few Germans All these different sorts of Soldiers may be used as necessity and the conjuncture of Affairs requires The Romans did so It is true by their Treaties of Alliance they always obliged their Allies to send them a certain number of Soldiers but these were not incorporated with their Legions and it is clear that Subjects are ever best of Subjects Gentlemen have ordinarily more courage than others Of Plebeians those of the Country are to be preferred before the Inhabitants of Cities because Peasants are more accustomed to Labour and Hardship than Townsmen are Auxiliary Troops serve but for a time and often when some continuation of service is demanded of them they impose hard conditions Mercenaries will have Money and care not if a State be ruin'd so themselves are paid In fine Strangers may on the suddain change Interests and Party so of Friends becoming Enemies and that in occasions of greatest importance Mercenaries above all do serve without affection and seldom stand it out in Fight unto the utmost They push on a Victory indeed but scarce ever win a Battel In short Strangers should be as little made use of as possible and scarce for any other cause but that Enemies might be deprived of their Aid When Strangers only are taken into Service the Subjects grow less War-like and the most considerable of them despise War as is done in Spain and extreamly ill done The Carthaginians were ruined principally by the fault they committed in employing Numidian Troops and other Strangers and not sending out their own Citizens in their Armies I will not here speak of the Art of War 't is a matter that deserves a Chapter apart Yet I will say cursorily that the Rules of it change as Time and Seasons do We neither attack Places nor defend them in the very manner that the Ancients did There is also a great deal of difference between their way of fighting and ours so that they had not the Arms which we now use All of precept for the leading of an Army that faileth not nor changeth is that Discipline be exercised wherein Commanders should never be remiss The only School of War is War it self and twenty Years experience will better make a great Captain than an hundred Years Reading Not but that we have examples of General Command given to persons who never were in Armies afore There are elevated Spirits to whom nothing is impossible but the instances are rare and 't is too too hazardous a course to rely upon them For a Captain must have not only spirit and courage but also credit with his Soldiers which cannot be gotten but by service In fine it is necessary for a great State to keep War on foot and Men of Quality must be employed in it to the end there may always be a stock of good Soldiers and a breed of Generals These two things give a Nation marvellous advantages and esteem among Foreigners Though France now be a most powerful Monarchy by means of its Extent of its Scituation the Fruitfulness of the Soil the Number of its Inhabitants and though greatest States have not always most strength as biggest Men are not always stoutest yet were it to be wish'd that the King did add unto his Kingdom First all the Low Countrys to the Rhyne This Conquest would re-settle Him in possession of the ancient demain of His Predecessors giving France gain its primitive limits It would make him Master of the Northern Seas and by consequence Arbitrator between the Crowns of Sweden and Denmark Poland c. Conquest must be aspired to out of a thirst of Empire being an unjust thing if we believe Aristotle for I would not determine but that the right of War were a very lawful right consonant to what I have said in the beginning of this Chapter but the desire of Conquest should principally be for the doing of good to all Men which is the end why GOD gave them Laws The more Subjects and Power a just Prince hath the better will it be for the World Secondly It were convenient that the King had Strasbourg to keep all Germany quiet In the third place He need have the Franche County to lay a restraint upon the Suisses least dividing themselves between the Empire and France or serving Spain in a War there they strengthen his Enemies In the fourth place Milan is necessary in respect of Italy to give the lesser Sovereigns and Republiques protection and ballance the Power which the King of Spain hath usurp'd there In the fifth place Genoa and all its Territory pertains to the King nor would the Genoese have revolted had it not been for the bad counsel given to Francis the First to discontent Doria Genoa would make the King Master of the Mediteranean Sea beside those two Acquisitions would keep the Duke of Savoy lock'd up within French Territories So he would never depart from the King's Service being entirely His dependant We must re-enter the Isle of Elba and into Portolongone and Piombino on the continent to drive the Spaniards out of Italy Here our nearness would keep the Duke of Florence the Dukes of Parma of Modena and of Mantua and even the State of the Pope in a submission for France Corsica would not stand out after the reduction of Genoa and then Sardinia would be no difficult Conquest This would strongly favour any stirs on the account of Liberty or Discontent that might be raised in the Kingdoms of Sicily and Naples nor would it be an hard matter to raise them in time On the Coast of Bayonne there would be need of Fuentaravia and those parts of the Kingdom of Navarr which the Spaniards have in possession might be justly re-demanded The King might also carry His Arms into Catalonia we have ancient pretensions there and the Conquests of it would be no less easily atchieved than it was in the time of the last War Majorca and Minorca would follow without trouble Thus the King would be absolute Umpire of the Mediterranean and of all the fortune of the Spaniards If it should happen one day that the Queen or Her Descendants should have an Hereditary Right there the King would be in a condition to do Himself reason in these matters The means of making these Conquests severally cannot be shewed without particular discourses Mean time what I have said is not in truth to be done in a day it would be an enterprise of many years Yet there is nothing of meer fancy it it I propose no Conquest to be made but what hath really been made except that of the Isles of the Mediterranean which our Kings never minded for that before Charles the Eighth they never were in case to strengthen themselves at Sea Bretagnie was separted from the Kingdom the Wars of Italy took up every Reign unto Henry the Second Then follow'd the affairs of Religion which put a stop to all the designs that might have been formed in this behalf Here one thing
discreetly 't is not enough that you regulate their Lives and their comportment at home but their ease and well-being must be secur'd against strangers abroad and principally against their Neighbors Now Interest being the prime motive unto all States we ought to consider other Nations either in quality of Friends or in that of Enemies ever accounting of them according to the advantage we may receive from them or the damage they may do us As they on their part take no thought of us but in proportion to what they fear or to what they hope for from our Arms. Besides to treat safely with Forreigners it is necessary that we know their Designs their Strength their Alliances their Temper and their Country Forasmuch then as Spain shareth with us at this time the Concerns of all Europe and there is not a Power in Christendom but hath Alliance with the one or the other of these two Crowns it is meet we examine in the first place what measures we are to observe with the Spaniards The Council of Spain proceeds with a great deal of slowness but always with a great deal of Evenness and since the House of Austria put it in their head to get the Dominion over all Europe the said Council hath continually steered the same course The end which these States-men have propos'd to themselves has been Tyrannical and Unjust and the means they have made use of to attain it bad destrustive and ill-adjusted which the declining of their Affairs doth evidently demonstrate Our Enemies are always Allies of theirs either covertly or openly and declared just in like manner as they who chuse the King's Protection and to be interessed with France will be Enemies of Spain The Emperor is Leagu'd with the Catholick King by Consanguinity and moreover by reasons of State For We are cause of fear to the Empire on the North and towards Germany as We are to Spain on the South and towards Italy Of all the other Princes the Duke of Bavaria seems fastest knit to the House of Austria and the Pope would perhaps be of the Party did not his Dignity of being the common Father of Christians withhold Him and if He as a Temporal Prince did not also apprehend some Irruption on our part Spain is a Country yielding little increase either for that the Ground is barren or because the Inhabitants neglect to cultivate it The discovery of the West-Indies and the expulsion of the Moors have dispeopled it Flanders and the places in Italy are a charge to Spain in time of War and what is rais'd there doth scarce suffice to maintain the Armies and Garisons Their Government is hard and ill to be endured because they are inflexibly severe and the Monks whose depravation is there at the highest pitch and Inquisitors do under pretext of Religion exercise incredible grievances The Spaniards are valiant for their Persons but Men of Quality despise the Military Profession as heretofore the Carthaginians did and the name of Soldier is in a manner ignominious with them They are Idlers and prefer Pleasure and a Gallantry before any thing be it ever so important or of greatest consequence The King of Spain hath little Money and much expense to defray The vanity of the Viceroys and Governors of His places doth spend Him above measure The Spaniards are presumptuous haughty and provided there be Honour done them you may treat advantageously with them Charles V. had reason to say that the Spaniards seem to be wise but are not Their Forces are not at all to be feared we ruin'd them in the late War and the Affairs of Portugal have hindred their recovering them The Minority of their King the Discontent of Don John and the pretensions of some Lords upon the particular Kingdoms which compose the Spanish Monarchy augment its weakness Sicily might easily make Insurrection The Neapolitans upon a pretext of Liberty such a darling in Italy would set up for themselves if they had succors and perhaps a new Pope would favour our designs there if he were made to see that it would be no impossibility for him to make some person of his Family King of Naples or joyn that Kingdom to the State of the Church of which he is possess'd already If ever the Spaniards be attacked it must be done with force and all at once in Flanders in Italy in Spain it self on the Sea and on the Coast of Portugal This is the best method for the French Such a general effort would produce two effects The First is that the Spanish Partisans would be astonish'd having no Forces ready to make resistance The Second that all their Enemies would resume Vigor and might set on foot again their pretensions against them If a through Conquest be intended we must not do as was done in the last War must not make it our business to take all their fortifi'd places one after another or to keep them when taken But this is a matter fit to be discours'd of by it self As for Portugal it 's a State yet under age and not throughly setled to us a perpetual instrument for weakning the Spaniard France hath nothing to fear on that side It would do well to convey covertly some Troops or sums into the Country and above all give secretly great hopes unto the French that are in service there if they made any important enterprises upon Spain which would divert their Forces It would I say do very well to order some Soldiers thither and 't were to be wish'd there were so many French in Portugal that the Partisans might not dare to make a Peace with Spain for fear of having those same French for Enemies The Queen of Portugal who is French both by Birth and by Affection may bear up this Interest and She may be told that there is a necessity of it on Her part and that Her Fortune depends upon it It must be accounted on in all Treating with the Spaniards that they are every whit as foolish as they seem to be The Pope the Venetians and all the Princes of Italy are of one and the same temper The Italians are wise and circumspect nor should we but very seldom enter into Negotiation with them To reduce them to our intentions we must work by down-right force they are weak and as I have said Wise they are people for Pleasure their Country is the beautifullest and best in the World consequently they love it and know their Interest they are able to foresee and fear the ill that may betide them The Pope will ever consider France by reason of the County of Avignon of the consequences of the Concordat of 1618. and because of the Jansenists The Venetians are weakned by their War with the Turk the Dukes of Mantua of Modena and of Florence and the Genoese can do nothing that 's considerable The Duke of Savoy must never separate from France We have the entrance into his Estates and a War with us but of
confers them as a distribution made to His Creatures and that He may cause them by sensible means to experiment His Goodness The Magnificence of a Man renders him considerable if his Spirit in it be Great and Heroick But it is not enough to have spoken of that which constitutes Felicity we must take some account of the means which conduce unto it Nature Constancy and Reason do contribute to endue us with Virtue The two former do enrich the Mind and dispose it to receive Virtue then Reason being cleared by the light of Precepts makes it spring up and cultivates it Of all Precepts those of greatest efficacy are the Political which being indeed Laws do command and oblige Men to obey in a manner blindly necessitating and constraining us to live well whether we will or no. 