But generally we see proof of the prodigious action of Catholicity in rendering strict, virtuous, and holy the character of the advocate. When secular honours were attached to the profession in France, the knight of laws was required to swear that he would never use his insignia in profane occupations, but in maintaining the rights of the Church and the Christian faith, and in the service of learning. The French lawyer, on being inscribed on the roll of advocates, engaged never to undertake just and unjust causes alike, without distinction, nor maintain any with tricks, fallacies, and misquotations; he was not to set too high a price upon his services; he was not to lead a dissipated life, or one contrary to the modesty and gravity of his calling. He was not, under pain of being disbarred, to refuse his services to the indigent and oppressed. In the Mirroir des Justices, written in the reign of Edward II., it is laid down that a pleader or lawyer must be a person “ receivable in judgment ; no heretic, nor excommunicate man. He is to be charged by oath that he will not maintain nor defend what is wrong or false to his knowledge; he is to put in before the court no delays nor false evidence, nor move nor offer any corruptions, deceits, nor consent to any such." In fine, Catholicity has inscribed on sacred dypticks, enrolled among her holy pontiffs, the names of men who followed this profession: Ives de Kaermartin being canonized as a saint, and Gui Foucault, after gaining celebrity as an advocate, having been advanced to the triple crown as Pope Clement IV. Catholicity could even bend forensic manners to the charity of the Gospel. Many faithful lawyers have been noted as great almoners. Matthieu Chartrier used to put into the poor-box every month one hundred francs out of the fees that he received; Guy Coquille, Sieur de Romenay, gave in charity the tithe of his professional income-il décimoit son gain mis en bourse pour les pauvres honteux; and Manquin used to bestow upon the poor the fees he gained upon certain days *. We may remark, too, that Catholicity produced within those walls appropriated to judicial study men of conscience so delicate, and honour so exalted, that they would inflict on themselves the penalty which might be awarded unjustly to a client when they could not save him. Such men are found to this day in France one of them, known personally to the stranger, whom with regret, for obvious reasons, he forbears to name; but Boulogne boasts of him as her deputy. Spain and Italy, as holy dypticks tell, had men whose piety not even such practice could satisfy; therefore some withdrew altogether from secular courts, and others confined their ministry to wise counsels and pacific Ap. Forsyth, Hortensius. remonstrance, leaving to all an example of every virtue. The father of Marina de Escobar was one of the latter class. James of Escobar, of the city of Rodriguo, was advocate in the royal chancellery of Valladolid, and professor of civil and canon law; but he would not act as a lawyer-eo quod esset quam timoratissimæ conscientiæ, as the venerable Father Lewis de Ponte said. He only lectured therefore, and showed himself an example to the scholastic youth, of modesty, gravity, tranquillity, and moderation. He wrote out the following rules for his own life. "For the first thing, when I rise in the morning, I will say my prayers and invoke the blessed Virgin, and repair to mass, and on festivals to the sermon, which I will hear attentively_and devoutly, beseeching God to give me grace to serve Him. I resolve, wherever I may be, not to consent to murmurings, to prevent and reprove swearing, to give good advice, to pardon offences, and, above all, to suffer and bear with equanimity injuries, afflictions, and adversities; also daily to visit some sick person and console him, and assist him as far as I am able; to visit the afflicted for the sake of comforting them; to follow the dead to their burial; to give alms with cheerfulness to every one who asks from me; to receive to hospitality the poor wanting a lodging whom I may chance to find on the roads and public places, and to give them food, and drink, and clothing, considering that I receive thus into my house Christ, whom the poor man represents-to take care that no one leaves me sad and desolate, but rather joyful and refreshed; to wear sackcloth or a rope next my flesh, to take the discipline once a week, to fast not only on the prescribed days, but also on the vigil of every feast of the blessed Virgin, and, if I can, on the Fridays; to endeavour, as far as I can, to hinder litigation, and to apply myself diligently to that study, not to act tyrannically with litigators, to speak to them courteously and in a friendly manner; to dictate scholastic readings for the advantage of my pupils; in fine, to contemplate the life and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ; to be grateful to God for the benefits I receive from Him, and to love Him for his goodness *." Methinks it is needless to pursue this road farther. We might observe how Catholicity invested the judicial character, and that of the advocate, with even a secular dignity; and, indeed, without laying stress on the early imperial edicts which admitted those who had exercised the profession to the order of counts of the first rank, and amongst the clarissimi of the state †, it is impossible not to be struck with the honours enjoyed by advocates in France under the old Catholic monarchy. "No where," says an English author, "has the profession of the law * Vit. Ven. Virg. Marinæ, lib. i. c. 1. VOL. IV. + Cod. ii. tit. vii. 8. E achieved for itself a prouder position than in France in former times." But this dignity must not be separated from the manners which belonged to that nobility of the robe, and it is in observation of their super-eminence under the influence of Catholicity that our investigations on this road should end. If men are not attracted by the character which Catholicism and divine faith impart to legal studies and to legal administration, let them retrace their steps, and they will have many now to accompany them; thinking that Catholicity is put down, and, as a celebrated French philosopher said to an English brother, that it should be kept down; but what a contrast will be unfolded by the objects then