y good master looked sorrowfully at the flowing water, an image of this life, where all things pass and nothing changes. He pondered for some time and then continued in a low voice:
"That point is of itself, my son, an insurmountable perplexity to me, that it is needful that justice should come from judges. It is clear that they are interested in finding guilty the man whom they at first suspected. Esprit de corps, so strong among them, pushes them to it, and so you may see throughout their procedure how they brush aside the defence as importunate, and only allow it a hearing when the prosecution has donned its arms and composed its countenance, and has, in fact, contrived to assume the air of the Goddess of Wisdom. By professional feeling they are inclined to see guilt in every accused person, and their zeal appears so alarming to certain European nations that, in important cases, they give them the help of twelve men, drawn by lot. Whereby, it appears, blind chance is a better guarantee of the life and liberty of the accused than can be the enlightened conscience of a judge. It is true, however, that these bourgeois magistrates, drawn by lot, are kept out of the affair, of which they see but the outside pomp and show. And it is also true that, ignorant of the law, they are not called upon to apply it, but to decide merely, in one word, whether it is a case for applying it. It is said that this kind of assize results sometimes in absurdities, but that the nations who have instituted it are attached to it as a kind of very precious safeguard. I willingly believe that. And I understand their accepting decrees given in such fashion, which may be inept or cruel, but at least whose absurdity and barbarity cannot be imputed to one person, so to speak. Iniquity seems bearable when it is incoherent enough to appear involuntary.
"The little official of a moment ago, who had such a feeling for justice, suspected me of taking the side of thieves and assassins. On the contrary, I disapprove so strongly of theft and murder that I cannot endure even the authorised copy of them by the law, and it is painful to me to observe that judges have found no better way to punish rogues and homicides than by imitating them; for in truth, Tournebroche my son, what is fine or execution, save theft and murder, perpetrated with majestic punctiliousness? And do you not see that, notwithstanding all its splendour, our justice only attains to the shameful revenge of evil for evil, misery for misery; and to the doubling of crimes and sins for the sake of equilibrium and symmetry? It is possible, in the carrying out of this duty, to exercise a certain probity and disinterestedness. One may show oneself a l'Hospital as well as a Jeffreys, and for my part I know a magistrate who is an honest fellow enough. But to return to the principle of the thing, I have wanted to show the true character of an institution which the pride of the judges and the terror of the people, vying with each other, have clothed in borrowed majesty. I have wanted to show the humble origin of these codes they wish to make august, and which are in reality but an odd heap of expedients.
"Alas! laws emanate from man; a poor and miserable origin. They are mostly born of occasion. Ignorance, superstition, the pride of princes, the interests of the legislator, caprice, fantasy—these are the sources of the great body of the law, which becomes worthy of veneration when it is no longer intelligible. This obscurity that envelops it, thickened by the commentators, gives it the majesty of the oracles of old. I hear on all sides, and I read in every paper, that nowadays we make laws fitting for the circumstance and the occasion. That is the view of the short-sighted, who fail to see that it is but following an immemorial custom, and that in all times laws have resulted from some chance thing. We complain also of the obscurity and contradiction into which legislators continually fall. And we fail to note that their predecessors were equally dense and confused.
"In actual fact, Tournebroche my son, laws are good or bad less by their nature than in the way we use them, and such and such a provision, extremely wicked though it be, does no harm if the judge does not put it into force. Custom is stronger than law. Refinement of manners, gentleness of mind, are the only remedies one can reasonably bring for legal barbarity. For to correct laws by laws is to take a lengthy and uncertain road. Centuries alone undo the work of centuries. There is little hope that a French Numa will meet one day in the forest of Compiègne, or among the rocks of Fontainebleau, with another nymph Egeria, who shall dictate wise laws to him."
He gazed for long on the hills which showed blue on the horizon. His air was grave and sad. Then, laying his hand gently on my shoulder, he spoke to me in accents so profound that I was touched to the depths of my soul. He said:
"Tournebroche, my son, you see me, all at once, wavering and embarrassed, stammering and stupid, at the mere notion of correcting what I find detestable. Do not think this timidity of mind. Nothing may give pause to the audacity of my thought. But note well, my son, what I now say to you. Truths, detected by the intelligence, will for ever remain sterile. The heart alone can fertilise its dreams. It pours the water of life on all it loves. Seeds of good are sown in the world by the feelings. Reason has no such virtue. And I confess that up to now I have been too reasonable in my criticism of laws and manners. And so this judgment will fall without fruit, and wither as a tree bitten by April frosts. To help mankind one must throw aside all reason as an encumbrance, and rise on the wings of enthusiasm. So long as we reason we shall never soar."