'T is upon this ground it hath been said That there lies no servitude at all in submitting to the power of the Law and that it 's the proper act of Men truly free to reduce their inclinations and subject their practice to the same Forasmuch as the conforming of Life and Manners to the impulses of Virtue which is always right always uncorrupt is in truth a setting our our selves at full liberty and an enfranchisement from the Empire of importunate and irregular Passions But of these general Theses enough It is time at length to enter upon the subject which occasion'd my taking up the design of this present Treatise CHAP. III. 1. Of the French Monarchy 2. Of the Situation and Quality of France 3. Of the Nature of the French THE Monarchick Government doth not more excell other Governments than the French Monarchy doth all other Monarchies on Earth It is hereditary and for Twelve whole Ages there hath been seen Reigning from Male to Male upon the Throne of France the August Posterity of Meroue of Charlemagne and of Hugh Capet For it is exactly proved that these three Races of our Kings are Branches issued out of the same Stock This very Succession so Legitimate as it hath been and so long continued makes at present the surest foundation of the welfare of the State and carries in it Splendor Reputation and Majesty Indeed to how many Ills are Elective Kingdoms exposed How many Cabals How many Complottings and in truth Wars are kept on foot by so many different agitations The one and the other Roman Empire and the Kingdom of the Poles do administer sensible proofs of this Opinion If the Spartans heretofore did draw so great an advantage from the Honour they had to be commanded by Princes of the Blood of Hercules The French have far greater cause to glory since in the Catalogue of His Majesties triumphant Ancestors there may be counted an hundred Heroes greater than Hercules himself Is there a Monarch in the World whose just power is more absolute than that of our King and by consequent is there a Monarchy comparable to the French Monarchy It is necessary that the power of a good King be not confin'd within other bounds than Reason and Equity do prescribe otherwise there will ever be division between Princes and People to the ruin of them both What a disorder would it be in Man if the Eye or Hand should fail of following the impulses of the Soul this disobeying and rebellious Member would prove dead or seized with a Palsie If then the whole Body should fall into an universal revolt against the Spirit of Man all the Symmetry the Order and oeconomy would be utterly defaced Thus the Subjects in a Monarchy once ceasing to yield their King a full Obedience and the King ceasing to exercise His Soveraign Authority over them the Political Ligatures are broken the Government is dissolved by little and little all is reduced to extream calamities and oft-times to Anarchy and an annihilation Such are the inconveniencies that occur in Royalties of the Lacedemonian kind where the Prince hath but a limited Authority and if all that England suffer'd in the late times were pourtray'd here it would be easie to observe of what importance it is unto the felicity of a Monarchy that the Prince do in it command without restriction In fine the obedience of instrumental parts as those of Organical Bodies and the Subjects of a State is of so indispensible a necessity that the common good and conservation of that Whole which they compose depends upon it In Democracies even the most tumultuous and disorderly all must bow under the Will of the multitude though blind ignorant and seduced in like manner the parts of the Bodies of Brutes must act by their motions though they be in rage and madness And the reason of this necessity is that the Body and the Soul which is the form thereof are but one indivisible Whole so a King and Subjects are together but one whole that is one State In fine the French Monarchy is accompanied with all the mixture that can be desired for a compleat and perfect Government The Counsellors of State do compose an excellent Oligarchy in it The Parliaments and other Officers of Judicature do form an Aristocracy The Provosts of Merchants the Mayors the Consuls and the General Estates do represent rarely well limited Democracy so that all the different modes of governing by Laws being united in the Monarchy do render it as excellent and consummate as Reason can propose The Regality of France is therefore of the Oeconomick kind in which the King hath an absolute power in his State as the Father of a Family in his House and though he govern at His pleasure and without contradiction it is always for the good of His Kingdom even as the Master of an House does Rule it with an entire Authority and incessantly provides for the accommodating of this Family There is nothing Despotical nor Barbarous in France as in the States of the Moscovites and Turks In short our Laws are Holy and Equitable to a greater degree than in any Common-wealth that ever was and they are conceived with so much prudence and judgement that they are apt to make the People happy in the gentle times of Peace and enable them to triumph in the occasions of War The Situation and Compactness of France are known to all the World so that it would be a needless labour should I here expatiate to shew the Beauty and Richness of our Grounds and of our Rivers or declare how we abound in Wine in Corn in Silk in Wools in Cloth in Wood in Cattle in Salt in Mines and in Money how necessary we are to our neighbours and to what degree we may forego their Succors and their Merchandise I might justly be accus'd of a fondness for superfluous Discourse if I should particularly consider all these great advantages and as much if I should speak of the pureness of the Air and the incredible number of Inhabitants the most ignorant having a full and an assured knowledge of ' em I shall only say that it need not
for a Seal At the beginning these Letters which the Popes thus sent were but simple Letters of favour and recommendation but it hapning that the Chapters reverenced them and that here and there at least one who had obtained them was chosen all pretenders to Bishopricks came to believe that it was necessary to obtain them Thus what was at first but as hath been said a recommendation became at length a point of right and duty Such was its Rise Now this being certain there may be use made of the example and thus when a considerable Benefice should be vacant the King might order that a Letter be written to the Patron and some Person recommended to his Nomination There is no cause to doubt but the Patron will Nominate whom His Majesty hath thus recommended so that insensibly it will grow a Custom to take the King's recommendations as otherwhile persons did those of the Popes and as the Bulls became at length necessary for Bishopricks and Abbies so the King's Letters shall become necessary for all sorts of Benefices and He render Himself Master of all Church-men The King in this will have sufficient reason because He being Protector of Religion which is the prime Pillar of every State it is His interest to know whether they that shall be provided of Benefices be Orthodox and of good Life lest they spread some bad Doctrine among the people for Heresies and Scandals do cause division in the Common-wealth as well as Schisms in the Church Besides it concerns the tranquillity of the State that Curates who have the direction of Consciences be well-inclin'd for the good of the Kingdom and ready to keep particulr Persons in their duty To descend now unto the case of the Monastick Religious and find out a way for rendring them useful to the State to take them off from that laziness and loathsome beggery in which they live as also reduce them to such a number as may be proportionate to other ranks of men in the Kingdom It is to be noted that there are three sorts of Monasticks The first is made up of the Orders of S. Augustin S. Benedict S. Bernard and Premonstrey These are they that possess the bulkie riches of the Church I mean the Abbies and Priories The second sort comprehends the Carthusians the Minimes the Coelestins the Feuillans and some others who possess Goods with propriety and beg not but by Toleration The third kind is that of the meer Mendicants who subsist by Alms as do the Jacobins the Cordeliers the Carmelites and their branches that is the Reform'd as they term 'em who are issued from them These notwithstanding their Vow of Monastick Poverty yet are not destitute of some foundations but they plead for themselves that the Pope is Proprietor of the Goods they do but take the Profits which certainly is a vain and frivolous subtilty The Female Religious being comprised under these three kinds there is no need to make of them a separate Article There are too to many Monks It s an abuse so prejudicial to the Kingdom that the King can no longer dissemble it it is time to take it seriously and effectually in hand For Monks live in single state they raise no Families get no Children and so are barren grounds that bring forth no fruit to the Crown Beside the blind obedience by which they are tyed to the pleasure of the Pope doth form a foreign Monarchy in the very bowels of France and into it they train along the credulous people which is a thing of very great consequence This Politie is founded on the abusive and pernicious Maxims of Rome which too are purely Political For that the obedience which Monasticks give the Pope is Religious there is no colour to pretend nor is there a Christian but sees what his duty binds him to in this case and is altogether subject to his Holiness in Doctrinals without need of making particular vows to oblige him The name of Religion in the matter is but a phantasm and a false pretext which the Court of Rome assumeth to augment its Temporal Power and to have its creatures in all quarters By consequence the abuses ought to be retrenched as was done by Charlemagne in his time and sundry other great Kings But for the effecting of this I should not at all advise that the attempt be openly made For that would be to draw upon the undertakers the importune clamours of all the Monks and their Zealots nay to draw Rome upon their backs which might cost them some trouble In fine it would be to draw on them the People who are ever fond of Novelties that surprise them or are prejudicial to them and always averse to those which they have foreseen and are profitable for them 'T is therefore by-ways that must be taken The first which seems to me fit to be pitcht upon would be to require of the Monastick Communities that they dispatch Missions unto America and the Indies to convert the Salvages and administer the Holy Sacraments to Christians The Monks who are commonly imprudent will strain to set forth the greatest number of their fraternity they possibly may in hope to make considerable Establishments thus there will be forwardness enough to embarque The present juncture is advantageous for this design For they are charged with more Persons than they are able to maintain Charity being evidently cooled toward them A second means may be to debar them the conversation of Women It is scandalous to see Religious Men receive visits from them in Churches and there in presence of the Holy Sacrament spend whole Afternoons with them For remedy it might be ordained that they should have Parlours where Women might go to consult them The thing is a point of deceney and Parlours the Carthusian Friars and all Nuns generally have The third means might be that the Fathers of such as enter into Religion should pay an Annual Pension to the Order by way of Alms during their Sons life which is the practice in Spain This Pension some will say causeth in Spain an huge multiplication of Monks But 't is not the Pension that fills the Cloisters in that Country 't is the licence the Monks have to do what they please In France they are not upon such Terms A fourth means is to oblige the Monasticks to abide in their Convents and not go abroad but very rarely and for urgent affairs so do the Carthusians A fifth to embroil the Monks with the Bishops for which they are sufficiently disposed A sixth to prohibit that Children of Sixteen when as yet they know not what they do bind not themselves by Vows which engage them for the whole remainder of their lives but remit that Ceremony till their 22d year of Age. The seventh means would be to suppress that Congregation as they call it among Monastick persons as for instance there are the Congregations of S. Maur and command that the Religious who make profession in
an house do there fix not coursing from Lower Britannie for example unto Paris nor incessantly changing as their wont is unless some indispensible necessity does oblige to such changes The Carthusians keep in their houses and run not from place to place Nuns do the same The Voyages of Monks and all their transmigrations have no other end but to get an universal acquaintance Beyond all this it may be declared to the Monks at least its a thing that should be done in its season how that the King understands not their Monastick Profession does Exempt them from his Jurisdiction Thus the Orders being purged from their impurities will resume their ancient Iustre and be true Seminaries of Doctrine and Sanctity In fine no person will doubt but the King may take cognisance of all that concerns the external Policy of the Church because this is in such sort annexed to the Government of States that not a Patriarch nor even the Pope himself can make any regulation of it without His Majesties consent That reason of State which presseth for a retrenching of the number of Monks does also reflect upon Nuns and that with the more Justice because the greatest part of young Women who become Votaries are driven thereunto by the violence of their kindred There will never want just means to hinder this abuse from having a longer course As for instance Young Women may be declared incapable of making vows before 22 years of age at the least It may be enacted that they never shall be Professed i. e. setled of the Order in the Convent where they have had their Education either as Pensionaries or Novices This would be well enacted For oft-times the Nuns in hope to the gainers by their Portions do flatter the silly Maidens and persuade 'em to live with them All kind of humane iuducements must be remov'd and the inspirations of the Holy Ghost left to their full operation It may again be ordained that Recluses do take no Money as a Portion but only simple Pensions yearly for life and those likewise cautiously limited A Law too may be made that the Goods which might fall to a Daughter from her Parents and her collateral Kindred should at their Decease fall to the State and the King by representation be invested with the same Right to the Goods of the deceased as this Daughter had had to recompence the Publick for the loss sustained by a Recluse being incapacitated to raise a Family Further a general Regulation might be made of all Marriages of young Women with due respect had to the quality of each of 'em in particular and it might be ordered that in case any of them would take up a Religious life they should carry as much with them into Religion as into the Married state For if the Order was that Daughters becoming Votaries should have less Portions than those that Married Fathers so hugely covetous they are would compell them to the Cloister But when they shall find no profit in taking this course they will rather chuse to dispose of them in Marriage and make Alliances by that means This subject inclines me to say summarily that the moderating of Portions is a piece of the ancient Civil Law of the French and of divers other Nacions in which Daughters had nothing at all Thence it is as we see in the Customs that a Nobleman is licensed to Marry his Daughter with a Nosegay of Roses and she becomes disabled to pretend to any other Portion provided the Match be suitable and fitting This moderation is necessary Forasmuch as the vast wealth which is given to Daughters in Marriage does incommode the richest Houses Moreover Gentlemen themselves would no more contract undue Alliances and so the Nobility recover their ancient esteem Young Womens Birth their Beauty their Discretion their Virtue and their Ability in the management of Domestick Affairs would be to them instead of Wealth They would make it their care to lay up a rich Stock of so many precious things that perhaps it may one day come to pass that Men will as heretofore they did give Money to have Wives whereas at present Women do so to purchase Husbands I have spoken here of Marriages occasionally I am well aware that the Matter ought to be reserved for another Chapter To conclude it s a great ingredient of the Glory of a King to honour the Holy See to love and protect the Bishops to maintain the Gallican Church in its Liberties never suffer that any propositions be advanced any way that may wound the Authority of the Canons and employ all the rigor of his Ordinances a gainst persons who shall have the rashness to publish a suspected or erroneous Doctrine Additions to CHAP. IV. 1. That Bishops ought to be near the King 2. Of the Pension to be paid the Order for a Monk enter'd 3. Monasticks cannot Alienate therefore neither sell a Rent-charge 4. They shall not have power to purchase I Have affirmed Chap. 4. That Bishops are obliged by Command of GOD unto residence This is true yet forasmuch as they are also the Kings Subjects and Royal Dignity requireth that his Majesty have Bishops about him as the Roman Emperors after Constantine had it is fit to ordain That each Bishop be at Court Three Months every year attending His Majesty to Honour Him during which time they may negotiote their Affairs and the rest of the year abide fix'd in their Diocesses the King assigning to each of them the Months in which their presence will be needful In the same Chapter I have said That to prevent the vast number of Monks it should be ordained that the Parents of such as enter into an Order should pay an annual Pension to that Order during the persons Lives The effect of this Law would be that such a Pension being a Monachal Right in form of Clericature given by Act of State they that would have Revenue enough to be Monasticks would have enough to be Secular Priests And so persons whose Devotion should incline them to take Orders and Consecrate themselves unto GOD would rather chuse to remain Seculars than shut themselves up in a Cloister all the remainder of their Lives Now the more to fortifie this Law it should be added That Bishops make no more Priests upon the Title of Poverty upon Penalty of maintaining them The reason against it as to Secular Priests being as strong in reference to Regulars because it is no less a disparagement to the Clergy that a Priest Monk do beg and fall into extream poverty which may happen than that one of the other rank do so It is manifest that Monastick communities have no power to Alienate any thing and that Monks do daily re-enter into their Estates which they possessed heretofore Hence it follows that neither can they charge them with any Rents for Money taken up Forasmuch as by these kind of Contracts they Mortgage their Lands but to engage an Estate in such
