a  dangerous  illness.  During  the  crisis  of  the 
malady  all  the  anxiety  of  Louis  was  for  his  Minister. 
The  enemies  of  Richelieu,  headed  by  the  queen- 
mother,  Marie  dei  Medici,  were  making  every  effort 


*  This  was  the  style  in  which  the  kings  of  France  always 
Wrote  to  cardinals?  as  well  as  to  marshals, 


190  Louis  XIII.  as  He  Was. 

to  unseat  him ;  but  Louis  was  indomitably  faithful 
to  the  interest  which  he  felt  to  be  that  of  France. 
On  the  decisive  day  of  his  illness  he  sent  for  the 
Duke  of  Montmorency  and  said  to  him:  "I  have 
two  favors  to  ask  of  you.  One  is  that  you  continue 
to  show  your  wonted  interest  in  the  State;  the 
other,  that  for  love  of  me  you  love  the  Cardinal 
Kichelieu."  *  And  the  affection  of  Louis  XIII.  for 
his  Minister  survived  the  life  of  its  object.  Wit- 
ness the  following  letter  written  by  the  monarch  on 
the  day  after  the  Cardinal's  death  (1642),  and 
compare  the  impression  produced  by  it  to  that  con- 
veyed concerning  the  shallowness  of  Louis  by  the 
drama  of  Bulwer. 

"M.  the  Marquis  de  Fontenay:  As  everyone 
knows  the  signal  services  rendered  me  by  my 
cousin  the  Cardinal-Duke  de  Eichelieu,  and  the 
many  advantages  which,  by  God's  blessing,  I  have 
obtained  through  his  counsels,  no  one  can  doubt 
that  I  grieve  as  I  ought  for  the  loss  of  so  good  and 
faithful  a  Minister.  But  I  wish  the  world  to  know, 
by  means  of  my  own  testimony  on  every  possible 
occasion,  how  dear  his  memory  is  to  me.  ...  I  have 
resolved  to  retain  in  office  all  the  persons  who  have 
served  me  under  the  administration  of  my  cousin 
the  Cardinal  de  Richelieu,  and  to  call  to  my  assist- 
ance my  cousin  the  Cardinal  Mazarin,  who  has 
given  me  so  many  proofs  of  his  capacity  and  fidelity 


*  Ducros,  "Histoire  du  Due  de  Montmorency,"  vol.  i,  eh.  22, 


Louis  XIII.  as  He  Was.  191 

on  the  many  occasions  when  I  have  employed  him,— 
proofs  of  a  devotion  as  great  as  though  he  had 
been  born  my  subject.  .  .  .  You  will  communi- 
cate all  the  foregoing  to  our  Holy  Father  the  Pope, 
that  he  may  know  that  the  affairs  of  this  kingdom 
will  continue  in  the  same  course  they  have  so  long 
followed." 

And  this  devotion  to  the  memory  of  Richelieu 
was  proved  not  only  by  the  appointment  of  Mazarin, 
whom  he  had  desired  as  a  successor,  but  was  evinced 
by  Louis  XIII.  when  death  called  upon  him.  When 
he  found  that  his  life  was  drawing  to  a  close,  he 
actuated  the  design  of  Richelieu,  by  appointing  the 
Queen,  Anne  of  Austria,  regent  indeed  of  the  king- 
dom, but  with  Mazarin  as  guide,  that  the  policy  of 
the  great  Minister  might  continue  in  force. 

Besides  the  letters  of  Louis  XIII.  to  Richelieu, 
the  French  archives  disgorged,  a  few  years  ago, 
another  important  historical  monument  which  ad- 
ministrative imbecility  had  hitherto  hidden  from  the 
student.  M.  Paul  Faugeres,  like  a  Benedictine  in 
miniature,  disinterred  from  the  dust  of  centuries 
and  published  an  unedited  work  of  the  Duke  de 
Saint-Simon,  nothing  less  than  a  "Comparison  be- 
tween the  First  Three  Bourbon  Kings."  Saint- 
Simon  was  seventy-two  years  old  when  he  began 
this  work;  age  hads somewhat  mollified  the  irritated 
passions  of  the  "great  disdained"  of  Louis  XIV., 
but  had  not  lessened  the  talent  of  probably  the 
most  accomplished  delineator  who  ever  came  to  the 


192  Louis  XIII.  as  lie  Was. 

aid  of  history.  He  had  not  been  personally  ac- 
quainted with  Louis  XIII.,  as  he  was  with  the  more 
glorified  son ;  but  his  own  father,  who  owed  every- 
thing to  the  former  monarch,  had  imbued  his  young 
mind  with  sentiments  of  ardent  admiration  for  one 
whom  he  rightly  regarded  as  pre-eminent  among 
the  misunderstood  of  history. 

Saint-Simon  saw  Henry  IY.  and  Louis  XIV.  re- 
splendent with  a  glory  which  was  undeniable,  even 
in  the  face  of  hatred,  while  Louis  XIII.  was  almost 
effaced  by  the  proximity  of  his  father  and  his  son. 
To  draw  his  own  father's  benefactor  forth  from  an 
unmerited  obscurity  became  the  ambition  of  the 
great  portray  er ;  and  they  who  have  been  accustomed 
to  recur  to  his  "Memoirs"  for  most  of  their  knowl- 
edge of  the  period  in  which  he  lived,  have  now  the 
opportunity  of  contemplating  a  restored  Louis 
XIII. , — a  figure,  strange  to  say,  even  more  resplen- 
dent than  those  which  have  hitherto  attracted  ex- 
clusive admiration.  A  contemporary  critic  of  great 
acumen,  M.  Barbey  d'Aurevilly,  is  enthusiastic  in 
his  praise  of  the  manner  in  which  Saint-Simon  ful- 
filled his  task  : 

"The  part  of  genius  in  history  is  to  discover. 
In  history,  where  nothing  is  created  (for  otherwise 
it  would  not  be  history)  ;  in  history,  where  the  im- 
agination has  the  right  only  to  depict,  but  not  to 
invent,  as  it  may  in  many  other  spheres  of  human 
activity, — genius  can  only  play  the  part  of  a  supe- 
rior faculty  in  discovering,  in  men  and  things  as 
they  were,  new  but  real  points  of  view  until  then 


Louis  XIII.  as  He  Was.  193 

unknown  and  even  unsuspected.  The  more  of  these 
points  of  view  that  are  discovered,  the  greater  is 
the  genius.  It  is  this  power  of  genius,  equal  in  his- 
tory to  the  power  of  creation  in  the  other  domains  of 
thought,  which  shines  in  all  its  fullness  and  strength 
in  this  parallel  of  the  first  three  Bourbon  kings,  as  it 
is  styled  by  Saint-Simon,  in  his  special  and  singu- 
lar language.  In  this  long  comparison  he  speaks 
admirably  of  the  two  whom  we  knew;  but  he  has 
discovered  the  third,  of  whom  we  knew  nothing,  at 
least  in  his  complete  and  sublime  entireness.  .  .  . 
The  violent  and  irritated  soul  of  this  man  baffled 
in  his  ambition,  of  this  'despised  one'  of  Louis 
XIV.,  this  soul  whose  rage  may  have  produced  its 
genius,  promised  itself,  as  a  supreme  duty  and  a 
last  satisfaction,  to  some  day  narrate  that  life  of 
Louis  XIII.  which  he  knew  from  his  father,  and  to 
compare  it  with  those  of  the  two  glorified  kings 
between  whom  his  favorite  had  been  buried  in 
insignificance.  Such  was  to  be  the  swan's  song  of 
that  man  who  was  anything  rather  than  a  swan; 
who  was  rather  an  eagle, — the  cruel  eagle  of  his- 
tory, which  in  his  'Memoirs'  he  so  often  lacerated. 
6 'And  this  tardy  justice,  rendered  to  the  memory 
of  a  man  who  had  disappeared  behind  the  intersect- 
ing rays  of  his  father's  and  his  son's  glory,  pro- 
duces two  novelties.  It  gives  us  a  Louis  XIII. ,  we 
must  admit,  greater  than  the  man  who  caused  him 
to  be  forgotten ;  and  a  Saint-Simon  whose  genius 
attains  its  fullness  in  an  emotion  of  the  heart,  and 
who  reaches,    for  the  first  time,  to  the  divine  in 


194  Louis  XIII.  as  He  Was. 

tenderness.  ...  Of  course  the  crushing  club  of 
Hercules,  used  of  old  in  the  'Memoirs,'  falls  as  fu- 
riously as  ever  on  all  that  Saint-Simon  hates ;  but 
it  is  rather  for  their  qualities  than  their  faults  that 
he  compares  the  three  kings  whom  he  judges ;  and 
it  is  his  serene  manner  of  comparison  which  endows 
his  book  with  an  imposing  sweetness  of  imparti- 
ality.   .    .    ."* 

After  a  study  of  the  parallel  by  Saint-Simon  and 
of  the  correspondence  unearthed  by  M.  Topin,  one 
finds  that  our  pleasing  dramatist,  Bulwer,  is  guilty 
of  gross  injustice  to  the  moral  character  of  Louis 
XIII.  The  whole  underplot  of  his  play,  some  of 
its  most  impressive  situations,  and  many  of  its  most 
elevated  sentiments,  turn  on  the  supposed  libertin- 
ism of  the  monarch.  Now,  he  was  pre-eminently 
a  chaste  man ;  so  much  so  that  he  excited  ridicule 
in  a  court  too  often  the  resort  of  mauvais  sujets. 
One  of  the  chief  reasons  for  the  extravagant  ad- 
miration felt  for  Henry  IV.  by  Frenchmen  is  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  lady's  man,  the  vert  galant.  A 
people  overgiven  to  gallantry  and  raillery  may  ad- 
mire the  virtue  of  a  St.  Louis  or  a  St.  Edward  the 
Confessor — a  virtue  which  is  the  development  of 
religious  heroism  in  conflict  with  passion — but  they 
will  scarcely  respect  mere  frigidity  of  temperament, 
which,  according  to  common  report,  was  the  source 
of  the  virtue  of  Louis  XIII. 

Behold,  then,  one  reason  for  the  relegation  of  this 
monarch  to  obscurity.     As  the  idea  is  expressed  by 

*  "Les  (Euvres  et  Les  Hommes  du  XlXme  Siecle:  Sensa- 
tions d'Histoire,"  vol.  viii,  p.  60.    Paris,  1887. 


Louis  XIII.  as  He  Was.  195 

Aurevilly,  Louis  XIV.  could  say  to  La  Valliere,  like 
Hamlet  to  Ophelia,  "Get  thee  to  a  nunnery;"  but 
it  was  when  too  late.  Louis  XIII.  might  have  said 
so  to  Mile.  La  Fayette,  but  before  the  catastrophe. 
As  for  the  assertions  concerning  the  morality  of 
Louis  XIII. ,  they  are  perverse  even  unto  indecency ; 
but  at  most  they  assign  to  Louis  accomplices  who 
are  very  uncertain. 

We  have  shown  that  we  are  not  obliged  to  accept 
our  view  of  the  character  of  Louis  XIII.,  or  of  his 
relations  with  Richelieu,  from  the  olden  historians 
or  from  modern  romancists  and  playwrights.  To 
obtain  a  view  of  Louis  it  is  not  necessary  to  peer 
over  the  shoulders  of  his  Minister.  Eichelieu  did 
not  absorb  in  his  own  the  very  personality  of  his 
sovereign,  but  rather,  to  use  his  own  language,  was 
the  most  passionately  devoted  of  subjects  and  serv- 
ants. In  fine,  Eichelieu  existed  as  Minister  only  by 
the  will  of  Louis;  and  it  is  to  the  glory  of  that 
monarch  that  he  never  dismissed  him  whom  a  recal- 
citrant and  jealous  nobility,  a  cowardly  and  treach- 
erous brother,  and  an  unscrupulous  and  soulless 
mother,  united  in  opposing  even  to  the  death.  Each 
was  the  complement  of  the  other;  and  the  reign  of 
Louis  XIII.  may  well  be  called  that  of  Eichelieu, 
the  ministry  of  Eichelieu  that  of  Louis  XIII. 

The  death  of  this  so  long  misunderstood  monarch 
occurred  on  May  14,  1643,  and  it  was  one  befitting 
a  sovereign  whose  devotion  to  Our  Lady  had  caused 
him  to  institute  as  the  national  feast  of  France  the 


196  Louis  XIII.  as  He  Was. 

festival  of  her  glorious  Assumption.*  The  great 
Protestant  jurisconsult,  Grotius,  then  Swedish  am- 
bassador to  the  French  court,  wrote  of  the  edifying 
scene:  *'I  do  not  believe  that  we  can  find  an  in- 
stance of  any  king — nay,  of  any  Christian — dispos- 
ing himself  for  death  with  greater  piety. "  Well 
may  Cardinal  Mazarin  have  written,  during  the 
King's  illness,  to  the  Cardinal-Archbishop  of  Lyons, 
a  brother  of  the  great  Minister,  his  predecessor: 

"I  would  be  wanting  in  gratitude  were  I  wanting 
in  sadness.  The  beautiful  and  wonderful  circum- 
stances attending  the  King's  illness  increase  this 
sentiment,  although  in  some  sense  they  lessen  it; 
and  I  can  not  contemplate  them  without  a  kind  of 
pleasure,  seeing  as  I  do  that  they  must  add  to  his 
glory.  Nor  can  I  behold  them  without  a  fuller 
realization  of  the  extent  of  our  imminent  loss.  In 
fact,  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  greater  force  of 
soul  in  so  much  weakness  of  body  than  his  Majesty 
has  shown.  No  one  in  his  condition  could  have 
arranged  his  affairs  more  clearly  or  more  judi- 
ciously. No  one  could  regard  death  more  calmly, 
or  show  more  resignation  to  the  will  of  God.  In  a 
word,  if  Providence  has  decreed  that  this  malady 
shall  take  the  King  from  us,  we  shall  be  able  to  say 
that  no  career  was  ever  more  Christianly,  more 
charitably  or  more  bravely  fulfilled." 


*  "L'idee  d'une  belle  mort  ou  d'une  mort  Chretienne  dans 
le  r6cit  de  la  fin  heureuse  de  Louis  XIII.,  surnomme'  le  Juste, 
roi  de  France  et  de  Navarre,  tire"  des  M^moires  de  feu  Jacques 
Dinet,  son  confesseur,  etc.,"  in  the  Lib.  Nat.,  cited  by  Bar- 
th^lemy,  loc.  cit. 


THE    NATURE  OF  TASSO'S   IMPRISON- 
MENT. 

That  Torquato  Tasso  was  insane  during  a  long 
period  of  his  life,  and  that  he  was  subjected  to  re- 
straint, although  with  all  due  consideration,  is  ev- 
ident from  his  own  letters.  But  that  he  was  a 
victim  of  unfortunate  love  and  of  princely  tyranny, 
and  imprisoned  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term, 
is  untrue.*  Credulous  and  perhaps  sympathetic 
travellers  yet  continue  to  fee  the  lachrymose  cicerone 
who  shows  them  the  Ferrarese  dungeon,  in  which 
the  poet  is  said  to  have  alternately  raved  and  lan- 
guished. Byron,  Lamartine,  and  many  other  roman- 
ticists— sincere  and  affected, — have  fixed  their 
autographs  on  the  walls  of  the  cell,  in  sign  of 
fraternal  commiseration.  The  municipal  authorities, 
with  a  prudent  desire  to  add  to  the  attractions  of 
their  city,  yet  allowed  the  inscription  '  'Entrance  to 
the  Prison  of  Torquato  Tasso"  to  entice  the  open- 
mouthed  tourist  of  average  calibre.  Nevertheless, 
the  confinement  of  Tasso  was  scarcely  more  of  an 
imprisonment  than  that  of  Galileo,  and  one  can 
account  for  the  obstinate  hold  of  the  tradition  only 


*  Cf.  Valery,  "Curiosity  et  Anecdotes  Italiennes,"  Paris, 
1842. 

197 


198      The  Nature  of  Tasso^s  Imprisonment. 

in  the  words  of  the  poet — that  man  is  ice  for  truth, 
but  fire  for  lies.* 

None  of  the  educated  inhabitants  of  Ferrara 
believe  the  aforesaid  prison  to  have  been  occupied 
by  Tasso  during  his  confinement  in  their  city. 
How  would  it  have  been  possible,  they  ask,  for 
a  man  of  gigantic  stature,  such  as  Tasso  was, 
to  have  dwelt  for  several  years  in  quarters  so 
restricted,  and  yet  to  have  been  able  to  engage 
successfully  in  literary  labor?  The  dungeon  in 
question  is  only  six  feet  high,  and  yet  it  is  cer- 
tain that  during  his  restraint  the  poet  revised 
his  great  work,  and  composed,  among  others,  his 
several  philosophical  Dialogues.  Madame  de  Stael, 
so  given  to  commiserating  illustrious  misfortune, 
remarks  Barthelemy,  did  not  credit  the  story. 
Goethe,  says  Ampere, f  made  many  careful  re- 
searches on  this  subject,  and  concluded  that  the 
alleged  dungeon  of  the  poet  is  not  authentic. 
Again,  none  of  the  important  personages,  notably 
Scipio  Gonzaga,  who  visited  Tasso  in  his  time 
of  trouble,  allude  to  any  physical  inconvenience 
entailed  or  aggravated  by  the  condition  of  his 
domicile.  As  to  the  poet's  treatment  by  his  cus- 
todians, it  could  not  have  been  very  severe,  since 
his    only   important    complaint   was    that   he    did 


*  "L'homme  est  de  glace  aux  ve>it£s, 
II  est  de  feu  pour  le  mensonge." 
t  In  a  letter  from  Weimar,  May  9,  1827. 


The  Nature  of  Tasso's  Imprisonment.     199 

"not  have  sufficient  fine  sugar  for  the  morrow's 
salad;"  and  that  his  nightcaps  were  less  elegant 
and  dainty  than  those  he  had  hitherto  worn.* 

At  the  age  of  twenty-two  Tasso  was  received 
into  the  magnificent  court  of  Alfonso  d'Este,  Duke 
of  Ferrara,  to  whose  brother,  the  Cardinal  Louis, 
he  had  already  dedicated  his  "Kinaldo."  He 
soon  rose  to  great  favor.  The  Duke  appointed 
him  to  the  chair  of  geometry  in  the  University, 
and  entrusted  him  with  the  continuation  of  the 
"History  of  the  House  of  Este,"  begun  by  the 
famous  Pigna,  his  late  secretary.  It  is  said  that 
he  was  beloved  by  Eleonora,  the  Duke's  sister. 
"Is  it  possible,"  asks  Cantu,  "that  envy  should 
not  pursue  him,  and  therefore  also  calumny? 
More  than  alive  to  his  own  merits,  he  fancied 
that  the  lackeys  insulted  him,  and  that  he  was  op- 
posed in  his  affections.  Mistrust  became  habit- 
ual to  him.  He  imagined  that  his  letters  were 
intercepted  and  that  his  desk  was  rifled.  Scipio 
Gonzaga  holds  reunions  of  his  friends,  and  he 
suspects  that  they  meet  in  order  to  ridicule  his 
poetry;  he  distrusts  Count  Tassoni,  who  welcomes 
him  to  Modena ;  he  doubts  the  sincerity  of  Cardi- 
nal dei  Medici,  who  offers  him  protection  if  the 
Duke  should  ever  abandon  him.  The  servants 
laugh  at  his  absurdities,  while  the  courtiers  take 
pleasure  in  compassionating  one  whose  genius  mor- 


*  Unedited  Letters,  Nos.  79  and  83. 


200     The  Nature  of  Tasso' s  Imprisonment. 

tifies  themselves.  Then  he  cuffs  them  all,  even 
uses  his  dagger,  and  bursts  into  tirades  against 
the  Duke."*1' 

Convinced  of  the  poet's  insanity,  Alfonso  placed 
him  under  medical  care,  and  forbade  him  to  write. 
But  Tasso  imagined  all  sorts  of  dangers,  and  fled 
in  disguise  to  Naples,  then  to  Venice,  Padua, f  and 
other  places.  Finally  worse  befell  him.  Some  time 
before  he  had  applied  to  the  Inquisitor  at  Bologna, 
and  accused  himself  of  doubts  concerning  the  In- 
carnation; and  the  reply  had  been  :  "Sick  man,  go 
in  peace."  Now  he  again  felt  these  scruples,  and 
having  once  more  applied  to  the  Holy  Office,  was 
dismissed  with  encouragement.  But  the  unfortu- 
nate continued  to  be  a  burden  to  himself  and  his 
friends;  and  at  length  the  Duke,  regarding  his 
reason  as  irretrievably  lost,  consigned  him  to  the 
Hospital  of  St  Anna,  in  March,  1579. 

Few  men  have  talked  more  about  themselves 
than  Tasso ;  but  he  does  not  reveal  the  real  secret 
of   his   troubles,  although    he  plainly  admits  that 


*  "Illustri  Italiani,"  vol.  i,  p.  414.     Milan,  1879. 

f  The  famous  General,  Sforza  Pallavicino,  happened  to  be 
in  Padua  during  Tasso's  visit,  and  expressed  a  desire  to  meet 
him.  When  Tasso  waited  upon  him,  accompanied  by  four 
friends,  Pallavicino  drew  a  chair  near  to  himself  (he  was  suf- 
fering from  gout) ,  and  begged  the  poet  to  be  seated.  Tasso 
ran  out  of  the  room,  and  afterward  excused  himself  to  his 
companions,  saying,  "We  must  sometimes  teach  politeness  to 
these  people.  Why  did  the  man  show  that  attention  only 
to  me?" 


The  Nature  of  Tasso's  Imprisonment.     201 

he  was  at  one  time  crazy .  Writing  on  December 
25,  1581,  to  Cattaneo,  he  says:  "One  of  my  letters 
has  disappeared,  and  I  think  that  a  goblin  has 
taken  it;  .  .  .  and  this  is  one  of  the  wonders  that 
I  have  seen  in  this  hospital.  .  .  .  But  amid  all 
these  terrors  I  have  seen  in  the  air  the  image  of 
the  glorious  Virgin  with  her  Son  in  her  arms.  .  .  . 
And  although  these  may  be  fancies — for  I  am  a 
lunatic,  and  am  troubled  nearly  always  by  infinite 
melancholy  and  by  various  phantasms, — by  the  grace 
of  God  I  yield  no  consent  to  these  things.  .  .  . 
If  I  mistake  not,  my  lunacy  was  caused  about  three 
years  ago,  by  certain  sweets  I  had  eaten.  .  .  .  My 
disease  is  so  strange  that  it  might  deceive  a  physician, 
and  hence  I  deem  it  the  work  of  a  magician ;  and  it 
would  be  a  mercy  to  take  me  from  this  place,  in 
which  enchanters  are  allowed  to  exercise  such  power 
over  me.  ...  I  must  tell  you  something  more 
about  this  goblin.  The  little  thief  has  stolen  from 
me  I  know  not  how  much  money.  .  .  .  He  upsets 
my  books,  opens  my  boxes,  and  steals  my  keys." 
The  unfortunate  tried  many  remedies.  Endeav- 
oring to  discover  why  he  was  so  "persecuted," 
he  examines  every  accusation  which  could,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  be  brought  against  him,  and  then 
he  turns  to  God  and  excuses  himself  for  infidelity. 
"Both  within  and  without  I  am  infected  with  the 
vices  of  the  flesh  and  the  darkness  of  the  world ; 
and  I  have  thought  of  Thee  in  the  same  way  in 
which  I  used  to  think  of  the  ideas  of  Plato  or  of 


202     The  Nature  of  Tasso^s  Imprisonment. 

the  atoms  of  Democritus,  and  such  like  matters  of 
the  philosophers,  which  are  rather  creatures  of  their 
fancy  than  of  Thy  hands.  ...  I  have  doubted 
whether  Thou  didst  create  the  world,  or  whether  it 
was  independent  of  Thee  from  all  eternity ;  whether 
Thou  hast  given  to  man  an  immortal  soul,  and 
whether  Thou  didst  descend  to  earth  in  order  to  put 
on  our  humanity.  .  .  .  And  yet  it  pained  me  to 
doubt,  and  I  would  have  compelled  my  intellect  to 
believe  of  Thee  what  our  Holy  Church  believes.  .  .  . 
I  confessed  and  communicated  as  Thy  Roman 
Church  commands,  .  .  .  and  I  consoled  myself 
with  the  belief  that  Thou  wouldst  pardon  the  un- 
belief of  those  whose  deficiency  was  not  encouraged 
by  obstinacy  or  malignity.  .  .  .  Thou  knowest 
how  I  have  ever  abhorred  the  name  of  Lutheran  or 
heretic  as  a  pestiferous  thing." 

It  was  while  he  was  thus  afflicted  that  Tasso  re- 
ceived a  shock  which  none  but  an  author  can  ap- 
preciate. He  was  just  about  to  revise  and  give  the 
finishing  touches  to  his  "Jerusalem  Delivered"  when 
he  learned  that  the  poem  had  appeared  in  Venice 
(1580),  and  that  it  was  by  no  means  what  he  had 
intended  it  should  be  ere  it  should  be  given  to  the 
public.  The  negligence  of  a  friend  had  permitted  a 
speculator  to  obtain  an  original  draft  of  the  work; 
and  now  the  world  was  criticising,  as  by  the  author 
of  the  admired  "Binaldo,"  a  poem  filled  with  merely 
tentative  and  temporary  expressions,  and  disorted, 
perhaps,  by  innumerable  lacunae.    To  make  the  mat- 


The  Nature  of  Tasso's  Imprisonment.     203 

ter  worse,  the  presses  of  all  Italy  and  of  France 
soon  multiplied  editions  of  this  imperfect  publica- 
tion ;  for  the  impatience  to  read  anything  new  by 
Tasso  was  universal.  The  famous  Academy  of  the 
Crusca,  which  then,  as  for  a  long  time  since,  ex- 
ercised an  almost  tyrannical  influence  in  literary 
matters,  and  which,  Cantu  somewhat  bitterly  says, 
"like  all  Acadamies,  availed  itself  of  the  dead,  who 
inspire  no  jealousy  to  mortify  the  living,"  was 
very  severe  on  the  new  poem.  This  and  other 
criticisms,  especially  one  by  Leonardo  Salviati,  of 
course  irritated  the  unsettled  mind  of  Tasso ;  but 
a  visit  to  Marfisia  d'Este,  Princess  of  Massa,  which 
the  Duke  allowed  him  to  make  during  the  summer, 
greatly  restored  him. 

Manfredi,  another  famous  poet,  visited  Tasso  in 
1583,  and  submitted  for  his  judgment  his  own  trag- 
edy of  "Semiramis."  He  found  the  invalid  in  fair 
mental  condition.  Many  other  persons  of  note  also 
visited  our  poet,  among  whom  the  most  acceptable 
appears  to  have  been  the  Benedictine  lyric  writer, 
Angelo  Grillo,  who  returned  again  and  again  to  pass 
entire  days  with  his  friend.  Meanwhile  all  Europe 
was  compassionating  Tasso's  misfortune;  from  all 
quarters  he  received  verbal  encouragement,  and  in 
many  instances  substantial  tokens  of  sympathy  in 
the  shape  of  valuable  presents.  Many  believed  that 
freedom  would  contribute  to  his  restoration  more 
than  confinement;  and  hence  we  find  requests  to 
Duke  Alfonso  from  Popes  Gregory  XIII.  and  Six- 


204     The  Mature  of  Tasso' s  Imprisonment. 

tus  V.,  from  the  Cardinal  Albert  of  Austria,  the 
Emperor  Rudolph,  the  Grand-Duke  of  Tuscany 
and  his  consort,  the  Duke  of  Urbino,  the  Duchess 
of  Mantua,  and  the  municipality  of  Bergamo,  for 
his  release.  On  July  6,  1586,  Alfonso  delivered 
him  to  the  care  of  the  Prince  of  Mantua,  and  he 
was  once  again  a  free  man.  Cardinal  di  Gonzaga 
gave  him  hospitality  in  his  own  palace  at  Rome, 
and  the  Pope  assigned  him  a  yearly  revenue  of  two 
hundred  golden  scudi.  Genoa  invited  him  to  ex- 
plain Aristotle  in  her  University,  assigning  him 
four  hundred  scudi  as  regular  salary,  and  as  much 
more  in  perquisites.  But  nothing  could  induce 
Tasso  to  lead  a  regular  life :  he  wandered  here  and 
there,  until  finally  he  sought  an  asylum  in  the  hos- 
pital of  the  Bergamaschi  in  Rome.  Often  he  suf- 
fered from  want  of  ready  money,  and  frequent 
were  his  applications  to  the  pawnshops.* 

In  1594  our  poet  learned  that  Pope  Clement 
VIII.,  at  the  instance  of  his  nephew,  the  Cardinal 
Aldobrandini,  had  decreed  him  the  honors  of  a 
triumph  at  the  Capitol.  "They  are  preparing  my 
coffin,"  he  replied;  but  as  no  poet  would  dream  of 
declining  the  laureate,  he  set  out  for  the  Eternal 
City.     On  the  way  from  Naples,  where  he  had  been 


*  There  is  yet  extant  a  receipt  as  follows:  "I  the  under- 
signed declare  that  I  have  received  from  Abraham  Levi  the 
sum  of  twenty-five  lire,  for  which  he  holds  in  pledge  one  of 
my  father's  swords,  six  shirts,  four  bed-sheets,  and  two  towels. 
March  2,  1570.    Torquato  Tasso." 


The  Nature  of  Tasso' s  Imprisonment.     205 

residing  for  some  time,  he  stopped  three  days  with 
his  beloved  Benedictines  of  Montecasino.  "If  mis- 
fortune come  to  you,"  said  the  abbot,  "come  to  us. 
This  monastery  is  used  to  giving  hospitality  to  the 
unhappy. "  Tasso  answered:  "I  go  to  Eome  to  be 
crowned  laureate  on  the  Capitol,  taking  as  com- 
panions of  my  triumph  sickness  and  poverty. 
However,  I  go  willingly ;  for  I  love  the  Eternal  City 
as  the  centre  of  the  faith.  My  refuge  has  always 
been  the  Church, — the  Church,  my  mother,  more 
tender  than  any  mother." 

Arriving  at  the  gates  of  the  Catholic  metropolis, 
Tasso  found  an  immense  multitude — prelates,  nobles, 
knights,  and  citizens — waiting  to  salute  him  and 
to  escort  him  to  the  Vatican.  The  Cardinal  Aldo- 
brandini  took  him  in  his  own  carriage  to  the  palace, 
where  the  Pontiff  welcomed  him,  saying,  "We  are 
about  to  confer  upon  you  the  crown  of  laurel,  which 
you  will  honor,  whereas  hitherto  it  has  honored  those 
who  have  worn  it."  His  reception  over,  his  cardi- 
nal protector  would  have  taken  Tasso  to  his  own 
palace  to*  wait  for  the  coronation  ceremonies;  but 
the  poet  felt  that  his  end  was  drawing  near,  and 
begged  to  be  allowed  to  lodge  in  the  Hieronymite 
convent  of  Sant'  Onofrio  on  the  Janiculum. 

In  this  home  of  peace,  and  often  reposing  under 
the  branches  of  the  oak  which,  only  a  few  days 
before,*  had  sheltered  St.  Philip  Neri  and  his  class 
of  little  Romans,  the  wearied  genius  hearkened  to 


*  St.  Philip  died  just  one  month  before  Tasso. 


206     The  Nature  of  Tasso's  Imprisonment, 

the  gentle  Hieronymites  as  they  prepared  him  for 
his  last  journey.  Toward  the  end  he  wrote  to  a 
friend :  "The  world  has  so  far  conquered  as  to  lead 
me,  a  beggar,  to  the  grave;  whereas  I  had  thought 
to  have  had  some  profit  from  that  glory  which,  in 
spite  of  those  who  wish  it  not,  will  attend  my  writ- 
ings.' '  He  made  a  holy  death,  in  his  fifty-second 
year,  on  April  25,  1595.  During  his  magnificent 
funeral  ceremonies,  which  were  attended  by  the  en- 
tire pontifical  court,  the  laurel  crown  was  placed  on 
his  brow.  The  monument  which  Cardinal  Aldobran- 
dini  had  designed  to  erect  over  the  remains  of  his 
protege  was,  for  some  reason,  never  undertaken; 
but  Cardinal  Bevilacqua,  of  Ferrara,  disinterred 
them,  and  placed  them  in  a  small  mausoleum  in 
Sant'  Onofrio.  Afterward  the  late  Pontiff,  Pius 
IX.,  at  his  private  expense,  erected  a  magnificent 
monument,  and  placed  the  remains  therein  (1857), 
in  a  beautifully  renovated  chapel  of  the  same 
church. 


WICKED  VENICE. 

To  the  average  mind  the  history  of  Venice  is  a 
bloody  and  lurid  melodrama.  Dungeons  under  the 
canals,  cells  exposed  to  the  fury  of  an  almost  tor- 
rid sun,  hidden  doors  ever  menacing  an  egress  of 
spies  and  assassins,  virtue  and  valor  ever  succumbing 
to  dagger  or  to  poison ;  and  all  these  under  the 
segis  of  a  Government  proclaiming  itself  Christian 
and  popular. 

Such  is  the  picture  arising  before  him  who  reads 
the  current  tales  of  Venice,  or  who  gazes  on  a 
stage  representation  of  Venetian  story.  Until  the 
nineteenth  century  had  dawned,  this  idea  of  Venice 
was  mainly  one  of  English  and  Protestant  creation. 
Heretical  hatred  and  commercial  rivalry  had  com- 
bined to  foster  prejudice  against  that  Catholic  re- 
public, which  had  been  for  centuries  the  wealthiest 
among  the  great  states  of  Europe.  But  with  our 
century  came  the  necessity,  on  the  part  of  France, 
of  justifying  a  great  national  crime.  Fair  Venice 
lay  a  corpse  at  the  feet  of  the  French  revolutionary 
tiger,  and  it  was  but  natural  that  her  murderers 
should  insist  that  she  had  merited  her  fate.  Be- 
hold, then,  French  writers  of  serious  calibre  heaping 
obloquy  on  the  memory  of  the  Queen  of  the  Adri- 
atic !  Of  course  German  authors  swelled  the  cho- 
rus, for  a  German  power  had  profited  by  the  crime 

207 


208  Wicked  Venice. 

of  France;  and  a  trade  in  peoples  had  to  be  justi- 
fied, if  nothing  else  would  do  it,  by  the  supposed 
vileness  of  the  bartered.  Nearly  universal,  there- 
fore, has  been  the  cry  against  Venetian  cruelty,  dis- 
honesty, tyranny,  and  malignant  cunning. 

