Volume III Part 11 (2/2)

True, some men of genius have been seen under the diadem; but the evil is then even greater: the ambition of such a man impels him to conquest and despotism, his subjects soon have to lament his glory, and sing their _Te-deums_ while peris.h.i.+ng with hunger. Such is the history of Louis XIV. and so many others.

But if ordinary men in power repay you with incapacity or with princely vices? But those who come to the front in monarchies are frequently mere mean mischief-makers, commonplace knaves, petty intriguers, whose small wits, which in courts reach large places, serve only to display their inept.i.tude in public, as soon as they appear. (*) In short, monarchs do nothing, and their ministers do evil: this is the history of all monarchies.

But if Royalty as such is baneful, as hereditary succession it is equally revolting and ridiculous. What! there exists among my kind a man who pretends that he is born to govern me? Whence derived he such right?

From his and my ancestors, says he. But how could they transmit to him a right they did not possess? Man has no authority over generations unborn. I cannot be the slave of the dead, more than of the living.

Suppose that instead of our posterity, it was we who should succeed ourselves: we should not to-day be able to despoil ourselves of the rights which would belong to us in our second life: for a stronger reason we cannot so despoil others.

An hereditary crown! A transmissible throne! What a notion! With even a little reflexion, can any one tolerate it? Should human beings then be the property of certain individuals, born or to be born? Are we then to treat our descendants in advance as cattle, who shall have neither will nor rights of their own? To inherit government is to inherit peoples, as if they were herds. It is the basest, the most shameful fantasy that ever degraded mankind.

It is wrong to reproach kings with their ferocity, their brutal indifference, the oppressions of the people, and molestations of citizens: it is hereditary succession that makes them what they are: this breeds monsters as a marsh breeds vipers.

* J. J. Rousseau, Contrat Social.--Author.

The logic on which the hereditary prince rests is in effect this: I derive my power from my birth; I derive my birth from G.o.d; therefore I owe nothing to men. It is little that he has at hand a complacent minister, he continues to indulge, conscientiously, in all the crimes of tyranny. This has been seen in all times and countries.

Tell me, then, what is there in common between him who is master of a people, and the people of whom he is master? Are these masters really of their kind? It is by sympathy that we are good and human: with whom does a monarch sympathize? When my neighbor suffers I pity, because I put myself in his place: a monarch pities none, because he has never been, can never be, in any other place than his own.

A monarch is an egoist by nature, the _egoist par excellence_. A thousand traits show that this kind of men have no point of contact with the rest of humanity. There was demanded of Charles II. the punishment of Lauderdale, his favorite, who had infamously oppressed the Scotch.

”Yes,” said Charles coolly, ”this man has done much against the Scotch, but I cannot see that he has done anything against my interests.” Louis XIV. often said: ”If I follow the wishes of the people, I cannot act the king.” Even such phrases as ”misfortunes of the State,” ”safety of the State,” filled Louis XIV. with wrath.

Could nature make a law which should a.s.sure virtue and wisdom invariably in these privileged castes that perpetuate themselves on thrones, there would be no objection to their hereditary succession. But let us pa.s.s Europe in review: all of its monarchs are the meanest of men. This one a tyrant, that one an imbecile, another a traitor, the next a debauchee, while some muster all the vices. It looks as if fate and nature had aimed to show our epoch, and all nations, the absurdity and enormity of Royalty.

But I mistake: this epoch has nothing peculiar. For, such is the essential vice of this royal succession by animal filiation, the peoples have not even the chances of nature,--they cannot even hope for a good prince as an alternative. All things conspire to deprive of reason and justice an individual reared to command others. The word of young Dionysius was very sensible: his father, reproaching him for a shameful action, said, ”Have I given thee such example?” ”Ah,” answered the youth, ”thy father was not a king!”