a manner is to make a kind of Alienation 'T is a fetch of the Benedictine Monks to take up Money for Rent to be paid by them that so they may appear always poor and have pretexts to solicite the liberality of devout People also that they may have Protectors for the greater number of their Creditors is the greater is the number of persons interessed in their conservation Yet there is nothing more unjust than this Custom For there are Monastick Communities that owe more than all their Goods moveable and immoveable are worth The Monks care not though their House be ruin'd nor though they ruine some of their Creditors provided themselves subsist For by passing from one Convent to another they are quitted of all the Debts they have created It greatly concerns the Publick to Prohibit these kind of Contracts that Monasticks may be kept from defrauding any Man for the future and to decree that the Contractor shall pay the Rents Contracted for and they bound to do it both all in common and each of them in particular then that the Notaries be Fined and Declared incapable of bearing any Office Or if insolvent condemned to the Gallies for 101 years Moreover that the Purchasers of such Rents shall for their part pay a Mulct of 3000 Livres to His Majesty and the principal Money be converted to His use Besides it would be very fit to require all Notaries all Creditors of Monasticks and the Monasticks themselves to make Declaration of the Sums and Rents charged upon them bring in the Contracts for the same before Commissioners nominated by the King to be Registred and this within a time expresly limited which being once pass'd no more shall be received and all Contracts not Registred remain null and as if they were cleared This course would be very severe but excellent to reduce the folk of the Cloister to Reason There is an important Observation to be made too namely That all the Contracts which Church men have made are utterly null unless their Creditors can make it appear that the Money they lent did turn to the profit of the Church and that there was an authentick permission to make such Contracts This Doctrine is a point of Law for the Church is ever a Minor and all that it possesseth hath come from the liberality of particular persons without whose consent or at least the Magistrates and such as are capable of it the Ecclesiasticks can make no alterations in the Estates they have received So that the King may not only forbid Contracts for the future but also Declare those to be dissolved which have been made heretofore and discharge the Monasteries of them Debts have been annulled for less reasons often It must likewise be prohibited to Monks and to the Church to purchase any Estate in Land or High-rents upon pain of such Contracts being null and void in Law and the Sellers and Notaries incurring the forementioned penalties Our Lords the Prelates have lately bethought them and resolved to compell such Gentlemen as have Chappels in their Houses where the Sacrifice of the Mass hath been at any time performed to profane the said Chappels or endow them with Land for the maintenance of a Priest This would be a means to gain the Church more than Two hundred thousand Livres of Rent at one blow wherefore it will be fit to Ordain that this enterprize of the Bishops do not take effect except in case of Chapels built hereafter and built for other persons CHAP. V. 1. Of the Hugonots and whether it be for the good of the State to put them out of France 2. Politick means to extirpate their Heresie 3. Of their ancient Confession of Faith A King cannot have a more Illustrious Object of his Cares and Application than the preserving of that Religion which he hath received from his Ancestors in the States he governs because diversity of Belief of Divine Service and of Ceremony doth divide his Subjects and breeds Animosities among them Whence arise Contentions War and in the end an universal defiance Unity of belief on the contrary knits Men together and 't is seldom seen but that Fellow-subjects who call upon GOD in one and the same Temple and offer at the same Altars do also fight with the same Arms or under the same Banners If this Maxim be generally true in Christian Politicks and the Religion we profess the only one as it is that we can savingly embrace the Princes are obliged to maintain it with all their Might and employ that Soveraign Power for the Glory of the true GOD which they hold of his Goodness The Pagans whose particular conduct was so prudent and just and who have left us so many Examples of wisdom and virtue made it their principle not to suffer in their Republicks any novelty that thwarted the common and popular belief and they adher'd so peremptorily unto it that they would not so much as permit any man to undeceive them of their Errors The Books of Numa Pompilius which had been found near his Grave and contained the ancient Religion of Rome the Senate caused to be burnt because the Praetor Rutilius who had been commission'd to read them affirmed upon Oath That the Contents of e'm tended to subvert the Religion which the People observed at that time They refus'd even to open their eyes unto the light of truth though known to them when they apprehended it would be novel to the people They rather chose to stick to Fables which length of years had consecrated among them and the multitude was through custom addicted to Thus too the Athenians thought they did an act of necessary Justice in condemning Socrates to death for having taken on him to persuade the people that there was but one only GOD. They knew however that in truth this Philosopher was the Wonder of his time the Honour of the City and of all Greece the discerning men amongst them were convinc'd of the solidity of this Doctrine and the Sect of the Stoicks made profession of it so that it must be confess'd the fall of Gentilism and subversion of Idols is an effect of the hand of GOD who alone can work miracles of Grace and Omnipotence The Kings His Majesties Predecessors have set themselves with unwearied diligence to preserve the Catholick Religion inviolable They have never failed to be Protectors of the Apostolick See and the Church They expelled the Arrians they turned their Arms and exposed their lives against the Albigenses they vanquish'd e'm they destroy'd e'm they punish'd the Poor men of Lions In fine they have provided that Christianity receive no harm in any places unto which their Authority extended The last Age produced a new Monster to oppose the Church France saw him born in her bosom and unhappily bred him up with several complices of his Impiety and Revolt History will tell Posterity how much Blood was shed during the course of well nigh Fourscore years to quell this dangerous
Sect and the world well know that the Zeal there was to reduce Hereticks to their duty did take up the Reigns of Six of our Kings the glory of cutting off the last head of this Hydra being reserved for his present Majesty But it is expedient to see what weapons must be used for an execution so long expected There is no cause to doubt but that upon the Principles of Christianity and Maxims of Policy its necessary to reduce all the Kings Subjects to one and the same Belief And though they that make Profession of the pretended Reformed Religion be now without Arms without Strong-holds without Treasure without an Head and without Allies yet they are not out of case to be feared They still retain a remembrance of their boldness and by-pass'd Rebellions they look back on the Towns they once seized and out of which they could not be driven but by force of Arms as if they were their proper Inheritance and had been unjustly pluck'd out of their hands they bear in their hearts the same aversion for Order and Discipline that they ever had and their minds are always inclining to revolt and to Confusion and Anarchy It disquiets them not to think who shall head them they have Soldiers of their own number whom they can advance to be Captains by giving them Authority to command e'm They persuade themselves that if they were in Arms they should want neither Money nor Friends They believe that the Glory of the King attracts as much Envy on him as Admiration and that his Virtue raiseth in his Neighbours no less Anger than Terrour In short there is ground to think that he will have more than an Hundred Thousand Men of his Enemies in the heart of his State while there are Huguenots in France they too perhaps do but wait an occasion to make their Musters Thus they are perpetual Obstacles to the Designs that might be formed and though weak may nothwithstanding be dreaded 'T is true the honest men of their Communion do well know that they cannot be in a calmer repose than they now enjoy by the Grace of the King and under the security of his Edicts but in these matters the multitude carries it These are a Torrent that by its Rapidity overturns Rocks which seems unmoveable It will be said that the good treatment which the Huguenots receive doth preserve the friendship of the German Princes for France and if favourable Justice should be no longer done them the King would lose the most potent and most considerable of his Allies This discourse is but a found and void of all substance of reason for beside that the Princes of Germany are not of the Religion of our Hereticks They need not the Kings Protection for maintaining the Huguenots in their pretended liberty of Conscience but the French Arms securing them against the power of Austria and principally of the Emperor who hath divers pretensions upon them they cannot recede from the Alliance they have made with his Majesty nor will they do it though the last man of the Huguenots was brought to the Scaffold nay forasmuch as the Kings Forces are so useful to all those Protestants it will would be their interest not at all to Arm themselves for the Huguenots preservation but far otherwise even to promote their expulsion out of France and the reason is because if this party were in a condition to raise stirs the King would have his hands full of work to repress them and so his Forces being dissipated the Emperor might take his time to enlarge his Domination the thing that Charles the Fifth did when Francis the First was not in a possibility to succour the Princes It being therefore certain that the Liberty of Germany hath its support and prop in the Arms of the King they are not sollicitous there for the affairs of the Huguenots in France and since the Protestants of the Empire are knit to his Majesty by other engagements than those of Religion they will continue the same Deportment and his Majesty on his part will always have the same reasons to succour them though the time should come that he should have no more Huguenots in his Kingdom No succour neither may they hope for from England that 's a State too weak to make any trial of strength against France all the English there are must pass the Sea and the Isle be disfurnish'd of Soldiers and Provisions yet this all would be nothing to purpose mean time their affairs would lie expos'd to the Levity and Lunacy of the people Holland and Swedeland are of like consideration and they both have other Interests to Negotiate with the King than those of the Huguenots Denmark is defective in power The Calvinists mount unto a strain of Policy above ordinary when they would have us believe That whatever is not of the Roman Communion is of the Opinion of Charenton the Lutherans of Germany notwithstanding sympathize with them less than with us Thus the King hath nothing to be afraid of from the pretended Allies of the Huguenots Yet these men as I have already said are to be feared and they would be seen stoutly to bestir themselves if some extraordinary Commotion should happen in France as a Civil War or some great Invasion by Foreign Enemies in such a Juncture they would do as they did in the War of Paris they took up Arms and respectively protested they were for the Kings Service but if the Peace had not been soon made they would not have forborn to think themselves necessary and to make all the Propositions that they could imagine advantageous to their party They would have re-demanded their places of Security they would have press'd for a restoring of their Temples for an augmentation of their pretended Priviledges and for a free exercise of their Religion and according to their good old custom have uttered Complaints and Menaces But if by ill chance a Victorious Army of Strangers whether Catholicks or Religionaries should enter the Kingdom the King must resolve to see the Hereticks declare against him or else content them in all their pretensions which would prove an engaging of his State in like Calamities as our Fathers in their time saw It ought to be ordained that they shall exactly follow their ancient Confession of Faith which was permitted them in France and that such as vary from it shall be no longer reckon'd in the number of those of the Protestant Reformed Religion who have Liberty of Conscience given them These Huguenots have no ground at all to plead the Edict of Nantes so loudly and bravingly as they do they extorted it by violence and with Sword in hand yet was it but an Interim an Order taken until they should inform themselves of the truth which they have had time enough to do But did they not violate it themselves by the War of Languedock that other of Sevennes and again by that of Rochelle nay they call'd the Enemies of
the State unto their Succour and took a course to bring Fire and Sword into all parts of the Kingdom Shortly in matter of Government that which is good at one time is frequently not so at another all things must be accommodated to the general rule of Policy which is that the good of States be incessantly procured When the Edict of Pacification was accorded there was provision made for the welfare of France if that welfare does now require that the Edict be revoked there is no remedy revoked it must be or neglected From all this which I have said it follows that the King hath most just cause to secure himself from the Professors of the Protestant Reformed Religion and put them into such a state as he may have nothing to apprehend from their particular Perhaps it will be said that 't is expedient there be Huguenots in France because they oblige the Church-men to study and to live with the greater circumspection and a more exact observance of the rules of their Profession But this consideration is not worth the considering The Church of GOD will never be supported by these humane means He is in the midst of it and governs it Himself by His Holy Spirit which animateth and filleth it At whatever time there shall be no more Huguenots in France there will be fewer bad and a greater number of good men which the King should particularly desire since States are always sustained by people that love Virtue c. It passeth therefore for certain that it is fit the King do disable the Religionaties as to their doing any harm and as to their giving cause of suspicion It remaineth to examine what way may most readily and most commodiously lead unto this end I would not advise that these People of the other Religion should be compell'd to depart out of France as the Moors were out of Spain which proved in the sequel so prejudicial to the whole Country 'T would be a piece of inhumanity to drive the Huguenots in that manner they are Christians though separated from the Body of the Church besides this course would deprive the State of not a few good Families and put the unhappy numbers of e'm out of all hope of Conversion and Salvation so that the King in this concern should do well as seems to me to imitate the Church the common parent of all Christians who in the Remedies She prepareth ever mingleth mildness and Mercy with Justice and Compassion with Correction The first means then which the King might employ should be to provide that the Huguenots might frequent the coversation of the Catholicks with more familiarity than they do For by this coversation they would in time be undeceiv'd of the Opinion with which they are pre-possess'd that we hate them they would put off the Aversion they have for us they would know our Deportment and be informed of our Doctrine