书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
35302100000948

第948章

It reappears the last time in 1800, starting up in and taking firm hold of the magnificent, benighted imagination of the great Italian,[39] to whom the opportunity afforded the means for executing the grand Italian dream of the Middle Ages; it is according to this retrospective vision that the Diocletian of Ajaccio, the Constantine of the Concordat, the Justinian of the Civil Code, the Theodosius of the Tuileries and of St. Cloud reconstructed France.

This does not mean that he copies - he restores; his conception is not plagiarism, but a case of atavism; it comes to him through the nature of his intellect and through racial traditions. In the way of social and political conceptions, as in literature and in art, his spontaneous taste is ultra-classic. We detect this in his mode of comprehending the history of France; State historians, "encouraged by the police," must make it to order; they must trace it "from the end of Louis XIV. to the year VIII," and their object must be to show how superior the new architecture is to the old one.[40] "The constant disturbance of the finances must be noted, the chaos of the provincial assemblies, . . . the pretensions of the parliaments, the lack of energy and order in the administration, that parti-colored France with no unity of laws or of administration, being rather a union of twenty kingdoms than one single State, so that one breathes on reaching the epoch in which people enjoy the benefits of the unity of the laws, of the administration, and of the territory." In effect, he breathes ; in thus passing from the former to the latter spectacle, he finds real intellectual pleasure; his eyes, offended with Gothic disorder, turn with relief and satisfaction to majestic simplicity and classic regularity; his eyes are those of a Latin architect brought up in the "école de Rome."This is so true that, outside of this style, he admits of no other.

Societies of a different type seem to him absurd. He misconceives their local propriety and the historical reasons for their existence.

He takes no account of their solidity. He is going to dash himself against Spain and against Russia, and he has no comprehension whatever of England.[41] -This is so true that, wherever he places his hand he applies his own social system; he imposes on annexed territories and on vassal[42] countries the same uniform arrangements, his own administrative hierarchy, his own territorial divisions and sub-divisions, his own conscription, his civil code, his constitutional and ecclesiastical system, his university, his system of equality and promotion, the entire French system, and, as far as possible, the language, literature, drama, and even the spirit of his France, - in brief, civilization as he conceives it, so that conquest becomes propaganda, and, as with his predecessors, the Cesars of Rome, he sometimes really fancies that the establishment of his universal monarchy is a great benefit to Europe.

_____________________________________________________________________Notes:

[1] De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien régime et la Revolution." p. 64 and following pages, also p.354 and following pages. - "The Ancient Régime," p. 368.

[2] "The Revolution," I., book I., especially pp. 16, 17, 55, 61, 62-65. (Laffont I., 326, 354, 357 to 360.)[3] "The Ancient Regime," pp.- 36-59. (Laff. I. pp. 33-48.)[4] Ibid., pp. 72-77. (Laff. I. pp. 59 to 61.)[5] Ibid., pp. 78-82. (Laff. I. pp. 50-52)[6] Cf. Frédéric Masson, "Le Marquis de Grignan," vol. I.

[7] The Revolution," I., p. 161 and following pages; II., book VI., ch. I., especially p. 80 and following pages. (Laffont I. 428 to 444, 632 and II 67 to 69.)[8] Ibid., I., P.193 and following pages, and p.226 and following pages.(Ed. Laffont. I. 449 to 452, 473 to 481.)[9] "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I., 148 (in relation to the institution prefects and sub-prefects): "The perceptible good resulting from this change was the satisfaction arising from being delivered in one day from a herd of insignificant men, mostly without any merit or shadow of capacity and to who the administration of department and arrondissement had been surrendered for the past ten years. As nearly all of them sprung from the lowest ranks in society, they were only the more disposed to make the weight of their authority felt."[10] Guyot, "Répertoire de jurisprudence" (1785), article King: "It is a maxim of feudal law that the veritable ownership of lands, the domain, directum dominium, is vested in the dominant seignior or suzerain. The domain in use, belonging to the vassal or tenant, affords him really no right except to its produce."[11] Luchaire," Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers Capétiens," I., 28, 46. (Texts of Henry I., Philip I., Louis VI., and Louis VII.) "A divine minister." - (Kings are)"servants of the kingdom of God." - "Gird on the ecclesiastical sword for the punishment of the wicked." - " Kings and priests alone, by ecclesiastical ordination, are made sacred by the anointing of holy oils."[12] "The Revolution," III., p.94. (Laffont II, p. 75)[13] Janssen, "L'Allemagne à la fin du moyen age " (French translation), I., 457. (On the introduction of Roman law into Germany.) - Declaration of the jurists at the Diet of Roncaglia: "Quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem." - Edict of Frederick I., 1165: