Kitabı oku: «A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 02», sayfa 9

AVIGNON

Avignon and its country are monuments of what the abuse of religion, ambition, knavery, and fanaticism united can effect. This little country, after a thousand vicissitudes, had, in the twelfth century, passed into the hands of the counts of Toulouse, descended from Charlemagne by the female side.

Raymond VI., count of Toulouse, whose forefathers had been the principal heroes in the crusades, was stripped of his states by a crusade which the pope stirred up against him. The cause of the crusade was the desire of having his spoils; the pretext was that in several of his towns the citizens thought nearly as has been thought for upwards of two hundred years in England, Sweden, Denmark, three-fourths of Switzerland, Holland, and half of Germany.

This was hardly a sufficient reason for giving, in the name of God, the states of the count of Toulouse to the first occupant, and for devoting to slaughter and fire his subjects, crucifix in hand, and white cross on shoulder. All that is related of the most savage people falls far short of the barbarities committed in this war, called holy. The ridiculous atrocity of some religious ceremonies always, accompanied these horrid excesses. It is known that Raymond VI. was dragged to a church of St. Giles's, before a legate, naked to the waist, without hose or sandals, with a rope about his neck, which was held by a deacon, while another deacon flogged him, and a third sung miserere with some monks – and all the while the legate was at dinner. Such was the origin of the right of the popes over Avignon.

Count Raymond, who had submitted to the flagellation in order to preserve his states, underwent this ignominy to no purpose whatever. He had to defend by arms what he had thought to preserve by suffering a few stripes; he saw his towns laid in ashes, and died in 1213 amid the vicissitudes of the most sanguinary war.

His son, Raymond VII., was not, like his father, suspected of heresy; but he was the son of a heretic, and was to be stripped of all his possessions, by virtue of the Decretals; such was the law. The crusade, therefore, was continued against him; he was excommunicated in the churches, on Sundays and holidays, to the sound of bells and with tapers extinguished.

A legate who was in France during the minority of St. Louis raised tenths there to maintain this war in Languedoc and Provence. Raymond defended himself with courage; but the heads of the hydra of fanaticism were incessantly reappearing to devour him.

The pope at last made peace because all his money had been expended in war. Raymond VII. came and signed the treaty before the portal of the cathedral of Paris. He was forced to pay ten thousand marks of silver to the legate, two thousand to the abbey of Citeaux, five hundred to the abbey of Clairvaux, a thousand to that of Grand-Selve, and three hundred to that of Belleperche – all for the salvation of his soul, as is specified in the treaty. So it was that the Church always negotiated.

It is very remarkable that in this document the count of Toulouse constantly puts the legate before the king: "I swear and promise to the legate and to the king faithfully to observe all these things, and to cause them to be observed by my vassals and subjects," etc.

This was not all. He ceded to Pope Gregory IX. the country of Venaissin beyond the Rhône, and the sovereignty of seventy-three castles on this side the same river. The pope adjudged this fine to himself by a particular act, desirous that, in a public instrument, the acknowledgment of having exterminated so many Christians for the purpose of seizing upon his neighbor's goods, should not appear in so glaring a light. Besides, he demanded what Raymond could not grant, without the consent of the Emperor Frederick II. The count's lands, on the left bank of the Rhône, were an imperial fief, and Frederick II. never sanctioned this exaction.

Alphonso, brother of St. Louis, having married this unfortunate prince's daughter, by whom he had no children, all the states of Raymond VII. in Languedoc, devolved to the crown of France, as had been stipulated in the marriage contract.

The country of Venaissin, which is in Provence, had been magnanimously given up by the Emperor Frederick II. to the count of Toulouse. His daughter Joan, before her death, had disposed of them by will in favor of Charles of Anjou, count of Provence, and king of Naples.

Philip the Bold, son of St. Louis, being pressed by Pope Gregory IX., gave the country of Venaissin to the Roman church in 1274. It must be confessed that Philip the Bold gave what in no way belonged to him; that this cession was absolutely null and void, and that no act ever was more contrary to all law.

It is the same with the town of Avignon. Joan of France, queen of Naples, descended from the brother of St. Louis, having been, with but too great an appearance of justice, accused of causing her husband to be strangled, desired the protection of Pope Clement VI., whose see was then the town of Avignon, in Joan's domains. She was countess of Provence. In 1347 the Provencals made her swear, on the gospel, that she would sell none of her sovereignties. She had scarcely taken this oath before she went and sold Avignon to the pope. The authentic act was not signed until June 14, 1348; the sum stipulated for was eighty thousand florins of gold. The pope declared her innocent of her husband's murder, but never paid her. Joan's receipt has never been produced. She protested juridically four several times against this deceitful purchase.

So that Avignon and its country were never considered to have been dismembered from Provence, otherwise than by a rapine, which was the more manifest, as it had been sought to cover it with the cloak of religion.

When Louis XI. acquired Provence he acquired it with all the rights appertaining thereto; and, as appears by a letter from John of Foix to that monarch, had in 1464 resolved to enforce them. But the intrigues of the court of Rome were always so powerful that the kings of France condescended to allow it the enjoyment of this small province. They never acknowledged in the popes a lawful possession, but only a simple enjoyment.

In the treaty of Pisa, made by Louis XIV. with Alexander VII., in 1664, it is said that, "every obstacle shall be removed, in order that the pope may enjoy Avignon as before." The pope, then, had this province only as cardinals have pensions from the king, which pensions are discretional. Avignon and its country were a constant source of embarrassment to the French government; they afforded a refuge to all the bankrupts and smugglers, though very little profit thence accrued to the pope.

Louis XIV. twice resumed his rights; but it was rather to chastise the pope than to reunite Avignon and its country with his crown. At length Louis XV. did justice to his dignity and to his subjects. The gross and indecent conduct of Pope Rezzonico (Clement XIII.) forced him in 1768 to revive the rights of his crown. This pope had acted as if he belonged to the fourteenth century. He was, however, with the applause of all Europe, convinced that he lived in the eighteenth.

When the officer bearing the king's orders entered Avignon, he went straight to the legate's apartment, without being announced, and said to him, "Sir, the king takes possession of his town." There is some difference between this proceeding and a count of Toulouse being flogged by a deacon, while a legate is at dinner. Things, we see, change with times.

AUSTERITIES

MORTIFICATIONS. FLAGELLATIONS

Suppose that some chosen individuals, lovers of study, united together after a thousand catastrophes had happened to the world, and employed themselves in worshipping God and regulating the time of the year, as is said of the ancient Brahmins and Magi; all this is perfectly good and honest. They might, by their frugal life, set an example to the rest of the world; they might abstain, during the celebration of their feasts, from all intoxicating liquors, and all commerce with their wives; they might be clothed modestly and decently; if they were wise, other men consulted them; if they were just, they were loved and reverenced. But did not superstition, brawling, and vanity soon take the place of the virtues?

Was not the first madman that flogged himself publicly to appease the gods the original of the priests of the Syrian goddess, who flogged themselves in her honor; of the priests of Isis, who did the same on certain days; of the priests of Dodona, named Salii, who inflicted wounds on themselves; of the priests of Bellona, who struck themselves with sabres; of the priests of Diana, who drew blood from their backs with rods; of the priests of Cybele, who made themselves eunuchs; of the fakirs of India, who loaded themselves with chains? Has the hope of obtaining abundant alms nothing at all to do with the practice of these austerities?

Is there not some similarity between the beggars, who make their legs swell by a certain application and cover their bodies with sores, in order to force a few pence from the passengers, and the impostors of antiquity, who seated themselves upon nails, and sold the holy nails to the devout of their country?