in the points that offend them because they understand not the Mysteries of them which would induce them to confess as St. Augustin did on the like occasion That the Church does not teach things as they once thought it did Nothing is to my Understanding or can be more effectual for the Conversion of the Hereticks than this frequent Conversation it is not possible but that at length the spirit of Men should yield unto impression the plumage of the Eagle 't is said consumes that of other Birds Light dissipates Darkness Truth triumphs over Falshood The second means should be to confer a recompence of Honour upon Converts and to make a Stock for this purpose which might never fail I should think it would be none of the best course to exclude the Huguenots from all Employments they must enter into lesser Offices though not at all into the greater The reason is because if they be put off from all kind of publick business they will accustom themselves to tarry at home idle and their ambition will be extinguish'd in such sort as perhaps they will make it a point of Religion to do nothing whereas being taken to ordinary Offices they will habituate themselves to a living among Catholicks and their Ambition will awaken when they shall compare themselves with their Superiours The third means I offer is to select some particular Men and create them such business referring to Religion as may constrain them to attend the Council and keep following the Court. Business of that kind may be started to Gentlemen upon the Exercise they have in their Houses There is not one of them but is obnoxious to a Process in that case and the Bishops will with joy be the Prosecutors Besides the King's Procureur or Attorney General is concern'd to know whether Marriages Baptisms and Burials be solemniz'd with due accurateness in these private houses and whether good and faithful Registers of them be kept or no Great defects herein being easily supposeable the same will be just matter of complaint against the Owners as negligent in observing the concession made them of having Exercise in their Castles The like may be done if others contrary to the Edict be admitted to these Preachings beside the Domesticks A Fourth means would be to oblige the Religionists to put again in due state the ancient Chappels of their Houses which they have demolish'd or prophan'd the pursuance whereof ought to be by the diligence of each Bishop in his Diocess There must not be made a common affair of it to all the Huguenots in general but divers particulars only be fix'd upon And the thing it self is as reasonable as any For they had no right to destroy Temples that had been all along destin'd to Divine Service according to the Religion of the King receiv'd by all the Kingdom and also profess'd by our Progenitors The Fifth means is that when an Affair of such quality as I mention'd comes before the Council the Deputies which the Huguenots have at Court in the name of them all be not permitted to intervene in it There are 3 Reasons for the putting by of these interventions The First is that the Huguenots cannot constitute a Body in France nor assemble without the Kings express permission The Second that Private and Particular affairs ought not to be set up in the rank of those that are general and publick The Third that the King will do Justice without their intervention The Deputation should not be all at once abrogated out-right but no regard must be had to what the Deputies represent in the name of all the party The sixth means should be that the King do take effectual order the Huguenots may no longer have their dwellings nor their Exercise in places not Royal at least such as have any Lords of the Protestant Reformed Religion for Proprietors As for Example Vitrey in Bretannie belongs to Monsieur the Prince de Tarante who is of that Religion and it belongs to him by a Demise made him of it by Monsieur de la Tremouille
is unknown is full full of Mysteries hence Objects of such a nature are apt to surprise us and we hereupon are awed at them and do admire them Such effects the greatness of an unsearchable high-descending Pedigree does produce Nor need we much scruple to affirm that this kind is the only proper and genuine Nobility and that the Two others are only Nobilitations What difference is made between a person Noble and one Ennobled is familiarly known This first kind of Nobility is thought to require a possession of the Virtue of Ancestors and withal a possession of their wealth this too in so essential a manner that if each of them be not joyntly possess'd the Nobility is extinct We daily see proofs that evince the Justice and the Truth of this Notion Be it intimated by the way that the Virtue here mention'd is the Military Art The Second kind of Nobility is that which takes its rise from Offices and eminent Employments unto which the Laws have annexed this mark of Honour The Third is acquir'd by the Prince's Letters which are called Letters of Nobilitation It is a right peculiar to the Kind to give such Letters as the Roman Panegyrist once said to the Emperor Trajan It belongs not but to Caesar to create a Nobility It is for none but the King to Honour brave aud valiant Subjects with this Quality This Third and last kind is least considered because the Person who acquires it hath not the Virtue of Ancestors for a foundation and caution of his own Yet it is sometimes more considerable than either of the two others and Marius in Salust had great reason to tell the Gentlemen of Rome that he had rather begin the Nobility of his Race than faintly continue it or unworthily lose it and that it was more Glorious for him to transmit to his Posterity a sparkling Virtue hard to be follow'd than plod slowly on upon the slight and almost effaced tracks of a common Virtue which his Ancestors had left him In all these three kinds of Nobility there must be the personal Virtue of the Person invested with 'em for when all is done it is but Virtue that confers effective worth All Nations have had a particular esteem for Nobility nor can any well-order'd Common-wealth be named which hath not invented some singular mark of Honour to make it conspicuous The French in this point have surpass'd and out-done all People upon Earth as for the first Antiquity Caesar observes that the Nobles that is the Gentlemen had among the Gauls as much power over the Plebeians as Masters at Rome had over their Slaves After Gaul was reduced to the State of a Province Nobility preserved its ancient Prerogatives and the Emperors knowing that the Nobles loved Glory and sought it above all things stiled them Honorati and gave them an absolute precedency in all Assemblies of the Gauls For the Romans had thought it necessary to weaken the Authority of the Druids In the time of Christianity the same Order was continued and the Nobility gave their Suffrage apart in the Election of Bishops expresly before the People yea even before the Clergy themselves Upon the declining of the Empire the Gentlemen did in France judge the Causes of their equals and hence without doubt came into use the Parliaments Courts and Assemblies which our Kings held of their Peers and Barons that is of the qualify'd Gentlemen of their Kingdom when a Case of some Peer or Grandee of the State was to be Tried The Nobles were distinguish'd anciently from Plebeians by their Hair which they wore long for a mark of their ancient Liberty and when any one of them committed a fault that was unbeseeming his Birth the rest Sentenc'd him to depart the Country or cut off his Hair This was therefore a no less punishment than Exile In Charlemagne's time the Gentlemen of France named themselves Franks by way of Excellence In fine the French Nobility hath alwavs had such an high degree of Excellency and so great a pre-eminence that it was preferr'd in all Cases as when vacant Bishopricks or Abbies were to be provided for or when the principal Magistracy and Seats of Judicature were to be fill'd up or the Government of important Places Warlike imployment and the Leading of Armies were to be dispoled of To conclude this Matter it may be affirm'd that Kings did take the Gentlemen into a partnership with themselves as I may term it in the Regality they honour'd them with part of their Power by conferring on them Fiefs and by entrusting them with the charge of doing Justice and of Commissioning Officers to that end Hereupon it was necessary to put a gradual difference between Gentlemen themselves nor is it indeed sufficient that they all have so many excellent Prerogatives above the vulgar or common sort as we call them For Nature is alike in every Man and all Men are Born equal Fortune on the contrary and Virtue distinguish one from another But natural Reason requires there be Order in all things 'T is Order that makes the Beauty and Symmetry of the Universe Now as a Musical Consort doth not make a perfect harmony but by a diversity of Notes so a Political State can be neither comely nor compleat unless there be a difference between the parts that compose it I know that Nobility being as Philosophers call it an Inherent Quality does lodge with its whole Essence in each of its Subjects As the quality of a Soldier is for its Essence in the person of a Corporal as well as of a Captain or General Officer Yet there is a great distance and many intervening degrees between a General and the meanest Musquetier in an Army Thus the meanest Gentleman in the Kingdom is Noble and to speak after the common Proverb is Noble as well as the King but the one is severed from the other by an immense graduation So though all Gentlemen be equal in Nobility yet they are not so in Riches in Lands in Alliance in Friends in Offices in Authority in Age and in Reputation Again they are not equal in Spirit in Knowledge in Experience nor in Wisdom therefore it hath been with much prudence ordered that they should have some external marks of these differences and for this end there have been created Princes Dukes Counts Marquesses Barons Knights Batchelers Esquires leave hath been given them to bear Helmets and Crowns upon their Armories In short no pains have been spared to find out things that might any way adorn their Quality and their Valour hath been publickly rewarded for an excitement of others to a generous emulation Here I cannot forbear to blame those Gentlemen who give themselves the Title of Knights of Marquesses or of Counts by their own private Authority This is a shameful Usurpation and so far from heightening the Luster of Nobility that it injures them For a Gentleman who takes upon him the quality of a Marquess and well knows he is
none makes a perpetual Lye a thing directly contrary to his Honour and to the profession he makes of being a devoted constant defender of Truth Beside this huge number of Marquesses Lords and Knights does bring those Qualities into contempt and is a cause that true Marquesses are not considered now as they of right ought to be 'T is therefore extreamly important that provision be speedily made in the case For this confusion destroys the usefulness of those Dignities they being such as his Majesty should keep in his own hand and Husband them with deliberation and frugality that they might be distributed on occasion to Men of Honour and such as have evidenced a Zeal for his Service and for the good of his Kingdom that the persons also to whom they are Granted might fully enjoy them with all the advantages and Prerogatives that are by custom annexed to them I will not omit that it is necessary to give the Nolity the greatest respect that may be to the end that Citizens may conceive the greater desire to become Gentlemen which should be granted them when they have rais'd themselves to a Worthiness of it either by just acquiring a remarkable Estate or doing some illustrious exploit in War The whole Constitution of the Nobility is Military Nevertheless there have been instituted in France particular Orders of Knighthood of which the King is Grand Master Himself and into which He admitteth such Gentlemen as He accounts most worthy of it Such are the Orders of the Holy Ghost and of St. Michael There are others of which the King is barely Protector The Order of S. Lazarus is of that nature But this is of no great advantage to the State Because all Beneficences all Favours all Honours and Employments should come directly and immediately from the Hand and Bounty of the King For the continuation therefore of this Order of S. Lazarus His Majesty might unite the Grand Mastership of it to the Regality as the King of Spain does CHAP. VII 1. Of the Third Estate 2. Of the Husbandmen 3. Of Artificers 4. Of Merchants MY beginning to Treat of the Three Orders of the Body Politick of France as the Clergy and the Nobility leaving the Third Estate to be last spoken of is a method like theirs who having some Edifice to examine do begin at the top and settle to consider the upper Stories before they look on the Foundations In truth the People are the Basis upon which all Republiques have their standing 'T is they that manure the Ground and cause it to bear Fruit. 'T is they that pay the Subsidies that breed Workmen and furnish the Merchants Yet that which we call the Third Estate does not consist of Peasants or the meer rural sort 'T is principally the Freemen and Communalties of Towns and Officers of Justice that compose it This Third Estate was not called to the General Assemblies of the Gauls either in the time of the Romans or during the First and Second Race of our Kings it was well forward in the Third before they had that priviledge I believe not until the Reign of Philip the Fair. But it is not upon this matter that I am now to insist However in speaking of the Third Estate the whole Popular body is to be consider'd and it may be divided into three parties of men namely Husbandmen Artificers and Merchants Of the Officers of Justice we will speak in the next Chapter The least-infected and best party of the People is the Husband-men that daily labour which takes up their Heads and Hands all the year long without intermission keeps them in simplicity and obedience There cannot be too great a number of 'em especially not in France by reason of the Fertility of the Country and our Corn being Transported into Foreign parts we ought to make great Stores of it and have as much as may be in a readiness Exact care must be taken that these Men may always be in a condition to take pains and that they have but little converse with Townsmen whose little labour and other manners might corrupt their innocence And that Ease and Plenty do not render them insolent For there is nothing more dangerous and insufferable than a sort of rich Peasants No less care must be taken that an extream penury do not reduce them to extream misery For too great Poverty lying on them they no longer have either Men or Cattle they are ty'd up to ill Diet lodge on the ground suffer Hunger and Cold their Children perish for want of Food there are Epidemical Diseases bred among them they are not succour'd they dye away by this means the Country is dispeopled and being void of Inhabitants the Grounds are unhusbanded and abandoned When I shall come to discourse of the Finances I will point out a way to preserve Country-people in a moderately-commodious Estate at present I will only say that it would be to very good purpose to create a Superintendant of Husbandry who should have his Eye on those affairs and see that the Grounds be cultivated Vineyards well kept and Meadows fitly ordered in like manner as there are Masters of Waters and Forests who take care that the Woods be not damnifi'd and Surveyors for the High-ways and in fine Jurats for every Craft The Second party of the Popular order is the Handicrafts-men or Artificers these are no less useful to the State than any other For besides that Manufactures do keep men at work and engage them they are the cause that the Silk the Wool the Skins the Flax the Timber and the other Commodities that grow in France are made use of and that Country People have the means to barter these things and put them off especially being wrought into Wares not made in Foreign parts we shall grow to be further principal Manufacturers as we already are of Hats for Spain and Stuffs for all Europe which is a matter of exceeding great consequence and in process of time when the work is once on foot things will pass from hand to hand and oft-times go out of the Kingdom All this quickens Trade and makes Money pass to and fro which promoteth the Publick and therewithall at once every ones private welfare 'T is not enough to have Husband-men and Artificers in a Kingdom there must of necessity be Merchants also for without their Industry the Artificers Shops would be Stores never emptied the Granaries would remain full of Corn and the Cellars of Wines and nothing be gone We will more largely treat of this when we come to the Article of Commerce CHAP. VIII 1. Of Officers of Justice 2. Of Parliments and other Supreme Courts 3. Of Presidial Courts 4. Of the King's Council 5. Vseful means for the good of the State in relation to Officers of Justice 6. Of Sollicitations IF men were entirely just to one another and each of 'em in the phrase of one of the greatest Greek Philosophers a Law unto himself there