in view! by the manners then substituted; by the associates with whom they will then be united! for the men of the old Gentile type, the Crassus's and Hortensius's, who availed themselves of forgery; the men of the Satanic type, who produce false laws and false authorities; the men of the old persecuting mediæval type, the "anticipators of the reformation," still abound. In the outset we have observed a few-genus infinitum. These are the guides who will talk of the severity, and barbarism, and hardness of the ancient tribunals. Ah! yes; their's indeed would now sound as a hard voice to many, including even some strange peers of England, who propose the example of a diseased or rather mad democracy, to the monarchies of Europe-Dura vox, dura vox; but much harder, nevertheless, is that which now re-echoes through the world-Salvi sint improbi, scelerati, impii : deleantur innocentes, honesti, boni, tota respublica. And what a contrast in the promises which entice them from Catholicity! the promises of the new advocates who fill the ranks of every insurrection against what was most sacred, as the ancient orator says, injure those who expect as well as those who promise-Nos-libertatem, jura, leges, judicia, imperium, dignitatem, pacem, otium pollicemur. What are the promises of these men? Cruenta, tætra, scelerata, Deo hominibusque invisa, nec diuturna nec salutaria; nostra contra, honesta, integra, gloriosa, plena lætitiæ, plena pietatis +. Would you seek another alternative, and appeal to the justice and order of the tribunals, which have only cast off their allegiance to the Catholic Church? Vain subterfuge. Protestantism, by abolishing the papal authority, prepared the way not alone for a return of the Pagan civilization, confounding the two powers, the separation of which was precisely the grand work of Christendom, but by the license of opinions resulting from that abolition, it left society defenceless and unarmed, except as far as the influence of old habits could extend, so that the question becomes not alone how the maintenance of law and the administration of *Forsyth, Hortensius, or the Advocate. + Cicero, Phil. viii. justice between individuals and nations can be secured, but whether the end of our debates will be the preservation or the overthrow of civilization itself. CHAPTER II. THE ROAD OF WARRIORS. USTITIÆNE prius mirer belline laborum? The passage at least is short by a cross-path from the last to the present road. The forest has its labours of enmities. It is the ancient naturalist who remarks how war is found between its trees. The oak and the olive maintain, he says, such a pertinacious hatred for each other, that they die if planted in the same trench. Mortal enmity exists also between the vine and certain plants †. The forest has its associations with the war of men, though one might suppose at first that under the shade of these boughs, at least, all was peace; since, as Possevin says of the rustics in Sweden, men travelling through such regions carry axes instead of swords; and even soldiers cannot use lances, so that the very constitution of royal armies is modified by the forest; for he says of the army in that country, "Pauci ob sylvarum densitatem hastati ." The living timber, however, can at all events recall the memory of war. The yew, wych-hazel, ash, or laburnum, can remind us of the time when every Englishman, and Irishman dwelling with Englishmen, was directed by Edward IV. to have a bow of his own height, made of such wood; and these noble walnut trees we know are always in great danger when a war breaks out in modern times, which leads to governmental orders for providing fresh stocks of fire-arms. These different trunks correspond thus with the progress of destructive inventions. The poets of old, indeed, associated certain trees with war, as the ash, that once was held to be ennobled by the spear of Achilles; and the cornel tree, of which Virgil says These reeds, too, delighting, as Pliny remarks, in cold and watery * En. xi. 126. Plin. N. H. xxiv. 1. Possevin, Suetiæ Narratio ap. Thierier La Suède et le St. Siège. § Georg. ii. 447. places, as in the stagnant pools within the forest, where stags and roebuck quench their thirst, were once deemed as necessary to the purposes of war as to those of peace and grateful delight; "for with reeds," he observes, "the Easterns make war; to reeds they add the irrevocable noxious hook. It is with feathers added to these reeds that they hasten death; it is with these arms they obscure the sun; it is on account of these that they chiefly desire serene days, and that they hate winds and showers, which compel them to be at peace with one another*." The forest has also its trophies of war associated with the name of kingdoms; for the title of Aragon did not always belong to all that region of Spain, but "Suprarbiensis Regni” was the name which it obtained, from the red cross that appeared over an oak tree in the great battle fought in 724, when Garsias Eximinus I. vanquished the army of the Moors, and became the first of the seven kings of Sobrarbe, who subsequently governed part of Navarre, under that name, until it was united to the county of Aragon, which thenceforth gave its name to the whole territory +. Moreover, the forest has its incidents, which correspond no less with thoughts of war. We hear of one woody region in which many ancient graves were discernible, at a vast open tract, where, in the few oak trees scattered here and there over the plain, huge eagles had built their nests, the beating of whose heavy wings as they fought together, and their wild screams, were heard far off beyond the wilderness. Within yon forest is a gloomy glen. Each tree, which guards its darkness from the day, waves over a warrior's tomb. The forest has, besides, its glimpses occasionally of the recent consequences of human war— "There tracks of blood, Even to the forest's depth, and scatter'd arms, And lifeless warriors, mark the dreadful path." Every track through the forest may be said to have its sanguine stain, for " Super omnes vias deserti venerunt vastatores terræ ." Dante seems to have in mind such traces, when saying, "We, while he spake, ceased not our onward road." Still passing through the wood * Id. xvi. 65. + Hieron. Blanca, Aragon. Rerum Comment. 15. Hieron. § Infern. 4. |