And had vanity never any share in promoting these public mortifications, which attracted the eyes of the multitude? "I scourge myself, but it is to expiate your faults; I go naked, but it is to reproach you with the richness of your garments; I feed on herbs and snails, but it is to correct in you the vice of gluttony; I wear an iron ring to make you blush at your lewdness. Reverence me as one cherished by the gods, and who will bring down their favors upon you. When you shall be accustomed to reverence me, you will not find it hard to obey me; I will be your master, in the name of the gods; and then, if any one of you disobey my will in the smallest particular, I will have you impaled to appease the wrath of heaven."

If the first fakirs did not pronounce these words, it is very probable that they had them engraved at the bottom of their hearts.

Human sacrifices, perhaps, had their origin in these frantic austerities. Men who drew their blood in public with rods, and mangled their arms and thighs to gain consideration, would easily make imbecile savages believe that they must sacrifice to the gods whatever was dearest to them; that to have a fair wind, they must immolate a daughter; to avert pestilence, precipitate a son from a rock; to have infallibly a good harvest, throw a daughter into the Nile.

These Asiatic superstitions gave rise to the flagellations which we have imitated from the Jews. Their devotees still flog themselves, and flog one another, as the priests of Egypt and Syria did of old. Among us the abbots flogged their monks, and the confessors their penitents – of both sexes. St. Augustine wrote to Marcellinus, the tribune, that "the Donatists must be whipped as schoolmasters whip their scholars."

It is said that it was not until the tenth century that monks and nuns began to scourge themselves on certain days of the year. The custom of scourging sinners as a penance was so well established that St. Louis's confessor often gave him the whip. Henry II. was flogged by the monks of Canterbury (in 1207). Raymond, count of Toulouse, with a rope round his neck, was flogged by a deacon, at the door of St. Giles's church, as has before been said.

The chaplains to Louis VIII., king of France, were condemned by the pope's legate to go at the four great feasts to the door of the cathedral of Paris, and present rods to the canons, that they might flog them in expiation for the crime of the king, their master, who had accepted the crown of England, which the pope had taken from him by virtue of the plenitude of his power. Indeed, the pope showed great indulgence in not having the king himself whipped, but contenting himself with commanding him, on pain of damnation, to pay to the apostolic chamber the amount of two years' revenue.

From this custom is derived that which still exists, of arming all the grand-penitentiaries in St. Peter's at Rome with long wands instead of rods, with which they give gentle taps to the penitents, lying all their length on the floor. In this manner it was that Henry IV., of France, had his posteriors flogged by Cardinal Ossat and Duperron. So true is it that we have scarcely yet emerged from barbarism.

At the commencement of the thirteenth century fraternities of penitents were formed at Perosia and Bologna. Young men almost naked, with a rod in one hand and a small crucifix in the other, flogged themselves in the streets; while the women peeped through the window-blinds and whipped themselves in their chambers.

These flagellators inundated Europe; there are many of them still to be found in Italy, in Spain, and even in France, at Perpignan. At the beginning of the sixteenth century it was very common for confessors to whip the posteriors of their penitents. A history of the Low Countries, composed by Meteren, relates that a cordelier named Adriacem, a great preacher at Bruges, used to whip his female penitents quite naked.

The Jesuit Edmund Auger, confessor to Henry III., persuaded that unfortunate prince to put himself at the head of the flagellators.

Flogging the posteriors is practised in various convents of monks and nuns; from which custom there have sometimes resulted strange immodesties, over which we must throw a veil, in order to spare the blushes of such as wear the sacred veil, and whose sex and profession are worthy of our highest regard.

AUTHORS

Author is a generic term, which, like the names of all other professions, may signify author of the good, or of the bad; of the respectable, or of the ridiculous; of the useful, or the agreeable; or lastly, the producer of disgusting trash.

This name is also common to different things. We say equally the author of nature and the author of the songs of the Pont Neuf, or of the literary age. The author of a good work should beware of three things – title, dedication, and preface. Others should take care of the fourth, which is writing at all.