would need neither Law nor Magistrate to keep them in perfect tranquility But Nature being corrupted we no longer consult that Original Righteousness which is inseparable from reason and which without intermission inwardly presseth us to render to all their due as exactly as we would should be done to ourselves Always self-love often necessity sometimes hatred avarice or one passion or other does blind us and induce us to violate this eminently holy and equitable Law in such sort also that we suffer ourselves to be transported unto excesses hard to be believed We equally use fraud and force to content our injustice and irregular desires Whereupon it hath been commodiously done by wise Men to form as may be said a new reason which they called Law But because Laws are of no use except they be armed with Correction to punish such as despise them and have some soul and living principle therefore Magistrates have been created who are to pronounce the Oracles which those Laws inspire to put the Laws in Execution and maintain the Authority of them These Officers are chosen of the best and most intelligent Men in a State and if Common-wealths be duly regulated ordinarily the Rich are preferred before the Poor and Nobles before Plebeians because 't is supposed they have a greater measure of knowledge and virtue and by consequence are less capable of certain mean things in which a necessitous condition and a mean extraction might engage them Thus Ministers of Justice in France call'd Men of the Robe are in truth necessary in Publick Society For if there was no evil-doer Laws and Magistrates would be of no more use than Joyners and the Doors they make for the security of Houses if there were no Thieves whereas should not a Man in a whole Kingdom ever swerve from right reason and pure equity there must nevertheless be Priests for Religion Soldiers for defence against Foreign Invasions that might happen and People who may some of 'em Till the Ground others apply themselves to Trades and Manufactures that Men cannot be without So that these three sorts of Persons are inseparable from a Common-wealth and they make up the Three Estates we have spoken of which have been receiv'd without any contest Yet it seems that of late the Parliaments have sought to infuse into some green heads that they compos'd a Fourth Order in the Kingdom and the same not only distinct from the other Three but altogether superiour to them by reason of their Sovereignty and of the Power they have to deliberate upon the pleasure and Edicts of the King If they should not be brought off from this opinion perhaps they would draw the other Sovereign Courts and Officers of Judicature into the same Error an Union of them all not being deniable because otherwise the affair of Justice would in France form two bodies which may not be But from allowing this Fourth Body in the State namely that of Justice a ridiculous inconvenience would follow to wit that a Sergeant or Catchpole of a Village would be a member of a body superior to that of the Nobility and by consequence in some sort superior to a Marquis For in matter of Hierarchy the last of a more excellent Order is greater than the first of a less excellent one as the lowest of the Arch-Angels is greater than the highest of the Angels But to clear the difficulty before us it must be remembred that heretofore in France the Estates which were called Parliaments did assemble twice a year for two considerations one was to judge of Appeals that were made from judgments pass'd by inferior Officers The other to give the King Counsel when He demanded their Opinion about Government of the State For alway during the first and second Race the King 's did dispose of Publick Affairs as of Peace and War and this is so much a truth that if those ancient Parliaments had had the disposing of the State they would never have suffered that the Children of Lewis when they had divided the Kingdom among them should have fallen to make War one upon another which could tend to nothing but a publick desolation They would as little have permitted the enmities of Brize Haudet and Fredegonde In like manner under the Second Race they would not have endured that the Sons of Lewis the Mild should act such outrages on their Father that Charles the Bald should have given Neustria to the Normans In the Third Race that Lewis the Gross should have ruin'd so many great Lords who made up the greatest-part of the Parliaments that Lewis the Younger should have yielded up Guienne by the Divorce of Eleanore that the Count of Burgundy and the Duke of Britannie and some others should have leagu'd together against Queen Blanche In fine there are thousand and a thousand examples in History which do evidence that these Kings always had the free and Sovereign administration of their State nor will there one be found to prove that the Parliaments ever contradicted them They presented themselves at the feet of their Princes with Petitions and humble Remonstrances they made no resistance nor exercis'd Authority So that our King 's have been King's indeed always absolute Masters and for proof hereof it will be sufficient to look into all the Statutes there it may be seen how they spake and what part the Estates had in them The principal end of Parliaments therefore was to the end the Law-suits of particular Persons and people perceiving that Appeals brought to them were received and sentences invalidated many to try Opinions in their cases once again became Appellants by this means affairs were multiply'd and that contesting parties might not have the trouble to come up from the remotest parts of the Kingdom Deputies of the General Parliament were appointed they also stiled Parliaments and to be ambulatory The Commission they had was sometimes for three Months sometimes for six according to exigence of State but alway by the Command and Letters of the King These Parliaments went into the Provinces to judge the causes that were brought them almost in like manner as we now see done at the Extraordinary Sessions which instead of diminishing the number of Causes to be dispatch'd as had been conceiv'd really augmented them Philip the Fair saw cause to make such a Parliament sedentary at Paris another at Rouen a third at Thoulouse and succeeding Kings establish'd others in other Cities as they are at present From this faithful account it resulteth that the Parliaments are not a Fourth Body in the State but be extracted out of the Three ancient Orders at first they were taken out of the Clergy and Nobility only because the Commons at that time were not considerable afterwards These also were received in Other Sovereign Societies are but Images of these Parliaments As to the Sovereignty of the Parliaments themselves it neither is nor ever was other than an emination of the Sovereignty of the King in whom
that Quality is natural and indivisible The Parliaments can pretend to no more than His Majesty may please to impart to them The Sale of Offices of Judicature having been introduc'd there follow'd divers creations of new Officers both in matter of the Revenue and also in that of Justice among others those of Presidial Courts were instituted which perhaps was done only out of a pecuniary interest a needless degree of Jarisdiction being thereby set up and such a one as tendeth to the involving and oppression of the Kings Subjects These Courts are so many petty Parliaments in judging supreamly and finally in some cases yet by the trick of Petty-fogging Practice ways are found to get Appeals from judgment pass'd to be received and new processes begun to the vexation and undoing of the parties concern'd There have been in all times chief Judges in Towns as Bailiffs and Seneschals a thing of indispensible necessity for keeping the People in order all the fault that can be found in it is by reason of their number which certainly is excessive 'T is not enough that the King hath Parliaments and other Officers to determinate differenamong His Subjects there must also be a Counsel about His Majesty by whose Advice He may correct all ill Administration of Justice may reverse all Sentences given against the Mind and Intention of the Statutes and maintain Order through the whole extent of His State This Counsel is the Sacrarium of the Monarchy and the persons admitted into it who may justly be stiled the Eyes the Ears and Hands of the Prince ought to have a profound Knowledge in Affairs acquired by long and approved Experiences They must love the Kingdom the Kingly Power and the King's Person They are the Seminary whence are taken Intendants of Provinces Ambassadors and Ministers for Negotiations with Strangers The Counsel is compos'd at present of Gownmen only It would not be much amiss nay on the contrary it would be very well done if the King pleased to communicate this Honour unto other Professions when there were found Persons capable of it Because this Preference gives the Gentlemen of the Long Robe too much Authority whereas there is need of retrenching what they have already much rather than of conferring any new advantage upon them as we shall shew hereafter As for the Royal Privy Council in which Secret Affairs are debated and which ought to be of very few Persons that Matters may be kept in silence and not untimously divulged I will not speak of it in this place nor say in what manner it ought to be composed because this depends upon the pleasure of the Master of it and each King takes a different course in it There have been Princes who committed the principal Care of all Affairs to one single person and France hath seen for instance the Cardinals of Amboise and Richlieu Others have parted Employments and shared them among as many persons as there were different Affairs So did King Henry the Fourth This in my Opinion was the more wisely done for that in matter of Government the great Secret is to divide Authority and hold the ballance even between a plurality of Persons History teacheth us of what consequence it was to our Kings of the first Race that they had but one Maire of the Palace and how dear it cost their Posterity Upon a like reason of State the Roman Emperors divided the charge of the Praetorian Prefect But Ministers whatever for number must for qualification be Men of Virtue and approved sufficiency They likewise after the manner of the Aegyptians ought to be reprehended and punish'd for all that the King does amiss and contrary to Law The incredible number of the Ministers of Justices in France is in truth somewhat monstrous Neither is there any disorder in the State more pressing or requiring a more speedy Application of the Royal Authority The truth is if a Man consider this multitude of Magistrates will he not have ground to say that the French are extream hard to be governed seeing so many great Personages are employed in Governing them Again it may be said That this Nation so Illustrious by the Glory of its Actions and by so many Victories wherewith its Arms have been honoured is yet incapable of virtuous Inclinations since there is need of force to reduce them to the rule of the Laws though GOD never gave Men a more precious Present On the other hand can it be affirmed that our Legislators wanted Wisdom or did not sufficiently shew it in making the Laws Yet if reflection be made upon the multitude of Law-suits whereof the vexation is a grievance to the Kingdom may not a Man perswade himself that Equity is banish'd thence and Upright dealing utterly discarded Should it then hereupon be taken for granted that the private sort in France are not good condition'd People can it be imagin'd that the Publick Government is any thing reasonable and proper for its due ends But if a Man proceed to penetrate further into the Internals of the State and there behold what a desolation the corrupting of Justice hath made loosning and breaking the most Sacred ties of Friendship in fine if he observe how the Monarchy hath often been in danger of subversion will he not wonder that the Publick Fortune hath held out and Families been born up in the Storms that have so many times turmoild them The excessively great multitude of Officers being the principal cause whence so many mischiefs take their rise the remedy must be first apply'd thereto And this remedy is nothing else but such a retrenchment as is expedient or to say better necessary to be made The fewer Officers of Justice there are the more Soldiers and Artificers and Merchants and the fewer litigious Actions will be For it is manifest that business of that kind has ever multiply'd as the number of Officers hath been augmented in like manner as the more Physicians the more Patients To arrive at the end propos'd it would be convenient that after mature deliberation upon the estate of France the number of its Inhabitants and the quantity of Law-business it be advisedly stated in the King's Council what number of Officers were fit to be reserved and of what quality they should be then that the rest be suppress'd gradually as the persons dye away or at once by a Declaration What in my opinion might particularly be done is as follows First The Presidial Courts being compos'd of Officers that are needless to the State a charge unto the People having also but a novel interloping Jurisdiction the fruit of an evil Counsel given to King Henry II. and a mere invention to get Money the extinction of them is not to be doubted of but effected by a substraction of the Officers Annuities By this means the King will save that Pay which amounts unto a Sum considerable to the State and the Royal Jurisdictions each in its Precinct may do what those Presidials