In truth, were laughter on such a subject permissible, nothing would suggest ideas more burlesque than this fantastic inst.i.tution of hereditary kings. Would it not be believed, to look at them, that there really exist particular lineages possessing certain qualities which enter the blood of the embryo prince, and adapt him physically for royalty, as a horse for the racecourse? But then, in this wild supposition, it yet becomes necessary to a.s.sure the genuine family descent of the heir presumptive. To perpetuate the n.o.ble race of Andalusian chargers, the circ.u.mstances pa.s.s before witnesses, and similar precautions seem necessary, however indecent, to make sure that the trickeries of queens shall not supply thrones with b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, and that the kings, like the horses, shall always be thoroughbreds.

Whether one jests or reasons, there is found in this idea of hereditary royalty only folly and shame. What then is this office, which may be filled by infants or idiots? Some talent is required to be a simple workman; to be a king there is need to have only the human shape, to be a living automaton. We are astonished when reading that the Egyptians placed on the throne a flint, and called it their king. We smile at the dog Barkouf, sent by an Asiatic despot to govern one of his provinces.(*) But mon-archs of this kind are less mischievous and less absurd than those before whom whole peoples prostrate themselves. The flint and the dog at least imposed on n.o.body. None ascribed to them qualities or characters they did not possess. They were not styled 'Father of the People,'--though this were hardly more ridiculous than to give that t.i.tle to a rattle-head whom inheritance crowns at eighteen.

Better a mute than an animate idol. Why, there can hardly be cited an instance of a great man having children worthy of him, yet you will have the royal function pa.s.s from father to son! As well declare that a wise man's son will be wise. A king is an administrator, and an hereditary administrator is as absurd as an author by birthright.

* See the first year of La Feuille Villageoise, No. 42.-- Author. [Cf. Montaigne's Essays, chap. xii.--_Editor._]

Royalty is thus as contrary to common sense as to com-mon right. But it would be a plague even if no more than an absurdity; for a people who can bow down in honor of a silly thing is a debased people. Can they be fit for great affairs who render equal homage to vice and virtue, and yield the same submission to ignorance and wisdom? Of all inst.i.tutions, none has caused more intellectual degeneracy. This explains the often-remarked abjectness of character under monarchies.

Such is also the effect of this contagious inst.i.tution that it renders equality impossible, and draws in its train the presumption and the evils of ”n.o.bility.” If you admit inheritance of an office, why not that of a distinction? The n.o.bility's heritage asks only homage, that of the Crown commands submission. When a man says to me, 'I am born ill.u.s.trious,' I merely smile; when he says 'I am born your master,' I set my foot on him.

When the Convention p.r.o.nounced the abolition of Royalty none rose for the defence that was expected. On this subject a philosopher, who thought discussion should always precede enactment, proposed a singular thing; he desired that the Convention should nominate an orator commissioned to plead before it the cause of Royalty, so that the pitiful arguments by which it has in all ages been justified might appear in broad daylight. Judges give one accused, however certain his guilt, an official defender. In the ancient Senate of Venice there existed a public officer whose function was to contest all propositions, however incontestible, or however perfect their evidence. For the rest, pleaders for Royalty are not rare: let us open them, and see what the most specious of royalist reasoners have said.

1. _A king is necessary to preserve a people from the tyranny of powerful men_.

Establish the Rights of Man(1); enthrone Equality; form a good Const.i.tution; divide well its powers; let there be no privileges, no distinctions of birth, no monopolies; make safe the liberty of industry and of trade, the equal distribution of [family] inheritances, publicity of administration, freedom of the press: these things all established, you will be a.s.sured of good laws, and need not fear the powerful men.

Willingly or unwillingly, all citizens will be under the Law.

1 The reader should bear in mind that this phrase, now used vaguely, had for Paine and his political school a special significance; it implied a fundamental Declaration of individual rights, of supreme force and authority, invasion which, either by legislatures, law courts, majorities, or administrators, was to be regarded as the worst treason and despotism.--_Editor._

2. _The Legislature might usurp authority, and a king is needed to restrain it_.

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