One  of  the  most  noted  illustrations  of  the 
mysteries  of  Venice  is  the  drama  of  "Angelo," 
by  M.  Victor  Hugo.  The  poet  had  used  the 
poison  and  daggers  of  the  Ten,  the  secret  pas- 
sages, loathsome  dungeons,  etc.,  to  the  utmost; 
and  certain  critics  ventured  to  challenge  the 
probability  of  his  mise  en  scene.  In  one  of  the 
notes  of  his  published  drama,  Hugo  appealed  to 
the  authority  of  Count  Daru,  the  historian  of 
the  First  Empire,  and  to  the  "Statutes  of  the 
State  Inquisition'5  *  of  Venice,  furnished  by  that 


*  The  "Inquisizione  di  Stato"of  Venice  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  either  the  Roman  (Holy  Office)  or  the  Spanish 
Inquisition.  The  Roman  was  an  ecclesiastical  tribunal,  the 
Spanish  a  royal  one;  but  both  took  cognizance  of  heresies  and 
similar  crimes.  The  Venetian  tribunal,  made  permanent  in 
1454,  was  purely  political,  and  was  composed  of  three  persons 
— two  chosen  from  the  Ten,  and  one  from  the  council  of  the 
doge.  Its  jurisdiction  was  universal,  not  even  the  doge  being 
excepted.  Originally  it  was  called  the  "Inquisizione  dei 
Dieci,"  but  in  1610  the  style  was  changed  to  that  of  "Inquisi- 
zione di  Stato."  Its  power  was  unlimited  in  all  affairs  of 
state  and  of  police.  It  disposed  of  the  treasury,  gave  instruc- 
tion to  ambassadors,  etc.,  and  on  occasion  deposed  the  doge. 
When,  however,  it  undertook  to  judge  the  Doge  Marino  Fa- 
liero,  it  called  a  giunta  of  twenty  nobles,  which  body  remained 
permanent  until  1582. 


Wicked  Venice.  209 

writer.  We  give  a  synopsis  of  these  statutes, 
which,  according  to  Daru,  bear  the  date  of  June 
12,  1454: 

In  the  sixteenth  it  is  decreed  that  when  the  tri- 
bunal deems  it  necessary  to  put  any  one  to  death, 
the  execution  must  not  be  public ;  the  condemned 
must,  if  possible,  be  drowned  in  the  Canal  of  the 
Orphans  {Canal  Orfano).  The  twenty-eighth  es- 
tablishes that  if  any  Venetian  noble  reveals  that 
he  has  been  corruptly  approached  by  a  foreign  am- 
bassador, he  shall  be  authorized  to  enter  into  the 
proposed  relations ;  when  the  affair  has  culminated, 
the  intermediary  agent  is  to  be  drowned,  providing, 
however,  that  he  be  not  the  ambassador  himself  or 
some  person  generally  known.  The  fortieth  pro- 
vides for  the  institution  of  spies,  not  only  in  the 
capital,  but  in  all  the  principal  cities  of  the  republic. 
These  agents  will  report  in  person  to  the  tribunal, 
twice  a  year,  as  to  the  conduct  of  the  officers  in  their 
respective  districts.  In  a  supplement  to  the  statutes, 
provision  is  made  to  the  effect  that  any  one  who  so 
talks  as  to  promise  public  disturbance,  shall  be 
warned;  if  he  continues  the  practice,  he  may  be 
drowned.  The  twenty-eighth  provision  is  for  rid- 
ding the  state  of  any  prisoner  whom  it  may  be  im- 
politic to  punish  openly.  A  jailer  is  to  feign  to 
sympathize  with  him,  and,  having  previously  ad- 
ministered to  him  a  slow  and  untraceable  poison, 
he  must  allow  the  victim  to  escape. 


210  Wicked  Venice. 

Daru  tells  us  that  he  found  these  statutes,  hith- 
erto unknown,*  in  the  Eoyal  Library  of  Paris. 
They  were  bound  in  a  quarto  volume,  together 
with  another  work  which  bore  the  title,  "Opinion 
of  Father  Paul,  Servite,  Councillor  of  State,  as  to 
the  best  manner  of  governing  the  Venetian  Repub- 
lic, both  as  to  internal  and  external  affairs,  that  it 
may  enjoy  perpetual  prosperity."  The  Servite 
priest  was  no  other  than  Paul  Sarpi,  the  celebrated 
adversary  of  the  Holy  See  whenever  its  temporal 
claims  came  into  collision  with  the  pretensions  of 
Venice ;  and  Daru,  who  was  naturally  of  the  opinion 
that  Sarpi  was  to  be  revered  as  an  authority, 
gladly  embraced  the  idea  that  the  juxtaposition  of 
the  statutes,  in  one  volume,  with  the  advice  on 
Venetian  government,  was  a  proof  that  the  Servite 
had  also  published  the  statutes. 

We  would  be  willing  to  accept  the  authority  of 
Sarpi  in  this  matter,  but  we  are  forced  to  yield  to 
the  arguments  which  show  that  he  was  the  author 
of  neither  one  of  the  works  enclosed  in  Daru's 
treasure-trove. |  But,  granting  the  value  of  Sarpi 
in  the  premises,  there  are  several  good  reasons  for 
rejecting  these  statutes  as  unauthentic.  In  the  first 
place,  how  is  it  that  no  investigator  has  ever  found 


*  "I  know  of  no  writer,"  says  Daru,  "even  among  the 
Venetians,  who  has  spoken  of  these  statutes."  See  "Histoire 
de  la  Republique  de  Venice,"  edit.  1821,  vol.  vi,  p.  385. 

t  See  an  excellent  article  in  the  British  Review  for  October, 
1877,  p.  337.  The  falsity  of  these  statutes,  and  of  many  of 
Daru's  assertions  concerning  Venice,  was  perfectly  demon- 
strated by  Count  Tiepolo  in  his  "Discorsisulla  Storia  Veneta," 
Udine,  1828. 


Wicked  Venice.  211 

any  allusion  to  these  provisions  in  any  document  of 
an  age  anterior  to  Daru's  manuscript?  According 
to  the  very  constitution  of  the  Venetian  Govern- 
ment, such  measures  could  not  have  been  decreed 
without  the  sanction  of  the  Great  Council,  and 
after  having  passed  through  all  the  formalities  of 
registration  in  the  archives  of  the  Ten.  And  no 
search  has  yet  discovered  them. 

Again,  the  alleged  statutes  are  full  of  errors 
such  as  no  Venetian  jurisconsult  of  the  fifteenth 
century  could  have  committed.  Thus,  at  that  pe- 
riod all  the  judicial  and  official  documents  of  the 
republic  were  drawn  up  in  Latin,  whereas  these 
alleged  statutes  are  couched  in  the  Venetian 
dialect,  which  did  not  come  into  vogue  until  a 
century  afterward.  Again,  these  decrees  are  pro- 
nounced in  the  name  of  the  ' 'State  Inquisitors," 
a  title  not  given  to  these  magistrates  before  1610. 
Finally,  in  these  ordinances  the  Inquisitors  assert 
jurisdiction  over  the  prisoners  in  the  Piombi, 
whereas  these  apartments  were  not  used  as  prisons 
until  1594.  These  statutes,  therefore,  are  apocry- 
phal; and,  so  far  as  they  are  the  foundation  of  the 
accusations  against  Venice,  we  must  banish  from 
our  minds  all  the  pictures  which  have  been  designed 
to  represent  the  Venetian  legislature  as  a  congrega- 
tion of  demons,  rather  than  an  assembly  of  grave 
and  reverend  lords. 

How  do  the  calumniators  of  Venice  wish  us  to 
account   for   the  internal  peace  which  reigned  in 


212  Wicked  Venice. 

the  republic  for  so  many  centuries?  We  find  no 
rebellions  either  at  home  or  in  the  colonies;  and 
this  in  spite  of  frequent  famines,  plagues,  wars, 
and  excommunications.  Had  such  a  cancer  as  the 
foes  of  Venice  suppose  existed,  and  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  nation,  devouring  by  degrees  every 
vestige  of  liberty  and  destroying  all  sense  of 
security,  would  the  republic  have  remained  so  uni- 
formly contented  and  prosperous?  It  was  in  1468, 
fifteen  years  after  the  supposed  statutes  had  been 
put  in  force,  that  the  illustrious  Cardinal  Bessarion, 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  when  presenting  his 
valuable  library  to  the  republic,  thus  expressed 
himself:  "What  country  offers  one  so  sure  a  refuge 
as  yours,  governed  by  equity,  integrity,  and  wis- 
dom ?  Here  virtue,  moderation,  gravity,  justice  and 
good  faith  have  fixed  their  abode.  Here  power, 
even  though  great  and  extensive,  is  as  just  as 
gentle.  Here  the  wise  govern,  the  good  command 
the  perverse,  and  particular  interests  are  ever  sac- 
rificed to  the  general  welfare." 

Such  reflections  as  these  caused  Yalery  (one  of 
the  most  noted  of  French  travellers,  and  better 
acquainted  with  Italy  than  most  foreigners  are)  to 
write  in  1838:  "I  have  abandoned  my  prejudices 
concerning  the  Venetian  Inquisitors,  and  I  did 
so  with  great  satisfaction ;  for  it  is  refreshing  to 
find  at  least  fewer  oppressors  in  history.  It  is  to 
be  regretted  that  an  enlightened  historian  like  Daru 
should  have  believed  in  the  pretended  statutes  of 


Wicked  Venice.  213 

the  ' State  Inquisition,'  which  he  found  in  manu- 
script in  the  Royal  Library,  and  which  are  regarded 
by  all  educated  Venetians  as  apocryphal  and  as  fab- 
ricated by  an  ignorant  enemy  of  the  republic.  The 
State  Inquisitors  were  guardians  of  the  laws,  and 
silent  tribunes  dear  to  the  people.  The  Inquisitors 
defended  the  people  against  the  excesses  of  aristo- 
cratic power."  * 

It  has  been  remarked  that  modern  Venetians 
seem  to  have  no  fear  of  any  thorough  investigations 
into  the  early  history  of  their  country.  They  rather 
court  it,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  zeal  with  which  they 
began,  immediately  after  the  close  of  the  Austrian 
domination,  to  publish  the  most  important  treasures 
of  their  hitherto  impenetrable  archives.  Among 
these  is  a  collection  of  documents  referring  to  the 
history  of  the  palace  of  the  doge.  It  contains  the 
minutes  of  the  sittings  of  the  Council  of  Ten  from 
1254  to  1600 ;  and  we  can  not  find  in  it  the  least 
trace  of,  for  instance,  the  drownings  said  to  have 
been  decreed  in  the  alleged  statutes.  As  well  look 
for  indication  of  some  burning  at  the  stake  in 
Venice — in  that  country  which,  alone  among  all 
European  lands,  never  witnessed  that  horror.  As 
to  the  name  of  the  Canal  Orfano,  in  which  so  many 
victims  of  a  wicked  statecraft  are  said  to  have  been 
remorselessly  drowned,  that  designation  is  not 
necessarily   derived   from   the    fact    of    so   many 


*  "Voyage  en  Italie,"  vol.  i,  p.  314. 


214  Wicked  Venice. 

orphans  having  been  made  in  it  by  order  of  the 
Inquisitors;  for  modern  Venetians  believe  that 
this  canal  was  so  called  centuries  before  the  State 
Inquisition  came  into  existence. 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  convenient  oppor- 
tunity afforded  to  malignity  by  the  provision  of  a 
receptacle  for  anonymous  denunciations  to  the  In- 
quisitors. Certainly  there  was  no  more  connection 
between  this  "Lion's  Mouth"  and  tyranny,  than 
there  is  between  tyranny  and  the  P.  O.  boxes  hang- 
ing from  our  lamp-posts.  And  as  to  the  anonymous 
letters  addressed  to  the  Inquisitors,  a  law  of  1387 
decreed  that  they  should  be  immediately  burned. 
And  when,  toward  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
such  demonstrations  were  sometimes  admitted,  no 
proceedings  could  be  taken  against  the  accused 
without  a  vote  of  four-fifths  of  the  Council.  And 
it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  precautions  taken  against 
false  testimony  and  false  accusations  were  greater 
in  Venice  than  in  any  other  land. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  main  reservoir  was  so 
situated  in  the  precincts  of  the  ducal  palace  that  the 
authorities  could  at  once  quell  a  rebellion  by  shutting 
off  the  supply  of  water.  But  besides  the  two  mag- 
nificent reservoirs  in  the  palace  court,  there  were 
many  others  in  other  places,  and  nearly  every  pri- 
vate house  had  its  own  well  or  cistern.  Documents 
as  old  as  1303  speak  of  a  board  of  magistrates  simi- 
lar to  our  aqueduct  commissioners,  whose  first  duty 
was  to  see  that  every  new  house  was  supplied  with 
a  well. 


Wicked  Venice.  215 

And  now  a  word  on  the  Piombi,  those  cells  of 
alleged  torture  in  the  uppermost  story  of  the  ducal 
palace,  immediately  under  the  leaden  roof.  It  will 
be  interesting  to  quote  the  testimony  of  Daniel 
Manin,  the  patriotic  dictator  during  the  Venetian 
revolution  of  1848,  concerning  these  supposed  inven- 
tions of  human  malignity.  A  Parisian  critic  having 
occasion  to  review  a  work  which  bemoaned  the 
"mysteries  of  Venice,"  and  dilated  pitifully  on  the 
"Bridge of  Sighs,"  on  the  "horrible  Piombi,"  etc., 
he  showed  his  article  to  the  patriot.  Having  read 
it,  Manin  thus  addressed  him :  "Can  it  be  possible 
that  you,  an  educated  and  serious  man,  believe  these 
nonsensical  yarns  ?  Do  you  still  credit  the  tales  of 
your  nursery  days  ?  I  know  these  Piombi  and  these 
Pozzi;  I  have  been  confined  therein,  and  I  can  assure 
you  that  they  are  by  no  means  uncomfortable  lodg- 
ings. Believe  me  when  I  say  that  all  this  talk  about 
the  cruelties  of  Venice  is  an  old  wife's  tale." 

Then  Manin  showed  his  astonished  friend  how 
the  Most  Serene  Eepublic  could  not  have  survived 
so  gloriously  for  so  many  centuries  had  its  govern- 
ment not  been  indulgent  and  popular.*  In  fact,  to 
this  day  the  Venetians  preserve  an  affectionate  re- 
membrance of  that  government ;  and  hence  it  was 
that  they  so  gladly  proclaimed  and  sustained  their 
republic  of  1848,  whereas  elsewhere  the  Italian 
movement  was  merely  the  work  of  a  revolutionary 


*  J.  Morey,  in  the  "Illustrations  et  Celebrit&s   du  XIXe 
Siecle,"  vol.  v.    Paris,  1884. 


216  Wicked  Venice. 

faction.  These  Piombi  could  not  have  been  gla- 
ciers in  winter  and  furnaces  in  summer,  when 
Howard,  the  great  English  prison  reformer,  avowed 
their  healthfulness.*  Again,  it  is  not  true  that 
they  were  located  immediately  under  the  roof  of 
the  palace.  Euskin  carefully  measured,  the  space 
between  the  prison  cells  and  the  roof,  and  he  found 
it  was  in  some  places  nine  metres  high,  and  in  others 
never  less  than  five.f 

Twelve  years  before  the  fall  of  the  Venetian 
Eepublic  the  celebrated  astronomer  Lalande  said 
of  the  State  Inquisitors:  "They  are  distinguished 
more  for  their  wisdom  than  for  talent.  They  are 
chosen  from  among  men  whose  age  guarantees  free- 
dom from  passion  and  from  the  dangers  of  prejudice 
or  of  corruption.  Earely  indeed  is  there  any  abuse 
of  the  absolute  powers  confided  to  them."  %  The 
reader  will  remember  that  this  praise  comes  from  a 
"philosopher."  The  eminent  historian  Botta  says : 
"Venice  was  without  serious  trouble  for  many  cen- 
turies. She  was  the  object  of  attack  for  the  most 
powerful  nations — the  Turks,  the  Germans,  and 
the  French.  She  was  in  the  road  of  barbarous 
conquerors,  and  in  the  midst  of  revolutions  of  the 


*  "State  of  the  prisons  in  England  and  Wales,  with  pre- 
liminary-observations and  an  account  of  some  foreign  prisons." 
London,  1777. 

t  "Stones  of  Venice,"  vol.  ii,  p.  293;  note.    London,  1852. 

%  "Voyage  en  Italie,  Contenant  l'Histoire  et  les  Anecdotes 
les  plus  Siugulieres  de  l'ltalie."    Paris,  1786. 


Wicked  Venice.  217 

peoples.  Yet  she  came  safe  and  sound  from  every 
political  tempest;  and  such  was  the  perfection  of 
her  ancient  laws,  so  deep  had  struck  the  roots  given 
them  by  time,  that  she  never  needed  to  change  their 
character.  It  is  my  firm  conviction  that  there  has 
never  existed  a  wiser  government  than  that  of  Ven- 
ice, whether  we  consider  its  own  preservation  or  the 
happiness  of  its  subjects.  For  this  reason  Venice 
never  had  any  dangerous  factions  in  her  bosom,  and 
for  the  same  reason  she  never  entertained  any  fear 
of  new  ideas.  ...  I  do  not  know  whether  pity  or 
indignation  should  be  felt  for  those  who  declaim 
so  fiercely  against  the  Inquisition  of  Venice,  and 
who  affect  to  regard  the  existence  of  that  tribunal 
as  a  justification  for  the  death  inflicted  on  the  an- 
cient and  sacred  republic."  * 

The  chief  reason  for  the  hostility  displayed  by  so 
many  moderns  toward  the  memory  of  the  Venetian 
Republic  is  the  fact  that  it  was  pre-eminently  "cleri- 
cal," as  it  is  the  "liberal"  fashion  nowadays  to  style 
everything  not  positively  hostile  to  the  Catholic 
Church.  According  to  the  clamorous  philosophists 
of  the  liberal  school,  "clericalism"  is  a  scoffing  at 
reason,  a  denial  of  the  sun's  light,  a  cursing  of  lib- 
erty, an  exaltation  of  despotism,  a  subordination  of 
all  civil  power  to  a  theocracy,  an  ignoring  of  all  the 
conquests  of  modern  science,  a  trampling  on  human 
dignity;  in  fine — and  this  sums  up  all  the  iniquities 
of  "clericalism" — it  is  a  return  to  the  Cimmerian 


'Storia  d'ltalia  da  1789  a  1814."    Florence,  1816. 


218  Wicked  Venice. 

darkness  of  the  Middle  Age.  Melancholy  indeed 
to  a  radical  is  the  spectacle  furnished  by  a  capital 
city  panting  under  the  incubus  of  two  hundred 
churches,  thirty  religious  establishments  for  men, 
thirty-five  nunneries,  and  confraternities  innumer- 
able. And,  sadder  still  to  relate,  every  one  of  these 
monuments  of  Venetian  religious  devotion  owed  its 
origin  to  some  vow  in  recognition  of  a  favor  ob- 
tained from  God. 

Well  did  the  republic  merit  the  title  of  Very 
Christian,  given  to  it  by  Pope  Honorius  in  the 
seventh  century,  the  third  of  its  existence.  Thirty- 
nine  times  in  the  year  the  capital  beheld  the  doge 
and  senate  proceeding  in  full  state,  gran  gala,  to 
some  church,*  in  accordance  with  some  vow  made 
on  an  occasion  of  peril  to  the  state.  Foreign  ob- 
servers were  always  edified  by  the  piety  manifested 
in  the  accomplishment  of  this  duty.  Commines 
wrote  in  1494:  "Venice  is  the  most  glorious  city  I 
have  ever  seen,  and  it  is  the  most  wisely  governed. 
The  worship  of  God  is  conducted  here  more  wor- 
thily than  elsewhere ;  and  although  the  Venetians 
may  have  their  faults,  I  believe  that  God  helps 
them  on  account  of  their  reverence  for  the  Church,  "f 

And  when  the  republic  was  twelve  centuries  old, 
this  spirit  was  as  strong  as  when  the  dubious  pros- 


*  The  ceremonies  of  Holy  Week  were  especially  splendid. 
Saint-Didier,  in  his  "La  Ville  et  Repuhlique  de  Venice," 
written  in  1679,  says  of  the  illuminations  in  Venice  on  Good 
Friday  night  that  then  the  city  was  wont  to  consume  more 
white  wax  than  was  used  in  all  the  rest  of  Italy  in  a  year. 

f  "Memoires,"  b.  vii,  ch.  8,  at  year  1494. 


Wicked  Venice.  219 

perity  of  its  infancy  drew  it  to  the  altars  of  God. 
Albrizzi  wrote  in  1771:  "The  most  noteworthy 
characteristic  of  this  august  republic  is  its  firm  and 
inviolable  attachment  to  the  Catholic  Church.  The 
commanders  of  her  armies,  the  governors  of  her 
fortresses,  in  their  wars  with  the  Turks,  have  de- 
fended the  faith  with  their  blood,  and  often  amid 
most  cruel  tortures.  In  most  critical  times  this 
wise  government  has  paid  the  greatest  attention  to 
a  preservation  of  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ  in  its 
purity.  .  .  .  The  same  zeal  is  shown  to-day. 
.  .  .  The  most  conspicuous  monuments  of  Venice 
prove  the  piety  of  its  government  at  every  period 
of  its  existence.  The  souvenir  of  the  many  victo- 
ries of  Venice  is  renewed  every  year  by  some  reli- 
gious ceremony,  performed  with  as  much  majesty  as 
appropriateness.  The  doge,  at  the  head  of  the 
senate,  fulfills  this  pious  duty.  .  .  .  Hence  we 
may  say  that  the  Venetians  are  very  assiduous  in 
the  practice  of  their  religious  duties ;  for  on  every 
feast-day,  and  especially  on  the  festivals  of  the  Holy 
Virgin,  their  protectress,*  the  churches  are  filled 
with  people  of  every  class  and  condition,  all  wrapped 
in  recollection. "f 

Like  other  countries,  Venice  passed  through 
many  struggles  with  the  Holy  See,  but  these  were 
never  concerning  matters  of  faith.      Even  during 


*  The  Feast  of  the  Annunciation  is  the  anniversary  of  the 
birth  of  the  capita]  city.  Hence  on  the  pavement  of  the 
Church  of  Santa  Maria  dell  a  Santa  we  read  :  "  Uncle  origo,  incle 
salus." 

f  II  Forestiere  Illuminato  della  Citta  di  Venezia."  Venice, 
1771. 


220  Wicked  Venice. 

her  terrible  alienation  from  Rome  in  the  pontificate 
of  Paul  V.,  the  interdict  launched  by  that  Pontiff 
did  not  throw  her,  as  the  Reformers  predicted,  into 
the  ranks  of  Protestantism.  How  could  such  a 
defection  have  been  possible,  demands  Cantu, 
"when  Venice  was  thoroughly  Catholic?  Her 
origin,  her  patrons,  her  national  festivals,  the  fine 
arts,  all  proclaimed  her  such.  .  .  .  And,"  he  con- 
tinues, "let  any  person  of  judgment  tell  us  whether 
that  religion  was  likely  to  perish  which  was  just 
then  erecting  so  many  sumptuous  churches.  When 
the  public  spirit  was  so  identified  with  Catholicism, 
could  an  eminently  conservative  government  have 
dreamed  of  so  radical  a  revolution?  We  have 
studied  many  documents  concerning  the  interdict 
of  Venice,  and  while  we  have  found  much  boldness 
and  much  discontent,  we  have  always  discerned 
Christian  submission  and  a  desire  for  reconcilia- 
tion."* 

But  this  Christian  spirit  is  displeasing  to  the  lib- 
erals of  our  day,  and  hence  they  have  re-echoed  the 
accusations  made  against  Venice  by  Bonaparte,  the 
chief  author  of  that  great  crime  by  which  the 
ancient  republic  was  obliterated  from  the  list  of 
nationalities.  Let  the  reader  judge  whether  these 
charges  were  true ;  whether  among  all  governments, 
that  one  in  which  equality  before  the  law  most 
flourished,  that  one  which  was  the  most  patriotic  in 
all  Christendom,  and  that  one  which  lived  the  long- 
est, was  precisely  the  one  which  all  good  people 
should  the  most  detest. 

*  "Gli  Eretici  d'ltalia,"  vol.  iii,  p.  188.    Turin,  1866. 


THE   LAST  WORD  ON  THE  MASSACRE 
OF   ST.   BARTHOLOMEW'S   DAY. 

"Excidat  ilia  dies  cevo,  nee  postera  credant 
scecula. — Let  this  day  be  lost  from  time,  and  pos- 
terity ignore  the  event."  Whether  these  words 
of  Statius  were  applied  to  this  fatal  day  by  the 
Chancellor  de  l'Hopital,  as  Voltaire  asserts,  or  by 
the  President  de  Thou,  as  some  contend,  no  Cath- 
olic will  refuse  to  re-echo  them ;  but,  if  well  in- 
formed, he  will  not  deem  himself  obliged  to  add 
with  the  poet,  6iNos  eerie  laceamus."  And  never- 
theless, it  is  comparatively  but  a  short  time  since 
Catholic  polemics  essayed  to  answer  the  allegations 
of  Protestant  writers  concerning  this  event,  so  fear- 
ful were  they  lest  they  might  be  suspected  of  a 
wish  to  apologize  for  a  horrible  crime.  We  hear 
much  of  La  Barthelemy ,  but  nothing  of  La  Michelade, 
that  frightful  massacre  at  Ntmes  on  St.  Michael's 
Day  of  1567,  when  the  Protestants  anticipated  by 
more  than  two  centuries  the  horrors  of  the  Carmes 
of  the  Abbaye  (September  2,  1792).  Now  we  pro- 
pose to  demonstrate,  firstly,  that  religion  had  nothing 
to  do  with  this  massacre;  secondly,  that  it  was  a 
matter  of  mere  worldly  policy;  thirdly,  that  it  was 
not  intended  that  it  should  extend  beyond  Paris; 
fourthly,  that  it  was  not  long    premeditated,    but 

221 


222     On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew' 's  Day. 

was  the  effect  of  impulse ;  and  fifthly,  that  the  num- 
ber of  its  victims  has  been  enormously  exaggerated. 


I. 

Religion  had  nothing  to  do  with  this  massacre. 
In  this  matter  historians  have  erred  in  espousing 
the  cause  of  either  Protestants  or  Catholics ;  to 
use  the  words  of  Cantu,  "Varillas  and  Voltaire, 
equally  unjust,  have  provoked  the  judgment  of 
impartial  posterity,  which  weighs  them  in  the 
same  scale,  and  which  sees  on  both  sides  swords 
dripping  with  blood,  recognizing  in  this  deadly 
struggle  not  the  crimes  of  a  sect  or  the  follies 
of  a  court  or  the  instigations  of  fanaticism,  but 
the  constant  passions  of  humanity."  In  the  first 
place,  one  would  be  led  to  suspect  that  zeal 
for  the  Catholic  faith  was  not  the  motive  for 
the  Barthelemy,  from  the  fact  that  many  Cath- 
olics were  numbered  among  the  victims,  having 
succumbed  to  personal  hate  or  to  avarice.  "The 
possession  of  wealth,"  says  Mezeray,  "an  envied 
position,  or  the  existence  of  greedy  heirs,  stamped 
a  man  as  a  Huguenot."  The  governor  of  Bor- 
deaux systematically  ransomed  wealthy  Catholics 
as  well  as  Protestants.  At  Bourges  a  priest 
was  murdered;  at  La  Charite,  the  wife  of  a 
Captain  Landas;  at  Vic,  the  governor;  at  Paris, 
Bertrand  de  Villemer,  maitre  des  requetes,  and 
John  Rouillard,  a  canon   of  Notre-Dame.     Again, 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day.    223 

the  characters  of  Catherine  dei  Medici  and  her 
son,  Charles  IX.,  were  not  those  of  zealots  for  the 
faith ;  a  critical  and  impartial  historian*  has  been 
obliged  to  admit  that  if  it  had  become  necessary 
for  the  recovery  of  power,  they  would  have  de- 
clared themselves  Protestants.  But  there  is  more 
than  mere  suspicion  to  justify  our  assertion.  We 
know,  from  the  very  " Marty rology"  of  the  Calvin- 
ists,  what  motive  actuated  the  murderers.  They 
would  show  the  corpses  of  their  victims,  saying, 
6 'These  are  they  who  would  have  killed  the  king." 
And  "the  courtiers  laughed  exultantly,  saying  that 
at  length  the  war  was  ended,  and  they  could  live  in 
peace."  The  same  author  tells  us  that  after  the 
massacre,  "the  parliament  of  Toulouse  published 
the  will  of  the  king  that  no  one  should  molest  those 
of  the  religion,  but  should  rather  favor  them;" 


*  Cantu,  "Storia  Universale,"  b.  xv,  Note  O.  "Catherine 
dei  Medici,  a  woman  on  whom  weighs  all  the  hatred  of  the 
French,  who  saw  incarnated  in  her  Italian  cunning  and  feroc- 
ity, calculated  corruption,  cold  cruelty,  and  an  egotistic  policy, 
had  been  raised  among  the  factions  of  Tuscany;  married  for 
policy,  unloved  by  a  husband  who  preferred  his  mistress  to 
her;  suddenly  exalted  above  her  long  debasement;  beautiful, 
majestic,  in  the  vigor  of  life;  instructed  by  misfortune,  irri- 
tated by  humiliation;  absolutely  ruling,  yet  loved  by  her 
children;  unequalled  in  the  art  of  fascinating  the  souls  of  men. 
She  did  not  study  the  good  of  a  kingdom  to  which  she  was 
foreign,  nor  the  preservation  of  a  faith  which  she  had  not  in 
her  heart,  but  only  her  own  power.  Nevertheless,  she  pre- 
served France  from  falling  to  pieces,  or  from  succumbing  to  a 
tyranny  which  afflicted  Spain.  She  always  wore  the  widow's 
weeds;  and  although  she  tolerated  immorality  in  others,  not 


224    On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew' s  Day. 

and  we  know  that  on  August  26  a  similar  edict  was 
issued  in  Paris.  Again,  Charles  IX.  needed  no 
religious  motive  to  render  him  furious  against  the 
Huguenots.  They  had  plotted  to  kidnap  him;  they 
had  drawn  entire  provinces  into  rebellion,  and  they 
had  introduced  foreign  troops  into  France. 

But  it  is  said  that  Roman  cardinals  prepared  the 
massacre ;  the  names  of  Birague  and  De  Retz  are 
mentioned.  The  Roman  purple  is  easily  cleared  of 
this  stain.  The  former  prelate  was  made  a  cardinal 
six,  and  the  latter  fifteen  years  after  the  Barthelemy. 
The  poet  Chenier,  of  the  school  of  Voltaire,  repre- 
sents, on  the  operatic  stage,  the  Cardinal  of  Lor- 
raine as  blessing  the  poniards  destined  for  the 
massacre ;  but  at  that  time  this  prelate  was  in  Rome, 
having  been  one  of  the  conclave  which  had  chosen 
a  successor  to  St.  Pius  V.     Again,  much  stress  is 


even  the  calumnious  BrantOme  ever  reproaches  her  on  this 
score.  She  was  so  little  hostile  to  the  reformed  doctrines  that 
during  her  meals  she  often  listened  to  Calvinist  sermons.  (See 
Letter  of  the  Nuncio  Santa  Croce,  November  13,  1561.)  But 
since  Philip  II.,  the  great  enemy  of  France,  was  head  of  the 
Catholic  party,  France  should  be  allied  with  the  Protestants — 
a  policy  adopted,  in  fact,  by  the  last  few  French  monarchs. 
But  the  Calvinists  ceased  to  be  a  school,  and  became  a  danger- 
ous faction;  hence  Catherine  felt  that  she  could  save  the 
country  only  by  siding  with  the  Catholic  majority.  Although 
she  hated  the  Guises,  she  joined  hands  with  them  to  supplant 
the  constable  Anne  and  Diana.  The  latter  was  banished; 
Anne  went  over  to  the  Bourbons;  the  King  of  Navarre  re- 
ceived a  cool  treatment  which  his  weakness  deserved,  and  the 
Guises  obtained  the  highest  posts."    lb.,  c.  24, 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew' 's  Day.    225 

laid  upon  the  conduct  of  the  Eoman  court  when  it 
heard  of  the  catastrophe.  Gregory  XIII.  pro- 
ceeded processionally  to  the  church  of  St.  Louis, 
and  rendered  thanks  to  Heaven ;  he  proclaimed  a 
Jubilee,  and  struck  medals  commemorative  of  the 
event.  The  famous  Latinist,  Mureto,  pronounced 
an  encomium  on  the  slaughter  before  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff.  But  the  words  of  Pope  Gregory  writing 
to  the  king  in  congratulation  for  his  escape,  the 
words  of  Mureto  also,  show  that  the  Eoman  court 
thanked  Almighty  God  merely  for  the  escape  of  the 
royal  family  from  a  Huguenot  conspiracy. 

Finally,  throughout  France,  in  Paris  itself,  the 
Catholic  masses  acted  on  this  occasion  in  a  manner 
which  showed  that  their  religion  was  not  a  prime 
agent  in  the  affair.  On  the  very  night  of  the 
massacre,  Charles  IX.  sent  orders  to  all  the  gov- 
ernors of  provinces  and  of  cities,  to  take  measures 
to  prevent  any  occurrences  like  those  which  had 
just  stained  the  capital.  At  Lyons,  as  even  the 
Calvinist  Martyrology  informs  us,  many  of  the 
Huguenots  were  sent  for  safety  to  the  archiepiscopal 
prison  and  to  the  Celestine  and  Franciscan  convents. 
And  if  we  are  told  that  some  of  those  who  were 
consigned  to  the  archiepiscopal  prison  fell  victims 
to  their  enemies,  we  reply,  with  the  same  Calvinist 
author,  that  this  outrage  was  committed  during  the 
absence  and  without  the  knowledge  of  the  gov- 
ernor; that  on  his  return  he  put  a  stop  to  it,  and 
offered  a  reward  of  a  hundred  scudi  for  the  names 


226    On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day. 

of  the  criminals.  This  author  also  tells  us  that  "the 
Calvinists  of  Toulouse  found  safety  in  the  con- 
vents." At  Lisieux  the  bishop  saved  many,  as  the 
martyrologist  admits;*  and  he  also  says  that  "the 
more  peaceable  Catholics  saved  forty  out  of  sixty 
who  had  been  seized  at  the  town  of  Romans ;  of  the 
twenty  others,  thirteen  were  afterward  freed,  and 
only  seven  perished,  they  having  many  enemies, 
and  having  borne  arms."  Even  at  Nimes,  where 
the  Huguenots  had  twice  massacred  the  Catholics  in 
cold  blood  (in  1567  and  1569),  the  latter  abstained 
from  revenge. f  Paris  also  furnished  many  exam- 
ples of  compassion.  The  Calvinist  historian,  La 
Popeliniere,  a  contemporary  author,  records  that 
"among  the  French  nobles  who  distinguished  them- 
selves in  saving  the  lives  of  many  of  the  confed- 
erates, the  greatest  good  was  effected  by  the  dukes 
of  Guise,  Aumale,  Biron,  Bellievre.  .  .  .  When 
the  people  had  been  told  that  the  Huguenots,  in 
order  to  kill  the  king,  had  attacked  his  body-guards 
and  killed  over  twenty,  a  further  slaughter  would 
have  been  perpetrated,  had  not  many  nobles,  content 
with  the  death  of  the  leaders,  prevented  it;  even 
many  Italians,  armed  and  mounted,  scoured  the 
city  and  suburbs,  and    gathered   many   fortunates 


*  Cf.  also  M.  de  Falloux,  in  the  Correspondant  of  1843,  pp. 
166-16S. 

f  Menard:  "Histoire  Civile,  Eccl.,  et  Lit.,  de  Nimes;"  vol. 
v,  p.  9. 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew 's  Day.    227 

into  the  security  of  their  own  houses."  *  In  fine, 
instead  of  religion  having  caused  this  massacre, 
we  may  conclude  with  Count  Alfred  de  Falloux 
that,  considering  the  state  of  men's  minds  at  that 
time,  religion  alone  could  have  prevented  it.  "In- 
stead of  a  court  full  of  intrigues  and  adulteries,  sup- 
pose that  then  there  was  one  influenced  by  the  Gos- 
pel ;  that  the  law  of  God  guided  the  powerful ;  that 
instead  of  a  Catharine  and  a  Charles  IX.,  there  had 
reigned  a  Blanche  and  a  St.  Louis ;  in  such  a  case 
let  us  ask  our  consciences  whether  this  slaughter 
would  have  been  possible."  f 


n. 