upon which they depend are wont to do The Presidial Clerks place its being engaged or bound for security to one or other as is usual should not hinder the execution of this Aflair And when by decease there are no more Officers left care shall be taken of the concern of those to whom the places were engaged the regulating whereof will by that time have no difficulty in it Secondly Of Sergeants Two Thirds wholly must be suppress'd In the Third place all Proctors that are not Advocates and a certain number of Advocates should be appointed in each Parliament and Jurisdiction who might do the Office of Proctors This is not incompatible For the thing is already in use many parts of France The benefit of this regulation is manifest in that the Proctors are very ignorant that have but a slight tincture of practice yet out of Covetousness they often draw up Writings for their Clients and make them pay as dear for 'em as if the best Advocate had taken the pains Mean time these Writings for the most part are nothing worth and the poor Suitors frequently lose good Causes through the naughtiness of their Proctors and for want of being well defended Again such an order taken another advantage would accrue namely that Advocates being Proctors they will be obliged to follow what the Judges shall prescribe them whereas at present they make a jest of it and will not Plead but when they please There cannot be a regulation made in France more profitable in matter of Justice and if the King in a necessity of State would make a Money matter of it which might at any time be done there would be rais'd out of it for all France more than 20 Millions But it had need be gone about with a great deal of Address A Third advantage by this regulation is That all Advocates being Proctors there would no more slip into the Court a sort of young Men who shelter their Ignorance and Idleness under a Lawyers Gown and a square Cap. In the Fourth place All the Masters of Requests belonging to the Palace or Court of Justice of France should be supprest And the Truth is it seems to me a contradiction that these Officers should be Counsellors of Supreme Courts yet not impowred to judge any thing supreamly But that the Commoners of the King's Houshold and other priviledged persons may not be depriv'd of the benefit of the Committimus Power must be given them by special priviledge to commence their Actions and prosecute them in a Chamber of Enquests I say by special priviledge because I know the Parliaments take no cognizance ordinarily save of Appeals but in the case now expres'd this special priviledge shall superadd to them this new kind of Jurisdiction And it will be highly advantageous to those Commoners and Priviledg'd persons for by this Expedient they would get a decree speedily upon one Trial and finally end their business It is to be noted here that the first stating of Cases in order to an Hearing is not so incompetent to Parliaments but that they do the thing for substance upon demands incidentally made Yet this is meant only in behalf of priviledged persons and all such as claim the right of a Committimus Fifthly The Judges Provosts of Towns are to be suppress'd and they laid to the Seneschalsies and Bayliwicks For what are so many different Officers in one and the same Town good for In a Sixth place All the Courts of the Aids should be united to the Parliaments and this done when the Officers of the Supream Court in each kind have been reduc'd to the number which it s judged meet to retain I will say more of this in the Chapter of the Finances Seventhly All the Elections are to be suppress'd and the Assessing of Parishes done by the Treasurers of France of the Seneschalsies by the Lieutenant of the Province I shall speak more plainly of it in the Chapter of the Finances and Taxes Where also the Suppression of Store-houses of Salt and of the Gabells shall be treated of in the Article of Gabells Besides the Chamber of the Treasury and the Court of Moneys should be joyned to the Chamber of Accompts and half of all the Chambers be suppress'd likewise For thirty Officers may do all that the Chamber of Accompts the Treasury and the Court of Monies now do In fine it is for the King's Service and the good of the State that all the Presidents Places be suppress'd as well those of Superior Courts as of others and the Office of Presidents be discharged by Commission 'T is to be consider'd that this new Order would much augment the King's Authority For what will not Counsellors do to obtain a Commission to preside and having obtained it what will they not further do to keep and confirm themselves in it 'T is pertinent to recall to mind here that the Mighty Prince Philip the Fair at his making the Parliament Sedentary made the Count of Burgundy first President of it And that anciently the first President of the Chamber of Accompts was the chief Butler of France Likewise that at that time and long after the Chancellors of France were of the Church or of the Sword and great Dignities not given to Men of the Robe privatively Which being done since without doubt gives them too much credit and leaves the Nobility too little It is important that the thing be not continued but on the contrary all restored to Primitive Order As for Country Courts 't is fit they be narrowly limited and brought to be meerly predial and dominial that is for Rents and the Fealties of Lordships not capable of determining an Inventory or receiving a suit between parties for more than three Livres To conclude the shortning of proceedings in Law would much conduce to the reduction of Officers Let it not be objected that this reduction of Officers and such a multitude of Suppressions will ruin a multitude of Families For though it were so yet should not the thing be stuck at the Reformation of a State being concern'd nor is the ill of particular persons to be put to accompt when the Weal of the Publick is in question GOD Himself who is King of Kings and Eternally Just how many men did He destroy by that universal deluge for the Reformation of the Universe How many Isralites did He cut off in the Wilderness to save the gross of the People There is plenty of examples in this kind and Soveraigns have a right to do like things with like Justice when the general welfare of their Subjects is concern'd Kings are Eagles to whom GOD gives His Thunder-bolts to carry the strokes that come from their hands do come from the hand of GOD whose Images and Instruments they are To conclude it 's a thing which cannot be dissembled that the Parliaments constituting an Aristocratick Government in part as they do are quite contrary to Monarchick Government Aristocracy is adverse to
Regality because of all Governments it comes nearest to it As to use the very terms of Hesiod a Potter envies and is against a Potter Be it remembred here briefly that Theopompus King of Sparta having created the Ephori at last after a great deal of time Cleomenes was fain to put them to death when they had slain King Agis The Senate becoming too potent overthrew the first Roman Monarchy and in one word what hath our Age seen in the trial of Chenailles and what did a former in that of Chancellor Poyet A second source from which the Evils of litigious suits do arise is the sale of Magistracies The Emperor Alexander Severus sound this mischief in his Empire it having been introduced by Domician S. Lewis saw cause to weed the abuse out of His Kingdom it having got in through the confusion and trouble of some precedent Reigns It will be glorious for the King to do in His State what the Emperour Severus and S. Lewis did in theirs with greatest glory to their Memory But as Policy requires that in such enterprises way be made by degrees and greatest events brought on by small beginnings so it is necessary here to proceed leisurely and with measured steps The fixation of Offices hath been much advanced already for though what hath been done seemed to signifie an authorizing the sale of them yet in truth there hath been ground gotten To continue the work and bring it to perfection there must a Decree pass or a Declaration be made and publish'd at the Seal by which the King declares that he purposeth no longer to admit any opposition in matter of Title to Offices This is just for the King ought to be ever Master and have the liberty to bestow the charges of His Kingdom on whom he pleaseth and thinks worthy of ' em Thus no one will be alarm'd but this Declaration will extend unto the price it self by a consequence easily deducible namely since the principal and essential right to Offices consisteth in the Title and the price is but an accessory as they term it 't is reasonable that the price alway follow the Law of the Title as the Title to a Benefice brings in the Revenue of it And as in Marriage the Validity of the Sacrament makes the Validity of the Contract and of the civil effects Thus receiving no more opposition at the Seal for the Title there neither will be any in reference to the price and hence it will come to pass in tract of time that Offices will be no longer security for Money which will diminish the price of them and insensibly bring it to nothing But it is very just too that the Mortgaging of Offices as hath been done hitherto be obstructed for the future For the Officer may dye before he hath paid the Paulette whereby his Office is extinct or if of Grace the King revives it the value of what ariseth from the casualty is much less than the sum for which the thing was engag'd so that there must loss certainly accrue But if the King make a new creation of an Officer all engagements are gone for 't is then no longer the Office that formerly it was Let it not be said that without the Sale of Offices the Casualties will be worth the King nothing For the contrary is true and if the Casualties be worth Him Two Millions by reason of that sale of them His Majesty will make Four Millions of 'em if they be no longer saleable Forasmuch as in this Case they will be no longer Hereditary and being no more Hereditary they will revert to the King upon the decease of every Titulary and so the King may dispose of 'em in favour of the Person that is most acceptable to Him and if it please His Majesty the new admitted Officer may fine to the Coffers of His Treasury Royal as the Officers of Gentlemen do to the profit of the Monasticks As to the Objection that by such suppression of Officers and Jurisdictions and taking away the sale of Offices the King will lose the Revenue of many of His Clerks places and of the Paulette The Answer is easie for as to the Clerks places suppress'd the King will be recompenc'd by the greater value of those that shall remain and as for the Paulette the retrenchment of the wages of the Officers suppress'd will be much more considerable A third cause of vexatious Law-driving is that Offices of Judicature are gainful to those that execute them An evil this the dangerousest of any that can affect a State for all becomes suspected all becomes corrupt where profit is to be made Avarice and Ambition creep in Justice Uprightness and Truth depart whereupon we may conclude with the ancient Proverb That Money doth many things which the Devil cannot do For an entrance upon a Reformation in this matter it would be good to ordain First That Judges not the Kings should take no more Spices Secondly That Judges in the Royal Courts should not decree Executions for their attendance against the parties that are in contest Thirdly That if Spices or Fees upon sentence obtained be allowed the parties shall give what they will as the former custom was and not be compelled Fourthly That there be no more transacting by Commissaries in Sovereign Courts Judges should be forbidden to admit any sollicitation from parties at Law even though it be but to let them know the difficulties of their Affairs and put them in a way to clear the same For a Judge ought not to be prayed to do his Office in favour of a man whose case is good much less of one whose case is bad CHAP. IX 1. Of some general Orders in Government 2. Of punishment and recompence 3. Of Royal Virtues IN the Chapters now dispatch'd I have inserted many things which may be of use for the Kings service for the general good of His State and of every of His Subjects in particular In the Chapters that are to follow others very considerable shall be added However I judge it not amiss to make here a distinct Chapter of some important points which I cannot easily rank any other where It hath been long in dispute whether it be good to alter Publick Laws and upon debate of the Question to and fro 't is concluded that there is oft-times so pressing a necessity that it cannot be forborn but withal that such alterations must be insensible to the People who hardly come off from old Customs and cannot be brought to any new observance but by a long circumference and ways to them unknown Legislators are Physicians of Common-wealths and in this case ought to imitate the ordinary Artists of that Profession who seeing the whole habit of a body out of order and that to preserve the Patient from Perishing 't is necessary to change it do prescribe remedies which the more slowly they operate the surer their effect Now the first Law which in my Opinion might be made or
King do give His Letters for personal Marquessates in such form as they may be verified in the Parisian Chamber of Accompts and the Persons Honoured with them do homage to His Majesty thereupon Such kind of Homages have been done heretofore for Officers and even for Pensions though but of two hundred Livres The Emperour in Germany hath in this manner made Gentlemen and Counts of the Empire as for example the late Count de Guimene who had not a foot of Land within the Emperours Jurisdiction The King of England creates a Gentleman Baron and Earl of a Barony or County in which the Gentleman possesseth Nothing The second kind of Gratifications and Rewards is of those that are purely gainful and pecuniary as Pensions Tickets for Money Acquittances by Patent Ransoms Confiscations of deceasing Strangers goods and the like These however carry a great deal of honour with them as I said afore The third kind is of those that are at once both gainful an honourable as Great Offices Governments c. Upon this matter of Rewards there is this further Reflection to be made namely that a King never be inform'd of a good Action but He gratifie the Actor either with Praises or with Benefits In fine all these favours must be regulated by consideration of His Service and the welfare of His State GOD in giving Princes a Sovereign Power inspires into them Affection for their People But His will is that it be a Paternal Affection that a King do open His Bosom to His Subjects as His very Children and that all His Counsels and Designs be levell'd at their Felicity without which Himself cannot be happy 'T is principally for this great and glorious effect that Kings are Images of GOD and be fortified with His Spirit I have said that Monarchs are in their Kingdoms what the Soul is in the Body of Man that external Goods cannot enrich them that Virtue alone is their proper Portion as it is of GOD Himself It now remaineth I should say what kind of Virtue it ought to be 'T is necessary that a Great Prince have Piety to give His Subjects an Example of it and bettering of them in this is the security of His State He must be just to govern them A Government never is of long duration without Justice This Queen of Virtues comprehends as Aristotle judiciously noted all the rest A King I say must be Just to render unto every one and unto Himself what is respectively due The third Virtue of a Prince is Prudence to foresee of Himself what may betide His States Thus a wise Pilot hath the skill to foresee Calms and Storms he knows by secret notices whether the Winds will be favourable or contrary to his Voyage The fourth Virtue is Magnanimity a weight this that keeps the Soul always in the same position and gives it so setled a firmness that neither good nor bad successes can put it out of place and a King appears unalterable He thus bears up the hope of His Subjects they look upon Him as an assured succour against Fortune and persuade themselves there is somewhat of Divine Quality in His Person Of Royal Virtues a fifth is Clemency It pertains to the greatness of a King that He be benign and do commiserate the weaknesses of His Subjects who are Men as He is Mischances are pardonable and it seems to me 't is too much rigor to punish a poor wretch for a Crime committed out of imprudence or by necessity and of which he is less guilty if I may say it than his ill destiny 'T is to Criminals of this kind that Grace should not be deny'd and when a King gives one of His Subjects his Life who hath been condemn'd to death he should rejoyce more at the feeling in the Secret of his Heart a Will to Pardon than at the having in His hand the power to punish To give a Man his Life is in some sort to create him and the preserving of his Being is a giving of it It would be 't is true a great fault to stop the course of Justice in case of publick Crimes and such as have disturb'd the Peoples Peace Yet in sum it is Noble that a King be inclin'd to compassion and Mercy 'T is an action appropriated unto GOD to disarm His Anger Upon this ground the Roman Poet said That those Thunderbolts which Jupiter throws might be diverted The sixth Royal Virtue is Liberality One of the Ancients pronounced that it was less disadvantageous for a King to be overcome by Arms than by Liberality A Poet introduceth Mark Anthony excellently saying That he had nothing left him but the Benefits he had conferred And to say true A Great Prince never enjoys His Wealth but when He hath given it Liberality enricheth Him and makes Him Purchases of inestimable value For thereby 't is that He wins the love of his own People and becomes admired of all others When I say Liberality I mean a judicious Liberality such as is a Virtue not an exorbitant profuseness a Liberality alway exercis'd with Advantage and with Glory To conclude in short when I consider other Virtues I do not find any one of them all improper for a King but it is impossible a King should have those which I have mention'd without having every one of the rest since they are inseparable Companions and must be united to make a Virtuous Man CHAP. X. 1. Of Finances or a Princes Treasure 2. Means to make the Subjects more numerous 3. Of the Officers that manage the King's Treasure 4. Of the King's Demesnes 5. Means to recover the Demesnes 6. Of Taxes 7. Means to ease the People 8. Of the Free Cities 9. Of the Gabells 10. Means to augment the Receipt of the Gabells and ease the People 11. Of the Salt-free Country 12. Of the Countries of State and Free Gifts 13. Of the expending of Money 14. Of the reserving it THE Art of Finances or the Treasury is a principal part of the Politicks and so much the more necessary in a State in that Money is the Soul of all Affairs A Common-wealth is no further powerful than proportionably to the richness of its publick Treasury and the greatness of the yearly Income that maintain it This the French Name plainly importeth for Finance is an old Word signifying Power and comes from the ancient Verb Finer which is to be able to may or can Three particulars are here to be considered First Just and easie means to make Money Secondly the prudent expending it Thirdly the keeping it in and laying it up for necessities that may happen as Famine Pestilence War Fire Shipwrack and such like We have in France three general means to make Money The King's Demesnes Impositions on the People Merchandises c. Of this last I will speak in the Chapter of Commerce I will say nothing here of Conquests which may come in for a Fourth means of Getting I will treat of them elsewhere