As to the title, if the author has the wish to put his name to it, which is often very dangerous, it should at least be under a modest form; it is not pleasant to see a pious work, full of lessons of humanity, by Sir or My Lord. The reader; who is always malicious, and who often is wearied, usually turns into ridicule a book that is announced with so much ostentation. The author of the "Imitation of Jesus Christ" did not put his name to it.

But the apostles, you will say, put their names to their works; that is not true, they were too modest. The apostle Matthew never entitled his book the Gospel of St. Matthew; it is a homage that has been paid to him since. St. Luke himself, who collected all that he had heard said, and who dedicated his book to Theophilus, did not call it the Gospel of St. Luke. St. John alone mentions himself in the Apocalypse; and it is supposed that this book was written by Cerinthus, who took the name of John to give authority to his production.

However it may have been in past ages, it appears to me very bold in authors now to put names and titles at the head of their works. The bishops never fail to do so, and the thick quartos which they give us under the title of mandaments are decorated with armorial bearings and the insignia of their station; a word, no doubt, is said about Christian humility, but this word is often followed by atrocious calumnies against those who are of another communion or party. We only speak here, however, of poor profane authors. The duke de la Rochefoucauld did not announce his thoughts as the production of Monseigneur le dud de la Rochefoucauld, pair de France. Some persons who only make compilations in which there may be fine things, will find it injudicious to announce them as the work of A.B., professor of the university of – , doctor of divinity, member of this or of that academy, and so on. So many dignities do not render the book better. It will still be wished that it was shorter, more philosophical, less filled with old stories. With respect to titles and quality, nobody cares about them.

Dedications are often only offerings from interested baseness to disdainful vanity. Who would believe that Rohaut, soi-disant physician, in his dedication to the duke of Guise, told him that his ancestors had maintained, at the expense of their blood, political truth, the fundamental laws of the state, and the rights of sovereigns? Le Balafré and the duke of Mayenne would be a little surprised if this epistle were read to them in the other world. And what would Henry IV. say? Most of the dedications in England are made for money, just as the capuchins present us with salad on condition of our giving them drink.

Men of letters in France are ignorant of this shameful abasement, and have never exhibited so much meanness, except some unfortunates, who call themselves men of letters in the same sense that sign-daubers boast of being of the profession of Raphael, and that the coachman of Vertamont was a poet.

Prefaces are another rock. "The I is hateful," says Pascal. Speak of yourself as little as you can, for you ought to be aware that the self-love of the reader is as great as your own. He will never pardon you for wishing to oblige him to esteem you. It is for your book to speak to him, should it happen to be read among the crowd.

"The illustrious suffrages with which my piece has been honored will make me dispense with answering my adversaries – the applauses of the public." Erase all that, sir; believe me you have had no illustrious suffrages; your piece is eternally forgotten.

"Some censors have pretended that there are too many events in the third act; and that in the fourth the princess is too late in discovering the tender sentiments of her heart for her lover. To that I answer – " Answer nothing, my friend, for nobody has spoken-, or will speak of thy princess. Thy piece has fallen because it is tiresome, and written in flat and barbarous verse; thy preface is a prayer for the dead, but it will not revive them.

Others attest that all Europe has not understood their treatises on compatibility – on the Supralapsarians – on the difference which should be made between the Macedonian and Valentinian heresies, etc. Truly, I believe that nobody understands them, since nobody reads them.

We are inundated with this trash and with continual repetition; with insipid romances which copy their predecessors; with new systems founded on ancient reveries; and little histories taken from larger ones.

Do you wish to be an author? Do you wish to make a book? Recollect that it must be new and useful, or at least agreeable. Why from your provincial retreat would you assassinate me with another quarto, to teach me that a king ought to be just, and that Trajan was more virtuous than Caligula? You insist upon printing the sermons which have lulled your little obscure town to repose, and will put all our histories under contributions to extract from them the life of a prince of whom you can say nothing new.