The  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day  was  an 
affair  of  worldly  policy.  The  Huguenots  had  cer- 
tainly been  guilty  of  high-treason.  As  to  Coligny, 
the  journal  of  his  receipts  and  expenses,  laid  before 
the  royal  Council  and  the  Parliament,  and  his  other 
papers  seized  after  his  death,  revealed  deeds  and 
projects  which  would  have  insured  his  capital  con- 
demnation in  any  country  of  Christendom.  Con- 
cerning these  papers  Bellievre  said  to  the  deputies 
of  the  Thirteen  Cantons:  "The  king  learned  from 
them  that  the  admiral  had  established,  in   sixteen 


*  "Histoire  de  France  de  1550  jusqu'a  1557;"  edit.  1581;  b. 
xxix,  p.  67. 

f  Discourse  at  a  scientific  congress  held  at  Angers  in  1843. 


228     On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day. 

provinces,  governors,  military  commanders,  and  a 
number  of  counsellors  charged  with  the  task  of 
keeping  the  people  armed,  and  of  assembling  them 
together  at  his  first  sign."  Charles  IX.  wrote  to 
Schomberg,his  ambassador  to  Germ  any,  that  Coligny 
had  more  power,  "and  was  better  obeyed  by  those  of 
the  new  religion  than  I  was.  By  the  great  authority 
he  had  usurped  over  them,  he  could  raise  them  in 
arms  against  me  whenever  he  wished,  as  indeed  he 
often  proved.  Recently  he  ordered  the  new  religion- 
ists to  meet  in  arms  at  Melun,  near  Fontainbleau, 
where  I  was  to  be  at  that  time,  the  third  of  August. 
He  had  arrogated  so  much  power  to  himself  that 
I  could  not  call  myself  a  king,  but  merely  a  ruler 
of  part  of  my  dominions.  Therefore,  since  it 
has  pleased  God  to  deliver  me  from  him,  I  may 
well  thank  Him  for  the  just  punishment  He  has 
inflicted  upon  the  admiral  and  his  accomplices.  I 
could  not  tolerate  him  any  longer,  and  I  determined 
to  give  rein  to  a  justice  which  was  indeed  extraor- 
dinary, and  other  than  I  would  have  wished,  but 
which  was  necessary  in  the  case  of  such  a  man."* 
Brantome,  Tavannes,  and  Montluc,  all  courtiers  of 
Charles,  speak  of  his  fear  of  Coligny ;  and  Bellievre 
says  that  "his  Majesty  told  some  of  his  servants, 
myself  among  the  number,  that  when  he  found 
himself  so  threatened,  his  hair  stood  on   end."    Is 


*  Villeroy:  "M^moires  Servant  a  l'Histoire  de  Notre 
Temps;"  vol.  iv.  The  letter  to  Schomberg  is  of  September 
13,  1572. 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day.    229 

it  likely  that  any  monarch  would  tamely  submit  to 
such  dictation  as  Coligny  uttered?  "Make  war  on 
Spain,  sire,  or  we  wage  war  against  you."*  Ta- 
vannes  informs  us  that  the  king,  speaking  one  day 
concerning  the  means  at  his  disposal  for  a  campaign 
in  the  Netherlands,  said  that  one  of  his  subjects 
(Coligny)  had  offered  him  ten  thousand  men  for 
that  purpose.  Then  Tavannes  replied:  "Sire,  you 
ought  to  cut  off  the  head  of  any  subject  who  would 
use  such  language.  How  dare  he  offer  you  what  is 
your  own?  This  is  a  sign  that  he  has  corrupted 
these  men;  that  he  has  gained  them  over  to  use 
them,  one  day,  against  your  Majesty." 

Many  Protestant  writers  are  prone  to  dilate  on 
the  virtues  of  Coligny,  but  they  have  not  freed  him 
from  the  imputation  of  having  directed  the  assassin's 
blow  against  Duke  Francis  of  Guise.  Not  merely 
by  the  deposition  of  the  wretched  Poltrot,  but  by 
the  very  avowals  of  the  admiral,  we  are  led  to 
regard  the  latter  as  the  instigator  of  the  crime.  In 
a  letter  to  the  queen-mother,  he  admitted  that  "for 
the  last  five  or  six  months  he  did  not  strongly" 
oppose  those  who  showed  a  wish  to  kill  the  Duke; 
and  he  gave  as  a  reason  for  his  non-opposition,  that 
certain  persons  had  tried  to  kill  himself.     He  did 


*  Tavannes:  "M^moires  dermis  Pan  1530  jusqu'  a,  Sa  Mort 
en  1573,  Dresses  par  Son  Fils;"  Paris,  1574. — The  quotations 
that  follow  are  taken  from  the  "M^moires  de  Conde\  d^puis  la 
Mort  de  Henri  II.,  jusqu'  au  Commencement  des  Troubles  en 
1565;"  vol.  iv,  p.  303;   Paris,  1741. 


230     On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew* 's  Day '. 

not  name  these  persons  in  the  course  of  his  justifica- 
tion, but  said  that  he  "would  indicate  them  at  a  fit- 
ting time."  In  his  answers  he  admitted  that  "Poltrot 
told  him  that  it  would  be  easy  to  kill  the  Duke  of 
Guise,  but  that  he  (Coligny)  made  no  remark, 
because  he  deemed  the  matter  frivolous;"  in  fact, 
he  "said  nothing  as  to  whether  he  regarded  the 
design  as  good  or  evil."  In  another  letter  to  Cath- 
arine, he  spoke  of  the  death  of  the  Duke  as  "the 
greatest  benefit  that  could  accrue  to  the  kingdom 
and  to  the  Church  of  God,  and  a  personal  advantage 
to  the  king  and  to  the  whole  family  of  Coligny." 
And  finally,  his  course  in  claiming  the  right  of  pre- 
scription, when  he  fell  back  on  the  privileges  of  the 
Edict  of  Pacification,  would  not  indicate  a  conscious- 
ness of  innocence. 


III. 

It  was  not  intended  that  the  massacre  should  ex- 
tend beyond  Paris.  We  learn  from  Tavannes  that 
the  popular  fury  rendered  the  massacre  general,  "to 
the  great  regret  of  its  advisers,  they  having  resolved 
on  the  death  of  only  the  leaders  and  the  factious." 
They  who  hold  that  orders  to  slaughter  the  Hugue- 
nots had  been  sent  into  the  provinces,  adduce  in 
proof  only  two  letters  :  one  from  the  Viscount  d'Or- 
thez,  governor  of  Bayonne,  to  Charles  IX. ;  and  one 
from  Catharine  to  Strozzi,  who  was  watching  for  an 
opportunity  to  surprise  La  Eochelle,  one  of  the  four 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew 's  Day.     231 

cities  accorded  to  the  Calvinists.  Now,  there  is 
very  good  reason  for  regarding  both  these  letters  as 
unauthentic,  and  no  argument  can  be  urged  in  their 
favor.  The  first  letter,  whatever  some  authors  may 
say,  is  not  found  in  De  Thou,  not  even  in  the 
Geneva  edition  of  1620;  and  this  writer's  Huguenot 
proclivities  and  his  aversion  to  Charles  IX.  would 
not  have  allowed  him  to  overlook  it,  had  he  deemed 
it  authentic.  It  is  given  only  by  the  malevolent 
D'Aubigne  in  these  words:  "I  commence  with  Bay- 
onne,  where  a  courier  arrived  with  orders  to  cut  in 
pieces  the  men,  women,  and  children  of  Dax,  who 
had  sought  refuge  in  the  prison.  The  Viscount 
d'Orthez,  governor  of  the  frontier,  thus  replied  to 
the  king:  'Sire,  I  have  communicated  the  order  of 
your  Majesty  to  the  inhabitants  and  soldiers  of  the 
garrison ;  and  have  found  them  to  be  good  citizens 
and  brave  warriors,  but  not  executioners.  There- 
fore they  and  I  supplicate  your  Majesty  to  employ 
them  in  any  possible,  even  though  hazardous,  mat- 
ters,' "  etc.  But  the  Calvinist  martyrologist  fur- 
nishes us  with  reasons  for  supposing  that  no  such 
orders  as  the  above  were  expedited,  either  to 
d'Orthez  or  to  any  other  governors  in  the  provinces. 
This  author,  whose  work  is  a  veritable  "Lives  of 
the  Saints"  for  French  Protestants,  says  nothing, 
save  in  one  case,  of  such  instructions ;  and  certainly 
he  was  interested  in  chronicling  them,  had  he  known 
of  them.  But,  on  the  contrary,  he  tells  us  that  the 
murderers  "at  Orleans  resolved  to  put  their  hands 


232     On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew' 's  Day. 

to  the  work  without  any  orders  from  the  governor, 
D'Entragues ;"  that  those  of  Bourges  "sent  Marueil 
in  haste  to  the  court,  but  he  returned  bearing  no 
commands;"  that  Charles  IX.  wrote  many  letters 
to  Bordeaux  to  the  effect  that  he  "had  not  intended 
that  execution  to  extend  beyond  Paris."  The  ex- 
ception to  which  we  have  alluded  is  that  of  Rouen, 
the  Governor  of  which  city,  says  the  martyrologist, 
received  orders  "to  exterminate  those  of  the  relig- 
ion;" but  this  assertion  is  contradicted,  observes 
Barthelemy,*  by  the  inactivity  of  the  governor,  and 
by  the  date  of  the  Rouen  murders,  which  occurred 
nearly  a  month  after  those  of  Paris. 

As  for  the  second  letter,  that  of  Catharine  to 
Strozzi,  no  French  contemporary  or  quasi-contem- 
porary  historian  speaks  of  it ;  not  even  Brantome, 
who  was  then  at  Brouage  with  Strozzi ;  and  there 
are  intrinsic  arguments  for  its  rejection.  It  is  sup- 
posed that  six  months  before  the  massacre,  the 
queen-mother  wrote  to  Strozzi,  enclosed  in  another 
to  be  read  at  once,  a  letter  which  was  not  to  be 
opened  until  August  24,  the  fatal  day.  In  this 
reserved  document  Catharine  is  said  to  have  written  : 
"Strozzi,  I  inform  you  that  to-day,  August  24,  the 
admiral  and  all  the  Huguenots  here  present  were 
killed.  I  earnestly  request  you  to  make  yourself 
master  of  La  Rochelle,  and  to  do  as  we  have  done 
to  all  the  Huguenots   who  fall   into  your  hands. 


*  "La  Saint-Barthelemy,"  in  his  "Erreurs,"  vol.  i;  Paris, 
1865. 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew' s  Day.    233 

Beware  of  backwardness,  as  you  fear  to  displease 
the  king,  my  son,  and  me."  Now,  he  who  would 
regard  this  letter  as  genuine  must  ascribe  to  Cath- 
arine a  gift  of  prophecy  such  as  few  of  the  saints 
have  received.  She  must  have  foreseen  that  Jane 
d'Albret,*  Queen  of  Navarre,  an  ardent  Huguenot, 
would  consent  to  the  marriage  of  her  son,  Henry 
de  Bourbon,  with  Margaret  de  Valois.  She  must 
have  known  that  Pope  St.  Pius  V.,  who  would  not 
grant  the  necessary  dispensation,  would  soon  die, 
and  that  Gregory  XIII.  would  concede  it.  She 
must  also  have  seen  Coligny  and  his  followers  madly 
confiding  in  the  affectionate  disposition  of  Charles 
IX. ;  the  admiral  ignoring  the  warnings  of  the 
Rochellois  and  other  Huguenots;  the  crime  of 
Maurevert  failing  to  cause  the  flight  of  the  future 
victims;  and,  finally,  the  certainty  of  no  impru- 
dence on  the  part  of  Strozzi,  or  perhaps  his  death, 
revealing  her  letter  to  the  Calvinists.  We  decline, 
therefore,  to  accept  as  authentic  either  the  letter 
from  d'Orthez  or  that  to  Strozzi. 


*  Jane  d'Albret,  Queen  of  Navarre,  married  in  1548  Anthony 
de  Bourbon,  Duke  of  Vendome,  a  lineal  descendant  of  Robert, 
Count  of  Clermont,  son  of  St.  Louis ;  this  latter  having  married 
Beatrice,  daughter  of  Archambault  de  Bourbon.  On  the  death 
of  Anthony,  in  1562,  Jane  embraced  Calvinism.  Her  son,  the 
great  Henry  of  Navarre,  becoming  Henry  IV.  of  France  in 
1589,  definitively  united  France  and  Navarre. 


234    On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day, 

IV. 

The  massacre  was  not  the  result  of  long  premedi- 
tation. The  rejection  of  the  aforesaid  letters  does 
away  with  one  of  the  strongest  arguments  which 
militate  against  this  position.  The  contemporary 
historians,  Capilupi,  Masson,  Tavannes,  Castelnau, 
and  others,  are  said  to  declare  that  the  massacre  was 
planned  at  the  conference  held  at  Bayonne  in  1565, 
between  Catharine  and  the  Duke  of  Alva.  But 
these  authors  speak  only  of  a  general  agreement 
as  to  mutual  aid  in  extirpating  heresy;  when  any  of 
them  mention  any  sanguinary  advice  on  the  part  of 
Alva,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  they  do  not  say  that  he 
counselled  a  massacre,  but  that  the  Huguenot  leaders 
should  be  "arrested  and  executed."  Now  listen  to 
the  testimony  of  Queen  Margaret,  sister  of  Charles 
IX.  In  her  "Memoires"  she  says  that  the  massacre 
was  designed  because  of  the  Huguenot  resolution 
to  avenge  the  wounding  of  Coligny ;  and  that  her 
brother  was  with  difficulty  persuaded  to  consent  to 
it,  and  only  when  "he  had  been  made  to  realize  that 
otherwise  his  crown  and  life  were  lost."  Then  we 
have  the  testimony  of  the  Duke  d'Anjou,  the  king's 
brother,  drawn  from  a  MS.  of  the  Royal  Library  by 
Cavairac.  This  prince  had  been  elected  King  of 
Poland  in  1573,  and  while  on  his  way  thither  he  was 
often  insulted  by  Huguenot  refugees.  He  was  so 
affected  by  their  curses  that  he  could  not  sleep,  and 
on  one  occasion  the  horrors  of  St.  Bartholomew's 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew *s  Day.   235 

Day  so  oppressed  him  that  he  summoned  his  physi- 
cian and  favorite,  Miron,  that  he  might  relieve  his 
mind.  Then  the  duke  detailed  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  massacre,  and  plainly  showed  that  it  was  a 
sudden  conception.  We  give  a  synopsis  of  this 
testimony.  "I  have  called  you,"  said  the  prince  to 
Miron,  "to  share  my  restlessness,  which  is  caused 
by  my  remembrance  of  the  Barthelemy,  concerning 
which  event  perhaps  you  have  never  heard  the 
truth."  Then  the  duke  narrated  how  he  and  the 
queen-mother  had  observed  that  Coligny  had  preju- 
diced the  king's  mind  against  them;  that  when, 
after  any  audience  accorded  to  the  admiral,  they  ap- 
proached his  Majesty,  "to  speak  of  business  or  even 
of  his  own  pleasures,  they  would  find  him  with  a 
forbidding  countenance,"  and  he  would  show  no 
respect  to  his  mother  and  no  kindness  to  Anjou. 
One  day  the  prince  approached  the  monarch  just  as 
Coligny  had  withdrawn;  and  Charles  would  not 
speak  to  him,  but  walked  furiously  up  and  down 
with  his  hand  upon  his  dagger,  looking  askance  at 
the  prince,  so  that  the  latter  feared  for  his  life, 
"and  deemed  himself  lucky  to  get  safely  out  of  the 
room."  Anjou  now  consulted  Catharine,  and  "they 
resolved  to  rid  themselves  of  the  admiral."  They 
took  Mme.  de  Nemours  into  their  confidence,  "on 
account  of  her  hatred  for  Coligny;"  and  they  sent 
at  once  for  a  certain  Grascon  captain,  but  did  not 
make  use  of  him,  because  he  assured  them  too 
readily  of  his  good- will,  "and  without  any  reserva- 
tion of  persons."     Then  they  thought  of  Maure- 


236    On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew \s  Day. 

vert,  as  "one  experienced  in  assassination;"  but 
they  could  influence  him  only  by  representing  that 
the  admiral  was  bent  on  avenging  the  death  of 
Moul,  whom  Maurevert  had  lately  murdered.  Mme. 
de  Nemours  put  one  of  her  houses  at  their  disposal ; 
and  when  the  attempt  failed,  "they  were  com- 
pelled to  look  to  their  own  safety."  When  Charles 
wished  to  see  the  admiral,  they  determined  to  be 
present  at  the  interview;  and  the  wounded  man 
having  been  admitted  to  a  private  conference  with 
the  king,  "they  retired  to  a  distance,  and  became 
very  suspicious,  especially  since  they  saw  themselves 
in  the  midst  of  over  two  hundred  of  the  admiral's 
followers,  who,  with  ferocious  countenances,  con- 
stantly passed  them  with  little  show  of  respect." 
Catharine  soon  put  an  end  to  the  colloquy  under  the 
specious  pretext  of  care  for  Coligny's  health,  and 
then  tried  to  learn  from  her  son  the  purport  of  the 
admiral's  remarks.  At  first  Charles  refused;  but, 
being  pressed,  he  swore  "by  deaths"  and  brusquely 
declared  that  "all  Coligny  had  said  was  true,"  and 
that  he  had  reproached  the  king  with  being  a  mere 
cipher  in  the  hands  of  his  mother.  "This  touched 
them  to  the  quick,"  and  the  queen-mother  "feared 
some  change  in  the  government  of  the  kingdom;" 
but  "for  some  hours  they  could  come  to  no  deter- 
mination." The  next  day  Anjou  and  his  mother 
deliberated  "as  to  the  means  of  getting  rid  of  the 
admiral."  After  dinner  they  waited  on  Charles, 
and  Catharine  "told  the  king  that  the  Huguenots 
were  rising  in  arms ;  that  the  leaders  were  enrolling 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew' s  Day.    237 

troops  in  the  provinces;  that  Colignj  had  procured 
ten  thousand  cavalry  from  Germany  and  as  many 
Swiss;  that  these  dangers  could  be  obviated  only 
by  the  death  of  the  admiral  and  of  the  chief  lead- 
ers of  the  Huguenot  faction."  Tavannes,  Birague, 
and  De  Nevers  corroborated  these  assertions ;  and 
the  king  "became  furious,  but  nevertheless  would 
not  at  first  hear  of  any  injury  to  Coligny."  He 
asked  each  one  for  his  individual  opinion ;  and  all 
agreed  with  Catharine  "except  the  Marshal  de  Retz, 
who  deceived  our  hopes,"  saying  that  "if  any  one 
ought  to  hate  the  admiral,  he  was  one,  since  Coligny 
had  defamed  his  race  throughout  Europe ;  but  that 
he  would  not  revenge  himself  by  means  dishonor- 
able to  the  king  and  country."  But  no  one  sec- 
onded De  Retz,  and  "we  soon  observed  a  sudden 
change  in  the  king."  The  rest  of  the  day  was 
devoted  to  the  details  of  the  terrible  enterprise. 
The  Duke  of  Guise  was  entrusted  with  the  death 
of  Coligny.  Toward  the  dawn  of  day,  the  king, 
Catharine,  and  Anjou  were  standing  at  a  window, 
when  they  heard  the  report  of  a  pistol,  and  fell 
back  in  horror.  They  sent  to  revoke  the  order 
given  to  Guise,  but  it  was  too  late.* 

Such,  according  to  the  Duke  of  Anjou,  is  the 
inner  history  of  the  Barthelemy ;  and  although  the 
prince  was  brother  to  Charles  IX.,  we  hold  that  his 


*  Cavairac :  "Dissertation  sur  la  Journee  de  la  Saint-Bar- 
thelemy;"  1758. 


238    On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew' 's  Day. 

testimony  is  valuable.  No  one  will  deny  that  he 
knew  all  the  circumstances  of  the  massacre;  and 
what  had  he  to  gain  by  deceiving  Miron  ?  Certainly 
not  self -justification ;  for  he  painted  himself  in  the 
darkest  colors.  And  he  could  not  have  wished  to 
conciliate  the  Poles,  his  future  subjects;  for  Miron 
could  not  effect  such  conciliation;  and,  again,  the 
Polish  representatives  had  already  shown  by  their 
unanimous  vote  that  such  a  course  was  superfluous. 
And  now  to  the  testimonies  of  Margaret  and  Henry 
de  Valois  add  those  of  three  celebrated  contempo- 
rary historians — the  hostile  Brantome,  the  Protest- 
ant La  Popeliniere,  and  Mathieu.  Brantome,  when 
treating  of  Catherine  dei  Medici,  says  of  Coligny's 
aspersions  against  that  queen:  "Behold  the  cause 
of  his  death,  and  of  that  of  his  followers,  as  I  learned 
it  from  those  who  knew  it  well ;  although  many  be- 
lieve that  the  fuse  was  laid  sometime  previous." 
La  Popeliniere  gives  the  arguments  for  and  against 
the  supposition  of  premeditation,  and  inclines  to 
the  latter  view.  Mathieu  says  that  he  understood 
from  Henry  IV.  that  Catherine  informed  Yilleroy, 
her  confidant,  that  the  massacre  was  unpremedi- 
tated. Finally,  it  may  be  observed  with  Cavairac 
that,  if  long  prepared,  this  tragedy  would  have  been 
executed  simultaneously,  or  nearly  so,  throughout 
France ;  and  most  Protestants  believe  that  it  was  so 
effected.  But  at  Meaux  the  slaughter  happened  on 
August  25,  at  La  Charite  on  the  26th,  at  Orleans 
on  the  27th,  at  Saumur  and  Angers  on  the  29th,  at 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day.    239 

Lyons  on  the  30th,  at  Troyes  on  September  2,  at 
Bruges  on  the  14th,  at  Rouen  on  the  17th,  at 
Romans  on  the  20th,  at  Toulouse  on  the  25th,  at 
Bordeaux  not  until  October  23. 

But  in  reply  to  all  the  above  proofs  of  the  non- 
premeditation  of  the  massacre,  it  has  been  alleged 
that  Sir  Henry  Austin  Layard,  President  of  the 
London  Huguenot  Society,  discovered  facts  which 
caused  him  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that  "there 
can  not  be  a  doubt  that  Pius  V.  had  instigated 
Charles  and  the  queen-mother  to  exterminate  the 
Huguenots,  and  that  Salviati  had  been  instructed 
to  press  the  matter  upon  them."  Thus  the  Hon. 
John  Jay,  addressing  the  American  Huguenot  So- 
ciety in  its  annual  meeting  on  April  13,  1888.  But 
long  before  Layard  was  heard  of,  Lingard  had  in- 
vestigated the  real  connection  of  the  nuncio  Salviati 
with  the  massacre,  and  had  judged  that  the  event 
was  not  premeditated.  While  Chateaubriand  was 
ambassador  at  the  papal  court  (1828-30)  he  pro- 
cured a  copy  of  the  correspondence  of  Pope  Gregory 
XIII.  with  his  nuncio  Salviati,  and  sent  it  to  Mack- 
intosh, who  used  it  in  his  "History  of  England." 
This  correspondence  proves  that  at  the  time  of  the 
massacre  Salviati  knew  nothing  of  the  designs  of 
the  French  court.  We  transcribe  Lingard 's  synop- 
sis of  these  letters:  "On  August  24  he  (Salviati) 
wrote  an  account  of  the  occurrence  in  ordinary 
characters  (evidently  under  the  notion  that  in  such 
circumstances  his  dispatch  would  probably  be  inter- 


240    On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew' s  Day. 

cepted  and  opened  on  the  road) ;  but  to  this  he 
added  another  and  real  statement  of  the  case  in 
cipher:  that  the  queen-regent,  in  consequence  of 
the  ascendency  which  gave  to  Coligny  in  a  manner 
the  government  of  the  kingdom  (quasi  g  over  nav  a) , 
consulted  with  the  Duchess  of  Nemours,  and  re- 
solved to  rid  herself  of  his  control  by  the  assassina- 
tion of  the  admiral.  The  Duke  of  Guise  provided 
the  assassin ;  the  Duke  of  Anjou,  but  not  the  king, 
was  privy  to  the  attempt.  The  queen,  however, 
when  she  saw  that  the  admiral  would  not  die  of  his 
wound,  and  considered  the  danger  to  which  she  was 
now  exposed,  alarmed  also  by  her  own  consciousness, 
and  by  the  threatening  speeches  of  the  whole  body 
of  the  Huguenots,  who  would  not  believe  that  the 
arquebuse  had  been  discharged  by  an  assassin  em- 
ployed by  the  Duke  of  Alva,  as  she  had  persuaded 
herself  that  she  could  make  them  believe,  had 
recourse  to  the  king,  and  exhorted  him  to  adopt 
the  plan  of  the  general*  massacre  which  followed. 
It  appears  that  the  cardinal-secretary,  in  his  answer 
to  this  dispatch,  probably  on  account  of  the  different 
reports  current  in  Rome,  put  to  the  nuncio  several 
questions  respecting  the  cause,  the  authors,  and  the 
circumstances  of  the  massacre.  Salviati,  in  reply, 
wrote  two  notes  on  September  22.  In  the  first  he 
says:      'With  regard  to  the  three  points:   (1)  who 


*  The  words  of  Salviati  do  not  necessarily  imply,  as  Lin- 
gard  would  infer,  that  the  slaughter  was  to  be  "general." 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew }s  Day.    241 

it  was  that  caused,  and  for  what  reason  that  person 
caused,  the  arquebuse  to  be  discharged  at  the 
admiral;  (2)  and  who  it  was  to  whom  the  subse- 
quent resolution  of  so  numerous  a  massacre  must  be 
ascribed;  (3)  and  who  were  the  executors  of  the 
massacre,  with  the  names  of  the  principal  leaders; 
I  know  that  I  have  already  sent  you  an  account,  and 
that  in  that  account  I  have  not  fallen  into  the  least 
error.  If  I  have  omitted  to  mention  some  other 
particulars,  the  chief  reason  is  the  difficulty  of 
coming  at  the  truth  in  this  country.'  This  passage 
was  written  in  ordinary  characters ;  but  he  wrote  the 
same  day  in  cipher  the  following  repetition  of  his 
former  statement :  'Time  will  show  whether  there 
be  any  truth  in  all  the  other  accounts  which  you 
may  have  read,  of  the  wounding  and  death  of  the 
admiral,  that  differ  from  what  I  wrote  to  you.  The 
queen-regent,  having  grown  jealous  of  him,  came  to 
a  resolution  a  few  days  before,  and  caused  the  arque- 
buse to  be  discharged  at  him  without  the  knowledge 
of  the  Jcing,  but  with  the  participation  of  the  Duke 
of  Anjou,  of  the  Duchess  of  Nemours  and  of  her 
son,  the  Duke  of  Guise.  Had  he  died  immediately, 
no  one  else  would  have  perished.  But  he  did  not 
die,  and  they  began  to  expect  some  great  evil; 
wherefore,  closeting  themselves  in  consultation  with 
the  king,  they  determined  to  throw  shame  aside, 
and  to  cause  him  (Coligny)  to  be  assassinated  with 
the  others;  a  determination  which  was  carried  into 
execution  that  very  night. '  Evidence  more  satisfac- 
tory  than   this    we  can  not  desire,  if  we  consider 


24:2    On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day. 

the  situation  of  the  writer,  the  object  for  which 
he  wrote,  and  the  time  and  opportunity  which  he 
possessed  of  correcting  any  error  which  might  have 
crept  into  his  previous  communication;  and  from 
this  evidence  it  plainly  follows  that  the  general 
massacre  was  not  originally  contemplated,  but  grew 
out  of  the  unexpected  failure  of  the  attempt  already 
made  on  the  life  of  the  admiral." 

Mr.  Jay  introduces  his  arguments  under  the 
auspices  of  Baron  Acton,  whom  he  carefully  notes 
as  "a  very  distinguished  Roman  Catholic  historian, 
who  so  admirably  represents  the  honorable  mem- 
bers of  that  faith  who  reject  the  doctrines  and 
methods  of  the  Jesuits."  *  He  tells  us  that  Acton 
furnished  the  London  Times  of  November  26, 
1874,  with  a  translation  of  some  Italian  letters 
from  Salviati  to  his  Eoman  superiors,  which  prove 
that  religion  had  very  much  to  do  with  the 
massacre.  On  September  22,  1572,  a  month  after 
the  tragedy,  the  nuncio  is  represented  as  commu- 
nicating  to   the   king   the  desire  of  his  Holiness, 


*  Since  many  very  good  Catholics  have  rejected  certain 
teachings  of  certain  Jesuits,  just  as  other  good  Catholics  have 
rejected  certain  teachings  of  other  schools,  this  remark  might 
be  allowed  to  pass.  Bat  coming  from  Mr.  Jay,  this  sentence 
would  indicate,  even  to  those  who  are  unacquainted  with  Ac- 
ton's career,  that  his, "liberal  Catholicism"  was  impatient  of 
all  control.  And  at  the  time  of  his  letter  to  the  London  paper, 
the  quondam  Catholic  editor  had  thrown  off  his  allegiance  to 
the  centre  of  unity,  had  joined  the  "Old  Catholic"  heresy,  and 
was  no  more  of  a  Catholic  than  is  Mr.  Jay  himself. 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew' 's  Day.    243 

"for  the  great  glory  of  God,  and  the  greatest  wel- 
fare of  France,  to  see  all  the  heretics  of  the  king- 
dom exterminated."  And  on  October  11  the  same 
Salviati  is  said  to  have  declared  that  the  Pope  had 
experienced  "an  infinite  joy  and  great  consolation 
in  learning  that  his  Majesty  had  commanded  him 
(Salviati)  to  write  that  he  hoped  that  in  a  little 
while  France  would  have  no  more  Huguenots." 
Well,  what  does  all  this  prove?  One  who  is  ac- 
quainted with  the  epistolary  style  of  the  Roman 
Curia  will  not  be  frightened  at  the  use,  in  the  first 
dispatch,  of  a  word  which  Acton  translated  into 
"exterminated."  Every  bishop  is  sworn  to  "extir- 
pate heresy;"  but  who  believes  that  the  American 
hierarchy  is  ready,  if  it  had  the  power,  to  inaugurate 
another  Barthelemy?  We,  too,  sincerely  pray  that 
the  day  will  soon  come  when  this  Republic  will  have 
no  more  Protestants;  but  is  not  the  American 
priesthood  full  of  that  material  out  of  which  the 
Catholic  Church  forms  a  St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  a  St. 
Philip  Neri,  and  a  Don  Bosco? 


V. 

The  number  of  the  victims  of  the  massacre  has 
been  greatly  exaggerated.  It  is  remarkable  that  in 
proportion  to  their  distance  in  tirr^e  from  this  event, 
authors  increase  the  number  of  the  slaughtered. 
Thus,  Masson  gives  it  as  10,000;  the  Calvinist 
martyrologist  as  about  15,000;    the   Calvinist,  La 


244    On  the  Massacre  of  St,  Ba?*tholomew's  Day. 

Popeliniere,  as  more  than  20,000;  De  Thou,  the 
apologist  of  the  Huguenots,  as  30,000  "or  a  little 
less;"  the  Huguenot  Sully  as  70,000;  Perefixe, 
a  Catholic  bishop,  as  100,000.  From  this  last 
number  to  2,000,  the  figures  established  by  Cavairac, 
the  difference  is  immense.  Now,  if  we  will  com- 
pare the  authority,  in  this  particular  matter,  of 
Masson  with  that  of  Perefixe,  we  shall  opine  that 
the  former's  estimate  is  the  correct  one.  Masson 
did  not  wish  to  hide  from  posterity  the  true  num- 
ber of  the  slain;  he  openly  laments  that  Calvinism 
was  not  destroyed  by  this  great  blow;  he  labors 
much  in  gathering  apparent  proofs  that  the  mas- 
sacre was  long  premeditated.  Therefore  he  would 
have  cheerfully  recorded  a  larger  number  of  victims, 
if  truth  had  allowed  him.  Perefixe,  however,  had 
an  interest  in  exaggerating  the  effects  of  a  policy 
of  cruelty;  preceptor  to  the  young  Louis  XIV., 
he  might,  remarks  Barthelemy,  have  too  readily 
accorded  credence  to  the  largest  estimate  of  the 
victims  of  an  event  which  he  offered  to  the  exe- 
cration of  his  pupil.  But  our  attention  is  princi- 
pally claimed  by  the  calculations  of  the  Calvinist 
martyrologist.  When  this  interested  author  speaks 
in  general  terms,  he  puts  the  victims  at  30,000; 
when  he  goes  into  details,  he  presents  us  15,168; 
when  he  gives  their  names,  he  can  furnish  only 
786.  Now,  we  must  suppose  that  this  writer, 
engaged  upon  the  pious  work  of  perpetuating  the 
memory  of   those  whom   he  regarded   as   martyrs 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew 's  Day.    245 

for  "the  religion,"  as  his  title-page  announces, 
took  every  care  to  discover  their  names ;  and  the 
zeal  and  vanity  of  their  friends  would  have  helped 
him.  Nevertheless,  he  could  name  only  786.  We 
do  not  believe  that  this  number  includes  all  the 
victims  of  the  massacre;  but  we  do  contend  that 
the  martyrologist's  estimate  by  cities  and  villages, 
15,168,  is  an  exaggeration.  He  designates  the 
victims  in  Paris  as  10,000,  but  his  details  show 
only  468 ;  it  is  not  unlikely  therefore,  conjectures 
Barthelemy,  that  a  zero  slipped  into  his  Paris  total, 
and  that  it  should  be  made  1,000.  This,  indeed,  is 
the  opinion  of  the  Calvinist  La  Popeliniere,  and  it 
is  confirmed  by  a  bill  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  of  Paris, 
which  indicates  that  1,100  were  buried  in  the 
suburbs.  We  regard,  therefore,  as  nearly  correct 
the  assertion  of  La  Popeliniere  that  the  victims  in 
Paris  were  about  1,000  in  number;  and  since  it  is 
generally  conceded  that  the  slain  in  all  the  other 
parts  of  France  together  were  less  numerous  than 
in  Paris,  it  would  appear  that  Cavairac  did  not  err 
when  he  declared  that  all  the  victims  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew's Day  amounted  to  about  2,000  persons. 
The  reader  will  doubtless  expect  us  to  allude 
to  the  charge  made  against  Charles  IX.,  of  having 
taken  an  actively  personal  part  in  the  massacre. 
Voltaire  makes  much  of  the  accusation  that  the 
monarch  fired  on  the  Huguenots  from  a  balcony 
in  the  Louvre.*     Prudhomme   represents    Charles 


•Essay  on  the  Civil  Wars"— "Henriade,"  in  the  Notes. 