[1] (Monsieur Jean Lacoste wrote in the Gazette de France of May 20, 1893): Monsieur l'Abbé Jérôme Coignard is a priest full of knowledge, humility and faith. I do not say that his conduct was always an honour to his bands or that his robe was unstained. But if he succumbs to temptation, if the devil has in him an easy prey, he never loses confidence; he hopes by God's grace to fall no more, and to reach the glories of Paradise. And, in fact, he affords us the spectacle of a very edifying death. Thus a grain of faith beautifies life, and Christian humility well becomes our human weakness.
Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard, if he be not a saint, perhaps deserves purgatory. But he deserves the fire a very long time, and has run risk of hell. For in his acts of humility, though sincere, there was scarcely any repentance. He reckoned too much on the grace of God, and made no effort to help the workings of grace. That is why he fell back into his sin. Thus faith availed him little, and he was nearly a heretic, for the holy council of Trent, by its canons VI. and IX. in its sixth session, declared all those anathema who pretend "that it is not in the power of man to give up his evil ways" and who have such reliance on faith that they think faith alone can save them "without any motion of the will." Thus the divine mercy extended to Abbé Coignard is truly miraculous and beyond ordinary channels.
[2] This has been very favourably received, Monsieur Hugues Rebell having admitted that there is such a thing as a charitable scepticism. Referring, not, it is true, to the opinions of Monsieur Coignard, but to some writings drawn from the same source, he has made some remarks of which I may avail myself here:
"An interesting vein of thought might be followed up after reading this work, furnishing, as it does, some valuable teaching: I may be permitted some reflections on it:
"1. The organisation of a particular society does not depend on individual wills, but on the compulsion of nature, or to put it more simply, on the unanimity of the more intelligent beings of which that society is composed who inevitably choose the most agreeable rule of life:
"2. Mankind at any one period, having the same organic constitution and passions as mankind at any other period, can never have entirely differing institutions. It results from this that a political revolution is no more than a rotatory movement, round the ancient ways, which ends where it began; it is just a disease, an interruption in human development. And the result of this law is that all societies live and die in the same way."
Hugues Rebell in l'Ermitage, April 1893.
Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard simply says that a people is not susceptible to more than one form of government at the same period.
[3] A stipendiary magistrate.
[4] Vide post, p. 174.
[5] Monsieur Baiselance or Baisselance, succeeded Montaigne, considerably later, as Mayor of Bordeaux. [A. F.]
[7] The geometry of which Jacques Tournebroche speaks is decorated with designs by Sebastien Leclerc which I, on the contrary, admire for their precise elegance and delicate exactitude, but one must endure contradiction (Anatole France).
[8] It is a priest speaking thus (Anatole France).
Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard, lived under the old régime. In those days it was said that the French Academy had the merit of establishing perfect equality between its members, an equality not recognised in law. Nevertheless, it was destroyed in 1793 as "the last refuge of aristocracy."
[10] He means the bishop whom the king had appointed distributor of ecclesiastical patronage.
[11] The king was protector of the Academy.
[12] It is true that the Academy condemned this expression:
[13] In those days the Academy awarded no prizes.
[14] I have not found this Mr. Rockstrong mentioned in the memoirs relating to Monmouth's Rebellion. (Anatole France.)
[15] In the time of Abbé Coignard the French already thought themselves free. The sieur d'Alquié wrote in 1670:
"Three things make a man happy in this world, to know the charm of intercourse, dainty meats, and liberty, perfect and entire. We have seen in what way our illustrious kingdom has fulfilled the two first, so it remains for us merely to show that the third is not lacking to it, and that liberty is no less a fact than the two preceding advantages. The thing will appear true to you if, to start with, you will consider attentively the name of our state, the matter of its foundation, and its usual customs: for one sees at the start that the name of France means nothing else than Franchise or liberty, conformably to the designs of the founders of this monarchy, who, having noble and generous souls, and being unable to bear either slavery or the least servitude, resolved among themselves to throw off the yoke of all kinds of captivity and to be as free as men may be; this is why they came to the land of the Gauls, which was a country whose people were neither less warlike nor less jealous of their Franchise or liberty than they themselves were. As to the second point, we know that beyond the inclinations and plans they had in founding this state, they were always their own masters; they made laws for their sovereign which, limiting their powers, still preserved their privileges to them, in such wise that if anyone wishes to deprive them of them, they become enraged and rush to arms with such speed that nothing can hold them back when this point is involved. As to the third point, I declare that France is so enamoured of liberty that she cannot endure a slave, so that Turks and Moors and still less Christian people, may never wear irons nor be loaded with chains once in her country, and thus it comes about, that when slaves come to be in France they are no sooner on her territory than, full of joy, they cry: Long live France and her beloved liberty!"
Les délices de la France ... by François Savinien d'Alquié, Amsterdam 1670.
Chapter XVI. entitled "France is a land of freedom for all sorts of people."
[16] The institution styled lit de justice, bed of justice.
Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.