Page images
PDF
EPUB

follow the thread of French and English history together, and briefly consider how much law overruled the strength of arms.

Philip the First's reign, taken upon the

But

whole, is glorious; that is, allowing the glory of a reign to be comprehended in the number of events which may be crowded into it, and also that some one of these events be of importance. In the reign of this king the first Crusade forms a memorable recollection. how blindly, rashly, was that war undertaken. Peter the Hermit's enthusiasm could lay down no law for prudence or managing action, and of five hundred thousand persons engaged, we question if any felt a holy zeal. To fight was the belle passion of that bloody age; and the first Crusade was certainly sufficiently sanguinary. Here was work for politicians rather than for a bigoted priest. When the latter think

of fighting they are too apt to quote Scripture,

forgetting that what we now can only hope for, was a certainty when it occurred. "Re

member David and Goliah!" exclaims the Divine. But does he remember that for some wise purpose of his unsearchable will, the Almighty determined that David should conquer, and told him so, whereas, now we cannot tell who is the David and who the Goliah. True, that Jerusalem seems rather to be the inheritance of the faithful than the unbeliever, but the rash impetuosity of that first Crusade damped the ardour of brave spirits by making them too soon conclude their course was desperate. The arrangements of politicians, the pros and cons for treaty or war, are essential as the very weapons with which the military defend themselves. And Peter the Hermit might have told his beads far better than send an army to the holy wars.

We do not absolutely defend the arbitrary

conduct of his contemporary, William the Conqueror, but we do not forget that laws which seem barbarous in 1847, were less so in 1066. We are perfectly aware that we shudder at the idea of the curfew bell, that the youngest child is struck with wonder at such a way of turning half our life literally into darkness. But be it not forgotten, that as late as Queen Elizabeth's time, four in the afternoon was quite a late dinner hour, and eight o'clock, in 1066, was not the time when the dessert is brought on the table.

William the Conqueror felt that law was the only power capable of making subjects the pupil, the sovereign the master; and as the justice or tyranny of each law in its form is not our present discussion, so we leave to other pens the task of stigmatizing the Conqueror by a harsher name.

Louis the Sixth of France is the next who

Louis

claims our attention; the difference between his reign and that of his father's is singularly striking. Right being stronger than might, is fully exemplified by the contrast. gave permission to the cities to purchase their freedom, by which they became corporate bodies. The conduct of judges and governors was submitted to severe scrutiny, the mayors no longer exercised that unlimited sway which might have been termed republicanism under the cloak of a king. That enlightened statesman the Abbé Suger reformed the whole monarchy, and the king himself regarded the high situation he held as one of sacred responsibility. With him conscience mixed itself with power, and heaven's justice reigned through the mortal king! His contemporary and rival, Henry the First of England had consderable abilities, but his moral conduct was rather a slave to a powerful, but ill-directed, mind, than the well

trained discipline of the highest gift of man,his searching intellect. The Beauclerc of the age was the murderer of his brother; and the might of bodily courage which kept the foreign enemy at bay, was under no law of that right of equality which forbids mortal man tyrannizing over the life of his fellow-creature. Philip Augustus of France and Richard Cœur de Lion of England are powerful examples to bear out our principle. Both brave, both rash, both obstinate, and both possessing high abilities; still their lives were spent in a continued struggle, the jealousy of actual strength was the vaulting ambition of bothan ambition which can only be sustained by an equal sway of rule and courage: the latter was the dominant passion in the breasts of both kings; but the monarch of a realm must unite the thoughts of a civilian to the courage of a warrior, or else he is but one individual

« PreviousContinue »