246     On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day, 

as  leaving  a  game  of  billiards  for  this  purpose.* 
This  charge  is  founded  only  on  the  assertions  of 
Brantome,  who,  according  to  his  own  admission, 
was  a  hundred  leagues  from  Paris  on  the  day 
of  the  massacre ;f  and  of  D'Aubigne,  who  says 
that  he  left  the  capital  three  days  before  the 
event.  :J  Sully,  a  Calvinist  who  was  present  and 
barely  saved  his  life,  says  nothing  in  his  "Me- 
moires"  of  the  king's  intervention.  Again,  that 
part  of  the  Louvre  from  which  Charles  is  said 
to  have  fired  an  arquebuse,  'and  to  mark  which 
with  infamy  the  Commune  of  1793  erected  "un 
poteau  infamant,"  was  not  built  until  nearly  the 
end  of  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.,  over  thirty  years 
after  the  Barthelemy.  Finally,  the  accusation 
against  Charles  IX.  is  refuted  by  a  Huguenot 
pamphlet  of  1579 — that  is,  written  twenty-five 
years  before  the  narrative  of  Brantome,  and 
thirty-seven  before  that  of  D'Aubigne.  In  this 
work,  entitled  "A  Tocsin  against  the  Murderers 
and  the  Authors  of  Discord  in  France,"  §  we 
read:  "Although  one  might  suppose  that  so 
great  a  carnage  would  have  satiated  the  cruelty 
of  the  young  king,  of  a  woman,  and  of  many  of 
their  courtiers,  they  seem  to  have  grown  more  sav- 
age as  the  work  approached  their  own  eyes.     The 


*  "Kevolutions  de  Paris." 

f  "CEuvres,"  edit.  1779,  vol.  i,  p.  62. 

X  "M^moires,"  edit.  Lalanne,  p.  23. 

§  Published  in  the  "Archives"  of  Cimber  &  Danjou. 


On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day.    247 

king  showed  no  diminution  of  zeal;  for  although 
he  did  not  use  his  own  hands  in  the  massacre, 
nevertheless,  being  at  the  Louvre,  he  ordered  that 
according  as  the  work  advanced  in  the  city,  the 
names  of  the  killed  and  of  the  prisoners  should  be 
brought  to  him,  that.he  might  decide  as  to  whom  to 
spare."  And  Bran  tome  himself  shows  the  small 
value  of  his  assertions  concerning  the  massacre, 
when  he  tells  us  that  the  king  " wished  only  Master 
Ambrose  Pare,  his  chief  surgeon,  to  be  spared."* 
We  know  from  the  "Memoires"  of  Margaret  de 
Yalois  that  Charles  wished  to  spare  LaNoue,  Telig- 
ny,  La  Rochefoucauld,  and  even  Coligny ;  and  the 
writings  of  Pare  show  that  this  surgeon  wras  a  de- 
vout Catholic,  and  that,  therefore,  there  was  no  need 
for  anxiety  in  his  regard  on  the  part  of  the  king. 
The  Catholicism  of  Pare  is  also  proved  by  the  fact 
of  the  interment  of  his  body  in  the  church  of  St. 
Andre-des-Arts,  of  which  the  famous  leaguer  Aubry 
was  pastor,  f 

In  conclusion,  we  would  say  with  Louis  Yeuillot 
that  Catholics  generally  adduce  the  extenuating 
circumstances  of  the  Barthelemy  with  too  great 
timidity.  Catharine  dei  Medici  was  a  freethinker 
of  the  Macchiavellian  school,  provoked  by  Calvinist 


*  '-Homines  Illustres,"  in  the  Discourses  on  "Coligny" 
and  "Charles  IX." 

t  See  the  introduction  of  Malgaigne  to  the  "CEuvres"  of 
Pare\ 


248    On  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew' s  Day. 

sedition;  and  since  she  could  not  otherwise  pre- 
serve her  power  or  even  save  her  head,  she  adopted 
the  policy  of  assassination.  In  the  whole  affair  the 
Catholic  faith  was  conspicuous  for  its  absence ;  the 
executioners  were  no  more  influenced  by  it  than  the 
victims.  God,  says  Bossuet,  often  chastises  crimes 
by  other  crimes.  The  ninth  Thermidor,  says  M.  de 
Maistre,  witnessed  the  slaughter  of  certain  mon- 
sters by  others  of  the  same  sort.  Just  like  the 
ninth  Thermidor,  the  Barthelemy  was  a  human 
wickedness  and  a  divine  justice. 


THE  MIDDLE  AGE   NOT  A  STARLESS 
NIGHT. 

We  frequently  hear  that  in  the  Middle  Age  the 
clergy  systematically  kept  the  laity  in  ignorance ; 
that  even  the  nobility  were  so  uncultivated,  that 
in  the  public  records  of  those  times  it  is  quite 
common  to  meet  the  clause:  "And  the  said  lord 
declares  that  he  knows  not  how  to  sign  [his  name], 
because  of  his  condition  of  gentleman"  Charle- 
magne himself,  it  is  said,  could  not  write.  But  are 
these  allegations  true  ?  In  the  early  period  of  the 
Middle  Age,  ignorance  was  undoubtedly  the  lot  of 
the  warriors  who  became  the  progenitors  of  most  of 
the  European  nobles;  but  when  these  barbarians 
had  become  Christians  and  members  of  civilized 
society,  is  it  true  that  they  generally  remained  in 
that  ignorance  ? 

The  learned  Benedictine,  Cardinal  Pitra,*  has 
proved  that  in  nearly  all  monasteries  there  were 
two  kinds  of  schools — the  internal,  for  the  youth 
who  wished  to  become  religious ;  and  the  external, 
for  the  children  who  showed  no  such  vocation. 
And  do  we  not  know  how  Abelard's  retreat,  the 
Paraclete,  was  filled  with  hundreds  of  young  lay- 
men, zealous  for  knowledge?     Vincent  of  Beauvais 


*  In  his  "Histoire  de  St.  Leger." 
249 


250      The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night. 

(y.  1250)  writes  that  "the  sons  of  the  nobility 
need  to  acquire  expensive  learning;"  and  Giles 
of  Eome  (1290)  says  that  "the  children  of  kings 
and  of  great  lords  must  have  masters  to  teach 
them  all  science,  and  especially  a  knowledge  of 
Latin."  The  nobles  are  said  to  have  despised 
learning,  but  we  know  that  they  were  very  zealous 
in  founding  schools.  Thus  at  Paris  alone  six  col- 
leges were  established  by  noble  laymen ;  that  of 
Laon,  in  1313,  by  Guy  of  Laon  and  Raoul  de 
Presles;  that  of  Presles,  in  1313,  by  this  Kaoul; 
that  of  Boncourt,  in  1357,  by  Peter  de  Flechinel; 
that  of  the  Ave  Maria,  in  1336,  by  John  of  Hu- 
baut;  that  of  La  Marche,  in  1362,  by  William  de 
la  Marche;  that  of  the  Grassins,  in  1369,  by  Peter 
d'Ablon.  The  researches  of  Du  Boulai,  of  Crevier, 
and  in  our  own  day,  of  Beaurepaire,  show  how 
untrue  is  the  assertion  that  the  mediaeval  laity 
were  plunged  in  wof  ul  ignorance.  In  the  thirteenth 
century,  at  least,  all  the  peasants  of  Normandy 
could  read  and  write,  carried  writing  materials  at 
their  girdles,  and  many  of  them  were  no  strangers 
to  Latin.  Bertrand  deBorn,  William  of  Aquitaine, 
and  Bernard  of  Ventadour,  bear  witness  that  then 
at  least  the  nobles  of  France  were  no  more  hostile 
to  letters  than  the  peasants  were,  and  that  they 
shared  in  the  poetical  movement  of  the  South. 
The  first  chroniclers  who  wrote  in  French  were 
nobles  and  laymen — Villehardouin  and  Joinville. 
In   1337  we  find   the  scions  of  the  first  families 


The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Right.      251 

following  the  courses  of  the  University  of  Orleans. 
As  to  the  documents  which  they  are  said  to  have 
been  unable  to  sign,  "because  of  their  condition  of 
gentlemen,"  such  papers  do  not  exist,  and  no  pale- 
ographer has  yet  unearthed  one  containing  the 
alleged  formula.  Certainly,  in  order  to  obtain  some 
proof  of  this  medieval  ignorance,  some  have  had 
recourse  to  the  crosses  traced  at  the  foot  of  doc- 
uments of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  and 
to  the  absence  of  signatures  in  those  of  the  thir- 
teenth. "But  this  pretended  proof  can  not  stand 
the  tests  of  diplomatic  science,"  remarks  M.  Louan- 
dre.  "In  those  days  deeds  were  not  authenticated 
by  written  names,  but  by  crosses  and  seals.  The 
most  ancient  royal  signatures  are  of  no  earlier  date 
than  that  of  Charles  V.  (of  France),"  who  died 
in  1380.* 

Even  in  the  early  Middle  Age  every  cathedral, 
and  nearly  every  monastery,  had  its  school  and 
library,  in  accordance  with  canonical  enactments. 
Hallam  admits  that  "the  praise  of  having  originally 
established  schools  belongs  to  some  bishops  and 
abbots  of  the  sixth  century;"  but — at  least  so 
far  as  Ireland  is  concerned — it  is  certain  that 
her  schools  were  celebrated  throughout  Europe  in 
the  fifth  century.  As  to  the  Continent,  we  find 
the  Council  of  Vaison  recommending,  in  529,  the 
institution  of  free  parochial  schools.     To  mention 


*  In  the  "Revue  des  Deux  Mondes"  for  Jan.  15,  1877,  p. 
452. 


252      The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night, 

only  a  few  of  similar  decrees,  there  is  a  canon 
of  the  Third  General  Council  of  Constantinople, 
in  680,  commanding  priests  to  have  free  schools 
in  all  country  places ;  one  of  a  Synod  of  Orleans, 
in  800,  ordering  the  parochial  clergy  "to  teach 
little  children  with  the  greatest  kindness,  receiv- 
ing no  compensation,  save  the  voluntary  offerings 
of  parents;"  one  of  Mentz,  in  813,  commanding 
parents  to  send  their  children  "to  the  schools  in 
the  monasteries  or  in  the  houses  of  the  parish 
clergy;"  one  of  Rome,  in  826,  prescribing  schools 
in  every  suitable  place. 

As  to  higher  education,  not  only  was  it  not  neg- 
lected, but  the  most  celebrated  universities  were 
founded  and  perfected  in  the  "dark"  ages.  Most 
renowned  was  the  Irish  school  of  Benchor  (Bangor) 
with  its  thousands  of  scholars,  and  the  other  Irish 
establishments  at  Lindisfarnein  England,  at  Bobbio 
in  Italy,  at  Verdun  in  France,  and  at  Wurzburg, 
Eatisbon,  Erfurt,  Cologne,  and  Vienna,  in  Germany. 
The  great  University  of  Bologna,  an  outgrowth  of 
the  school  for  law  there  established  by  Theodosius 
II.  in  the  fifth  century,  became  so  famous  under 
Irnerius  (d.  1140)  that  of  foreigners  alone  more 
than  ten  thousand  thronged  its  halls.  *     The  Univer- 


*  The  University  of  Bologna  was  a  corporation  of  scholars 
who  were  divided  into  two  great  "nations" — Cismontanes 
(Italians),  and  Ultramontanes  (foreigners) — each  having  its 
own  rector,  who  must  have  taught  law  for  five  years  and  have 
"been  a  student  of  the  University,  and  could  not  be  a  monk  or 
friar.    The  students  elected  this  rector,  and  none  of  the  pro- 


The  Middle  Age  Wot  a  Starless  Wight.      253 

sity  of  Padua  frequently  numbered  eighteen  thou- 
sand students.  Famous  also  were  the  Universities 
of  Rome,  Pavia,  Naples,  and  Perugia;  of  Paris;  of 
Alcala,  Salamanca,  and  Valladolid;  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge.  In  Germany  the  thirteenth  century 
was  an  unfortunate  one  for  letters.  Leibnitz  says 
that  the  tenth  was  golden  compared  with  the  thir- 
teenth; Heeren  calls  it  most  unfruitful;  Meiners 
constantly  deplores  it;  Eichorn  designates  it  as 
' 'wisdom  degenerated  into  barbarism."  But  the 
fourteenth  century  brought  a  change  to  the  Ger- 
mans. The  University  of  Vienna  was  founded  in 
1364 ;  that  of  Heidelberg  in  1386  ;  of  Erfurt,  1392  ; 
of  Leipsic,  1409  ;  of  Wurzburg,  1410 ;  of  Rostock, 
1419;  of  Louvain,  1425;  of  Treves,  1454;  of 
Freiburg,  1456 ;  of  Basel,  1459 ;  of  Ingolstadt, 
1472;  Tubingen  and  Metz,  1477;  Cologne,  1483. 
Gerard  Groot,  a  student  of  Paris,  founded  in  1376, 
at  Deventer,  his  birthplace,  an  order  whose  mem- 
bers were  sworn  to  help  the  poor,  either  by  their 
manual  labor  or  by  gratuitous  instruction.  "Very 
soon  this  order,"  says  Cantu,  ' 'associating  thus  the 
two  passions  of  that  time — piety  and  study, — taught 
trades  and  writing  in  those  monasteries  which  were 
called  of  St.  Jerome,  or  of  the  Good  Brethren,  or  of 
the  Common  Life;  while  in  other  places  it  kept 
schools  of  writing  and  of  mechanics  for  poor  chil- 


fessors  had  a  voice  in  the  assembly  unless  they  had  previously 
been  rectors.  However,  in  the  faculty  of  theology  the  profes- 
sors governed.  Popes  Gregory  IX.,  Boniface  VIII.,  Clement 
V.,  and  John  XXII.,  addressed  their  Decretals  "to  the  doctors 


and  scholars  of  Bologna, 


254      The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night. 

dren.  To  others  it  taught  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew, 
Mathematics,  and  Fine  Arts.  In  1433  it  had  forty- 
five  houses,  and  in  1460  thrice  that  number. 
Thomas  a  Kempis  transported  the  system  to  St. 
Agnes,  near  Zwolle,  where  were  formed  the  apos- 
tles of  classic  literature  in  Germany:  Maurice, 
Count  of  Spiegelberg,  and  Rudolph  Langius,  after- 
ward prelates ;  Anthony  Liber,  Louis  Dringenberg, 
Alexander  Hagius,  and  Rudolph  Agricola." 

As  to  the  pretended  ignorance  of  Charlemagne, 
we  prefer  more  ancient  and  more  reliable  authority 
than  that  of  Voltaire,  the  author  of  this  assertion.* 
In  the  "Acts"  of  the  Council  of  Fisme,  held  in 
881,  we  read  that  the  members  exhorted  King 
Louis  III.  "to  imitate  Charlemagne,  who  used  to 
place  tablets  under  his  pillow,  that  he  might  take 
note  of  whatever  came  to  his  mind  during  the 
night  which  would  profit  the  Church,  or  conduce 
to  the  prosperity  of  his  kingdom."  It  was  the 
celebrated  Hincmar  who,  in  the  name  of  the  Coun- 
cil, drew  up  these  "Acts"  of  Fisme;  and  certainly 
he  is  good  authority  in  this  matter,  for  he  had 
passed  much  of  his  life  in  the  society  of  Louis 
the  Compliant,  a  son  of  Charlemagne.     But  is  not 


*  Voltaire  makes  this  charge  four  different  times,  but  in 
contradictory  terms.  In  his  "Essai  sur  les  Mceurs,"  in  the 
Introduction,  he  says  that  Charlemagne  "did  not  know  how 
to  write  his  name."  In  chapter  six  he  adduces  Eginhard  to 
this  effect.  In  the  "Annales  de  l'Empire"  he  says  that  "it  is 
not  likely  that  this  Frankish  King,  who  could  not  write  a 
running  hand,  could  compose  Latin  verses;"  and  in  another 
place  of  the  same  work  he  says  that  the  monarch  "could  not 
write  his  name  weZL" 


The  Middle  Age  Rot  a  Starless  Right.      255 

the  testimony  of  Eginhard,  son-in-law  of  Charle- 
magne, to  be  preferred  to  that  of  the  prelates  of 
Fisme?  Sismondi,  who  admits  the  extraordinary 
learning  of  the  great  Emperor,  is  so  impressed  by 
the  words  of  Eginhard,  that  he  concludes  that  the 
monarch  acquired  his  knowledge  by  means  of  oral 
teaching.  We  would  prefer  the  authority  of  the 
bishops  of  France  headed  by  Hincmar,  to  that  of 
Eginhard ;  but  the  two  testimonies  do  not  conflict. 
Eginhard  says  :  "He  tried  to  write,  and  he  used  to 
keep  tablets  under  the  pillows  of  his  bed,  so  that, 
when  time  permitted,  he  could  accustom  his  hand 
to  the  forming  of  letters ;  but  he  had  little  success 
in  a  task  difficult  in  itself,  and  assumed  so  late 
in  life."*  Eginhard  admits,  then,  that  Charle- 
magne had  some  success  in  his  endeavors.  We 
know,  too,    that    he  could   form  his  monogram  ;f 

*  "Tentabat  et  scribere,  tabellasque  et  codicillos  ad  hoc 
in  lecticulo  sub  cervicalibus  circumferre  solebat,  ut  cum 
vacuum  tempus  esset,  manum  effigiandis  litteris  assuefaceret; 
sed  parum  prospere  successit  labor  prseposterus  ac  sero  in- 
choatus." 

f  In  the  space  occupied  by  a  iThe  put  the  other  letters  of 
his  name,  "Karolus:" 

R 

K-<^-S 

L 

Iii  Papal  letters  of  the  Middle  Ages  we  often  meet  the  mon- 
ogram of  "Bene  valete  :*" 


256      The  Middle  Age  JSTot  a  Starless  Night. 

and  Lambecius,  the  erudite  secretary  of  Christina 
of  Sweden,  speaks  of  a  manuscript  of  St.  Paul's 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  "corrected  by  the  Emperor's 
own  hand."*  We  are  therefore  led  to  accept 
that  interpretation  of  Eginhard's  remark  which 
is  given  by  Lambecius,  and  since  that  critic's  time 
by  the  best  commentators,  such  as  Michelet,t 
Henri  Martin, J  and  Guizot;§  to  the  effect  that 
there  is  therein  no  question  of  writing  in  general, 
but  merely  of  a  running  hand.  In  fine,  Charle- 
magne could  write  by  means  of  what  we  style 
square  or  printed  characters ;  he  found  it  difficult 
to  write  a  running  hand;  in  other  words,  he  could 
write,  but  he  was  not  a  caligrapher.  Ampere 
opines  that  the  monarch  tried  to  excel  in  the  art 
of  illuminating  manuscripts, — that  is,  of  painting 
the  majuscule  letters  which  so  excite  the  admiration 
of  moderns. 


*  "Commentaria  in  Bibl.  Cses.  Vindob.,"  b.  ii,  c.  5. 
Vienna,  1655. 

f  "Histoire  de  France,"  edit.  1835,  vol.  i,  p.  332. 

%  "Histoire  de  France,"  edit.  1855,  vol.  ii,  p.  292.— "It 
would  be  strange  indeed  if  this  great  man,  who  was  versed  in 
astronomy  and  in  Greek,  and  who  labored  to  correct  the  text 
of  the  Four  Gospels,  was  unable  to  write." 

§  "Histoire  de  France,  Racontee  a  Mes  Petits-Enfants," 
vol.  i,  p.  228.  Paris,  1872.— "It  has  been  doubted  whether  he 
could  write,  and  a  passage  of  Eginhard  might  authorize  the 
doubt;  but  when  I  consider  other  testimonies,  and  even  this 
very  remark  of  Eginhard,  I  incline  to  the  belief  that  Charle- 
magne wrote  with  difficulty  and  not  very  well." 


The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night.      257 

Since  Eginhard  is  adduced  to  prove  the  ignorance 
of  Charlemagne,  it  is  well  to  note  what  this  chron- 
icler tells  us,  in  the  same  chapter,  about  the  Empe- 
ror's learning.  Charlemagne  spoke  Latin  fluently 
and  with  elegance;  Greek  was  familiar  to  him, 
although  his  pronunciation  of  it  was  defective.  He 
was  passionately  fond  of  the  fine  arts.  He  drew 
to  his  court  the  wisest  men  of  the  day — e.  g.,  Peter 
of  Pisa  and  Alcuin,  and  very  soon  he  nearly  equalled 
his  masters  in  their  respective  branches.  He  began 
the  composition  of  a  Teutonic  grammar,  and  he 
undertook  a  version  of  the  New  Testament  based 
on  the  Greek  and  Syriac  texts.  He  understood 
perfectly  the  intricacies  of  liturgy,  psalmody,  the 
Gregorian  Chant,  etc.  During  his  meals  he  listened 
to  the  reading  of  histories ;  he  was  especially  fond 
of  St.  Augustine's  "City  of  God."  He  preferred 
to  attend  the  schools  he  had  founded,  rather  than 
any  kind  of  amusement.  Furthermore  and  finally, 
he  compelled  his  daughters,  as  well  as  his  sons,  to 
cultivate  the  fine  arts. 

In  this  so  badly  understood  epoch,  flourished 
Abelard,  Dante,  Albert  the  Great,  Thomas  Aquinas. 
It  is  true  that  the  hunting  and  soldiering  barbarians 
at  first  disdained  the  peaceful  triumphs  of  letters, 
and  regarded  the  fine  arts  as  a  disgraceful  inherit- 
ance of  the  people  they  had  conquered ;  that  for  a 
time  even  the  olden  subjects — of  the  secular  order 
— of  Eome  lost  taste  for  the  sublime  and  the  beau- 
tiful. But  then  science  found  friends  in  the  sanc- 
tuarv  and  in  the  cloister;  and  the  clergy  preserved, 


258      The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night, 

as  a  sacred  deposit,  the  traditions  of  literature  and 
art.  As  for  moral  science,  have  modern  times  sur- 
passed SS.  Anselm  and  Peter  Damain,  Lanfranc 
or  Peter  Lombard?  As  for  practical  science  and 
the  arts,  are  we  much  more  advanced  than  our 
medieval  ancestors  ?  We  will  here  mention  a  few 
of  the  inventions  and  improvements  which  we  owe 
to  these  compassionated  men  : 

I. — The  paper  on  which  we  write  (linen)  is, 
according  to  Hallam,  an  invention  of  the  year  1100 ; 
and  cotton  paper  was  used  in  Italy  in  the  tenth 
century.  Casiri,  drawing  up  a  catalogue  of  the 
Escurial  Library,  says  that  most  of  its  mediaeval 
manuscripts  are  of  rag-paper,  or  chartaceos,  as  he 
styles  them  in  contradistinction  to  the  membran- 
eous and  cotton  ones.  He  cites  the  "Aphorisms" 
of  Hippocrates  in  a  paper  codex  of  the  year  1100, 
but  does  not  deem  it  remarkable.  Venerable  Peter 
of  Cluny,  in  a  treatise  against  the  Jews,  speaks  of 
books  made  from  the  shreds  of  old  clothes. 

II. — The  art  of  printing,  or  rather  the  press, 
was  invented  in  1436,  either  by  Lawrence  Coster, 
a  priest  of  the  Cathedral  of  Harlem  and  a  xylo- 
graph printer,  or  by  the  artist  Gansneish,  called 
Gutenberg ;  *  but  printing  by  hand  was  done  in  the 


*  The  Abb£  le  Noir,  in  his  re-arrangement  of  Bergier's 
"Dictionary,"  analyzes  the  known  facts  concerning  this  in- 
vention, and  thus  concludes:  "Coster,  we  believe,  invented 
and  first  employed  movable  types.  Gutenberg  came  across 
Coster's  plans,  perfected  them,  and  with  invincible  patience 


The  Middle  Age  Rot  a  Starless  Night.      259 

tenth  century.  The  "Chronicles  of  Feltre"  tell  us 
that  Panfilio  Castalcli,  a  humanist  of  that  city, 
taught  his  disciple  Faust,  in  1436,  the  use  of  mov- 
able types.  Stereotyping,  now  the  perfection  of 
printing,  was  practised  by  Coster;  though  of  course 
he  knew  of  no  way  of  casting  the  plates. 

III. — That  music  may  now  be  called  a  science  is 
due  to  an  Italian  monk,  Guido  of  Arezzo,  who 
determined  the  scale,  hitherto  uncertain,  in  1124. 
His  "solmization" — or  the  use  of  the  ut,  re,  mi,  fa, 
sol,  la — was  signified  by  means  of  the  words  of  the 
first  verses  of  the  Vesper  hymn  for  the  Feast  of 
St.  John  the  Baptist.  Before  the  time  of  Pope 
Gregory  the  Great  (el.  590),  the  Italians  used  an 
alphabetical  notation  composed  of  the  first  fifteen 
letters ;  but  that  Pontiff  reduced  them  to  the  first 
seven  for  the  diatonic  scale,  distinguishing  the 
octaves  by  capitals  for  the  lower,  and  small  letters 
for  the  upper.  Ughelli  proves,  in  his  "Sacred 
Italy,"  that  the  Italians  used  pneumatic  organs  in 
the  ninth  century. 

IV. — In  the  twelfth  century,  the  mariners  of 
Amain*  first  applied  the  knowledge  of  the  loadstone 
to  navigation,  thus  enabling  subsequent  Italian  nav- 
igators to  prosecute  geographical  discovery. 


tried  to  execute  thein  on  a  grand  scale.  But,  constantly  need- 
ing funds,  he  was  forced  to  put  himself  into  the  hands  of  an 
adroit  banker,  Faust,  who  played  upon  him  the  trick  he  him- 
self had  played  upon  Coster:  appropriated  the  invention  and 
gathered  the  profits." 


260      The  Middle  Age  JSToi  a  Starless  Night. 

V. — It  is  amusing  to  learn  that  in  those  days 
of  alleged  ignorance,  and  hence  of  presumed 
neglect  of  study,  one  of  the  most  important  aids 
to  study  should  have  been  invented.  To  enable 
persons  of  defective  eyesight  to  read,  the  ancients 
used  a  sphere  filled  with  water;  but  about  1285 
a  monk  of  Pisa,  named  Salvino  d'Armato,  invented 
spectacles.  In  a  sermon  preached  in  Florence  on 
February  23,  1305,  the  celebrated  friar,  Giordano 
di  Rivalta,  said:  "Only  twenty  years  ago  were 
spectacles  invented ;  I  knew  and  conversed  with  the 
inventor." 

VI.— By  a  people's  language  we  can  surely  judge 
of  their  refinement  and  intellectual  calibre.  Hum- 
boldt may  have  erred  when  he  pronounced  that 
grammatical  forms  are  not  the  fruit  of  the  progress 
made  by  a  nation  in  the  analysis  of  thought ;  but  he 
was  right  in  saying  that  these  forms  "are  results  of 
the  manner  in  which  a  nation  considers  and  treats 
its  language."  And  we  are  asked  to  believe  that 
the  densest  ignorance  and  the  grossest  sentiments 
were  the  portion  of  those  times  which  produced  the 
sweet  and  philosophic  Italian,  the  majestic  Spanish, 
the  graceful  French,  and  the  forcible  English  and 
German  tongues.  When  the  decay  of  the  Roman 
Empire  and  of  Roman  civilization  had  entailed  that 
of  the  Latin  language,  the  succeeding  jargons  couid 
not  be  termed  languages;  but  Christianity  took 
hold  of  the  raw  material,  and,  to  use  the  words  of 
Gioberti,  "placed  therein  the  embryonic  principles 


The  Middle  Age  JSTot  a  Starless  Night.      261 

of  new  organizations,  and  fecundated  them  with 
the  hieratic  word,  performing  the  two  duties  sym- 
bolized by  the  Oriental  myths  of  the  cosmic  egg 
and  androgynism.  Thus  the  modern  idioms  were 
born  from  the  material  of  the  old,  informed  and 
organized  by  the  religious  idea  and  by  the  sacerdotal 
word.  At  first  each  of  these  idioms  was  a  mere 
dialect, — that  is,  a  vulgar  speech,  rude,  ignoble, 
private,  unfit  for  public  use  and  for  writing;  not 
yet  possessed  of  a  life  of  its  own,  independent  of 
the  mother's.  And  just  as  the  fetus  becomes  a 
man,  the  human  animal  an  infant,  coming  out  into 
the  light,  and  entirely  separating  from  the  maternal 
body,  so  a  dialect  is  transformed  into  an  illustrious 
language,  fit  to  signify  ideal  things  through  the 
work  of  noble  writers,  who  divert  it  from  popular 
usage,  and  introduce  it  into  the  forum,  the  temple, 
the  schools,  and  the  conversation  of  the  learned."* 
VII. — Have  the  modern  times  rivalled  the  Middle 
Ages  in  architectural  skill  and  taste?  With  the 
exception  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome — itself  a  result  of 
the  spirit  of  that  despised  period, — all  the  most 
magnificent  structures  of  Europe,  all  the  real  tri- 
umphs of  architecture,  are  of  mediaeval  conception 
and  execution.  Glass  windows,  too,  introduced  in 
the  fourth  century,  commenced  to  present  beautiful 
colors  in  the  early  Middle  Age ;  and  in  the  twelfth 
century  the  Church,  by  means  of  those  wonderful 
window-pictures,  developed  her  plan,  begun  in  the 


*  "Primato  Civile  e  Morale  degli  Italiani,"  Capolago,  1846, 
vol.  it,  p.  275. 


2Q2      The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night. 

Catacombs  of  Rome,  of  reaching  the  hearts  and 
intellects  of  such  of  her  children  as,  perchance, 
were  not  penetrated  by  the  words  of  her  preachers. 

VIII. — In  650  windmills  were  invented;  in  657, 
organs;  Greek  fire  in  670;  carpet-weaving  in  720 ; 
clocks  in  760;  in  790  the  Arabic  numerals  were  in- 
troduced; in  1130  the  silkworm  was  first  cultivated 
in  Europe;  in  1278  gunpowder  was  linvented;  en- 
graving in  1410;  oil-painting,  though  many  ascribe 
it  to  Van  Eyck,  was  in  use  in  1415. 

As  for  the  science  of  criticism,  which  many  regard 
as  a  peculiar  pride  of  our  century,  it  is  generally 
supposed  to  have  been  so  little  understood  as  to 
indicate  by  its  absence  the  intellectual  inferiority  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  And  yet  modern  critics  can  point 
to  very  few  questions,  agitated  by  themselves,  which 
were  not  raised  during  that  period.  It  is  a  remark- 
able fact  that  while  the  critics  of  the  Golden  Asre  of 
Leo  X.  credited  the  tales  of  Annio  of  Viterbo  (the 
Chatterton  of  the  fifteenth  century),  and  while 
even  the  skeptics  of  the  * 'Encyclopedia"  believed  in 
Ossian,  the  darkest  century  of  the  Middle  Ages — 
the  eleventh — disputed  the  authenticity  of  the  false 
"Decretals"  of  Isidore  Mercator.  Centuries  before 
the  Protestants  of  England  and  America  gave  up 
their  persecution  of  witches,  Bishop  Agobard  and 
King  Luitprand  had  condemned  such  absurdity 
(ninth  century);  and  the  former  had  protested 
against  trials  by  combat,  and  against  ordeals  by  fire 
and  water.     Nor  can  modern  times  claim  the  credit 


J 


The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night.      263 

of  having  discovered  what  is  called  the  Copernican 
system;  for  Bishop  John  of  Salisbury  (d.  1180), 
and  four  centuries  before  him  the  Irish  monk, 
Virgilius  (Ferghil),  had  taught  the  correct  mun- 
dane system  and  the  existence  of  the  antipodes. 

Never  in  modern  days  have  the  pretensions  of 
sovereigns  been  more  jealously  watched  and  more 
heartily  resisted  by  the  peoples  than  in  the  days  so 
generally  supposed  to  have  been  a  period  of  prostra- 
tion before  royal  caprice.  Whereas  the  legislation 
of  ancient  Eome  had  established  the  sole  will  of  the 
prince  as  the  reason  of  all  law,  the  Canon  Law  of 
the  Church,  a  crowning  glory  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
taught  that  law  supposes  the  consent  of  the  people, 
and  has  for  its  end  only  the  good  of  the  community. 
As  far  back  as  the  eighth  century  Eattier,  Bishop  of 
Verona,  proclaimed  that  human  nature  is  ever  equal 
to  itself,  and  that  therefore  no  man  has  received 
from  God  the  right  to  command  his  neighbor.  The 
science  of  government  has  never  been  laid  down  bet- 
ter than  by  the  Angelic  Doctor,  that  light  sufficient 
of  itself  to  dissipate  the  darkness  of  an  entire 
epoch.* 

No  modern  abolitionist  has  more  earnestly  pleaded 
in  favor  of  universal  freedom  than  did  the  monk 


*  "Two  things  are  necessary  to  found  a  durable  order  of 
things  in  the  state.  All  must  be  participants  in  the  general 
government,  so  that  all  may  have  an  interest  in  maintaining 
the  public  peace.  That  form  must  be  adopted  which  com- 
bines all  powers  most  happily.  The  happiest  combination  is 
that  which  places  at  the  head  a  virtuous  ruler,  who  will  sur- 
round himself  with  a  number  of  notables  who  will  rule  accord- 


264      The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night. 

Smaragdus  in  the  eighth  century.  The  masses  were 
no  more  content  in  those  days  than  they  are  now 
to  quietly  accept  whatever  they  found  at  hand. 
"Every  dogma,  rite,  and  system,"  observes  Cantu, 
"found  champions  an  I  opponents;  and  the  political 
heresies  of  Arnold  of  Brescia  and  of  Friar  Dolcino, 
the  philosophical  ones  of  Origen  and  of  Abelard, 
the  religious  ones  of  Photius  and  of  the  Albigenses, 
left  nothing  new  for  Luther  and  Socinus  to  pro- 
nounce. And  what  if  we  reflect  that  these  rude  an- 
cestors of  ours  civilized  half  the  world ;  that  by  the 
translation  of  the  Bible  modern  languages  were 
formed;  that  hymns  were  compossd  which  were 
sung  by  the  most  refined  centuries;  that  entire 
nations  were  withdrawn  from  licentious  and  ferocious 
superstition?  Undoubtedly,  much  was  wanting; 
but  deny,  if  you  can,  to  Alexander  the  title  of 
consummate  general  because  he  would  not  have 
been  able  to  conquer  at  Leipsic  or  to  reduce  Ant- 
werp; or  the  title  of  poet  to  Homer  because  he 
was  ignorant  of  geography  and  astronomy." 

