Society was saved by the negation of its own principles, by a revolution in its religion, and by violation of its most sacred rights.In this revolution, the idea of justice spread to an extent that had not before been dreamed of, never to return to its original limits.Heretofore justice had existed only for the masters; it then commenced to exist for the slaves.
Religion, laws, marriage, were the privileges of freemen, and, in the beginning, of nobles only.Dii majorum gentium--gods of the patrician families; jus gentium--right of nations;that is, of families or nobles.The slave and the plebeian had no families; their children were treated as the offspring of animals.BEASTS they were born, BEASTS they must live.
Nevertheless, the new religion at that time had borne by no means all its fruits.There was a perceptible improvement of the public morals, and a partial release from oppression; but, other than that, the SEEDS SOWN BY THE SON OF MAN, having fallen into idolatrous hearts, had produced nothing save innumerable discords and a quasi-poetical mythology.Instead of developing into their practical consequences the principles of morality and government taught by The Word of God, his followers busied themselves in speculations as to his birth, his origin, his person, and his actions; they discussed his parables, and from the conflict of the most extravagant opinions upon unanswerable questions and texts which no one understood, was born THEOLOGY,--which may be defined as the SCIENCE OF THE INFINITELY ABSURD.
The truth of CHRISTIANITY did not survive the age of the apostles; the GOSPEL, commented upon and symbolized by the Greeks and Latins, loaded with pagan fables, became literally a mass of contradictions; and to this day the reign of the INFALLIBLE CHURCH has been a long era of darkness.It is said that the GATES OF HELL will not always prevail, that THE WORDOF GOD will return, and that one day men will know truth and justice; but that will be the death of Greek and Roman Catholicism, just as in the light of science disappeared the caprices of opinion.
The monsters which the successors of the apostles were bent on destroying, frightened for a moment, reappeared gradually, thanks to the crazy fanaticism, and sometimes the deliberate connivance, of priests and theologians.The history of the enfranchisement of the French communes offers constantly the spectacle of the ideas of justice and liberty spreading among the people, in spite of the combined efforts of kings, nobles, and clergy.In the year 1789 of the Christian era, the French nation, divided by caste, poor and oppressed, struggled in the triple net of royal absolutism, the tyranny of nobles and parliaments, and priestly intolerance.There was the right of the king and the right of the priest, the right of the patrician and the right of the plebeian; there were the privileges of birth, province, communes, corporations, and trades; and, at the bottom of all, violence, immorality, and misery.For some time they talked of reformation; those who apparently desired it most favoring it only for their own profit, and the people who were to be the gainers expecting little and saying nothing.For a long time these poor people, either from distrust, incredulity, or despair, hesitated to ask for their rights: it is said that the habit of serving had taken the courage away from those old communes, which in the middle ages were so bold.
Finally a book appeared, summing up the whole matter in these two propositions: WHAT IS THE THIRD ESTATE?--NOTHING.WHAT OUGHTIT TO BE?--EVERY THING.Some one added by way of comment:
WHAT IS THE KING?--THE SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE.
This was a sudden revelation: the veil was torn aside, a thick bandage fell from all eyes.The people commenced to reason thus:--If the king is our servant, he ought to report to us;If he ought to report to us, he is subject to control;If he can be controlled, he is responsible;If he is responsible, he is punishable;
If he is punishable, he ought to be punished according to his merits;If he ought to be punished according to his merits, he can be punished with death.
Five years after the publication of the brochure of Sieyes, the third estate was every thing; the king, the nobility, the clergy, were no more.In 1793, the nation, without stopping at the constitutional fiction of the inviolability of the sovereign, conducted Louis XVI.to the scaffold; in 1830, it accompanied Charles X.to Cherbourg.In each case, it may have erred, in fact, in its judgment of the offence; but, in right, the logic which led to its action was irreproachable.The people, in punishing their sovereign, did precisely that which the government of July was so severely censured for failing to do when it refused to execute Louis Bonaparte after the affair of Strasburg: they struck the true culprit.It was an application of the common law, a solemn decree of justice enforcing the penal laws.
If the chief of the executive power is responsible, so must the deputies be also.It is astonishing that this idea has never occurred to any one; it might be made the subject of an interesting essay.But I declare that I would not, for all the world, maintain it; the people are yet much too logical for me to furnish them with arguments.