If you have written a history of your own time, doubt not but you will find some learned chronologist, or newspaper commentator, who will relieve you as to a date, a Christian name, or a squadron which you have wrongly placed at the distance of three hundred paces from the place where if really stood. Be grateful, and correct these important errors forthwith.

If an ignoramus, or an empty fool, pretend to criticise this thing or the other, you may properly confute him; but name him rarely, for fear of soiling your writings. If you are attacked on your style, never answer; your work alone should reply.

If you are said to be sick, content yourself that you are well, without wishing to prove to the people that you are in perfect health; and, above all, remember that the world cares very little whether you are well or ill.

A hundred authors compile to get their bread, and twenty fools extract, criticise, apologize, and satirize these compilations to get bread also, because they have no profession. All these people repair on Fridays to the lieutenant of the police at Paris to demand permission to sell their drugs. They have audience immediately after the courtesans, who do not regard them, because they know that they are poor customers.

They return with a tacit permission to sell and distribute throughout the kingdom their stories; their collection of bon-mots; the life of the unfortunate Régis; the translation of a German poem; new discoveries on eels; a new copy of verses; a treatise on the origin of bells, or on the loves of the toads. A bookseller buys their productions for ten crowns; they give five of them to the journalist, on condition that he will speak well of them in his newspaper. The critic takes their money, and says all the ill he can of their books. The aggrieved parties go to complain to the Jew, who protects the wife of the journalist, and the scene closes by the critic being carried to Fort Evêque; and these are they who call themselves authors!

These poor people are divided into two or three bands, and go begging like mendicant friars; but not having taken vows their society lasts only for a few days, for they betray one another like priests who run after the same benefice, though they have no benefice to hope for. But they still call themselves authors!

The misfortune of these men is that their fathers did not make them learn a trade, which is a great defect in modern policy. Every man of the people who can bring up his son in a useful art, and does not, merits punishment. The son of a mason becomes a Jesuit at seventeen; he is chased from society at four and twenty, because the levity of his manners is too glaring. Behold him without bread! He turns journalist, he cultivates the lowest kind of literature, and becomes the contempt and horror of even the mob. And such as these, again, call themselves authors!

The only authors are they who have succeeded in a genuine art, be it epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, or philosophy, and who teach or delight mankind. The others, of whom we have spoken, are, among men of letters, like bats among the birds. We cite, comment, criticise, neglect, forget, and, above all, despise an author who is an author only.

Apropos of citing an author, I must amuse myself with relating a singular mistake of the reverend Father Viret, cordelier and professor of theology. He read in the "Philosophy of History" of the good abbé Bazin that no author ever cited a passage of Moses before Longinus, who lived and died in the time of the Emperor Aurelian. Forthwith the zeal of St. Francis was kindled in him. Viret cries out that it is not true; that several writers have said that there had been a Moses, that even Josephus had spoken at length upon him, and that the Abbé Bazin is a wretch who would destroy the seven sacraments. But, dear Father Viret, you ought to inform yourself of the meaning of the word, to cite. There is a great deal of difference between mentioning an author and citing him. To speak, to make mention of an author, is to say that he has lived – that he has written in such a time; to cite is to give one of his passages – as Moses says in his Exodus – as Moses has written in his Genesis. Now the Abbé Brazin affirms that no foreign writers – that none even of the Jewish prophets have ever quoted a single passage of Moses, though he was a divine author. Truly, Father Viret, you are very malicious, but we shall know at least, by this little paragraph, that you have been an author.

The most voluminous authors that we have had in France are the comptrollers-general of the finances. Ten great volumes might be made of their declarations, since the reign of Louis XIV. Parliaments have been sometimes the critics of these works, and have found erroneous propositions and contradictions in them. But where are the good authors who have not been censured?