In  the  Middle  Ages  the  science  of  government 
had  already  been  able  to  abolish  that  system  of  cen- 
tralization which  in  later  times  became,  and  is  yet, 


ingto  equity;  and  who,  being  taken  from  every  class  by  means 
of  a  universal  suffrage,  will  thus  associate  the  entire  people  in 
the  cares  of  government.  In  its  beneficent  organization  such 
a  state  would  combine  royalty,  represented  by  its  one  head; 
aristocracy,  in  its  magistrates  chosen  from  among  the  best 
citizens ;  and  democracy,  manifested  in  the  election  of  the  mag- 
istrates, effected  in  the  ranks  and  by  the  voice  of  the  people." 
(SeeCh.  Jourdain's  "La  Philosophic  de  St.  Thomas  d'Aquin," 
Vol.  i,  p.  407.— "Summa  Theol.,"  p.  1,  2,  q.  2,  c.  8,  a.  7.) 


The  Middle  Age  JSfot  a  Starless  Wight.      265 

the  curse  of  modern  Europe.  In  England,  then  per- 
fectly Catholic,  parliamentary  government  was  de- 
veloped, at  least  as  to  its  essentials ;  for  the  English 
liberties  date  from  the  Charter  of  Henry  I.  in 
1103  ;  and  above  all  from  the  great  Charter  of  John 
Lackland  in  1215 ;  and  the  Provisions  of  Oxford  in 
1258,  the  source  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Spain 
had  her  liberties  developed  in  her  cortes,  and  Ger- 
many in  her  diets.  In  France  political  life  was  nour- 
ished by  the  Champs  de  Mars  and  of  May,  and  then 
by  the  Estates.  And  in  Italy,  where  the  influence 
of  the  Papacy  was  the  most  immediately  exercised, 
the  most  favorable  ground  for  republican  institutions 
was  found  and  cultivated;  the  glories  of  the  medi- 
aeval republics  of  Genoa,  Pisa,  Sienna,  Florence  and 
Venice,  need  no  description.  This  last  point  is 
beyond  contestation  ;  political  liberty  existed  in  the 
"dark"  ages,  and  under  the  full  domination  of  the 
Catholic  Church.* 


*  Balmes  says:  "The  greatest  development  of  the  royal 
power  in  Spain  occurred  on  the  appearance  of  Protestantism.  In 
England,  commencing  with  Henry  VIII.,  it  was  not  monarchy 
that  prevailed,  but  a  cruel  despotism,  the  excesses  of  which 
could  not  be  disguised  by  a  vain  shadow  of  representative 
forms.  In  France,  after  the  wars  of  the  Huguenots,  the  royal 
power  was  more  absolute  than  ever.  In  Sweden,  Gustavus 
mounts  the  throne,  and  from  that  moment  the  kings  exer- 
cise almost  unlimited  power.  In  Denmark,  the  monarchy 
perpetuates  and  strengthens  itself.  In  Germany,  the  kingdom 
of  Prussia  is  formed,  and  absolutism  generally  prevails.  In 
Austria,  the  empire  of  Charlemagne  retains  all  its  power  and 
splendor.  In  Italy,  the  little  republics  disappear,  and  the 
peoples  recur  to  the  domination  of  princes.  In  Spain,  the 
ancient  cortes  of  Castile,  Aragon,  Valencia,  and  Catalonia,  fall 
into  abeyance." 


2t>6      The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night. 

Well  might  Augustine  Thierry  call  the  Middle 
Ages  the  real  epoch  of  liberty.  Even  in  the  Papal 
States,  the  government  of  which  at  this  period 
might  naturally  be  supposed  to  have  been  redolent 
of  absolutism,  the  Popes  of  those  days  carried  on 
their  government  in  union  with  their  people, — that 
is,  with  the  "Rpman  Republic."  It  was  not  until 
1353  that  Cardinal  Albornoz,  legate  of  Pope  Inno- 
cent VI.  (residing  at  Avignon),  tried  to  introduce  a 
sovereignty  like  that  in  other  monarchies  by  destroy- 
ing the  petty  lords ;  but  even  he  guaranteed  many 
of  the  ancient  privileges  by  his  "Egidian  Constitu- 
tions," which  for  centuries  remained  the  real  public 
law  of  the  Romagna;  and  down  to  the  revolution  of 
1797  the  pontifical  sovereignty  remained  rather  nom- 
inal than  despotic.  In  fact,  not  before  the  Congress 
of  Vienna,  in  1815 — the  royal  members  of  which, 
says  Cantu,  wished  that  all  mediate  jurisdiction 
should  cease,  and  that,  especially  in  Italy,  no  written 
rights  of  the  people  should  exist, — did  absolutism 
in  any  sense  prevail  in  the  Papal  States.* 

Nor  was  the  will  of  a  nation,  as  to  its  choice  of  a 
ruler,  a  thing  generally  ignored  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
In  England  the  early  kings  mounted  the  throne  only 
with  the  consent  of  the  "witans,"  or  great  ones; 


*  "Absolutism  was  an  entirely  new  thing  in  the  Papal 
States,"  says  Cantu;  "and  when  Pius  IX.  initiated  and  blessed 
the  Italian  movement,  he  protested,  in  his  Constitution  of 
March  14,  1848,  that  he  did  nothing  but  'restore  some  ancient 
institutions  which  were  for  a  long  time  the  mirror  of  the  wis- 
dom of  our  august  predecessors;'  and  that  'in  the  olden  time 
our  Communes  had  the  privilege  of  governing  themselves, 


The  Middle  Age  JSTot  a  Starless  Night.      267 

and  the  olden  writers  ordinarily  speak  of  election  as 
the  title  to  reign  of  their  sovereigns.  Even  after 
the  Norman  Conquest,  William  and  his  first  succes- 
sors rested  their  claims  on  the  national  will.  After 
the  death  of  the  Lion  Heart,  it  was  the  great  council 
of  England,  assembled  at  Northampton,  which  defi- 
nitely settled  the  crown  on  John  Lackland;  and  at 
the  coronation  at  Westminster  the  primate  justified 
the  exclusion  of  Arthur  by  alleging  the  right  of  the 
nation  to  choose,  from  among  the  royal  princes,  him 
who  seemed  to  be  most  worthy  of  the  sceptre.  In 
Germany,  after  the  death  of  the  last  descendant  of 
the  German  branch  of  Charlemagne,  an  assembly  of 
the  lords  placed  Conrad  I.  on  the  throne, — subject, 
of  course,  as  was  ever  the  case,  to  confirmation  by 
the  Eoman  Pontiff.  This  right  to  choose  the  em- 
peror of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  afterward  passed 
to  the  ten,  and  then  to  the  seven  Electors.  In  France, 
from  the  very  origin  of  the  monarchy,  the  nation 
participated  in  the  inauguration  of  the  supreme 
power.  Under  the  Carlovingian  dynasty  the  sover- 
eign was  proclaimed  in  a  general  assembly,  and  then 
raised  on  a  buckler  supported  by  the  chiefs  of  the 
nation.  And  these  notables  exercised,  down  to  the 
fall  of  the  Merovingian  dynasty,  the  right  to  depose 
unworthy  kings;  thus,  Childeric    I.    was    deposed 


under  laws  chosen  by  themselves,  with  the  sovereign  sanction.' 
Behold  one  of  the  thousand  proofs  that  liberty  is  old  and  des- 
potism new.  But  to-day,  all  moral  and  political  sense  being 
lost,  the  name  of  one  is  bestowed  on  the  other."  ("Heretics 
of  Italy,"  dis.  viii.) 


268       The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night. 

because  of  his  oppressions,  and  Ckilderic  III.  on 
account  of  imbecility. 

When  Charlemagne  divided  his  states  among  his 
three  sons,  he  decreed  that  "if  one  of  the  three 
brothers  should  have  a  son  whom  the  people  would 
be  willing  to  elect  to  the  kingdom  of  his  father,  his 
uncles  should  consent."  Similar  dispositions  were 
made  by  Louis  le  Debonnaire  in  his  two  successive 
divisions  of  the  empire.  When  Louis  le  Begue  was 
crowned  at  Compiegne,  he  styled  himself  "King,  by 
the  mercy  of  God  and  the  choice  of  the  people." 
On  the  death  of  Louis  V.,  his  successor  by  heredity 
should  have  been  his  uncle,  Charles  of  Lorraine ;  but 
as  that  prince  had  alienated  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
the  prelates  and  lords  met  at  Senlis  in  987,  and  gave 
the  crown  of  Charlemagne  to  Hugh  Capet.  Nor  can 
it  be  said  that  the  people  were  ignored  in  all  this 
development  of  the  exercise  of  political  right ;  for 
the  Third  Estate — -all  of  the  nation  that  was  not 
clergy  or  nobilty*— shows  itself  during  the  Middle 
Ages  ever  vigorous  and  aggressive.  In  France,  at 
least,  the  political  life  of  the  Third  Estate  began 
with  the   monarchy.       After    the    king    came    his 


*  Some  have  held  that  the  Third  Estate  comprised  only 
the  middle  class,  what  we  now  call  the  bourgeoisie;  but  this 
opinion  is  historically  false.  The  ordinance  of  Louis  XVI., 
convoking  the  Estates  of  17S9,  speaks  of  the  immemorial  right 
of  attending  the  Third  possessed  by  "all  the  inhabitants  who 
are  French  by  birth  or  naturalization,  of  twenty-five  years  of 
age,  domiciled,  and  subject  to  taxation." 


The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Right.      269 


"leudes,"  or  great  vassals,  who  were  the  source  of 
the  nobility,  or  "grande  noblesse;"  then  came  the 
people,  composed  of  freemen  ("ingenui")  and  serfs. 
The  freemen,  possessors  of  their  own  lands  (called 
"allodiales"),  were  obliged  to  military  service. 
These  men  voted  in  the  general  assemblies  of  the 
nation  or  the  Champs  de  Mars  or  of  May.  Behold 
the  origin  of  the  Third  Estate.  But  with  the  twelfth 
century  began  the  great  influence  of  this  body. 
Louis  le  Gros  emancipated  the  Communes,  gave 
liberty  to  the  cities,  and  thus  started  municipal  life. 
The  Benedictine  Abbot  Suger — the  greatest  states- 
man of  his  age,  who  ruled  France  under  Louis  le 
Jeune, — developed  these  liberties,  and  very  soon 
serfdom  disappeared  in  the  greater  part  of  the  king- 
dom. Under  the  Capetian  kings,  the  Estates  Gen- 
eral, properly  so  called,  succeeded  the  old  assemblies 
of  the  nation,  the  first  solemn  reunion  being  held 
under  the  arches  of  Notre  Dame  de  Paris  in  1302, 
and  the  people  having  their  votes  and  colliers  equally 
with  the  clergy  and  nobility.  And  the  resolutions 
of  this  assembly  surpass,  in  some  respects,  the  mod- 
ern guarantees  of  constitutional  government.* 

Montesquieu,  that  genius  whom  Cantu  appropri- 
ately characterizes  as  '  'imprisoned  in  his  own  cen- 
tury," was  constrained,  despite  his  prejudice  as  to 
the  "barbarism"  of  mediaeval  law,  to  avow  that  gov- 
ernment was  then  "well  moderated;"  and  precisely 


*  See  Augustin  Thierry's  "Essai  sur  l'Histoire  de  la  Forma- 
tion du  Tiers-Etat,"  ch.  2,  Paris,  1S53. 


270      The  Middle  Age  Not  a  Starless  Night. 

because  "the  civil  liberties  of  the  people,  the  pre- 
rogatives of  the  nobility  and  clergy,  and  the  power 
of  the  sovereign,  moved  in  concert."  When  even 
the  positivist  Augustin  Thierry  declares  that  the 
Middle  Ages  formed  "the  true  epoch  of  freedom," 
one  is  prepared  to  hear  Montalembert — who,  with 
the  sole  exception  of  Cantu,  penetrated  the  spirit 
of  this  calumniated  period  better  than  any  other 
modern  publicist — announcing  his  conviction  that 
"the  Middle  Ages  were  the  era  of  really  representa- 
tive government,  of  institutions  more  sincerely  and 
efficaciously  representative  than  any  which  have 
been  imagined  since  that  time.  Yes,  representative 
government  was  born  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  be- 
longs to  them.  It  was  born  of  a  natural  combination 
of  the  elements  which  then  constituted  society; 
it  came  from  the  common  action  of  the  Church, 
Catholic  royalty,  the  owners  of  the  land,  and  the 
emancipated  municipalities." 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  IRON  MASK. 

Among  the  many  romances  which  contributed, 
more  than  any  real  historical  merit,  to  the  vogue  of 
Voltaire's  "Age  of  Louis  XIV.,"  one  of  the  most 
famous  is  that  of  the  Man  with  the  Iron  Mask. 
But  in  1745,  seven  years  before  the  publication  of 
the  cynic's  much-vaunted  travesty  on  the  history  of 
a  great  period,  there  had  appeared  at  Amsterdam  a 
fantastic  description  of  the  court  of  France,  in 
which,  under  imaginary  names,  were  represented 
the  chief  celebrities  of  that  brilliant  galaxy,  a 
gloomy  prominence  being  given  to  the  mysterious 
man  of  the  hidden  face.  This  work,  styled  " Secret 
Memoirs  in  Illustration  of  the  History  of  Persia," 
had  been  issued  anonymously;  but  there  are  not 
wanting  arguments  to  show  that  Voltaire,  jealous 
of  the  fame  accruing  to  Montesquieu  from  his 
"Persian  Letters,"  was  its  author.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  the  Sage  of  Ferney  adopted  the  clandestine 
writer's  version  of  the  story  which  then,  and  for 
many  years  afterward,  agitated  the  curious  through- 
out Europe.  In  his  first  edition  of  the  "Age  of 
Louis  XIV."  (two  volumes  in  12mo),  Voltaire 
gave  no  details  concerning  the  Iron  Mask;  but  in 
the  enlarged  editions,  issued  in  and  after  1753,  he 
spoke  more  explicitly  than  any  other  writer  had  hith- 
erto done,  even  drawing  the  portrait  of  the  victim, 

271 


272  The  Man  With  the  Iron   Mask. 

describing  his  mask  with  hinges  at  the  mouth,  and 
assigning  the  date  of  his  first  imprisonment  and  of 
his  death. 

According  to  the  fantastic  ' 'Persian  Memoirs," 
Shah  Abas  (Louis  XIV.)  had  two  sons:  one  legiti- 
mate, named  Sephi  Mirza  (Louis,  dauphin  of 
France);  and  one  illegitimate,  Giafer  (Count  de 
Vermandois,  by  Mile,  de  la  Valliere).  These  two 
princes  hated  each  other,  and  one  day  Giafer  struck 
his  brother  in  the  face.  Shah  Abas  informed  his 
council  of  this  outrage,  which,  according  to  the 
Persian  law,  was  punishable  with  death ;  but  it  was 
resolved  to  send  Giafer  to  the  army,  then  acting  on 
the  frontiers  of  Feldran  (Flandre),  and  to  repre- 
sent him  as  killed;  then  he  was  to  be  secretly  trans- 
ferred to  the  citadel  of  the  island  of  Ormus  (Isles 
Sainte-Marguerite),  and  there  perpetually  confined. 
Only  one  of  Giafer' s  servants  was  intrusted  with  this 
state  secret,  and  he  was  killed  by  the  escort  during 
the  journey  to  Ormus.  The  commander  of  Ormus 
treated  his  prisoner  with  great  respect,  himself  bring- 
ing his  meals  and  waiting  at  his  table,  and  no  other 
person  was  ever  allowed  to  see  his  face.  One  day 
the  prince  scratched  his  name  on  a  plate,  and  when 
the  dish  was  handed  to  the  commander  by  the  slave 
who  had  observed  the  writing,  the  unfortunate  dis- 
coverer was  put  to  death.  After  many  years  of 
confinement  at  Ormus,  the  prisoner  was  transported 
to  the  citadel  of  Ispahan  (the  Bastile,  remaining  in 
charge  of  the  same  commander,  now  promoted  tc 
the  governorship  of  the  latter  fortress.    Throughout 


The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mash.  273 

his  entire  imprisonment,  which  lasted  until  his 
death,  Giafer  was  forced  to  wear  a  mask  whenever 
sickness  or  any  other  important  reason  compelled 
him  to  be  seen  by  others  than  his  jailer.  Such  per- 
sons reported  that  the  governor  always  treated 
his  mysterious  charge  with  scrupulous  respect,  and 
that  the  prisoner  showed  great  familiarity  with  the 
commander,  always  addressing  him  as  "thou." 
The  author  of  the  "Persian  Memoirs"  represents 
Giafer  as  yet  living  in  1723;  for  he  states  that  Ali- 
Homajou  (the  Duke  of  Orleans)  died  shortly  after 
a  visit  to  the  prince,  and  we  know  that  Orleans  died 
in  1723,  eight  years  after  the  death  of  Louis  XI Y. 

Such,  then,  is  the  substance  of  all  the  legends 
concerning  the  Iron  Mask,  which  have  appeared 
from  the  "Persian  Memoirs"  to  the  famous  novel 
of  the  elder  Dumas.  Louis  XV.  once  said,  when 
pressed,  as  he  often  was  concerning  this  strange 
episode  in  the  reign  of  the  grand  monarch :  "Let 
people  dispute  about  it;  as  yet  no  one  has  told  the 
truth  concerning  it."  And  once,  in  a  moment  of 
confidence,  he  said  to  Laborde,  his  first  valet  de 
chambre:  "You  wish  me  to  tell  you  something 
about  the  Iron  Mask?  Well,  this  much  more  than 
any  one  else  you  may  learn :  the  imprisonment  of 
that  unfortunate  hurt  no  one  but  himself." 

For  many  years  seven  theories  were  presented  as 
to  the  identity  of  this  personage.  Various  investi- 
gators or  romancists  discerned  him  in  the  Count  de 
Vermandois,  a  natural  son  of  Louis  XIV.  by  Mile, 
de  La  Valliere ;  in  a  son  of  Anne  of  Austria  by  De 


274  The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mash. 

Richelieu;  in  the  Duke  of  Beaufort,  high-admiral 
of  France,  confined,  it  is  supposed,  lest  he  might 
have  interfered  with  the  projects  of  Colbert,  then 
Minister  of  Marine;  in  Arwedicks,  schismatic  pa- 
triarch, captured  and  imprisoned,  it  was  said,  at 
the  instigation  of  the  Jesuits;  in  the  Duke  of 
Monmouth,  not  executed  therefore  by  James  II. ; 
in  Henry  Cromwell,  second  son  of  the  Protector; 
and  finally  in  Mattioli,  secretary  of  the  Duke  of 
Mantua,  whose  political  influence  Louis  XIV.  feared. 
Let  us  briefly  examine  the  arguments  adduced  for 
each  of  these  parties. 

The  theory  that  the  Count  de  Yermandois  was 
the  Man  with  the  Iron  Mask  was  patronized  not  only 
by  Voltaire,  but  by  Griffet,*  a  Jesuit  writer  who 
had  been  confessor  at  the  Bastile  for  nine  years, 
and  had  enjoyed  exceptional  advantages  as  an  in- 
vestigator of  this  question.  He  cites  the  manu- 
script Journal  of  Dujanca,  governor  of  the  Bastile 
in  1698,  and  the  mortuary  registers  of  the  parish 
of  St.  Paul  in  Paris;  and  from  these  documents  he 
proves  that  the  masked  prisoner  arrived  at  the 
Bastile  from  Pignerol  on  September  18,  1698, 
and  that  he  died  on  November  19,  1703.  He 
leans  toward  the  supposition  that  the  prisoner  was 
Vermandois,f  merely  because  the  date  of  the  pre- 


*  "Traits  des  diffe>entes  sortes  de  preuves  qui  servent  a 
etablir  la  verite  dans  Phistoire."    Liege,  1769. 

f  Griffet  does  not  wish  "to  come  to  a  decision,"  because  of 
his  uncertainty  as  to  the  date  of  the  prisoner's  arrival  at  Pig- 
nerol. In  his  day  this  date  was  unknown,  but  it  is  now  cer- 
tain that  it  was  previous  to  September,  1681, 


The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mask,  275 

sumed  death  of  that  prince  on  the  Flemish  frontier 
coincides  with  the  one  which  he  fixes  for  the  com- 
mencement of  the  masked  person's  captivity, — that 
is,  1683.  But  Griffet  gives  no  reason  for  assigning 
this  year  rather  than  the  one  preferred  by  Voltaire, 
1661;  or  rather  than  1669,  the  one  adopted  by 
Lagrange  Chancel;*  or  rather  than  1685,  the  one 
selected  by  Saint-Foix.f 

However,  Griffet  was  refuted  by  Saint-Foix,  who 
found  proof  in  the  registers  of  the  cathedral  chap- 
ter of  Arras,  that  Louis  XIV.  had  buried  his  son 
in  the  vault  of  Elizabeth  de  Vermandois  (wife  of 
Philippe  d' Alsace,  Count  of  France),  who  died  in 
1182;  while  the  registers  of  St.  Paul's  state  that 
the  masked  prisoner  was  interred  in  the  cemetery 
of  that   parish.     The   registers  of  the  chapter  of 
Arras  show  that  great  respect  was  paid  to  the  re- 
mains of  Vermandois,  whereas   M.    de   Palteau,  a 
descendant   of    Saint-Mars   (the    custodian  of  our 
prisoner),  informed  Saint-Foix  that  it  was  a  tradi- 
tion in  his  family  that  chemicals  had  been  placed  in 
the  coffin  of  the  unknown,  for  the  quicker  destruc- 
tion of  the  body. J     And,  what  is  more  conclusive 
of  all,  there  exists  a  letter  of  Barbezieux  to  Saint- 
Mars,  written  on  August   13,   1691,   in  which  the 
masked    individual    is    described    as    having   been 
already  in  the  officer's  custody  "for  twenty  years;" 
whereas  it  is  certain  that  the  Count  de  Vermandois 


*  "Ann^e  Litteraire. 
t  Idem,  1768. 
%Ib, 


276  The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mash. 

died,  or  (according  to  Yoltaire  and  Griff et)  disap- 
peared, as  lately  as  1683.* 

As  to  the  theory  that  the  mysterious  personage 
was  an  illegitimatef  son  of  Anne  of  Austria,  Queen 
of  Louis  XIII.,  by  the  Cardinal  de  Eichelieu,  there 
is  no  need  to  soil  these  pages  with  any  detailed 
refutation.  Elsewhere  we  have  dwelt  at  some  length 
on  the  character  of  the  great  statesman,  and  con- 
clusively shown  that  no  valid  charges  have  been 
brought  against  his  moralitv;  while  as  to  the  incul- 
pated  Queen,  not  one  argument  has  ever  been 
adduced  to  prove  either  her  guilt  in  this  particular 
case,  or  any  departure  whatever  from  conjugal  duty. 
One  observation  alone  will  suffice  to  relegate  the 
present  charge  to  oblivion.  On  November  17,  1697, 
Barbezieux  wrote  to .  Saint-Mars  that  he  should 
"never  inform  any  person  whomsoever  as  to  what 
the  prisoner  had  done."  He  would  not  have  used 
such  language,  had  the  only  fault  of  the  masked 
one  been  that  of  his  birth. 

In  1758,  M.  Lagrange-Chancel,  who  had  been 
confined  in  the  citadel  of  Sainte-Marguerite  in  1718, 
and  who  had  collected  there  much  traditionary  evi- 


*  Mile,  de  Montpensier,  a  well-informed  contemporary, 
narrates  that  the  prince  arrived  at  the  camp  before  Courtray  in 
the  beginning  of  November,  1683;  that  on  the  12th  he  was 
attacked  by  fever,  and  died  on  the  19th. 

t  Some  have  made  the  Iron  Mask  a  legitimate  son  of  the 
Queen.  Thus,  in  1790,  Soulavie  published  an  account  of  two 
shepherds  announcing  to  Louis  XIII.  that  Anne  would  give 
birth  to  twins,  whose  rivolry  would  cause  great  harm  to 
France;  and  he  added  that  Louis  imprisoned  the  second  sou* 


The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mash.  277 

dence  concerning  the  masked  prisoner  detained  in 
the  citadel  not  many  years  before,  published  a  refu- 
tation of  the  lies  and  errors  in  the  ** Age  of  Louis 
XIV. ;"  and  among  other  things  bearing  on  the  Iron 
Mask,  declared  that  M.  de  Lamotte-Guerin,  governor 
of  the  Isles,  had  assured  him  that  the  prisoner  was 
the  Duke  of  Beaufort,  admiral  of  France,  generally 
supposed  to  have  been  killed  at  Candia,  but  confined 
by  Colbert  as  a  precautionary  measure.  But,  as 
Griffet  observed,  Beaufort  was  incapable  of  inter- 
fering with  the  projects  of  Colbert  for  the  good  of 
his  country;  and  even  had  he  been  so  disposed,  he 
had  not  the  power,  since  his  functions  were  limited 
to  those  of  "grand  master,  and  superintendent  of 
navigation  and  commerce,"  the  post  of  high-admiral 
having  been  suppressed  by  Eichelieu.  And  modern 
historians  are  well  satisfied  that  Beaufort  was  killed 
at  Candia. 

In  1825  M.  de  Taules  published  a  pamphlet  in 
which  he  accused  the  Jesuits  of  having  caused  the 
abduction  and  imprisonment,  first  at  the  Isles  Sainte- 
Marguerite,  and  then  in  the  Bastile,  of  Arwedicks, 
a  schismatic  patriarch,  who  was,  he  says,  "a  mortal 
enemy  of  our  religion,  and  a  cruel  persecutor  of  the 
Armenian  Catholics."  De  Taules  identified  Arwe- 
dicks with  the  Iron  Mask,  and  says  that  he  died  in 
the  Bastile.*     But  documents  in  the  Foreign  Office 


*  '•L'Homme  au  Masque  de  Fer,  m^moire  historique  oil  Ton 
refute  les  differentes  opinions  relatives  a  ee  personage  mys- 
terieux  et  ou  1'on  d^montre  que  ce  prisonnier  fut  une  des 
victimes  des  J^suites." 


278  The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mash. 

at  Paris  prove  that  Arwedicks  was  removed  from 
Turkey,  ' 'during  the  embassy  of  M.  Feriol  at  Con- 
stantinople,"* which  began  in  1699.  Now,  Saint- 
Mars  brought  his  masked  prisoner  to  the  Bastile  in 
1698,  and  he  had  already  been  in  captivity  many 
years.  Again,  Arwedicks  joined  the  Roman  com- 
munion, was  liberated,  and  died  in  freedom.! 

The  theory  of  Saint-Foix,  identifying  the  mask 
with  the  Duke  of  Monmouth,  a  natural  son  of 
Charles  II.,  decapitated  for  repeated  rebellions,  on 
July  15,  1685,  obtained  great  favor  among  lovers  of 
the  marvellous.  But  how  could  a  substitution  have 
been  effected  successfully  in  the  case  of  one  con- 
demned to  public  execution,  and  whose  appearance 
was  so  familiar  to  the  officers  and  guards  of  the 
Tower,  and  to  the  whole  people  of  London  ?  Again, 
granting  this  to  have  been  possible,  would  not  the 
existence  of  Monmouth,  in  French  custody,  have 
transpired  after  the  English  revolution  of  1688? 
But  the  letter  of  Barbezieux  to  Saint-Mars  in  1691, 
speaking  of  the  latter  officer's  prisoner  as  having 
been  already  in  his  custody  for  twenty  years,  de- 
stroys the  hypothesis  of  Saint-Foix. 

As  to  Henry  Cromwell,  second  son  of  the  Pro- 
tector, there  is  not  a  shadow  of  probability  in  favor 
of  his  having  been  the  mysterious  prisoner.     Why 


*  "M^inoire  manuscrit  de  M.  de  Bonac,  ambassadeur  de 
France  a  Constantinople,  1724. " 

t  Thus  says  the  official  report  of  his  death  in  the  archives 
of  the  Foreign  Office. 


The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mash.  279 

should  the  French  Government  have  disturbed  his 
repose,  while  allowing  his  brother  Richard,  the 
quondam  successor  of  Oliver,  perfect  freedom  in 
France? 

Nor  can  Mattioli,  secretary  of  the  Duke  of  Man- 
tua, have  been  the  disputed  individual;  for  he 
certainly  died  in  1681.  Again,  all  authors  agree  in 
accepting  the  abundant  and  indisputable  evidence 
that  the  famous  prisoner  was  always  treated  with 
the  greatest  respect  compatible  with  his  isolation 
from  the  outside  world,  while  the  correspondence  of 
the  royal  ministers  and  officers  concerning  Mattioli, 
is  redolent  of  contempt  for  that  person.  Thus  Cati- 
nat  writes  to  Louvois  about  "that  knave;"  and 
Louvois  admires  the  patience  of  Saint-Mars  in  not 
treating  "that  rogue  as  he  merits,  when  he  is  want- 
ing in  respect  to  the  governor." 

Who,  then,  was  this  man  with  the  Iron  Mask? 
Yery  strong,  if  not  most  conclusive,  arguments  are 
adduced  by  M.  Paul  Lacroix  in  his  apposite  work, 
and  strengthened  by  Barthelemy,  to  show  that  he 
was  no  other  than  the  celebrated  Fouquet,  superin- 
tendent of  finance  under  Louis  XIV.,  who  was 
condemned  in  1664  to  perpetual  imprisonment  for 
malfeasance  in  office,  peculation,  and  projected 
high -treason. 

Firstly,  the  precautions  taken  in  guarding  Fou- 
quet, while  at  Pignerol,  were  very  like  those  used  in 
regard  to  the  masked  prisoner  of  Sainte-Marguerite 
and  the  Bastile.  When  the  Chamber  of  Justice  had 
condemned  Fouquet  to  perpetual  exile,  the  King,  we 


280  The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mash. 

read  in  the  "Defenses  de  M.  Fouquet,"  judging 
that  there  "was  great  danger  in  allowing  the  said 
Fouquet  to  leave  the  kingdom,  because  of  his  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  many  affairs  of  state,"  deemed 
it  prudent  to  change  the  punishment  to  perpetual 
imprisonment.  The  culprit  was  placed  in  a  carriage 
with  four  guards,  and  in  custody  of  M.  de  Saint- 
Mars,  and  escorted  by  one  hundred  musketeers,  was 
conducted  to  the  castle  of  Pignerol.  His  physician 
and  valet  were  subjected  to  the  same  confinement  as 
their  master,  "lest  they  might  be  a  means  of  commu- 
nication between  him  and  his  friends."  And  in  the 
"Instruction"  given  to  Saint-Mars  for  his  guidance 
in  the  care  of  Fouquet,  which  paper  was  signed 
by  Louis  XIV. ,  he  is  forbidden  to  allow  Fouquet 
to  have  any  communication  with  any  living  person 
other  than  Saint-Mars  himself,  "either  by  speech, 
writing,  or  visit;"  and  the  culprit  must  never  leave 
his  apartment,  "even  for  a  walk."  Saint-Mars  can 
furnish  him  with  books,  but  "only  one  at  a  time; 
and  he  must  carefully  examine  each  book  when  he 
removes  it,  lest  any  writing  or  cipher  be  therein 
hidden."  The  prisoner,  of  course,  was  to  have  no 
paper,  ink,  etc.  He  could  have  a  confessor  when  he 
so  desired;  but  "the  priest  must  be  notified  only 
the  moment  before  hearing  the  said  Fouquet,  and  he 
must  always  have  a  different  confessor."  And 
Saint-Mars  was  to  "keep  his  Majesty  informed  as  to 
what  the  prisoner  did."  Now,  all  these  exceptional 
precautions,  and  those  indicated  in  the  numerous 
letters  of  Louvois   to  Saint-Mars,  exactly  corres* 


The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mash.  281 

pond  with  those  adopted  in  the  case  of  the  Iron 
Mask. 

Secondly,  most  of  the  traditions  concerning  this 
individual  can  easily  be  accommodated  to  Fouquet. 
Take,  for  instance,  that  of  the  plate  with  writing 
scratched  on  it,  flung  from  a  window  and  found  by 
a  slave.  According  to  Papon,*  who  heard  this  from 
the  son  of  one  of  the  guards  of  the  mask,  it  was  not 
a  plate,  but  a  shirt,  on  which  the  prisoner  had 
written  "from  one  end  to  the  other."  Now,  this 
story  reminds  us  of  two  passages  concerning  Fou- 
quet in  letters  from  Louvois  to  Saint-Mars — "I 
have  received  your  letter,  as  well  as  the  napkin  on 
which  M.  Fouquet  wrote;"  and,  "You  may  tell 
him  that  if  he  turns  his  table  linen  into  writing- 
paper,  he  need  not  be  surprised  if  you  give  him  no 
more."  Again,  all  the  tokens  of  respect,  the  many 
courtesies  of  refinement,  the  elegant  furniture,  etc., 
accorded  to  the  myterious  man  of  Sainte-Marguerite 
and  the  Bastile  were  extended  to  Fouquet  at  Pig- 
nerol. 

Thirdly,  it  is  far  from  certain  that  Fouquet  died 
in  1680,  as  was  reported.  The  contradictions  of 
his  contemporaries  on  this  subject  are  strange,  and 
there  is  an  almost  entire  absence  of  documentary 
evidence. 

Fourthly,  political  reasons  might  have  easily 
induced  Louis  XIV.  to  cause  the  spread  of  a 
report  of  the  death  of  Fouquet.     It  has  been  the 


"Voyage  en  Provence. 


282  The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mask. 

fashion  among  most  modern  historians  to  sym- 
pathize with,  if  not  to  laud,  Fouquet  as  much 
as  they  have  decried  his  successor,  Colbert.  The 
modern  "liberal"  school  could  not  be  expected 
to  see  willingly  any  good  in  him  who  was  be- 
queathed to  his  sovereign  by  the  dying  Mazarin, 
any  more  than  they  do  in  the  latter,  recommended 
as  his  own  successor  by  the  moribund  Eichelieu. 
But  an  inspection  of  the  report  of  Fouquet' s 
trial  must  satisfy  any  impartial  mind  that  the 
famous  superintendent  merited  the  extreme  dis- 
pleasure of  Louis  XIV.  as  a  reckless  prodigal  of 
the  public  money,  and  an  arch-conspirator  against 
the  crown. 

Another  reason  for  the  monarch's  aversion  is 
sometimes  found  in  the  supposed  audacity  of 
Fouquet  in  pretending  to  rival  Louis  in  the  af- 
fections of  Mile,  de  La  Valliere;  but  that  view 
of  the  character  of  the  grand  monarch,  which 
ever  espies  the  lover  behind  the  king,  is  essen- 
tially absurd.  One  need  only  read  that  criminating 
document,  written  entirely  by  the  hand  of  Fouquet, 
and  found  hidden  at  the  back  of  a  mirror  in  his 
apartment,  to  become  convinced  of  his  transcendent 
guilt.  "In  reading  this  paper,"  says  the  impartial 
Peter  Clement,*  "one  can  not  tell  whether  he 
should  be  more  astonished  at  the  extraordinary 
levity  of  the  writer,  or  at  his  seemingly  ingenuous 
confidence  in  the  devotion  to  himself  of  those  men 


•Histoire  de  Colbert." 