when for the continued space of ten years the Receivers have accompted for it to the Chamber There are many questions proposable in reference to the Demesne but it is not our business to State them Chopin may be consulted who hath learnedly written of this Subject In necessities of the State divers things have been engaged by the King to the use of private private persons who have paid in Sums thereupon Yet these persons cannot hinder but that the things may be recovered And there are two equitable ways to effect this The First is by making a Principal of what is due to those Creditors and assigning them Rents upon the Town Hall of Paris or some other place of which there are examples For when the King had Sold or rather engaged some Rights of His unto particular Men they have been resum'd by Contracts for a Rent-charge Now those Rights were Demesne upon which to recover the Demesne Rents were charged The same course then may be taken again Nor could the Engagees have any cause to complain for the engagements made to 'em are but to secure their due and give them not any propriety their security therefore will be as great when they have Contracts for Rent For the one and the other pertains to the Demesne still And such kind of Impositions in like manner the power to impose them being Royal and Dominical the Engagees concerned will by this means have security for security and Rent for Rent But that the King may reap advantage from this exchange it is necessary to settle a Stock for the raising of these new Rents and to that end a new Imposition must be laid upon the Clergy the Countries of State Cities Commonalties Companies Colledges Merchants and other Members of the Kingdom the Engagees themselves paying their proportions There is in this no inconvenience at all because the Demesne having been engaged for the preservation and defence of all the Corporations in the Kingdom it is natural that they all contribute to free it again The second way to disengage the Demesne would be by giving ready Money instead of Rents and making an Imposition for this end which might be more easie A reimbursement should be compleated in five or six years Mean time and before all things the Engagees must be put out of Possession and order given that the Receivers of the Demesne do take up the profits For if any condition be propos'd while the said Engagees are in possession they will make a thousand difficulties at it and on the contrary if they no longer possess they will readily consent But that the matter may be transacted with less noise it ought to be expedited in each Parliament apart or at least the Receivers commanded by virtue of a Decree of the Kings Council to receive all the profits and even those of the engaged Demesnes If there be not made a new imposition in order to recover those Demesnes the affair will not be of advantage to the King and there may one be very justly made for the reasons now alledged and for the putting of things again in order Let us pass unto the art of the Tallies The Imposition of the Tallies or Taxes is a kind of Subsidy or Aid laid upon the people Under it in France are comprehended the Tallion and the Subsistance as they term them The Tallie is hugely equitable it is ancient it is necessary and in use all the world over For there never was People that paid not to defray the publick Expences In France it is so moderate and may be so easily paid that it hath been known to be higher than now it is because the sums that make it up are receiv'd without much trouble Yet at present though it be considerably diminish'd the People are scarce able to pay it and the Country extreamly incommodated by it The prime cause of this is that the ratable persons considered the rates are not duely proportion'd the rich Peasants the Justicers of the Villages the Gentlemens Farmers the Eleus and other Persons of Power are so eased that they pay almost nothing and the poorest of all do bear all A second cause of the mischief is that they who are Commission'd to receive the Tallies do so run up the charges that they far exceed the principal and thus draw Money out of the Peoples hands which they can part with but once When the Sergeants of Villages need a Cow or Corn or some piece of Houshould-stuff they go to the Peasants houses where they know the same is to be had there they make Seizures and then Sales at what price they please They seize and sell whatever they find to the very Household-loaf of Bread that hath been cut and is in use upon this the poor Rustick hath nothing left to help himself but is utterly distressed and can no longer do his work The greatest part of these Officers must be suppress'd the more there are of them in the matter of the Finances the more disorder and oppression there is For all of them look for profit and they spoil all by their avarice and ignorance To remedy the two Evils that have been mention'd effectual order must be taken that the Peasants may pay equally that is in proportion to the estate they have and pay without charges superadded First all the Taxes should be made real as they are in Languedoc that every one may pay Secondly The Tax should be levied in kind of the fruits that are receiv'd from the Lands and Tenements as Wine Sider Beer Corn Cattle and the like the quantity that is to be taken being stinted and fix'd for example to a Tenth part A Peasant that might have ten Bushels of Corn would very willingly pay one to the King and might do it without inconvenience But when for payment of Forty Sous in Money which he hath not the Sergeants and Collectors seize upon and sell the ten Bushels of Corn which too are priz'd at an extream low rate and all is spent in charges doth he not really instead of Forty Sous pay Twenty Livres This turns not at all to the profit of the King and tends to the undoing of his People Under the name of Lands and Tenements this Tenth might be extended unto Houses in Cities Towns and Villages and they ordered to pay a Tenth part of the Money they might be let out for which should be very low rated In like manner a Tenth or Twentieth part might be taken upon Contracts for a Rent-charge For these are stocks and a real Estate The Ecclesiasticks who have sure been wary men have taken their Rents in kind and these sorts of Rents are now infinitely augmented The greatest part of the Revenues of the Romans and Aegyptians themselves was paid in Fruits They paid their Armies and Officers with them Many Kings have taken a Tenth of Estates oft-times a Fifth sometimes a Third It is not necessary that the People have Money but they must have Fruits
for sustenance of life The King might have Farmers of this Tenth in each Parish or in each Election who might let out under Farms of it to the Peasants as is done in the Tyths of the Church If it be thought fit to take things in kind there must be Magazines in Cities as there are Store-houses for Salt in them the Receivers should sell the Fruits or reserve them as Joseph did in Aegypt The King will need them for Armies for Fleets for Victualling places of strength for Transportation into Foreign parts especially in case of a Famine This is practis'd in many Countries abroad and particularly in Italy What is done in a petty State may be done in a great Kingdom It is not to be doubted but that if the Tallie were thus rais'd it would go further than it does and the People suffer no incommodity by it at all But one thing which presseth more at present is the putting of the Country in case again For this end the rich must be permitted to give Cows Sheep and other Cattle upon terms to the poor Peasants This is done in very many places yea in the greatest part of the Kingdom The too severe and over-scrupulous Parish Priests prohibit it but they will not any longer be able to do so when the thing is publickly permitted It seems unreasonable that some certain Cities should upon imaginary Privileges be for ever exempted from the charges of the State and mean time the Country bear the whole weight of them The pretext of these Franchises hath induced divers of the Peasants to retire to these places Order must be taken in the case and all these Cities obliged to contribute to the expences of the Kingdom which they are so considerable a part of They may then be brought to pay under colour of Subsistance or Loan There should be Garisons sent them or Soldiers quartered upon them that all the Beams of the State may bear their part in publick affairs and so the weight be more easie to them whereas one alone would be over-charg'd and break under it The third means the King hath to bring Him in Money consists in the Gabells Some have said that the Gabells are not of the nature of the Kings Demesne and their reason is because the Ordinances for the first imposition of them do import that it was not the Kings intention they should so be The contrary might be true For beside that the Salt-pits did heretofore belong to the Emperour as goods of the Empire the sums that are raised out of them are raised by publick Authority and turn to the profit of the whole Kingdom as hath been done for many Ages But however that be not to enter into a dispute which can be of no consequence here I will consider the Gabells according to the present state of things I will not say when this kind of Imposition did commence in France nor upon what examples of Antiquity our Kings did ground themselves Not will I explain how beside the Gabells of France which are call'd The grand party there are the Gabells of Provence Dauphine Languedoc and Lionnois because the thing is known and makes not to our purpose The Gabells are paid in France by two different means First by Impositions so in places neighbouring on the Salt-free Countries There for fear the Subjects would not take Salt at the Kings Garners the Officers see how many Minots each Parish ought to take then a rate is made in the Parishes for it as for the Tallie The second means is without Imposition this is the use in places remote from the Salt-free Countries There because prohibited Salt cannot be brought in every one fetcheth from the Garners at the price currant The King receives a great deal of Money from these Gaballs but the People pay excessively beyond what comes into His Coffers The infinite number of Officers belonging to a Store-house the Receivers the Commissioners the Archers the Charges the Portage the Fees of Officers to whom Presents are also made do swallow up huge sums which the King fingers not and the People do pay For there is not a petty Gabeller but lives handsomely by his Employment not a Commissioner but makes him a Fortune and grows rich upon it making good chear and great expences 'T is of very much importance that a remedy be apply'd to the malady and in truth the vexations which the King's Subjects do suffer under pretext of the Gabelle are not to be comprehended The Archers enter into Houses to search they say for concealed Salt in obedience to Authority the doors are open'd to them mean time themselves covertly convey in some Bags hereupon they form a Process and the Master of the House is excessively fin'd nor do they depart till they have pillag'd all they can lay hands on If entrance be deny'd them they force the House and act all Hostilities nor dares any one complain all are at their Mercy and thus they ruine the poor Persons whom they single out This is no way beneficial to the King's affairs nor is it His intention that His Subjects should be so ill treated But it is easie to break them of this course First of all it must be debated in the Kings Council of the Finances what sum is fit to be taken for the Salt this sum being determin'd at ten or twelve Millions for example two several parts of it shall be set out to be yearly paid one for the Country-Parishes another for the Cities Each of these allotted parts shall be sent into each Generality and thence to the places where there is a Store-house of Salt The allotment for the Country shall be divided by the Parishes as is now done for the Tallie the Subjects among themselves rating every one's proportion The Gentlemen the Church men the Monasticks and others must be engaged in it and bear their part because they are charged by reason Salt is so dear as now it is and by consequence the King making a change to the profit of all all ought to be taxed to recompence the diminution that will follow in the Finances The second Sum allotted for the Cities shall in like manner be sent to the Generalties and Salt-Garners that such Rents as the Towns are to pay the King may be divided The houses may be measured by the Perch and the Rents assessed accordingly much like to what is done for cleansing the Strrets at Paris The Cities that claim a Freedom as Anger 's Orleans and Paris shall enter into this contribution for the same reason that the Ecclesiasticks and Gentlemen do inasmuch as they will notably profit by the suppression of the Gabells and abatement of the price of Salt For it is to be observed that that measure which now costs at Paris five and forty Livres might amount not to two Crowns and so proportionably in other Cities Now the number of Perches in each City being known having been taken by Commissioners of the