The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mash.  283 

whom  he  had  deluged  in  money,  or  at  the  crazy 
notion  he  had  conceived  as  to  his  own  importance 
in  the  state.  ...  In  every  line  is  evidence  of  his 
malfeasance,  of  his  abuse  of  the  public  treasury  in 
order  to  attach  creatures  to  himself  to  the  injury 
of  the  state,  and  of  his  programme  of  civil  war."* 
In  consigning  Fouquet  to  perpetual  imprisonment, 
Louis  XIV.  executed  a  judicious  stroke  of  states- 
manship ;  and  if,  as  we  suppose,  he  gave  out  that 
the  still  influential  criminal  had  died,  he  deprived 
the  opposition  cliques  of  their  most  powerful  pre- 
text. 

Fifthly,  Saint-Mars  and  Louvois,  whenever  writ- 
ing about  Fouquet  before  the  date  of  his  alleged 
death,  always  use  the  same  significant  phrase,  "my" 


*  Among  the  papers  of  Fouquet  was  found  the  following 
document:  "I  promise  to  give  my  loyalty  to  Monseigneur 
the  Procurator-General,  Superintendent  of  Finances,  and 
Minister  of  State;  to  belong  to  no  person  hut  himself,  giving 
myself  and  attaching  myself  to  him  with  my  utmost  zeal,  and 
promising  to  serve  him  in  all  things,  against  every  person  with- 
out exception;  and  to  obey  no  person  but  him;  and  to  hold  no 
relations  with  any  whom  he  may  prohibit  to  me,  and  to  resign 
the  post  of  Concarneau,  which  he  has  given  to  me,  whenever 
he  may  demand  it.  I  promise  to  sacrifice  my  life  for  him, 
against  all  whom  he  may  name,  be  they  of  any  quality  or  condi- 
tion whatever,  without  excepting  any  person  in  the  world.  As  as- 
surance of  this  I  give  these  presents,  written  and  signed  by 
my  hand.  Done  at  Paris,  June  2,  1658,  Deslandes."  Deslan- 
des  was  commander  of  the  citadel  of  Concarneau,  which  be- 
longed to  Fouquet.  But  the  document  which  ruined  Fouquet 
was  nothing  less  than  a  detailed  plan  of  rebellion,  addressed 
to  his  friends,  and  to  be  actuated  in  case  Cardinal  Mazarin, 
then  become  suspicious  of  Fouquet's  honesty,  and  designing 
to  substitute  Colbert  in  his  place,  should  order  his  arrest. 


284  The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mash, 

or  "your  prisoner,"  although  the  former  had  many 
other  prisoners  in  charge;  and  after  the  first  appa- 
rition of  the  mask,  both  Louvois  and  Barbezieux 
adopt  this  phrase. 

As  to  the  death  of  the  mysterious  prisoner,  we 
learn  from  the  diary  of  M.  Dujunca  that  it  oc- 
curred on  November  19,  1703,  and  that  he  was 
buried  on  November  20,  in  the  cemetery  of  St. 
Paul's.  The  parochial  register  states  that  "on  No- 
vember 19,  1703,  Marchialy,  aged  about  forty-five 
years,  died  in  the  Bastile,  and  his  body  was  interred 
in  the  cemetery  of  St.  Paul's,  his  parish."  Mar- 
chialy  is  the  name  by  which  tradition  has  nearly 
always  described  this  personage,  but  why  we  can 
not  discover.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  in  those 
days,  as  in  ours,  prisoners  were  generally  called  by 
other  names  than  their  own,  and  that  these  pseudo- 
nyms were  frequently  changed,  in  the  case  of  state 
offenders,  to  baffle  the  schemes  of  their  friends. 

When  the  Bastile  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
raging  mob,  on  July  14,  1789,  search  was  made 
at  once  for  some  evidence  as  to  the  identity  of 
the  masked  charge  of  Saint-Mars.  A  periodical 
of  the  day  informs  us  that  there  was  found 
a  paper  marked  61,389,000,  and  the  words, 
"Foucquet,*  coming  from  the  Isles  Sainte-Mar- 
guerite,  with  an  iron  mask."  Then  followed, 
X.  X.  X.,  and  underneath,  "Kersadion."  When 
this  discovery  was  made  known,  people  recalled 
to  mind  a  saying  in  the  supplement  to  the  "Age 


*  So  the  name  was  written  in  those  days. 


The  Man  With  the  Iron  Mash.  285 

of  Louis  XIV.,"  to  the  effect  that  Chamillart, 
Minister  of  State,  had  said  that  the  Iron  Mask 
"was  a  man  who  possessed  all  the  secrets  of 
Fouquet."  Unfortunately,  however,  for  any  pros- 
pect of  certainty  in  the  question  we  have  been 
examining,  the  interesting  paper  just  mentioned  no 
longer  exists.* 


*  Drawing  attention  to  the  contradictions  of  contempora- 
ries concerning  the  death  of  Fouquet,  and  commenting  on 
Louvois'  acknowledgment,  only  on  April  3,  of  Saint-Mars' 
letter  of  information,  whereas  Mme.  de  Sevigne"  knew  of  the 
event  several  days  before,  Paul  Lacroix  asks  how  the  special 
despatches  of  the  state  were  over  fourteen  days  on  the  road, 
while  the  postal  courier  of  Pignerol  covered  the  route  in  less 
than  eight  days.  And  how  can  we  explain  the  silence  of  the 
"Mercure  Galant,"  a  journal  most  precise  in  recording  the 
principal  deaths  of  every  month?  A  strange  death,  says  La- 
croix, which  occurred  at  Pignerol  on  March  23,  and  was  known 
at  Paris  on  the  25th.  "And  not  an  authentic  document  to  es- 
tablish the  death  of  a  man  whose  fortune  and  disgrace  had 
caused  such  wonder!  Nothing  to  impose  silence  on  the  ru- 
mors ever  insinuating  crime  when  death  in  a  state-prison  is 
mysterious!  Only  an  enigmatical  despatch  of  the  Minister  of 
War,  the  transmission  of  a  coffin,  and  an  extract  from  a  con- 
vent register  showing  a  burial  a  year  afterward!"  Is  it  not 
strange  that  Lafontaine,  who  could  so  plaintively  lament  the 
fall  of  "Oronte,"  had  no  regrets  for  his  Maecenas?  asks  Bar- 
thelemy.  And  Gourville,  who  kept  up  a  correspondence  with 
his  friend  Fouquet  to  the  very  last,  makes  no  mention  of  the 
time  or  place  of  his  death.  Even  the  family  of  Fouquet  were 
uncertain  as  to  his  end.  Nor  can  we  forget  that  the  diary  of 
M.  Dujunca  informs  us  that  "the  olden  prisoner  whom 
Saint-Mars  had  guarded  at  Pignerol"  was  yet  in  that  fortress 
at  the  end  of  August,  1681,  when  Saint-Mars  passed  as  gover- 
nor to  Exiles,  seventeen  months  after  the  presumed  death  of 
Fouquet,  taking  with  him  the  Iron  Mask  and  one  other  pris- 
oner, whose  name  we  ignore.  Nor  is  it  insignificant  that 
whereas  Louvois  uses  the  phrase  "the  deceased  M.  Fouquet," 
when  writing  to  Saint-Mars  during  the  month  after  the  al- 
leged death,  he  ever  after  omits  that  qualification. 


THE  HOLY  WARS:   THEIR  OBJECT  AND 
RESULTS. 

During  the  first  years  of  Islamism  the  Christian 
nations  felt  little  reason  for  concern  as  to  their 
own  future.  Regarding  the  new  religionists  as  a 
mere  horde  of  children  of  the  desert,  they  could  not 
realize  that  their  own  peace,  still  less  their  indepen- 
dence in  the  political  order,  would  ever  be  seriously 
threatened  from  that  quarter.  And  even  if  they  had 
foreseen  the  great  spread  of  Mohammedanism,  and 
all  the  baneful  consequences  thence,  of  necessity,  to 
ensue,  they  were  just  then  in  no  condition  to  fore- 
stall the  enemy's  attack.  As  yet  Christendom  was 
not  united  in  the  Western  Empire,  and  when,  in 
time,  that  effort  of  pontifical  statesmanship  opened 
a  new  era  of  strength  and  prosperity  to  Europe,  the 
arrogance,  and  afterward  the  schism,  of  the  Greeks 
prevented  any  unanimous  action  against  the  enemies 
of  the  Christian  name.  But  in  the  eleventh  century, 
the  invasion  of  the  Seljuk  Turks,  who  had  abandoned 
the  religion  of  Zoroaster  for  Islamism,  infused  a 
northern  ferocity  into  the  comparatively  soft  nature 
of  the  Arabs,  and  during  the  pontificate  of  St.  Gre- 
gory VII.  the  Crescent  was  frequently  seen  from 
the  towers  of  Constantinople.  From  time  to  time 
Europe  was  horrified  by  accounts  of  the  fearful 

286 


The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results.  287 

oppression  endured  by  the  Christians  of  Palestine; 
of  bishops  and  priests  being  dragged  from  the  altar 
to  prison ;  of  brutal  outrages  upon  persons  of  both 
sexes  and  of  every  age. 

The  schismatic  arrogance  of  the  Greeks  was 
compelled  to  yield,  and  the  Emperor  Michael  Ducas 
(Parapinax)  begged  for  aid  from  the  detested 
Latins.  St.  Gregory  VII.  heeded  the  cry,  and, 
although  he  knew  that  the  promise  was  extorted  by 
dire  temporal  necessity,  and  not  by  regard  for 
religious  unity,  he  was  disposed  to  believe  that 
Ducas  was  sincere  in  the  avowed  intention  to  put  an 
end  to  the  schism.  All  Christendom  was  invited  to 
raise  an  army  for  the  service  of  God,  and  the  Pontiff 
declared  in  a  letter  to  King  Henry  IV.  of  Germany 
that  he  hoped,  * 'having  pacified  the  Normans,  to 
himself  proceed  to  Constantinople,  in  aid  of  the 
Christians."  Fifty  thousand  warriors  promised  to 
follow  him,  but  other  interests  prevailed,  and  the 
great  enterprise  was  postponed,  until  Pope  Victor 
III.  had  the  satisfaction,  in  1088,  of  seeing  the 
Genoese,  Pisans,  and  other  Italians,  receive  from 
his  hands  the  standard  of  St.  Peter,  and  set  out  to 
fight  for  the  Cross  and  for  civilization.  This  first 
expedition  to  check  the  inroads  of  Mohammedanism 
was  comparatively  successful.  Landing  in  Africa, 
it  destroyed  or  disabled  more  than  a  hundred  thou- 
sand Saracens,  burned  a  city,  imposed  tribute  on  a 
Moorish  king,  and  returned  to  Italy  with  many  rich 
spoils,  which  were  used  to  decorate  the  churches  of 
the  victors.*     But  this  inroad  into  the  domains  of 

*  Leo  of  Ostia  (Marsicanns)  :  in  Baronio, 


288   The  Holy  Wars :  Their  Object  and  Results. 

Islam    was    merely    a   prelude   to    the    great    Cru- 
sades. 

The  impulse  to  the  first  Crusade  (1096-1100) 
was  given  by  an  obscure  individual,  rude  in  feature 
and  in  manner,  but  who  had  been  raised  by  solitude 
and  prayer  to  such  sanctity,  that  he  was  popularly 
supposed  to  enjoy  direct  communication  with  Heaven . 
Known  only  as  Peter  the  Hermit,  he  left  his  native 
Amiens  in  1093,  and  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem. 
Touched  to  the  quick  by  the  melancholy  condition 
of  the  holy  places,  he  seemed  to  hear,  while  pros- 
trate before  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  the  voice  of  Jesus 
commanding:  "Arise,  Peter;  go  and  announce  to 
My  people  the  end  of  their  oppression.  Let  My 
servants  come,  and  the  Holy  Land  shall  be  freed." 
He  returned  to  Europe,  and  falling  at  the  feet  of 
Pope  Urban  II.,  he  urged  that  Pontiff  to  carry  out 
the  design  of  his  predecessors.  The  Pope  blessed 
him,  and  commissioned  him  to  preach  a  Crusade; 
he  did  "so  throughout  Europe,  travelling  barefooted 
and  bareheaded,  clothed  in  sackcloth,  crucifix  in 
hand,  and  mounted  on  a  mule.  William  of  Tyre 
(ob.  about  1180)  tells  us  that  Peter  was  "insig- 
nificant in  person,  but  his  eye  was  keen  and  pleas- 
ing, and  he  possessed  an  easy  flow  of  eloquence/' 
Everywhere  he  astonished  people  by  his  austerities, 
and  moved  their  sympathies  by  his  graphic  picture 
of  the  woes  of  Palestine.  He  cried  to  sinners : 
"Soldiers  of  the  demon,  become  warriors  of  Christ ;" 
and  all  who  had  crimes  to   expiate  or  injuries  to 


The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results.  289 

repair  seized  on  this  means  of  reconciling  them- 
selves with  God.  The  feudatories,  the  younger 
sons  of  reigning  families  (all  trained  to  war,  and 
having  scarcely  any  other  means  of  occupying  their 
time),  joyfully  volunteered. 

While  Peter  was  thus  engaged,  there  came  from 
Constantinople  letters  from  the  Greek  Emperor, 
Alexis  Comnenus,  begging  aid  from  the  Latins,  as 
the  "new  Rome"  was  in  imminent  danger  of  falling 
into  the  hands  of  its  enemies.  In  1095  Urban  II. 
convoked  a  council  at  Piacenza  to  devise  ways  and 
.means.  Over  200  bishops,  4,000  priests,  and  30,000 
laymen,  listened  to  the  Pontiff's  discourse,  which 
was  delivered  in  the  open  air.  Another  assembly 
was  ordered  to  convene  at  Clermont  in  Auvergne, 
and  on  November  18  of  the  same  year,  238  bishops 
obeyed  the  summons.  Here  the  Pontiff  made  use 
of  every  argument,  religious  and  political,  to  further 
the  cause.  From  his  discourse,  not  as  embellished 
by  Michaud,  but  as  it  was  recorded  in  its  simplicity 
by  William  of  Malmesbury,*  who  was  present  at  its 
delivery,  we  take  the  following  passages : 

"Go,  my  brothers,  go  with  confidence  to  attack 
the  enemies  of  God,  who — oh,  shame  to  Christians  ! 
— are  so  long  in  possession  of  Syria  and  Armenia. 
Long  since  they  mastered  all  Asia  Minor;  and  now 
they  have  insulted  us  in  Illyria  and  all  the  neighbor- 
ing regions,  even  so  far  as  the  Straits  of  St.  George. 
And  they  have  done  worse :  they  have  robbed  us  of 


"Deeds  of  the  English  Kings,"  b.  4,  y.  1095. 


290   The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results. 

the  tomb  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  wonderful  monument 
of  our  faith ;  they  sell  to  our  pilgrims  permission  to 
enter  a  city  which  would  be  open  to  Christians  alone, 
if  we  had  only  a  little  of  our  ancient  valor.  Ought 
not  our  faces  to  be  suffused  with  blushes  of  shame? 
Who,  unless  they  who  envy  the  Christian  glory,  can 
suffer  the  indignity  of  not  being  able  to  share  with 
the  infidels  at  least  a  half  of  the  world  ?  Christians, 
put  an  end  to  your  own  misdeeds,  and  let  concord 
reign  among  you  while  in  these  distant  lands.  Go, 
then,  and  in  this  most  noble  enterprise  show  the 
valor  and  prudence, you  now  display  in  your  intes- 
tine contests.  Go,  ye  warriors,  and  your  praises  will 
everywhere  be  heard.  Let  the  well-known  bravery 
of  the  French  be  shown  in  the  van ;  followed  by  the 
allies,  their  very  name  will  terrify  the  enemy.  .  .  9 
If  necessary,  your  bodies  will  redeem  your  souls. 

"Do  you,  men  of  courage  and  of  exemplary  intre- 
pidity, fear  death  ?  Human  wickedness  can  invent 
nothing  to  injure  you  which  is  to  be  compared  with 
celestial  glory.  Do  you  not  know  that  life  is  a 
misery  to  man,  and  that  happiness  is  in  death  ?  The 
sermons  of  priests  have  caused  us  to  receive  this 
doctrine  with  our  mother's  milk;  and  the  martyrs, 
our  ancestors,  sustained  this  doctrine  with  their 
example.  .  .  .  The  sanctuary  of  God  repels  the 
spoiler  and  the  ribald,  and  welcomes  the  pious  man. 
Let  not  the  love  of  your  relatives  impede  you ;  prin- 
cipally to  God  does  man  owe  his  love.  Let  not  your 
progress  be  arrested  by  your  affection  for  your  native 


The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results.  291 

land;  for  the  entire  world  may  be  regarded  as  a 
place  of  exile  for  Christians,  and  their  country  as  the 
entire  world.  Let  no  one  remain  at  home  because 
of  his  riches ;  for  greater  wealth  is  promised  him — a 
wealth  composed,  not  of  those  things  which  soften 
our  misery  only  with  vain  expectation,  but  of  those 
which  perpetual  and  daily  instances  show  us  are  the 
only  true  riches.  .  .  .  These  things  I  publish  and 
command,  and  for  their  execution  I  appoint  the  end 
of  the  coming  spring." 

Throughout  the  assembly  was  then  heard  the  cry 
which  the  Crusaders  were  to  render  famous,  "God 
wills  it ! "  A  cardinal  recited  the  formula  of  general 
confession  ;  all  repeated  it,  and  received  absolution. 
Admar  de  Monteil,  Bishop  of  Puy,  received  the 
cross  as  Papal  Legate,  and  this  emblem  of  the  Cru- 
sade was  then  given  to  nearly  all  the  barons  and 
even  to  many  bishops. 

The  first  Crusade  lasted  from  1096  to  1100;  the 
second,  from  1147  to  1149 ;  the  third,  from  1189  to 
1193;  the  fourth,  from  1202  to  1204;  the  fifth  and 
sixth,  from  1218  to  1239 ;  the  seventh  and  eight, 
from  1248  to  1270.  Frequent  attempts  were  after- 
wards made  to  renew  these  holy  wars,  and  many 
isolated  expeditions  were  undertaken ;  but,  as  Poni- 
ponne,  Minister  of  Louis  XIV.,  remarked  to  Leib- 
nitz, "since  the  time  of  St.  Louis,  such  things  have 
been  out  of  fashion."  Bacon  wrote  a  dialogue  on 
the  Holy  War.  Mazarin  left  600,000  livres  to  help 
a  Crusade.     The  famous  Friar  Joseph,  the  Francis- 


292    The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results. 

can  counsellor  of  Kichelieu,  composed  on  this  sub- 
ject a  Latin  poem  which  Pope  Urban  VIII.  called 
the  Christian  iEneid.  In  1670  Leibnitz  tried  to  in- 
duce Louis  XIV.  to  conquer  Egypt,  and  in  his  de- 
sign, reduced  to  writing,  he  said: 

4 'Then  Europe  will  rest,  will  cease  to  tear  her  own 
bowels,  and  will  fix  her  attention  where  she  may  find 
honor,  victory,  advantage,  and  wealth,  with  a  good 
conscience,  and  in  a  manner  pleasing  to  God.  Then 
men  will  not  rival  one  another  in  robbery,  but  in 
reducing  the  power  of  the  hereditary  foe ;  each  one 
will  strive  to  extend,  not  his  own  kindgdom,  but  that 
of  Christ.  .  .  .  Let  us  suppose  that  the  Emperor, 
Poland,  and  Sweden,  proceed  together  against  the 
barbarians,  and  seek  to  widen  the  limits  of  Christen- 
dom, having  no  other  designs,  and  fearing  no  en- 
emies in  their  rear:  how  the  blessing  of  God  would 
show  itself  in  favor  of  so  just  a  cause!  On  the 
other  hand,  England  and  Denmark  would  find  them- 
selves in  front  of  North  America;  Spain,  before 
South ;  Holland,  before  the  West  Indies.  France  is 
destined  by  Providence  to  be  the  guide  to  Christian 
armies  in  the  East,  to  give  to  Christendom  her 
Godfreys,  her  Baldwins,  and  especially  her  SS. 
Louis,  who  will  invade  that  Africa  just  opposite  her 
shores,  to  destroy  a  nest  of  pirates  and  to  conquer 
Egypt — she  wants  neither  the  soldiers  nor  the 
money  necessary  to  become  the  mistress  of  that 
land.  .  .  .  Behold  a  way  to  acquire  a  lasting 
glory,  a  tranquil  conscience,  universal  applause, 
certain  victory,  immense   advantages.     Then    will 


The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results.  293 

be  attained  that  hope  of  the  philosopher,  that  men 
will  make  war  only  on  wolves  and  other  wild  beasts, 
to  which  the  barbarians  and  infidels  may  now  be 
compared."* 

Those  who  desire,  in  the  matter  of  the  Crusades, 
details  of  fact,  causes,  and  effects,  should  consult 
the  "Deeds  of  Grod  through  the  Franks,"  by  William 
of  Tyre ;  and  the  history  written  by  the  Imperial 
Anna  Comnena.  Among  moderns  we  may  read 
with  profit  the  "Spirit  of  the  Crusades,"  by  De- 
Maillet;  and  the  "History  of  the  Crusades,"  by 
Michaud,  which,  although  full  of  prejudice,  is  the 
most  complete  of  all  works  on  this  subject.  Much 
information  may  also  be  gained  from  the  "Life  of 


*  Dissertation  by  Guhrauer,  in  "Memoires  of  the  Institute  of 
France,"  Vol.  I. — Cantu  agrees  with  Leibnitz  :  "Suppose  that 
the  lion  of  St.  Mark  and  the  dragon  of  St.  George  had  made  a 
permanent  home  on  the  banks  of  the  Bosphorus,  the  Jordan, 
and  the  Tigris.  A  civilized  population  would  now  enjoy  that 
beauty  which  of  old  made  them  envied  centres  of  culture; 
Seleucia,  Antioch,  Bagdad,  would  be  the  London  and  Paris  of 
Asia;  where  now  a  pasha,  with  flail  and  scimitar,  bends  the 
peoples  before  the  caprices  of  a  despot,  and  where  the  Bedou- 
ins practise  robbery  and  piracy  with  impunity,  would  now 
flourish  governments  founded  in  order  and  liberty;  from  the 
most  beautiful  city  under  the  sun  would  flow  streams  of  culture 
and  of  love  over  Asia  and  Europe,  united  in  affection  and  in 
progress,  to  improve  the  North,  and  spread  the  light  of  truth 
in  the  heart  of  Africa  and  in  the  farthest  regions  of  the  East. 
If  a  hermit  had  not  raised  that  cry,  if  the  Popes  had  not  taken 
it  up,  the  growing  civilization  of  Europe  would  have  suc- 
cumbed to  the  Arabs;  the  religion  of  love  and  of  liberty  would 
have  yielded  up  our  countries  to  one  of  blood  and  of  slavery, 
and  over  the  beautiful  lands  of  Italy  and  France  would  reign 
a  brutal  domestic  and  political  tyranny,  a  haughty  immobility, 
a  fatal  indifference,  a  systematic  ignorance." 


294   T J ie  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results. 

Innocent  III.,"  by  Hurler;  and  from  Prat's  "Peter 
the  Hermit  and  the  First  Crusade."  The  French 
Academy  of  Inscriptions  published,  in  1841,  a  col- 
lection of  all  the  Latin,  Greek,  and  Oriental  histo- 
rians of  the  Crusades;  the  Greek  portion  being 
composed  of  fragments  of  Nicephorus  Briennius, 
Anna  Comnena,  Nicetas  Coniates,  John  Phocas, 
and  Michael  Attaliates.  As  for  the  modern  English 
authors  who  have  written  on  the  Crusades,  some  are 
pretentious,  few  recommendable.  Of  all  who,  in 
any  language,  have  treated  this  subject,  Cantu  is  the 
most  impartial,  and  the  most  appreciative  of  the 
spirit  which  prompted  and  sustained  one  of  the  most 
salient  features  of  the  Middle  Age;  he  will  also 
fully  satisfy  the  reader's  curiosity  as  to  chivalry, 
tournaments,  "courts  of  love,"  the  oaths  customary 
at  the  time,  the  military  religious  orders,  the  trova 
tori  —  an  acquaintance  with  all  of  which  matters 
will  greatly  facilitate  a  comprehension  of  the  events 
of  the  Crusades. 

Many  causes  have  contributed  to  an  unjust  appre- 
ciation of  the  value  of  the  Crusades,  but  they  may 
be  all  referred  to  the  difficulty  experienced  by  the 
average  modern  mind  in  understanding  the  spirit  of 
the  Middle  A^e.  Add  to  this  the  fact  that  these 
Holy  Wars  were  pre-eminently  the  work  of  the 
Roman  Pontiffs,  and,  therefore,  a  natural  object  of 
carping  criticism  to  all  the  foes  of  Catholicism,  and 
you  will  be  surprised  when  you  find,  now  and  then, 
a  Protestant  or  an  infidel  writer  who  can  see  in 
them  aught  else  but  cruel  injustice  to  both  Christian 


The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results.   295 

and  Islamite ;  or,  at  best,  anything  better  than  sub- 
lime folly.  In  defending  the  policy  that  prompted 
these  Crusades,  in  upholding  their  justice,  in  con- 
tending that  they  were  necessary,  humanly  speaking, 
to  the  very  existence  of  Christianity,  we  do  not 
apologize  for  each  and  every  action  of  their  leaders, 
or  of  the  rank  and  file  of  their  participants ;  it  is 
but  too  true  that,  as  in  other  noble  designs,  many 
of  the  instruments  were  found  to  be  full  of  flaws. 
We  must  distinguish  the  motives  of  the  Crusaders. 
The  Popes,  most  of  the  kings  and  princes,  and 
nearly  all  the  leaders,  who  took  part  in  these  expe- 
ditions, were  impelled  by  the  desire  of  banishing 
the  infidel  from  the  places  sanctified  by  the  life  and 
death  of  the  God-Man — by  the  desire  of  freeing  a 
Christian  people  from  a  slavery  that  was  cruel  to 
the  body  and  threatening  to  the  soul.  They  felt  the 
necessity  of  arresting  the  progress  of  an  inexorable 
and  barbarous  enemy,  who  was  menacing  that 
Christian  civilization  which  the  Catholic  Church  had 
developed  in  nearly  the  whole,  and  was  then  plant- 
ing in  the  rest,  of  Europe ;  they  knew  that  the  most 
efficacious  means  of  doing  this  was  by  carrying  war 
into  Asia  and  Africa,  by  convincing  Islam  that 
Christendom  could  fight  as  well  as  pray.  These 
motives  were  certainly  noble.  But  among  the  masses, 
while  the  religious  motive  undoubtedly  predominated 
with  the  immense  majority,  so  that  it  may  truly  be 
said  to  have  furnished  the  life  and  soul  of  the  expe- 
ditions, other  motives  were  sometimes   mingled — 


296   The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results. 

some  of  them  base,  some  indifferent.  Many  who 
groaned  at  home  under  the  feudal  system  hoped  to 
find  another  lot  awaiting  them  in  the  East;  some 
were  impelled  by  a  curiosity  to  see  those  lands  about 
which  pilgrims  had  told  such  wonderful  stories; 
some,  undoubtedly,  were  incited  by  mere  love  of 
adventure.  If  these  latter  classes  were  guilty  of 
excesses — nay,  if  even  some  of  the  leaders  acted 
more  like  condottieri  than  like  soldiers  of  Christ — 
the  good  name  of  the  cause  should  not  suffer. 

Those  who  affect  horror  at  the  sacrifice  of  two 
millions  of  Christian  lives  during  the  two  centuries 
of  the  Crusades,  do  not,  as  a  general  thing,  descant 
upon  the  great  loss  of  life  that  purely  secular  wars 
have  entailed,  and  yet  entail,  upon  mankind.  And 
how  great  is  the  difference  between  these  and  the 
Holy  Wars,  both  as  to  causes  and  effects  !  In  the 
former,  in  nearly  every  case,  men  are  taken  from 
their  firesides  to  kill  and  be  killed  without  knowing 
the  reason  for  it ;  in  the  latter,  they  knew,  thoroughly 
appreciated,  and  heartily  applauded  the  reason .  But, 
we  are  told,  this  knowledge,  this  appreciation,  was 
that  of  superstition,  and  the  hope  of  success  was  a 
folly.  The  Crusaders  were  certainly  guilty  of  super- 
stition, if  a  vivid  and  life-sacrificing  devotion  to  our 
faith,  if  a  hearty  reverence  for  everything  connected 
with  that  faith,  be  superstition.  "We  need  not  pause 
here  to  show  that  Christianity,  felt  and  outwardly 
professed,  is  not  superstition. 

But  what  about  the  folly  of  these  wars?  Not 
that  supernatural  effervescence  which  is  known  as 


The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results.  297 

the  folly  of  the  Cross — for  if  that  be  understood, 
the  Crusades  were  a  folly — but  a  sheer  absurdity  is 
here  intended.  Well,  now  that  the  holy  fever  is  at 
an  end,  and  we  can  calmly  criticise  each  and  every 
one  of  its  symptoms  and  consequences,  many  errors 
of  management  are  discoverable;  but  at  the  time 
the  attack  on  the  strongholds  of  Islam  was  decreed, 
every  reason,  military  and  political,  could  be  adduced 
for  the  success  of  the  project.  Common  sense 
assured  the  Western  nations  that  the  Byzantine 
Emperor,  bearing,  as  he  did,  the  first  brunt  of  the 
Mussulman  attack,  would  cordially  and  gratefully 
assist  the  enterprise ;  who  could  have  foreseen  the 
insane  treachery  of  the  entire  schismatic  tribe? 

But  what  of  the  justice  of  the  Crusades?  The 
Islamites  were  pronounced  religious  and  political 
enemies  of  the  European  nations.  It  was  of  the 
very  essence  of  their  religion — and  too  well  did 
they  practise  it — to  spread  their  faith  by  fire  and 
sword,  to  enjoy  the  earth  and  its  fullness.  They 
had  already  subjugated  the  once  flourishing  Chris- 
tian states  of  the  East,  and  in  many  of  them  had 
almost  destroyed  every  vestige  of  the  Christian 
religion;  they  had  conquered  a  great  part  of  the 
Iberian  Peninsula;  they  had  devastated  a  large 
portion  of  Italy,  and,  for  a  time,  had  even  threat- 
ened France;  in  fine,  to  the  Mussulman  every  war 
against  a  Christian  state  or  community  Was  holy. 
Where  was  the  injustice  of  warring  against  such 
a  race  of  men  ?     Consider  also  that  war,  and  war 


298   The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results. 

a  Voutrance,  was  the  only  means  by  which  Europe 
could  save  herself  from  barbarism,  her  women  from 
degradation,  her  children  from  slavery. 

Our  age  affects  to  detest  mere  sentiment,  and 
is  pre-eminently  utilitarian.  For  this  very  reason 
it  should  admire  the  Crusades.  The  first  great 
advantage  they  brought  to  Europe  was  frequent 
internal  peace  where  intestine  war  had  been  the 
order  of  the  day;  the  Christian  swords  that  had 
so  often  crossed  one  another  in  unworthy  strife 
were  now  turned  against  the  common  enemy  of  the 
Christian  altar  and  of  every  Christian  government. 
The  Normans  and  other  ferocious  Northerners, 
who  would  have  impeded  the  progress  of  civilization 
along  the  shores  of  the  Baltic  and  the  German 
Ocean,  found  an  outlet  for  their  warklike  enthusiasm 
in  distant  Asia;  and  "this  expedition"  (the  second 
Crusade)  says  Krantz  ("Sax.,"  c.  13)  "at  least 
effected  the  freeing  of  Germany  from  a  set  of  men 
who  lived  by  robbing  others."  Many  a  district 
hitherto  living  in  awe  of  some  petty  tyrant,  who, 
like  an  eagle  from  his  eyry,  had  been  wont  to 
pounce  down  upon  it  on  an  errand  of  rapine, 
thanked  the  campaigns  of  Asia  and  Africa  for 
affording  such  men  an  opportunity  of  satisfying 
their  tastes  away  from  home.  Thousands  of  serfs, 
by  taking  the  Cross,  threw  off  the  yoke  of  what 
was  little  less  than  slavery;  for  the  Crusader  be- 
came a  servant  of  God  and  of  the  Church,  and 
a  freeman.     Strangers  who  took  up  their  abode  in 


The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Be  suits.   299 

the  domains  of  some  petty  lord,  used  to  become  his 
serfs  :    now  the  pilgrim  was  sacred. 

Industry  was  advanced  by  means  of  the  Crusades. 
The  silks  of  Damascus  were  coveted  by  the  West- 
erns, and  Palermo,  Lucca,  Modena,  and  Milan  be- 
came noted  for  the  fabrics  they  wove  for  the  lords 
and  ladies  who  were  no  longer  satisfied  with  the 
skins  of  beasts  for  clothing.  The  glassware  of 
Tyre  was  introduced  by  the  Venetians,  and  soon  the 
ingenious  sons  of  the  Republic  manufactured  the 
beautiful  and  delicate  crystals  which  have  given 
its  artisans  celebrity  to  our  own  day.  Wind-mills, 
till  then  not  used,  if  at  all  known,  in  Europe, 
were  copied  from  those  in  Asia  Minor,  where  they 
were  necessary,  owing  to  the  want  of  running 
waters.  The  goldsmith's  art  received  an  impetus 
from  the  numerous  relics  and  gems  brought  from 
the  Orient,  and  which  had  to  be  richly  set  and 
mounted. 

Another  advantage  of  the  Crusades  was  the  bet- 
ter administration  of  justice;  when  intestine  war 
had  become  rare,  order  reappeared ;  the  great  ones 
of  the  earth  commenced  to  consider  their  followers 
as  their  poor  ones — pauperes  nostri, — for  these  in- 
feriors were  now  freed  from  local  servitude,  and 
began  to  unlearn  the  customs  of  hereditary  serf- 
dom. Grovernment  was  better  developed;  com- 
munes and  republics  came  into  existence,  and  gave 
equal  laws  even  to  the  lands  of  the  absent  barons, 
elevating  public  over  private  power.    The  common 


300   The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results, 

people,  during  the  long  absences  of  the  lords,  de- 
pended upon  the  superior  power  of  the  kings;  and 
thus  was  prepared,  for  the  ultimate  good  of  the  na- 
tion, the  fall  of  feudalism.  The  royal  authority 
was  constantly  being  increased  by  the  acquisition  of 
fiefs,  either  made  vacant  by  death,  or  sold  to  the 
crown  that  their  lords  might  obtain  money  for  the 
Holy  Wars. 

Still  another  advantage  of  the  Crusades  is  thus 
described  by  Cantu:  "In  the  fragmentary  society 
of  feudalism,  each  one's  country  was  bounded  by 
the  hedge  that  inclosed  his  field ;  it  was  expensive 
and  dangerous  to  cross  the  bridge  that  spanned 
the  neighboring  little  torrent,  in  sight  of  the 
castle  of  the  next  proprietor.  But  suddenly  the 
barriers  fall,  and  whole  nations  enter  on  roads 
hitherto  closed.  Then  the  Northerners  beheld  in 
Italy,  the  relics  of  ancient,  and  the  commencement 
of  a  new,  civilization;  at  Bologna,  they  heard 
lectures  on  the  Pandects;  at  Salerno  and  Monte 
Cassino,  they  attended  medical  academies;  atThes- 
salonica,  they  visited  schools  of  fine  art;  at  Con- 
stantinople, they  inspected  libraries  and  museums. 
James  de  Vitry  expresses  his  wonder  at  finding 
the  Italians  'secret  in  counsel,  diligent,  studious, 
of  public  utility,  careful  for  the  future,  detesting 
the  yoke  of  another,  ardent  defenders  of  their 
liberties.'  In  Sicily  and  in  Venice,  whither  they 
came  to  embark,  they  found  more  regular  forms 
of  government,  and  their  astonishment  on  seeing 


The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results.  301 

all  the  citizens  of  Venice  convoked  to  give  assent 
to  the  decree  of  the  doge,  inspired  ideas  of  a 
liberty  very  different  from  the  German.  When 
they  were  established  on  the  new  soil,  they  gave 
attention  to  a  proper  jurisprudence,  which  should 
not  be  imposed  by  force,  but  should  be  discussed 
by  the  reason  of  nations  who  deemed  themselves 
equal,  and  who  desired  their  own  real  advancement. 
The  'Assizes'  that  were  then  compiled  became 
models  for  princes  and  communes;  St.  Louis 
profited  by  them  for  his  'Establishments,'  and 
perhaps  the  English  found  in  them  the  idea  of 
their  boasted  jury.  From  the  method  of  gathering 
tithes,  then  imposed  by  the  Church,  kings  learned 
a  regular  system  of  taxes,  which,  if  they  became 
perpetual,  at  least  ceased  to  be  arbitrary  and 
multifold." 

With  reference  to  the  effects  which  the  Crusades 
produced  on  the  arts  and  letters  of  Europe,  the 
same  author  says:  "Since  it  is  certain  that  the 
Crusades  retarded  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  I 
believe  that  literature  profited  by  them  ;  for  Europe 
was  not  yet  sufficiently  mature  to  receive  the  clas- 
sics there  preserved,  as  she  did  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. In  fact,  of  two  rich  libraries  which  then 
perished,  no  chronicler  makes  any  mention,  of  so 
little  account  were  they  deemed;  masterpieces  of 
art  were  brutally  ruined,  unless  when  the  Italians, 
especially  the  Venetians,  preserved  them  to  dec- 
orate their  own  cities.     Look  at  Pisa,  Genoa,  and 


302    The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results. 

the  Norman  edifices  in  Italy,  and  you  will  find 
them  rich  in  columns  and  statues  transferred  from 
the  East, — a  fact  which  reveals  a  resurrection  of 
the  sentiment  of  the  beautiful,  and  explains  the 
sudden  development  of  the  arts  among  us.  Liter- 
ature came  forth  from  the  sanctuary  when  all  took 
part  in  universal  enterprises;  style  was  elevated 
when  history  passed  from  municipal  events  to  prod- 
igies of  valor;  poetry  found  in  reality  that  at  which, 
by  mere  imagination,  it  would  never  have  arrived."* 
The  Crusades  were  also  of  great  benefit  to  com- 
merce. The  commercial  cities  of  Italy  made  im- 
mense profits  by  transporting  warriors  and  pilgrims ; 
and  they  obtained  great  privileges  in  the  conquered 
lands,  establishing  banks  in  Syria  and  along  the 
Ionian  and  the  Black  Sea.  Then  began  the  com- 
mercial prosperity  of  what  are  now  Belgium  and 
Holland,  of  the  south  of  France,  of  Bremen  and 
Lubeck.  Citizens  became  wealtlry,  and  were  soon 
so  powerful  that  they  were  able  to  exact  rights  and 
privileges.  The  sugar  cane  used  by  the  Crusaders 
at  Lebanon  to  assuage  their  terrible  thirst,  was 
transplanted  to  Sicily,  thence  carried  by  the  Sara- 
cens to  Granada,  and  from  there  taken  by  the  Span- 
iards to  America.  Europe  became  acquainted  with 
alum,  indigo,  and  many  other  valuable  drugs  and 
spices;  afterwards,  while  engaged  in  a  search  for  a 
quick  passage  to  the  land  that  produced  them,  an 
Italian  navigator  discovered  a  new  world. 


*  "Storia  Univ.,"  b.  xii,  c.  18. 


The  Holy  Wars:  Their  Object  and  Results.  303 

The  Crusades  failed  of  their  main  object — the 
freedom  of  the  Holy  Land, — but  they  checked  the 
progress  of  Mohammedanism,  and  permitted  the 
continuance  of  the  work  of  civilization  in  Europe. 
They  need  no  apology ;  had  they  fully  succeeded, 
Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa  would  now,  in  all  prob- 
ability, be  entirely  Christian.  Their  main  idea  was 
both  politic  and  just.  It  was  certainly  good  policy 
to  give  rest  to  a  state  by  transporting  its  disturbers 
beyond  the  seas ;  to  turn  this  fury  against  the  bar- 
barians. It  was  certainly  just  to  combat  a  ferocious 
people,  an  article  of  whose  religion  was  to  exter- 
minate Christians,  and  who  had  already  ravaged  all 
Southern  Europe.* 


*  Was  not  that  system  of  solidarity,  which  in  the  Middle 
Age  bound  the  Catholic  nations  together  by  the  principles  of 
a  common  faith,  at  least  as  just  and  respectable  as  that  modern 
international  solidarity,  styled  European  balance  of  power, 
which  is  based  on  a  shifting  policy,  and  on  merely  earthly  in- 
terests? Ottoman  barbarism  everywhere  rampant  under  the 
Crescent;  Christian  civilization  on  the  defensive  under  the 
Cross;  Islamism  menacing  the  world  with  its  impure  torrents, 
and  Christianity  striking  home  at  its  implacable  enemy — be- 
hold, in  its  most  natural  and  philosophical  aspect,  the  entire 
history  of  the  Crusades.  (Berault:  "Hist.  Gen.  de  l'Eglise," 
vol.  xii,  p.  596.) 


THE  "ORTHODOX"  RUSSIAN,  AND  THE 
SCHISMATIC  GREEK  CHURCHES. 

The  Atlantic  cable  informs  us  that  "the  Pope 
and  the  Czar  are  negotiating  with  a  view  to  the 
reunion  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  Churches;  and 
that,  as  the  Pope  is  willing  to  let  the  Greek  Church 
retain  its  own  manner  of  worship,  it  is  expected 
that  the  negotiations  will  be  successful."*  Good 
news  certainly,  and  most  consoling,  if  the  history 
of  past  "negotiations"  did  not  warn  us  not  to  be 
over  sanguine  as  to  the  result  of  future  ones. 

In  many  minds  the  Russian,  or,  as  it  styles  itself, 
the  "orthodox"  Church,  is  synonymous  with  the 
schismatic  Greek  Church ;  but  it  is  not  schismatic 
Greek  in  origin,  nor  is  it  Greek  in  language,  polity, 
or  government.  The  schismatic  Greek  Church  is 
composed  of  those  Christians  who  recognize  the 
spiritual  jurisdiction  of  the  Greek  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople, and  is  confined  to  the  territories  once 
embraced  in  the  Byzantine  (now  known  as  the 
Ottoman)  Empire,!  with  its  vassal  (now  only  quasi 
vassal)  States — Egypt,  Nubia,  etc.  The  Russian 
Church  communicates  with  the    schismatic    Greek 


*  June,  1887. 

f  In  1833  the  hierarchy  of  the  new  Kingdom  of  Greece  de- 
clared its  independence  of  the  patriarch,  and  in  1868  that  pre- 
late recognized  its  autonomy. 

304 


The  Russian  and  Greek  Churches.        305 

and,  in  spite  of  its  own  liturgy,  which  stoutly  asserts 
the  primacy  of  the  Roman  See,*  agrees  with  the 
schismatic  Greeks  in  rejecting  the  authority  of  the 
Roman  Pontiff ;  but  it  is,  in  every  respect,  a  national 
church.  It  recognizes  no  earthly  authority  over 
itself  but  that  of  the  "Holy  Synod,"  a  body  en- 
tirely dependent  on  the  Czar.  Originally,  the 
metropolitan  of  Russia  was  nominated  by  the  sover- 
eign, and  consecrated  by  the  Constantinopolitan 
patriarch;  but  after  the  schism  the  czars  began 
to  act,  more  and  more,  as  heads  of  the  Church. 
In  1589,  the  Patriarch  Jeremiah  II.  recognized  Job, 
metropolitan  of  Moscow,  as  Patriarch  of  Russia, 
and  as  next  in  rank  to  him  of  Alexandria.  In  the 
reign  of  Alexis  Michaelovitch,  father  of  Peter  the 
Great,  Nikon  of  Moscow  rejected  the  authority  of 
Constantinople ;  and  in  1667,  Nikon  having  offended 
Alexis,  he  was  deposed,  and  the  power  of  his  suc- 
cessors became  nominal.  Peter  the  Great  finally, 
in  1721,  placed  the  government  of  the  Russian 
Church  in  a  "Holy  Synod,"  every  member  of  which 
swears  obedience  to  the  Czar  as  "supreme  judge  in 
this  spiritual  assembly." 

*  The  Russian  liturgical  books,  written  in  Old  Slavonic,  are 
full  of  such  testimonies.  Thus,  Pope  St.  Sylvester  is  called 
"the  divine  head  of  the  holy  bishops."  Pope  St.  Leo  I.  is 
styled  "the  successor  of  St.  Peter  on  the  highest  throne, 
the  heir  of  the  impregnable  rock."  To  Pope  St.  Martin  is 
said:  "Thou  didst  adorn  the  divine  throne  of  Peter,  and, 
holding  the  church  upright  on  this  rock  which  cannot  be 
shaken,  thou  didst  honor  thy  name."  Pope  St.  Leo  III.  is 
thus  addressed:  "Chief  pastor  of  the  Church, fill  the  place  of 
Jesus  Christ."  St.  Peter  is  called  the  sovereign  pastor  of  all 
the  Apostles — "pasty!*  vladytchnyi  vsich  Apostolov," 


306        The  Russian  and  Greek   Churches. 

The  language  of  the  Eussian  Church  is  not  the 
Greek,  but  the  Slavonic;  and  not  the  vernacular, 
but  the  Old  Slavonic,  with  which  the  people  are 
not  familiar.  Protestants  are  much  mistaken  when, 
reading  that  the  Greeks,  Syrians,  Copts,  etc.,  cele- 
brate their  services  in  Greek,  Syriac,  Coptic,  etc., 
they  imagine  they  discover  an  example  for  their  own 
use  of  the  vernacular.  The  languages  used  in  the 
rituals  of  these  peoples  are  very  different  from  those 
in  daily  use.  Nor  do  the  Russians  owe  their  con- 
version to  the  Greek  schismatic  Church.  This 
conversion  was  effected  by  the  Roman  Catholic 
Apostolic  Church ;  for  whether,  as  we  learn  from 
Constantine  Porphyrogenitus,  the  first  missionaries 
to  Russia  were  sent  by  the  Catholic  Patriarch  Igna- 
tius (867),  or,  as  Nestor  asserts,  they  were  sent  by 
the  schismatic  Photius  (866),  it  is  certain  that  no 
real  impression  was  made  upon  the  Russian  masses 
until  toward  the  end  of  the  tenth  century,*  when 
the  Grand  Duke  Vladimir,  called  "the  Apostolic," 
embraced  Christianity ;  and  at  that  time  the  Greeks 
were  in  communion  with  Rome.  The  revival  of 
the   schism,  by  Michael  Cerularius,  did  not  much 


*  About  the  year  945  Olha,  Olga,  or  Elga,  widow  of  a  grand 
duke  (or  king)  of  Russia,  made  a  journey  to  Constantinople, 
and  was  there  baptized.  Returning  to  Russia,  she  vainly 
endeavored  to  convert  her  countrymen.  But  her  grandson, 
Vladimir,  having  married  Anna,  sister  of  the  Greek  Emperor 
Basil  II.,  was  baptized  in  988,  and  in  a  few  years  nearly  all  the 
Russians  received  the  Faith.  Those  authors  who  assign  the 
conversion  of  Russia  to  the  ninth  century,  remarks  Bergier, 
confuse  the  reign  of  Basil  II.  with  that  of  Basil  the  Macedo- 
nian. 


The  Russian  and   Greek   Churches.        307 

affect  the  Eussians.  Not  until  the  twelfth  century 
were  they  entirely  seduced  from  the  Roman  obe- 
dience. Then,  with  the  exception  of  the  Church 
of  Galicia,*  most  of  the  Russians  ceased  to  be 
Catholics.  However,  at  the  time  of  the  Council 
of  Florence  (1439)  there  were  as  many  Catholics  as 
schismatics  in  Russia.  (Bollandists:  "Septem- 
ber," v.  41.)  About  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  a  second  Photius,  Archbishop  of  Kiev,  ex- 
tended the  schism  throughout  the  land. 

Some  authors  opine  that  the  schism  of  Cerularius 
did  not  aif ect  even  the  entire  Greek  Empire  in  the 
eleventh  century.  Certainly,  Pope  Alexander  II. 
sent  Peter,  Bishop  of  Anagni,  as  apocrisiarius 
(agent,  not  legate)  to  the  Emperor  Michael  Ducas 
in  1071,  and  he  continued  as  such  for  a  whole  year. 
When,  in  1078,  St.  Gregory  VII.  excommunicated 
Nicephorus  Botoniates,  it  was  only  because  of  his 
having  dethroned  Ducas,  who  was  in  communion 
with  the  Holy  See.  Pope  Paschal  II.  sent  Chryso- 
lanus  (or,  as  some  write  the  name,  Grosolanus,  or 
Proculanus)  as  legate  to  Alexis  Comnenus.  Alex- 
andre and  Mansi  hold  that  there  was  communion 
between  the  West  and  East  for  some  time  after  the 
excommunication  of  Cerularius  and  his  pretended 
retaliation   of   the    same.     It   is   noteworthy   that 


*  The  Catholics  of  Galicia,  or  Bed  Russia,  who  number  two 
millions  of  Ruthenians,  as  they  are  called,  use  the  Slavonic 
liturgy,  and  their  secular  clergy  may  marry  before  receiving 
Holy  Orders. 


308        The  Russian  and  Greek   Churches. 

Euthymus  Zygabenus,  who,  by  order  of  Alexis 
Comnenus,  collected  the  sayings  of  the  Fathers 
against  each  and  every  heresy,  makes  no  mention  of 
the  Latins  as  heretics.  Even  in  the  twelfth  century 
there  were  many  Greeks  in  communion  with  Koine, 
as  we  learn  from  the  many  narratives  of  the  Cru- 
sades, from  the  < 'Alexias"  of  Anna  Comnena,  from 
the  "Life  of  Manuel"  by  Nicetas  Choniates,  and 
from  the  letters  (B.  IV.,  Nos.  39,  40)  of  the  Vener- 
able Peter  of  Cluny  to  the  Emperor  John  Comnenus 
and  to  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople. 

The  following  remarks  of  Father  Gagarin,  than 
whom  the  reader  will  find  no  better  authority  on 
matters  concerning  the  Russian  Church,  are  worthy 
of  attention:  "It  was  only  in  a  very  indirect 
manner  that  the  Russian  Church  was  drawn  into 
schism.  The  metropolitans  of  Kiev  depended,  in  the 
hierarchical  order,  upon  Constantinople.  When  the 
rupture  between  Rome  and  Byzantium  took  place, 
Kiev  found  itself  separated  from  the  centre  of 
unity;  but  for  a  long  time  the  Russians  did  not 
share  the  passions  of  the  Greeks,  and  it  may  be 
said  that,  for  a  long  period,  merely  a  material  schism 
subsisted  between  Rome  and  the  Russian  Church. 
But  the  clergy  of  Constantinople  endeavored  to 
imbue  the  Russians  with  their  own  prejudices  and 
with  their  hatred  of  the  Latins.  They  succeeded, 
and  when  the  princes  of  Moscow  manifested  a  de- 
sign of  attacking  the  independence  of  the  Russian 
Church,  this  body  could  rely  on  itself  alone, 


The  Russian  and  Greek  Churches,        309 

4  'As  yet  no  one  has  written  the  sad  and  touching 
history  of  the  struggle  which  this  Church,  isolated 
from  the  West,  and  betrayed  by  the  East,  sustained 
against  the  growing  ambition  of  the  grand  dukes 
and  czars  of  Moscow.  And,  nevertheless,  that 
history  has  some  beautiful  pages.  If  the  Eussian 
Church  succumbed,  it  was  not  without  combat  or 
without  glory.  Ivan  III.,  if  not  from  conviction, 
at  least  ostensibly,  belonged  to  a  sect  which  de- 
signed to  substitute  Judaism  for  Christianity.  The 
metropolitan  of  Moscow  had  been  seduced,  but  the 
Russian  Church  preserved  sufficient  strength  and 
independence  to  condemn  the  impure  doctrines. 
When  Ivan  IV.,  who  much  resembled  Henry  VIII. 
of  England,  shed  the  blood  of  his  subjects  in 
torrents,  and  trampled  on  the  authority  of  the 
Church  to  gratify  his  passions,  Philip,  metropolitan 
of  Moscow,  spoke  to  him  with  apostolic  liberty, 
and  sealed  his  remonstrances  with  his  blood.  But 
the  Church  continued  to  lose  ground,  and  when 
Boris  Godounov  transformed  the  metropolitan  of 
Moscow  into  a  patriarch  (1588),  that  elevation 
was,  in  his  mind,  for  the  purpose  of  furnishing  the 
Czar  with  a  willing  tool."  * 

Although  the ' 'orthodox"  Russians  and  schismatic 
Greeks,  like  the  Nestorians  and  Jacobites,  are  wit- 
nesses to  the  antiquity  of  many  dogmas  which 
Protestants  regard  as  modern  human  innovations, 


■La  Russie,  Sera-t-elle  Catholique?  "    Paris,  1856. 


310        The  Russian  and  Greeh  Churches. 

Protestant  polemics  ever  show  much  sympathy  for 
the  aversion  cherished  by  these  schismatics  toward 
the  Holy  See.  The  children  of  the  Reformation 
have  often  endeavored  to  enter  into  communion 
with  these  separatists,  but  their  efforts  have  re- 
sulted, each  time,  only  in  a  formal  condemnation  of 
Protestant  tenets  by  the  progeny  of  Photius  and 
Cerularius.  Two  of  these  attempts  at  union  be- 
tween the  Eastern  and  Western  opponents  of  Rome 
merit  attention. 

In  1574  Stephen  Gerlach,  a  Lutheran,  and  preacher 
to  the  imperial  embassy  at  Constantinople,  was 
urged  by  many  of  his  co-religionists  to  obtain  from 
Jeremiah  II.,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  an  en- 
dorsement of  the  "Confession  of  Augsburg"  as 
consonant  with  the  faith  of  the  schismatics.  But 
Jeremiah  combatted  the  "Confession"  as  heretical, 
with  tongue  and  pen.  In  1672  Dositheus,  schismatic 
Patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  convoked  a  synod  to  con- 
sider the  doctrines  of  Calvin,  and  the  synodals  said 
of  the  Lutheran  overtures  to  Jeremiah:  "Martin 
Crugius,  and  others  well  versed  in  the  new  doctrines 
of  Luther,  sent  the  articles  of  their  'Confession' 
to  him  who  then  sat  on  the  throne  of  the  Catholic 
Constantinopolitan  Church,  that  they  might  learn 
whether  they  agreed  in  doctrine  with  the  Oriental 
churches.  But  that  great  Patriarch  wrote  to  them 
— yea,  against  them — three  learned  discourses,  or 
replies,  wherein  he  theologically  and  Catholicly  re- 
futed their   entire  heresy,  and   taught   them   the 


The  Russian  and  Greek  Churches.        311 

orthodox  doctrines  which  the  Oriental  Church  re- 
ceived from  the  beginning.  However,  they  paid 
no  attention;  for  they  had  bidden  farewell  to  all 
piety.  The  patriarch's  book  was  issued,  in  Greek 
and  Latin,  at  Wittemberg  in  Germany,  in  the  year 
of  salvation  1584;  but  before  the  time  of  Jeremiah, 
the  entire  doctrine  of  the  Oriental  Church  had  been 
more  fully  set  forth  by  the  priest  John  Nathaniel, 
procurator  of  Constantinople,  in  his  'Treatise  on 
the  Sacred  Liturgy;'  and  after  the  said  Jeremiah, 
this  was  also  done  by  Gabriel  Severus  Moreanus, 
Archbishop  of  our  brethren  of  Crete,  in  his  book  on 
'The  Seven  Sacraments  of  the  Catholic  Church.'  "* 
Another  and  more  celebrated  attempt  to  unite  the 
Western  innovators  and  the  Eastern  schismatics 
was  made  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Cyril  Lucar, 
a  Candiot,  was  sent  to  the  University  of  Padua 
when  a  youth,  where  he  studied  under  the  famous 
Margunius,  Bishop  of  Cythera.  After  his  gradu- 
ation he  travelled  in  Germany,  and  became  infected 
with  the  new  doctrines.  Nevertheless,  on  his  re- 
turn among  the  Greeks  he  received  the  priesthood, 
and  in  time  became  Patriarch  of  Alexandria.  In 
1621,  having  bribed  the  Grand  Vizier,  with  money 
furnished  by  the  Calvinists  of  Holland,  he  was 
appointed  Patriarch  of  Constantinople.  He  began 
immediately  to  teach  Calvinism;  the  clergy  re- 
volted; Cyril  was  exiled  to  Ehodes,  and  Anthimius 


*  We  have  followed  the  Latin  version  of  this  Synod  of 
Jerusalem  (or  of  Bethlehem),  made  by  an  anonymous  Bene- 
dictine of  St.  Maur,  and  first  published  at  Paris,  in  1676. 


312         The  Russian  and   Greek   Churches. 

of  Adrianople  was  placed  on  the  patriarchal  throne. 
However,  the  intrigues  of  the  English  ambassador 
caused  the  Porte  to  recall  Cyril,  and  he  soon  pub- 
lished a  "Confession  of  Faith"  of  the  mostCalvin- 
istic  type.  In  1636  the  indignation  of  the  Greeks 
compelled  the  Porte  to  again  banish  the  innovator, 
but  after  three  months  he  was  once  more  recalled 
— only  to  be  bow-stringed,  by  order  of  the  Porte, 
in  1638.* 

Lucar's  "Confession  of  Faith''  appeared  in  Hol- 
land in  1645,  and  was  gladly  welcomed  by  Protes- 
tants as  a  harbinger  of  their  recognition  by  the 
historically  venerable  churches  of  the  East;  but 
the  consequent  publication  of  the  justly  celebrated 
"Perpetuity  of  the  Faith  of  the  Catholic  Church 
concerning  the  Eucharist"  demonstrated  the  fal- 
laciousness of  their  hopes. f  They  soon  found  that 
the  Greeks  admitted  their  agreement  with  Eome 
concerning  most  of  the  Catholic  dogmas.     Indeed, 


*  Spondanus:  y.  1627,  no.  9;  y.  1638,  no.  14;  y.  1639,  no. 
12. — Claude:  "K^ponse  a  La  Perp^tuite"  de  la  Foi,"  La  Havre, 
1670.— Hottinger :  "Analecta^Hist.  Theol."— Du  Pin:  "Bibli- 
otheque  des  Auteurs  Ecclesiastiques." — Thos.  Smith:  "Life 
of  Cyril  Lucar." 

t  In  the  five  quarto  volumes  of  which  this  work  consists, 
are  collected  testimonies  of  all  the  Greek  ecclesiastical  authors 
who  wrote  after  the  schism  of  Photius;  the  professions  of 
faith  of  many  patriarchs  and  bishops ;  declarations  of  many 
synods;  the  liturgies,  etc.,  of  the  East.  It  is  proved  that  in 
all  ages,  just  as  to-day,  the  Orientals  admitted  seven  Sacra- 
ments, and  held  that  these  produce  (?)  grace;  that,  as  now, 
they  believed  in  Transubstantiation;  that,  as  now,  they 
prayed  to  the  saints,  prayed  for  the  dead.    It  is  also  shown 


The  Russian  and  Greek  Churches.        313 

as  soon  as  Lucar's  "Confession"  appeared  in  Con- 
stantinople, the  author  was  synodically  deposed, 
and  Cyril  of  Berea  was  made  patriarch.  This  pre- 
late convoked  a  synod  in  1638,  and  a  condemnation 
of  Lucar's  "Confession"  was  signed  by  the  three 
schismatic  patriarchs  (of  Constantinople,  Alexan- 
dria, and  Jerusalem),  and  by  twenty -three  bishops. 
Soon  after,  bribery  and  intrigue  procured  the  pa- 
triarchal chair  for  Parthenius  of  Adrianople,  who 
in  1642  held  another  synod,  which  again  reprobated 
Lucar's  teachings.  In  1672  Dositheus  of  Jerusa- 
lem celebrated  the  synod  already  mentioned,  which 
confirmed  the  decisions  of  the  other  assemblies. 

In  the  "Acts"  of  this  assembly  we  read  that 
the  Greek  schismatics  accused  the  Calvinists  (whom 
they  styled  "liars,  innovators,  heretics,  mendacious 
architects,  apostates,  who,  like  all  heretics,  are  arti- 
ficial explainers  of  Scripture  and  of  the  Fathers,") 
of  calumniating  the  Orientals  by  the  assertion  that 
the  said  Orientals  held  Calvinistic  doctrine.  And 
this  assertion  was  made,  say  the  bishops,  in  spite 


that  Lucar  manifested,  not  the  sentiments  of  his  Church,  but 
his  own  opinions — a  fact  proved  by  himself  when  he  proposed 
his  doctrine  as  one  he  would  like  to  introduce  among  the 
Greeks.  In  the  last  two  volumes  of  the  "Perpetuity,"  the 
doctrine  of  the  Catholic  and  schismatic  Greek  Churches  is 
compared  with  that  of  the  Nestorians,  who  separated  from 
Rome  in  the  fifth  century,  and  with  that  of  the  Eutychians, 
or  Jacobites,  who  became  schismatics  in  the  sixth.  Then  fol- 
lows an  exposition  of  the  belief  and  of  the  discipline  of  the 
Ethiopians,  Egyptian  Copts,  Maronites,  and  of  the  Nestorians 
scattered  throughout  Persia  and  India. 


314        The  Russian  and  Greek  Churches, 

of  so  many  declarations  of  Greek  patriarchs;  in 
spite  of  the  publication  of  the  "orthodox"  belief; 
in  spite  of  the  lucid  treatises  of  many  Greek  doctors. 
Then  follow  eighteen  chapters,  in  which  the  synodals 
declare  that  man's  free-will  was  not  destroyed  by 
the  fall  of  Adam ;  that  faith  alone  will  not  justify ; 
that  there  are  seven  sacraments;  that  Baptism 
cleanses  from  original  sin;  that  in  the  Eucharist 
the  substance  of  the  bread  and  wine  is  really 
changed  into  the  substance  of  the  Body  and  Blood 
of  Christ;  that  the  saints  are  to  be  invoked  as 
friends  of  God ;  that  their  images  are  to  be  ven- 
erated ;  that  we  must  receive  all  traditions  given  us 
by  the  Church,  which,  being  taught  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  can  not  err. 

Disappointed  in  their  hopes  of  union  with  some 
ecclesiastical  body  of  comparative  antiquity,  the 
Calvinists  accounted  for  the  adverse  action  of  the 
schismatic  synods  by  the  supposition  of  Latin 
bribery.  Thus,  in  1722,  appeared  the  book  of 
Cowell,  an  Englishman,  who  tried  to  prove  that 
fraud  was  behind  the  apparent  agreement  of  the 
Roman  and  schismatic  doctrines.  Mosheim  affects 
to  discover,  in  the  history  of  the  Lucar  affair,  that 
Catholic  polemics  do  not  scruple  at  dishonesty 
when  disputing  with  heretics.  Now,  it  is  false 
that  the  Greek  bishops  who  condemned  the  Western 
"reformers"  were  partial  to  the  Latins.  Cyril  of 
Berea,   like  many   other   schismatic   prelates   and 


The  Russian  and  Greek  Churches,        315 

priests  of  his  time,  may  have  died,  as  Mosheim 
asserts,  in  the  Roman  communion,  but  the  dominant 
spirits  of  the  synods  in  question  would  have  rivalled 
a  Scotch  covenanter  in  hatred  of  Rome.  Nec- 
tarius,  an  ex-patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  composed  an 
energetic  diatribe  * 'Against  the  Primacy  of  the 
Pope."  Dositheus,  the  president  of  the  Synod  of 
Jerusalem,  published,  in  1683,  many  works  of 
Simeon  of  Thessalonica,  in  which  this  writer  se- 
verely upbraids  the  Latins.  Again,  if  these  Greek 
adversaries  of  the  4 'Reformation"  were  actuated  by 
a  desire  of  pleasing  Rome,  why  did  they,  in  these 
very  synods,  so  strenuously  assert  their  peculiar 
dogma  concerning  the  Procession  of  the  Holy 
Ghost?  Finally,  how  is  it  that  the  Greeks,  so 
bitter  against  the  Holy  See,  so  tenacious  of  their 
own  distinctive  doctrines,  did  not  depose  Dositheus, 
Nectarius,  Parthenius,  etc.  ? 

From  the  day  of  her  separation  from  Rome,  the 
Greek  Church,  once  so  active,  has  been  in  a  state 
of  lethargy,  displaying  none  of  that  fecundity 
which  Christ  promised  to  His  own  spouse.  "The 
prodigious  ignorance  and  stupid  superstition,"  says 
Feller,  "in  which  the  priests  and  people  of  this 
isolated  Church  are  involved,  necessarily  entail  the 
great  abuses  and  enormous  disorders  with  which 
they  are  reproached.  For  centuries  the  Greeks 
can  show  no  celebrated  doctor,  no  council  worthy 
of  attention.     Their  latest  sages — Bessarion,   Al- 


816        The  Russian  and  Greek   Churches. 

latius,  Arcudius,  etc., — all  belonged  to  the  Church 
of  Kome."* 

And  now  a  few  words  as  to  the  probability  of  a 
submission  of  the  Kussian  "orthodox"  Church  to 
the  Roman  jurisdiction.  The  Czar  may  devoutly 
wish  for  union  with  Eome.  If  he  is  a  statesman, 
he  must  realize  that  the  activity  and  zeal  of  a 
Papal  clergy  would  be  a  great  check  to  the  growth 
of  Nihilism.  The  more  learned  and  more  pious 
of  the  "orthodox"  clergy — too  few,  alas!  in 
number — may  yearn  for  unity.  But  there  is  one 
obstacle,  which  apparently,  neither  the  once  power- 

*  Again  we  call  the  reader's  attention  to  some  reflections 
of  Gagarin:  "Bizantism  pretended  to  have  for  its  object 
the  exaltation  and  triumph  of  the  Greek  Church,  Empire,  and 
nationality.  It  sacrificed  the  unity  and  independence  of  the 
Church  to  that  object,  and  what  has  been  the  result  of  the 
conflict  which  it  provoked?  The  ruin  of  the  Greek  Church, 
and  consequently  of  the  Greek  Empire  and  nationality.  But 
God  did  not  wish  that  this  ancient  and  glorious  Church  should 
perish.  He  raised  up  a  new  people,  who  seem  to  have  the 
mission  of  re-establishing  her  in  her  pristine  splendor.  That 
people  is  the  Slavic,  and  three-fourths  of  them  belong  to  the 
Oriental  rite,  with  this  difference,  that  their  liturgical  lan- 
guage is  the  (Old)  Slavonic.  One  can  not  avoid  being  struck 
by  the  contrast  between  the  Slavonic  and  Greek  branches  of  the 
Oriental  rite.  The  former  possesses  numbers,  force,  vigor, 
while  the  latter  exhibits  only  feebleness  and  decrepitude. 
Laying  aside  every  other  argument,  the  figures  will  make  this 
difference  palpable.  It  is  estimated  that  all  the  Oriental 
Christians— Slavs,  Greeks,  Moldo-Wallachians,  or  Eoumani- 
ans,  Georgians,  etc., — number  about  seventy  million  souls,  of 
whom  nearly  sixty  millions  are  Slavs.  If  from  the  ten  or  twelve 
remaining  millions  we  deduct  those  who  are  not  Greeks,  we 
see  to  how  small  a  number  the  Greeks  are  reduced.  Now,  the 
Slavs  of  the  Oriental  rite  are  nearly  all  subjects  of  the  Hus- 
sion Empire." 


The  Russian  and  Greek  Churches.        317 

ful  inclinations  of  a  Czar  nor  the  fast-decreasing 
influence  of  a  corrupt  clergy  can  overcome.  When 
England  shall  have  learned  the  wisdom  of  doing 
justice  to  Ireland,  there  may  be  hope  that  Eussia 
will  commence  to  doubt  the  wisdom  of  her  policy 
toward  her  Ireland — unfortunate,  noble,  and  ex- 
hausted Poland.  But  as  yet,  to  the  average  Eus- 
sian  mind,  Poland  is  a  subject  only  for  the  iron 
heel;  and  Catholicism,  to  this  mind,  means  Latin- 
ism, — i.  e.,  Polanism.  The  Eussian  " patriot," 
therefore,  regards  any  progress  of  Catholicism  in 
"Holy  Eussia"  as  a  progress  of  Polish  nationality. 
Again,  the  Eussian  clergy  have  always  syste- 
matically inculcated  the  idea  that  a  reunion  with 
Eome  means  the  abolition  of  several  institutions 
dear  to  the  Eussian  heart — viz.,  Communion  under 
both  species,  the  use  of  fermented  bread  in  the 
Sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  the  Old  Slavonic  liturgy,  and 
the  marriage  of  the  secular  clergy.  And  here  we 
must  note  that  nothing  can  be  more  false  than  the 
idea  entertained  by  most  of  the  Eastern  schismatics 
that  whenever  there  has  been  a  question  of  reunion 
with  Eome,  the  Holy  See  has  designed  to  force 
them  to  adopt  the  Latin  rite  and  discipline.  While 
it  is  true  that  in  the  Ottoman  Empire  all  of  the 
United  or  Catholic  Greeks,  excepting  the  Syrian 
Melchites ;  and  that  in  Poland,  very  many  members 
of  the  Greek  rite  have  passed  over  to  the  Latin 
rite;  the  Holy  See  can  not  be  justly  blamed  for 
these  facts,  since  they  are  to  be  ascribed  to  causes 


318        The  Russian  and  Greek  Churches. 

completely  foreign  to  the  actions  of  the  Catholic 
missionaries.*  In  refutation  of  this  idea  of  the 
Papal  intentions,  Benedict  XIV.,  in  his  Bull  Alletce 
sunt,  quotes  the  words  of  Pope  Innocent  IV.,  who 
cited  two  Constitutions  of  Pope  Leo  X.  and  Clem- 
ent VII.,  in  which  these  Pontiffs  vehemently  re- 
proved those  Latins  who  blamed  the  Greeks  for 
their  observance  of  certain  customs  approved  by 
the  Council  of  Florence.  The  same  Benedict  XIV., 
speaking  of  those  who  were  laboring  for  reunion, 
resumes  their  obligations  as  follows:  (1.)  They 
should  disabuse  the  schismatics  of  those  errors 
which  their  ancestors  introduced  in  order  that  they 


*  "In  Turkey,"  says  Gagarin,  "until  the  hatti-houmayoum 
of  Feb.  18,  1856,  all  the  Christians  of  the  Greek  rite  were 
placed  under  the  (civil)  authority  of  the  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople; and  when  one  of  them  renounced  that  prelate's 
communion  to  enter  that  of  the  Pope,  it  is  evident  that  he  was 
exposed  to  vexation  by  the  former  personage,  who,  though 
no  longer  his  spiritual,  was  still  his  temporal  ruler.  He  had 
only  one  way  of  escaping  persecution,  and  that  was  a  with- 
drawal from  the  patriarch's  civil  jurisdiction  when  he  left  the 
schismatic  communion.  To  effect  this  withdrawal,  he  had  to 
join  the  Latin  rite.  These  few  words  ought  to  explain  how, 
in  Greece  and  the  Archipelago,  all  the  Catholic  Greeks  have 
been  led  to  abandon  the  Greek  rite.  The  concessions  made 
by  the  Sultan  Abdul-Mejid,  on  Feb.  18,  1S56,  deprived  the  pa- 
triarch of  his  civil  authority  over  his  co-nationals;  but  it  has 
not  yet  been  shown  that  the  Greeks  who  were  desirous  of  join- 
ing the  Roman  communion,  and  who  still  preferred  to  cling 
to  their  old  rite,  could  do  so  with  impunity.  Let  us  judge, 
then,  whether  they  could  have  done  so  a  century  or  two  ago. 
In  Poland  the  circumstances  were  different,  but  the  united 
Russians  passed  to  the  Latin  rite  because  of  similar  influ- 
ences.   In  the  Republic  of  Poland  there  were  two  rites,  two 


The  Russian  and   Greek  Churches.        319 

might  have  a  pretext  for  withdrawing  from  the 
obedience  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff.  As  an  easier 
method  of  converting  said  schismatics,  the  great- 
est stress  should  be  laid  upon  the  writings  of  the 
early  Fathers  of  the  Greek  Church,  who  are  in 
perfect  accord  with  the  Latin  Fathers.  (2.)  To 
bring  the  Eastern  schismatics  into  the  fold  of  the 
true  Church,  it  is  not  necessary  to  attack  their 
rites.  On  the  contrary,  as  the  Apostolic  See  has 
always  insisted,  they  must  not  be  urged  to  follow 
the  Latin  rite.  And  in  our  own  day  Pope  Pius  IX., 
in  an  Encyclical  address  to  the  Orientals,  under 
date  of  January  6,  1848,  uttered  the  same  senti- 
ments. Nevertheless,  the  idea  is  firmly  fixed  in 
most  Russian  minds  that  union  with  Rome  means 
the  loss  of  their  loved  rite.  This,  added  to  their 
present  sentiments  as  to  the  burning  question  of 
Poland,  would  seem  to  indicate  that  there  is  little 
probability  of  a  speedy  submission  of  the  Russian 
Church  to  the  Holy  See. 


languages,  and  two  nationalities.  The  superiority  was  with 
the  Poles;  and  when  the  convert  adopted  the  Latin  rite,  he 
assumed  Polish  nationality,  and  entered  the  ranks  of  the  dom- 
inant people.  Does  not  this  state  of  things  explain  the  facts 
opposed  to  us?" 


COLUMBUS  AND  HIS  ALLEGED  CRIMES. 

Cheistopher  Columbus,  insists  Count  Roselly 
de  Lorgues,  one  of  the  only  two  authors  of  satis- 
factory biographies  of  the  hero-navigator,  does  not 
belong  exclusively  to  Italy,  where  he  was  born;  nor 
to  Spain,  which  he  served ;  but  rather  to  Catholicity, 
from  which  he  received  inspiration,  and  which, 
reciprocating,  surrounds  him  with  incomparable 
splendor.  This  is  well  said;  but  we  would  take 
issue  with  the  illustrious  author  when  he  adds  that 
' 'to  France,  after  Eome,  it  belongs,  as  the  eldest 
daughter  of  the  Church,  to  celebrate  religiously" 
the  fourth  centenary  of  the  discovery  of  America.* 
In  the  generous  rivalry  as  to  who  will  be  foremost 
in  proclaiming  the  glories  of  Columbus,  no  people 
have  a  better  right  to  be  in  the  van  than  the  Cath- 
olics of  the  United  States.  It  needs  not  that  we 
join  in  that  absurd  spread-eagleism  which  would 
insinuate  that  the  Church  never  found  a  proper  field 
for  her  labors  until  this  Eepublic  came  into  exist- 
ence ;  there  is  sufficient  reason  for  congratulation  in 
the  past  of  the  American  Church,  sufficient  grounds 
for  hope  as  to  its  future,  to  induce  the  American 
Catholic  to  enter,  with  more  heart  and  soul  than 


*  In  a  late  letter  to  the  Committee  of  the  International  Fed- 
eration of  the  Sacred  Heart  for  the  Keligious  Celebration  of 
the  Fourth  Centenary  of  the  Discovery  of  America. 

320 


Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes.         321 

any  other,  into  the  joys  of  the  coming  celebration. 
And  when  the  spirit  of  Columbus  shall  look  down 
upon  that  recognition  of  his  transcendent  merits, 
it  will  approve  of  the  American  Catholic's  part  with 
more  zest  than  it  will  feel  for  any  other's  share; 
for  the  great  event  of  the  hero's  life  was  not  so 
much  a  voyage  of  discovery  as  a  missionary  enter- 
prise. "The  man  who  bore  Christ  in  his  heart,"  says 
Eoselly  de  Lorgues,  "as  he  did  in  his  name,  raised 
His  image  also  on  his  ship ;  he  had  the  representa- 
tion of  the  Crucified  on  the  royal  standard.  In  the 
name  of  Jesus  Christ  he  issued  his  official  order  for 
departure ;  with  that  name  he  began  the  diary  of 
his  voyage ;  with  that  name  he  braved  the  horrors 
of  the  'tenebrous'  sea,  and  subjugated  his  mutinous 
crew;  in  that  name  he  took  possession  of  the  first 
island  to  which  the  Divine  Goodness  led  him. 
There  he  planted  the  Cross,  and  dedicated  the  land 
to  the  Saviour,  imposing  upon  it  the  blessed  name 
of  San  Salvador."  * 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  while  most  of  the 
contemporaries  of  Columbus  seem  to  have  been  in- 
different as  to  his  glory,  the  Holy  See  was  ever 
prodigal  with  its  sympathy  for  his  work.  Three 
successive  Popes  manifested  their  affection  for  him ; 
and  at  the  time  when  he  suffered  so  much  from  de- 
traction, he  was  honored  by  the  friendship  of  many 
members  of  the  Sacred  College.  Pope  Leo  X. 
used  to  listen,  during  the  winter  evenings,  to  read- 


*  Idem. 


322         Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes, 

ings  of  his  adventures  as  narrated  by  Peter  Martyr 
of  Anghiera.  It  was  under  the  auspices  of  Pope 
Innocent  XI.  that  the  learned  Oratorian,  Bozius, 
published  his  ' 'Signs  of  the  Church  of  God,"  in 
which  he  applied  many  of  the  olden  prophecies  to 
Columbus.  Cardinal  Bernardine  Carvajal  held  a 
correspondence  with  Peter  Martyr  of  Anghiera  in 
reference  to  the  navigator;  and  Cardinal  Louis  of 
Aragon  sent  one  of  his  secretaries  to  that  litterateur 
to  record  what  he  had  learned  from  the  lips  of  the 
navigator  himself.  Cardinal  Bembo  devoted  a  chap- 
ter of  his  "History  of  Venice"  to  the  voyages  of  our 
hero.  It  was  by  invitation  of  several  cardinals  that 
Julius  Caesar  Stella  undertook  his  Latin  epic  on 
the  New  World,  which  Cardinal  Alexander  Farnese 
caused  to  be  read  to  his  colleagues  assembled  for 
recreation  in  his  villa.  Cardinal  Sforza-Pallavicino 
gave  much  space  of  his  "Fasti  Sacri"  to  Columbus. 
Cardinal  Valerio,  in  his  work  on  the  "Consolations 
of  the  Church,"  glorifies  the  navigator,  and  applies 
some  of  the  prophecies  of  Isaias  to  his  mission.  The 
poet  Gambara  sang  of  the  wonderful  voyages  on 
the  invitation  of  the  famous  statesman,  Cardinal 
Granvelle.  It  was  Cardinal  Mendoza,  Archbishop 
of  Toledo,  known  as  the  "third  King  of  Spain," 
who  first  presented  Columbus  to  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella.  Among  the  first  to  applaud  the  design  of 
the  Italian  sailor  was  Mgr.  Geraldini,  the  papal 
nuncio  at  the  Spanish  court.  The  nuncio  took  up 
the  cause  of  Columbus  against  certain  theologians, 
who  imagined  that  he  implied  the  existence  of  other 


Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes,         323 

worlds  not  mentioned  in  Genesis ;  and  he  convinced 
Cardinal  Mendoza  that  the  Columbian  theory  did 
not  contradict  St.  Augustine  or  Nicholas  of  Lyra, 
who,  for  that  matter,  he  observed,  were  not  cos- 
mographers  or  navigators.*  And  while  the  Papacy 
was  thus  preventing  even  Italy,  his  native  land, 
from  forgetting  the  honor  due  to  her  illustrious 
son,  perhaps  the  only  circumstance  that  kept  his 
memory  alive  in  the  rest  of  the  world  was  that  stu- 
pid story  of  the  egg  with  the  broken  end.f  "The 
story  pleased  children,  and  the  first  German  nar- 
rative on  the  subject  of  Columbus  was  designed 
for  their  amusement."  J 

Until  very  late  years,  strange  to  say,  few  writers 
treated  at  all  extensively  of  Columbus;  indeed,  only 


*  Cantu:  "Illustri  Italiani,"  art.  "Colombo." 
f  Laraartine,  in  his  imaginative  biography  of  Columbus, 
locates  the  scene  of  this  exhibition  in  the  banquet-hall  of  King 
Ferdinand.  Others  describe  it  as  occurring  at  the  feast  given 
in  honor  of  the  Grand  Admiral  by  Cardinal  Mendoza.  None 
of  the  Spanish  historians  speak  of  it;  the  first  to  do  so  was  the 
Milanese  Benzoni;  and  he,  thinks  De  Lorgues,  must  have  con- 
fused some  of  his  childish  recollections.  The  story  of  the  egg 
is,  in  all  likelihood,  of  Italian  origin.  "It  is  attributed  with 
much  probability  to  Brunnelleschi,  the  architect  of  the  cupola 
of  Sta.  Maria  del  Fiore.  In  this  supposition,  the  idea,  inept 
as  it  is,  is  not  impossible.  At  a  table  where  are  assembled  a 
lot  of  Florentine  artists,  free-and-easy  banterers  and  scoffers, 
such  frivolity  is  comprehensible;  but  nowhere  else."  Nearly 
all  smart  sayings,  observed  Voltaire,  recalling  the  application 
of  this  tale  to  B*runnelleschi,  are  repetitions.  ("Essai  sur  les 
Moeurs,"  ch.  145.) 

X  De  Lorgues,  vol.  i,  b.  2. 


324  Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes. 

two  such,  Humboldt  and  Irving,  were  well  known  to 
English  readers.     Both  of  these  being  Protestants, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  the  religious  aspect  of  the 
life  of  the  hero  was  presented  in  a  distorted  fashion, 
or,  at  best,  in  a  very  inadequate  manner.     Nor  did 
the  scientific  side  of  the  navigator's  career  receive 
a  strictly  just  treatment  from  the  school  represented 
by  these   two    authors.     For   instance,   Robertson 
consoles  his  insular  jealousy  with  the  assurance  that 
if  the  sagacity  of  Columbus  had  not  made  America 
known  to  us,  some  happy  accident  would  have  done 
so  at  some  other  time.     Otto  contended  that  the 
Genoese    discovered    nothing,    since   America   had 
been  visited  by  Europeans  long  before  his  day.     It 
was  reserved  to  our  times  to  produce  two  really 
satisfactory  narratives  of  this  wonderful  and  edify- 
ing life :  one  by  the  Frenchman,  Roselly  de  Lorgues ; 
the  other  by  the  Italian,  Tarducci.     These  authors 
alone  seem  to  have  been  willing,  and,  being  willing, 
to  have  been  able,  to  properly  delineate  the  not 
easily  appreciated  career  of  him  who,  when  pre- 
senting his  gift  of  a  new  world  to  their  Spanish 
Majesties,  conjured  them  "to  allow  no  foreigner  to 
establish  himself  therein  for  commercial  purposes, 
unless  he  were  a  Catholic ;   to  permit  entrance  even 
to  no  Spaniard,  unless  he  were  a  true  Christian; 
for  the  design  and  execution  of  this  enterprise  have 
had   no    other   object   than  the  growth  and  glory 
of  the  Christian  religion."*     The  Protestant  and 


*  "Y  digo  que  Vuestras  Altezas  no  deben  consentir  que 
aqui  trate  ni  hagapie"  ninguno  extrangero,  salvo  catolicos  cris- 


Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes.         325 

philosophistic  school  could  not  be  expected  to  read- 
ily abandon  the  field  which  it  had  been  used  to  re- 
gard as  its  own.  It  is  not  unnatural  that  a  Harvard 
professor  should  have  volunteered  to  restore  the 
lagunes  which  De  Lorgues  and  Tarducci  had  filled 
up,  and  to  re-envelop  the  life  of  Columbus  in  the 
haze  which  they  had  dissipated.  But  the  work  of 
Justin  Winsor  is  of  too  flimsy  a  nature  to  be  wel- 
comed by  the  scientific;  indeed,  one  can  discover  no 
reason  for  its  appearance,  save  that  implied  by  the 
zeal  with  which  the  writer  has  endeavored  to  show 
that  our  hero  was  a  very  ordinary  man,  and  the 
almost  ghoulish  appetite  which  he  displays  for  the 
imperfections  which  his  school  has  ever  pretended 
to  discern  in  an  almost  perfect  character. 

The  faults  of  Irving  in  his  treatment  of  Colum- 
bus are  mostly  of  a  negative  kind.  The  deliberate 
calumniator  is  absent  in  his  lucubrations;  most  of 
his  sins  are  those  of  omission ;  and  probably  they 
would  not  have  to  be  deplored,  had  his  religious 
and  political  environment  permitted  him  to  see  the 
appropriateness,  if  not  the  necessity,  of  avoiding 
them.  Thus,  it  was  a  grave  historical  fault  for  him 
to  commit  when,  treating  of  the  landing  at  San  Sal- 
vador, he  said  nothing  of  the  erection  by  Columbus 
of  an  immense  cross,  in  sign  of  his  having  taken 
possession  of  that  territory  in  the  name  of  our  Lord 


tianos,  pues  este  fue  el  fin  y  el  comienzo  del  proposito  que 
fuese  par  acrecentamiento  y  gloria  de  la  religion  cristiana." 


326         Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes. 

Jesus  Christ.*  However,  most  of  his  school  can 
not  be  so  leniently  treated  by  the  Catholic  critic. 
Humboldt  charges  Columbus  with  inflexible  severity 
and  cruelty;  with  the  violation  of  the  personal 
liberty  of  the  Indians,  and  with  administrative  in- 
capacity. We  shall  briefly  examine  these  charges, 
and  thus  see  whether  there  is  any  justification  for 
the  sole  raison  d'etre  of  Winsor's  diatribe. 

The  charge  of  inflexible  severity  is  based  princi- 
pally upon  the  Admiral's  treatment  of  Bernal  Diaz, 
who  had  formed  a  conspiracy,  a  plan  of  which  was 
found  upon  his  person,  and  which  he  did  not  dis- 
avow. But  Irving  finds  that  the  course  of  Columbus 
was  quite  moderate,  inasmuch  as  he  abstained  from 
exercising  his  undoubted  vice-regal  prerogative  of 
inflicting  condign  punishment  upon  a  confessed 
traitor;  simply  confining  him  to  one  of  the  ships 
until  he  could  be  forwarded  to  Spain  for  trial.  His 
accomplices  of  inferior  rank,  adds  Irving,  were 
punished  according  to  their  degree  of  guilt,  but  not 
with  the  rigor  it  deserved. f  From  this  moment, 
says  Charlevoix, J  this  act  of  necessary  justice,  in 
which  all  formalities  were  exactly  observed,  began 
to  entail  consequences  fatal  to  Columbus  and  his 
whole    family.     His    enemies    charged    him   with 


*  "Per  lasciare  un  segno  d  "haver  preso  la  possessione  in 
nome  del  Signore  Jesu  Cristo."  Bamusio :  uDelle  Naviga- 
zioni  e  Viaggi,"  vol.  iii,  fol.  2. 

t  B.  vi,  ch.  8. 

%  "Histoire  do  St.-Domingue,"  b.  2. 


Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes,         327 

capriciously  outraging  Castilian  gentlemen;  but, 
remarks  Irving,  they  took  good  care  to  be  silent 
concerning  the  crimes  and  debaucheries  of  these 
gentlemen,  and  the  seditious  cabals  which  the  Ad- 
miral had  so  often  forgiven.*  Modern  philanthro- 
pists, Humboldt  at  their  head,  have  affected  horror 
at  the  punishment  which  Columbus,  in  his  instruc- 
tions, recommended  as  befitting  robbers.  But  pun- 
ishments vary  with  times  and  places.  Oviedo,  an 
eye-witness,  tells  us  that  among  the  Indians  first 
found  by  Columbus,  "the  sin  most  abominated  was 
theft,  "f  The  native  code  "prescribed  impalement 
as  its  penalty."  Charlevoix  corroborates  this  ac- 
count. When  the  Admiral  found  himself  obliged, 
in  time,  to  punish  theft  among  the  Indians,  he  sub- 
stituted for  their  own  penalty  one  which  spared  life, 
while  marking  the  culprits  as  warnings  to  others. 
He  cut  off  the  end  of  the  ear  or  of  the  nose ;  as  was 
prescribed  in  those  days  by  the  Code  of  Valencia,  J 
and  by  that  of  the  Hermandad.§j 

The  charge  of  cruelty  to  the  Indians  is  persist- 
ently brought  against  Columbus  by  English  and 
American  writers,  and  by  the  entire  Protestant 
school.  The  picture  of  only  a  pitiful  remnant  of 
aborigines  surviving  contact  with  the  Anglo-Saxon 


*  B.  viii,  ch.  S. 

f  "Hist.  Nat.  de  las  Indias,"  b.  v,  ch.  3. 
%  Tarazona:     "Instituciones   del  Fuero,  y  Privilegios  del 
Reino  de  Valencia, "  vol.  viii. 

§  Saint-Hilaire :     "Histoire  d'Espagne,"  b.  xviii. 


828  Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes, 

in  North  America,  while  seven-eighths  of  the  pop- 
ulation of  Spanish  and  Portuguese  America  are  of 
pure  or  mixed  Indian  blood,  is  too  eloquent  a  com- 
mentary on  the  respective  civilizing  capabilities  of 
Protestant  and  Catholic  nations,  and  on  the  philan- 
thropic tendencies  of  the  two  pioneer  white  races 
which  disputed  the  possession  of  the  New  World,  to 
allow  of  any  equanimity  of  temper,  or  any  judicial 
impartiality,  on  the  part  of  these  gentlemen  when 
treating  of  this  and  kindred  subjects.  In  the  specifi- 
cation to  the  effect  that  Columbus  reduced  the  Indi- 
ans to  slavery,  it  should  be  remembered  that  he 
never  counselled  the  enslaving  of  the  pacific  and 
mild-mannered  savages :  it  was  the  ferocious,  man- 
eating,  and  otherwise  indomitable  race  of  the  Caribs, 
whom  no  kindness  or  other  rule  could  affect,  that 
he  proposed  to  enslave,  for  the  well-being  of  the 
settlers  and  their  own.  To  the  peaceable  Indians 
he  was  a  defender :  he  caused  their  persons,  families, 
and  property  to  be  respected.  It  was  because  of  this 
distinction  that  the  depraved  and  rapacious  among 
the  adventurers  of  Hispaniola,  while  the  hero's 
foes  at  Seville  were  accusing  him  of  maltreating  the 
natives,  wrote  to  the  sovereigns  that  the  Admiral 
would  not  countenance  the  subjection  of  the  Indians 
to  Christians.  Even  Humboldt  recognizes  this  con- 
tradiction.  Certainly  the  Spanish  court  never  re- 
proached the  Admiral  for  severity  in  administra- 
tion; nay,  when  his  successor  received  his  final 
instructions,   in   the   presence   of   the   sovereigns, 


Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Grimes,         329 

the  Counsellor  of  State,  Fonseca,  advised  him  to 
avoid  the  troubles  of  Columbus  by  being,  from  the 
beginning  of  his  administration,  implacable  in  face 
of  any  attempt  at  revolt.* 

As  to  the  charge  of  administrative  incapacity, 
why,  asks  Eoselly  de  Lorgues,  should  we  discuss 
the  governmental  acts  of  Columbus,  when  facts  are 
more  eloquent  than  any  interpretation?  "When, 
after  his  discovery  of  the  New  Continent,  he  re- 
turned sick  to  Hispaniola,  to  find  insurrection  rife 
among  the  natives,  the  Spaniards  in  rebellion,  his 
own  orders  contemned,  and  his  subordinates  traitors, 
his  position  seemed  hopeless ;  for  he  was  without 
troops,  money,  or  moral  aid.  Nevertheless,  by 
adroit  concessions  and  able  temporizations,  he 
subdued  violence,  disarmed  crime,  re-established- 
authority,  organized  production,  and  initiated  the 
prosperity  of  Hispaniola.  If  that  is  not  adminis- 
trative ability,  explain  the  prodigy.  How  can  we 
doubt  the  administrative  talents  of  Columbus,  when 
we  behold  this  seaman  become  suddenly,  according 
to  necessity,  agriculturist,  architect,  military  en- 
gineer, constructer  of  roads  and  bridges,  economist, 
and  a  specially  able  magistrate  ?' '  Envy  invented  this 
fancied  incapacity  of  the  Admiral,  in  order  to  mask 
its  own  hideously  ungrateful  designs.  It  succeeded 
only  too  well ;  but  it  is  certain  that  even  at  the  time 
when  the  person  of  Columbus  was  the  object  of  per- 
secution, his  colonial  regulations,  abrogated  under 


*  Herrera :    "Hist.  Gen.  des  Conquetes  et  Voyages  des  Cas- 
tillans  dans  les  Indes  Occidentals, "  b.  iv,  ch.  13. 


330         Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes. 

the  influence  of  his  successors,  were  soon  restored 
by  order  of  the  monarchs. 

We  have  said  that  the  philosophistic,  Protestant, 
and  freethinking  schools  affect  to  regard  Columbus 
as  a  very  ordinary  man.  It  is  not  surprising,  there- 
fore, that  they  should  gleefully  seize  upon  any 
chance  of  showing  that  our  hero  sometimes  yielded 
to  the  grosser  frailties  of  human  nature.  One  in- 
stance they  have  thought  to  advance,  and  only  one. 
They  tell  us  that  when  he  lay  upon  his  death -bed, 
on  the  very  eve  of  his  dissolution,  the  Admiral  was 
seized  with  remorse  for  his  conduct  toward  Dona 
Beatrice  Enriquez,  the  mother  of  his  natural  son, 
Don  Ferdinand.  In  his  last  will  and  testament, 
therefore,  they  say,  he  recommended  Beatrice  to 
the  care  of  his  son  Diego,  adding  concerning  the 
impelling  reason  for  such  recommendation,  that  it 
was  not  proper  that  he  should  specify  it.*  From 
this  ambiguous  remark  alone,  Napione,  Spotorno, 
Navarrete,  Humboldt,  Irving,  and,  of  course,  all 
the  minor  fry,  of  whom  Prof.  Winsor  is  the  latest 
spokesman,  conclude  that  Columbus  had  not  married 
the  Lady  Enriquez.  But  if  the  dying  Admiral  was 
so  anxious  to  preserve  the  fair  fame  of  Beatrice 
Enriquez  as  to  deem  it  improper  to  assign  the  reason 
for  his  recommendation,  how  came  he,  in  the  same 


*  "La  razon  de  ello  no  es  lecito  de  escriberla  aqui."  See 
the  last  article  in  the  "Holographic  Testament,  Written  and 
Recopied  by  Columbus,  on  Aug.  25,  1505,"  in  the  "Coleccion 
Diplomatica,"  docum.  158. 


Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes.         331 

document,  to  allude  to  her  as  the  mother  of  Don 
Ferdinand?  In  the  supposition  that  a  marriage 
had  taken  place,  such  mention  would  have  been 
natural,  and  would  have  accorded  well  with  the 
enigmatic  words,  though  we  may  not  grasp  their 
real  significance.  In  the  supposition  of  a  culpable 
relation,  Columbus  would  have  defeated  his  own 
purpose.  Nor  can  the  defamers  of  the  Admiral 
take  any  comfort  from  the  fact  that  he  styles 
Beatrice  by  the  (to  us)  rather  discourteous  term  of 
woman,  muger.  To  this  day  what  Frenchman 
speaks  of  his  wife  in  any  other  way  than  as  sa 
femmef  To  what  British  or  Irish  peasant  are  hus- 
band and  wife  other  than  each  other's  "man"  and 
"woman?"  And  that  in  the  clays  of  Columbus 
muger  was  used  by  the  Spaniards  in  the  sense  of 
"wife,"  we  know  from  incontestably  authentic 
documents.  Thus,  Queen  Jane,  widow  of  Henry 
IV.,  of  Spain,  in  her  holographic  will  of  April, 
1475,  calls  herself,  Muger  del  Rey  Don  Enrique, 
que  Dios  liaya."  Ferdinand  styled  the  great  Isa- 
bella, "La  Serenissima  Heina,  Dona  Isabel  mi 
muger;"  and  he  spoke  of  his  second  wife,  Germaine 
de  Foix,  as  "Sei-enissima  JReina,  nuestra  muy  cara 
y  muy  amada  muger."* 

Again,  the  facts  in  this  case  have  been  falsified. 
The  regret  of  Columbus  on  his  death-bed  for  any 
injustice  to  the  Lady  Enriquez  is  purely  imaginary ; 
nor  did  he  make  any  will  on  the  eve  of  his  death. 


Don  Mig.  Salva. 


332  Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes. 

The  codicil  which  is  said  to  have  been  drawn  up  on 
May  19,  1506,  was  already  more  than  four  years 
old.*  Beatrice  Enriquez  had  married  Columbus  at 
Cordova,  while  she  was  in  the  flower  of  her  youth 
and  beauty,  and  her  lover  was  struggling  to  obtain 
a  recognition  from  the  Spanish  court,  a  poor,  white- 
headed,  and  unknown  foreigner.  When  he  was 
about  to  start  on  his  last  and  most  dangerous 
voyage,  the  Admiral  remembered  that  in  his  "act 
of  majoratus,"  whereby  he  had  long  ago  arranged 
the  temporal  future  of  his  heirs,  he  had  made  for 
Beatrice  no  provision  of  dowry.  This  act,  known 
to  the  sovereigns  and  the  Holy  See,  could  not  readily 
be  nullified  or  changed ;  hence  he  satisfied  his  con- 
science by  recommending  his  wife  to  the  care  of 
his  son,  and  he  did  not  deem  it  obligatory  to  inform 
the  world  of  his  reasons.  "They  who  discern  in 
these  words,"  says  Eoselly  de  Lorgues,  "an  avowal 
wrenched  from  the  remorse  of  Columbus  at  the 
terrible  moment  of  his  farewell  to  life,  forget 
the  date  of  this  will.  They  have  confused  the 
drawing  up  of  this  holographic  document  with  its 
presentation,  which  was  effected  four  years  later, 
on  the  eve  of  the  Admiral's  death.  From  certain 
words,  the  import  of  which  their  misconception  of 
this  grand  character  prevented  their  grasping,  they 
have  evolved  a  theory  of  an  illicit  relationship,  and 
of  a  sterile  remorse  at  the  supreme  moment.  The 
difference  of  the  dates  did  not  strike  them.    .    .    . 


t  "Col.  Dipl.,"  no  158. 


Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes.         333 

The  marriage  of  Columbus  with  the  Lady  Beatrice 
Enriquez,  demonstrated  by  so  many  logical  induc- 
tions, by  various  documents  and  other  proofs,  and 
recognized  by  his  descendants,  was  acknowledged 
by  him  under  his  own  hand,  five  years,  four  months, 
and  eighteen  days,  before  the  act  of  deposit  effected 
on  the  eve  of  his  death,  in  an  autographic  document 
which  has  happily  come  down  to  us."* 

The  class  of  writers  to  which  Prof.  Winsor  be- 
longs can  find  no  other  passages  in  the  career  of 
Columbus  which  ask  for  defensive  explanation.  It 
is  not  strange  that  they  should  make  the  most  of 
this  one;  for  Columbus  was  a  fervent,  practical, 
and  uncompromising  Catholic.  No  one  can  uphold 
the  Catholic  standard  as  he  did  without  becoming 
a  target  for  the  arrows  of  that  school  which,  until 
late  years,  almost  monopolized  the  historical  field 
in  English-speaking  lands,  and  in  all  where  the 
spirit  of  the  world  had,  through  noise  and  imper- 
turbable effrontery,  become  the  moulder  of  modern 
historical  opinion.  Columbus  could  not  be  spared 
by  the  calumniators  who  respected  not  even  the 
canonized  saints  of  God.  Did  they  not  charge  St. 
Cyril  of  Alexandria  with  deliberate  murder?  Had 
they  not  presented  St.  Clothilde  as  fuming  with 
blind  and  implacable  vindictiveness  ?  Was  not  the 
Blessed  Eobert  d'Arbrissel,  according  to  their 
account,  a  culpable  victim  of  crazy  hallucinations 
in  matters  of  morality?     And  had  they  not  dragged 


*  In  Introduction,  and  in  vol.  ii,  p.  382,  3d  edit.,  1869. 


334  Columbus  and  His  Alleged  Crimes. 

the  sweet  Maid  of  Orleans  from  her  pedestal  of 
glory,  and  besmirched  her  virgin-crown  with  the 
mud  of  fallen  womanhood?  No  genius,  they  said, 
could  be  a  practical  Catholic.  The  gentle  Fenelon, 
the  sublime  Mozart,  Fontenelle,  Cervantes,  Mon- 
tesquieu, and  Montaigne,  though  passing  as  Cath- 
olics, were  in  reality  freethinkers.  As  to  the  most 
universal  of  all  geniuses,  Dante,  was  he  not  a 
heretic  and  a  revolutionist?  And  the  grand  Savon- 
arola !  Even  the  merely  artistic,  if  they  were  truly 
artistic,  have  to  shake  off  the  trammels  of  Catholic 
practice.  Did  not  Raphael  die  of  amorous  excesses  ? 
Such  were  some  of  the  calumnies  with  which  the 
modern  dominant  historical  school  was  wont  to 
illustrate  its  theory  that  true  greatness  and  Cath- 
olicity were  incompatible.  But  they  are  losing 
much  of  their  force  in  our  day,  unless  with  the 
wilfully  obtuse ;  and  similar  charges  will  not  avail 
much  to  dim  the  glory  of  Columbus  the  Catholic. 


APPENDIX. 

When  our  essay  on  Bruno  and  Campanella  was 
written  (1889),  the  only  argument  which  could  be 
adduced  for  a  belief  in  the  apostate's  execution, 
was  found  in  the  letter  of  Schopp  to  Rittershausen ; 
and  so  many  and  so  convincing  were  the  reasons 
alleged  for  the  non-authenticity  of  this  document, 
that  we  felt  compelled  to  believe  that  the  unfor- 
tunate friar  was  burnt  merely  in  e^gy.  Two  years 
afterward,  however,  a  document  was  unearthed, 
which  renders  it  indubitable  that  Bruno  perished  at 
the  stake.  Among  the  many  institutions  of  mercy 
which  have  been  the  glory  of  the  Eternal  City  for 
centuries,  one  of  the  most  famous  is  that  of  the 
Confraternity  of  San  Giovanni  Decollato,  the  mem- 
bers of  which  devote  themselves  to  the  preparation 
of  the  capitally  condemned  for  a  happy  death.  For 
centuries  this  society  kept  an  exact  record  of  all  its 
unfortunate  clients.  Now,  in  the  "Journal"  of  the 
Provisor  of  the  Community,  which  contains  an  ac- 
count of  the  executions  attended  by  the  brethren 
from  May  14,  1598,  to  September  1,  1602,  the  inves- 
tigators appointed  by  the  Crispi  administration 
found,  after  the  fifteenth  line  of  page  87,  the  fol- 
lowing narrative :  "On  Thursday, February  16, 1600, 
at  two  hours  of  the  night,  it  was  intimated  to  our 

335 


336  Appendix. 

Company  that  in  the  morning  justice  was  to  be 
visited  upon  an  impenitent  friar.  Therefore,  at  six 
hours  of  the  night  the  Chaplain  and  the  Consolers, 
having  assembled  in  Sant'  Orsola,  and  having  gone 
to  the  prison  of  Torre  del  Nona,  and  entered  our 
chapel,  and  having  made  the  accustomed  prayers, 
the  condemned  apostate  friar,  Giordano  Bruni  (sic), 
a  native  of  Nola  in  Naples,  an  impenitent  heretic, 
was  introduced.  He  having  been  exhorted  by  our 
brethren  with  all  charity,  we  having  also  called  to 
the  work  two  Dominican  priests,  two  from  the  Gesu, 
two  Oratorians,  and  a  Hieronymite.  With  every 
mark  of  affection  and  with  much  erudition,  these 
priests  showed  the  miserable  man  his  many  errors, 
but  he  remained  fixed  in  his  accursed  obstinacy, 
confusing  his  intellect  with  a  thousand  perversities. 
His  determination  proving  invincible,  he  was  led  by 
the  Officers  of  Justice  to  the  Campo  di  Fiori,  and 
there  having  been  stripped  and  bound  to  a  stake, 
he  was  burned  alive,  our  Company  constantly  chant- 
ing the  Litanies,  and  the  Comforters  exhorting  him 
to  the  very  last  moment  to  abandon  his  obstinacy. 
But  he  finished  his  miserable  life  in  it." 

Thus  is  finally  settled  the  question  of  the  fate  of 
the  Philosopher  of  Nola.  There  need  be  ro  sus- 
picion cast,  great  though  be  the  temptation  to  do 
so,  upon  the  authenticity  of  the  decisive  document; 
for  although  the  unscrupulous  Crispi  presided  at 
its  delivery  from  the  bowels  of  oblivion,  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Confraternity  of  San  Giovanni  Decollato 
admitted  that  it  was  transcribed  from  their  records. 


Deacidified  using  the  Bookkeeper  process. 
Neutralizing  agent:  Magnesium  Oxide 
Treatment  Date:      tpp 

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