Kings who might be Citizens it will be very easie on any necessity toraise an aid from the City upon the proportion of the said Perches by way of Loan or Subvention or under some other title And that the Citizens may not oppose the Kings intentions in the matter permission must be given to each City to treat every year with what Merchants they please and agree a price for the Salt that shall be there sold through the whole year He to sell it who will oblige himself to afford it best cheap except the Citizens had rather leave it free for all Merchants that would to bring in always understood that there be no power to compell any one to buy The like may be done in every Village the Gentleman causing Salt to be Sold in a Servant's name and making the profit of it This course will without doubt be gain to the People and Salt being sold in such manner it may be brought to pass that the Commodity it self shall pay the Rents which shall be due to the King and they the while buy it at much a lower rate than they do So that clearly all sorts will receive such a proposal with applause To augment the cheapness of Salt it should be ordained that it be free from paying to Lordships and by the Load and from Imposts The thing being resolved in the Council the King shall make a Declaration in form of an Edict by which His Majesty shall take off the Impositions upon Salt on condition the Towns and Parishes will pay Him yearly the Sums He shall resolve upon in His Council and that until the Declaration be executed the Gabell shall continue its course It would be needful to ordain that these Sums be paid into the hands of the Receivers of the Tallies For there would be no more need of a Receiver of a Salt-garner What are so many Receivers good for but to consume all In this case the Receivers of Salt must be otherwise dispos'd of This Declaration would include a suppression of all the Officers of the Gabells for when Salt should be freely Sold the King would have no more use of ' em As for their re-imbursement provision might be made either by continuing their wages during their Lives or by assigning them Rents which might be redeemed for little and little or by giving them ready Money The People too might be charged with this re-imbursement in favour of the suppression of the Gabells This Affair might be worth the King a great deal and can never fail of being beneficial the People will gain six Millions by it beside the quiet it will yield them It being put in execution the King may purchase the Salt-pits upon the greatest part of which He would-previously have the Tenth part of the Salt if He took the Tenth of all Revenues as I said afore Again in doing as hath been shewed He would have an Army ready raised for all the Gabellers must be led into the Field There are in their Companies notable stout Men who also have been in action As for the Salt-free Countries which have bought out their freedom no one durst touch them hitherto by reason of the strength of the Huguenots the Civil and Forraign Wars and other Considerations as the Minority of Kings c. But now that the King is Master and in a condition to make Himself be obeyed 't is reasonable that he do oblige so many great and rich Provinces to bear a part of the burthens of the State in proportion to their ability for the easing the rest of France And to this end one of the three following Propositions may be made them First to take a reimbursement of the Sums paid by them which re-imbursement shall be made by granting them a diminution of the Tallies without putting hand in Purse other ways Hereto may be subjoyn'd that the King may not wholly discharge them because such a discharge tendeth to the oppressing of his other Subjects that a King may indeed augment and diminish Subsidies as seemeth him good but not extinguish them it not being possible that a Kingdom should subsist without publick Incoms that it must be remembred on this occasion how Nero proposing to take off all the Imposts that were paid at Rome the Senate oppos'd it as a thing that would be the ruine of the Empire The Second Proposition might be that these Provinces be obliged to pay the King a yearly Rent by way of Supplement and in confirmation of their ancient Treaty The Third that the Tallie and other Impositions on them be augmented to even the ballance which cannot be done any other way There are certain means to maintain the Finances among others the Free Gifts that are presented to the King by the People of those Provinces which are called Countries of State No other Order need be taken with them but to hinder as much as may be that the principal Members of these States be not in the Offices they bear unjust at the Publick cost Yet they must make their advantages in them otherwise the States would come to nothing which would occasion no small confusion and a retardment of the King's Affairs His Majesty might make Himself Master of the Deputations and gainful Commissions which are given to the States As for example in Bretannie Monsieur the late Mareschal de la Milleray nominated alone or rather caus'd to be nominated whom he pleas'd and there was no more deliberating after he had given order 't was one way he had to gratifie his Friends Monsieur the Duke Mazarin does the same still which may in His person succeed well but the King may cause whom he will to be nominated and the liberty of the States will not suffer by it any prejudice or innovation at all for such is the condition of things in these places I will not speak here of the Farms of Iron nor of others of like value These things run in ordinary course But having spoken of the bringing in of Money I must speak of a due laying out and a like due laying up thereof The advantage of an Exchequer doth not consist in the bare getting in of Money but also in a meet expending of it and there is no less profit in giving of it forth than in receiving of it 'T is necessary the King should spend to maintain his Revenues For if all the Sums that come into His Coffers should not issue thence again no one in the end would be able to pay Him any thing The Kings of Aegypt who took a third part of their Subjects Estates caus'd the Labyrinth to be built the Pyramids to be erected the Lake of Meotis to be dug up and other Fabricks raised which are incredible to Posterity Their design was to disperse among People the Treasure they received from them and withal banish sloth and idleness out of their States These two Vices so dangerous in Kingdoms the Aegyptian Laws did so strictly provide against that
there were particular Magistrates appointed unto whom every private Man was obliged to give an account every year of all that he had done throughout the year which was executed with so much exactness and rigor that if any one had taken an ill course to live or not preserv'd his Estate he was severely punish'd for it The same thing was done at Athens and the Romans had Censors who took the like care they had it in charge to make a review of all the People every fisth year and inform the Senate of all that was amiss in the Commonwealth I have often wondred that there is no such Officer in France and that each ones Estate is not precisely known which 'tis hugely important it should be because in difficult times when the Kingdom perceives it self involv'd in urgent necessities succor must be drawn from every one in proportion to his Interest in the Publick Fortune that is in proportion to what he possesseth in the Kingdom Expence must be made with good Husbandry and a judicious parcimony observed in it that it run not out to a profusion on one hand nor sink into a sordid avarice on the other If Measure and Rule be not kept in the issuing out of Money all the Gold of Asia will be but a small matter Caligula found the way to consume in his debauches in one year the immense Treasures which his Predecessor had been heaping up all along the whole course of his Empire Thus it is expedient that a King do cause the sums to be paid which are charged upon the Receipt of his Finances and also that He give liberally but always so order the matter by his Prudence that nothing go out of or be kept in his hand but for the preservation and prosperity of His Subjects I said in a former Chapter that there were too many Officers in France that the wages they draw from the King were unprofitable nay prejudicial to the State Since the Sale of Offices was introduced divers new Creations have been made All these Edicts were meerly to get Money in some pressing Occurrences and nothing but the conjunctures of the time rendred them tolerable Now that those occurrences are over and the conjunctures pass'd things must be reduc'd to due order by suppressing all those new Officers I noted that wherever Magistracy brought gain disorders would creep in the reason of which is very clear and very natural For it is infallibly certain that Judges will augment the number of Suits while those Suits will bring them in profit Consequently useless Officers being suppress'd and provision made in the case by a due reduction sufficient Salaries must be allowed them and they forbidden to take any thing of the Plaintiff or Defendant upon the Penalties express'd in the ancient Statutes And that the King might make a stock to raise those Salaries without charging His Finances it should be ordained that such as go to Law shall when they commence their Suit deposite a certain sum into the hands of the Clerks this to be done in all the Royal Jurisdictions As for other Judges they ought to take nothing at all the proprietary Lords must defray the charge of their Courts if they will keep up the Power to hold them they having it of the King upon this condition from the first Grant of the Fiefs In matter of the Finances it is not sufficient to have the Secret of getting Money and the skill of duly expending it but there must be also a right course taken to make reserves of it The Romans had a publick Treasury where every year they laid up certain sums for the necessities of the Commonwealth Other Nations were no less provident History tells us of the Stores of David of Croesus of Midas and many others The King having setled an Order in His Finances both as to Expences and Receipt it will be very prudently done of Him to limit what he shall think fit to reserve and this reservation should make the first Article in his Finances and be continued until he hath in his Coffers in some secret place the fourth part at least of all the Coin in the Kingdom the rest if well us'd may be sufficent for all the People to maintain Commerce and pay the King's Revenues I say this reserve should be in a secret place and known only to persons of approved Fidelity For if many had notice of it such a store might occasion Seditions and Civil Wars Now a fourth part of the Money being once laid up apart in the King's Coffers some addition to it shall be made continually from year to year in proportion to what comes in anew Yet liberty must be left to Persons for some time to have Gold and Silver Plate yea it would do well to augment the use and mode of having it if it may be and that for three reasons First because the Goldsmiths perceiving hope of gain will not want inventions and industries to get into France as much Mettal as possibly they may either in ingots or barrs or coyned pieces Secondly because by this means Riches will be kept in the Kingdom and when a season for it comes all they that are owners of such Plate may be commanded to carry it to the Mint and there receive the price of it The third reason is because the Goldsmiths having wrought up and made Plate contrary to the direction of the Statute which undoubtedly they will do a search may be made in the case if affairs require a search highly just and no less advantageous Two regulations must be made for the Goldsmiths and they enjoyned to observe them upon pain of forfeiting Life and Goods and so strict an hand held over them that of all who trangress not a Man be pardoned The first is to prohibit their working upon any piece of Gold or Silver Coyn. The second that they do not change the form of any prohibited Plate rectifie and mend it they may At the same time all Persons that have any such and would put it off must be commanded upon great penalties to carry it to the Mint where ready Money shall be paid them for it at the currant price they making proof that they are the true owners and this to avoid Thieveries which may have been committed These two regulations will oblige the Goldsmiths to make use of new Silver or Foreign Coyns and thus they would cause a very considerable quantity of either to enter into France The State would receive no small profit by taking a due order in matter of Coyn. It should be ordained therefore in the first place that no more be made any where but at Paris and all other Mints and their Officers suppress'd as Useless The Romans who had so much Money had but one place to make it in which was a Temple of Juno's at Rome Charlemain forbad any Money to be made otherwhere than in His Palace And the truth is should all the Money of France
pass through Paris the King would much better know what quantity of it was in His Kingdom Secondly the Court des Monnoyes must be suppress'd and united to the Chamber of Accompts as I have said heretofore In the third place the value of Brass Money must be abated this kind of Coyn being the ruine of the State It cannot be believ'd how many Liarts and Sous the Hollanders have brought into France It would be convenient to set the Sous at two Liarts a-piece the Liarts at a Denier and the Doubles at an Obole half a Denier but this should be done by little and little and the fall made by degrees that the people be not ruin'd mean time Silver pieces of six blanks others of a Sous in value and of twelve Deniers are to be stamped Brasiers and workers in Mettal must be forbidden to melt up any Sous Liarts or Doubles or otherwise use them in work For after the Reduction a Sous a Liart and a Double would be worth more in work than in Money and that quantity of them which is in the Kingdom being preserv'd would suffice for Commerce in small wares they also being less worth in Money than otherwise Foreigners would bring in no more of them In the fourth place 't is fit that a Gold-coyn be made of the value of the Leuis's this Coyn to have on the front a Sun the face thereof representing the King with these words about it Nec pluribus impar and the year it is made in On the reverse a Cross charged or cantoned with Fleurdelizes and the ordinary Motto CHRISTVS vincit regnat imâ—eâ—at Of this Coyn there should be half and quarter pieces made as there are half Crowns of Gold This new Money should be called Suns and all Gold Louises made in France forbidden As likewise all cravens of Or Sol and Crowns of the Queen New Silver-coyn also should be made the pieces called Monarques or Dieudonnes or some other names in them the Figure of the King crowned after the manner of Antiquity with the Title Ludovicus XIV Franciae Rex on the reverse a Cross with Fleurdelizes and the ordinary Inscription Of these pieces there must be some of twelve Deniers others of two Sous six Deniers others of five Sous of ten Sous of twenty of forty And to have matter for them all Loueses of sixty must be forthwith prohibited because a multitude of false ones go abroad Afterward the Loueses of thirty Sous made any where but at Paris shall be call'd in and there must the new Coyns be also made They will be well received by the People for that every one hath an extream affection for the King and because in France we account by Livres or Franks and have no such Money the Quardecues being no longer current This new Coyning of Money is likely to bring a great deal into the Kings Coffers Gold and Silver must be held in France at an higher rate than they bear among Strangers that we may draw it hither nothing hath brought us so much Gold from Spain Italy and other Countries as the permission sometime grantéd that light pieces should pass The same thing should be done awhile for once again it would cause all Foreigners to come and take off our Wines our Linnen and our Corn. I should not forget to say as I put an end to this Chapter that the Masters of Accompts the Correctors and Auditors having wages of the King ought not to take any other Salary for any thing they do that directly refers to His Majesties service I mean for the Accompts of the Treasurers of the Reserve and other Accomptable Officers for they are paid for this by their wages practising in the manner they do they take as the saying is two Tolls of one grist I said that it was not at all just that the Masters of Accounts Auditors and Correctors take Fees for the Accounts they examine forasmuch as they receive Wages and Privileges from the King also this Custom was anciently practis'd and this would be to reduce things to the primitive State I well know that the pretence of these Fees is founded upon the creation of some Chamber of Accouuts where those payments are made that never go to the Chamber but this pretext is frivolous for the Chambers of Accompts in Montpellier and elsewhere ought not in like mauner to take any Money for examining the Accounts of the King so these new Chambers take away no Money from that at Paris that peradventure takes from them the homages and the verification of gifts but in this the Clerks only are the loosers and the Master Auditors and Correctors are not concern'd Addition Of the fine gross Farms I said but a word by the way of fine gross Farms which is one of the projects to raise Money by the fine gross Farms are let upon the Merchandise and upon the receipt of the Kings Rights to avoid the charge of all these an agreement might be concluded with all the Merchants to pay every year a certain sum to the King at Paris and upon their doing this they should not be molested in their passage on the Rivers or by Land for any Toll or Custom CHAP. XI 1. Of Peace and War Of Sciences of Arts of Laws of Publick Edifices and Shews 2. Of Arms of Arsenals Artilleries of Fortified places and Governors 3. Of Armies of Conquests how a Conquered Country should be preserved EIther Calm or Storm if perpetual would alike unfit the Sea for Navigation The Waves must not rage and swallow up the Vessels they should bear but there must be Wind enough to fill the Sails and give convenient motion nay some little Tempests are of use to quicken the Pilots skill whom continual fair weather would entice into a dangerous idleness Just so is it necessary that there still be in a great State especially in Nations of the French temper some moderate agitation and that the noise of Arms produce an effect upon them like that of the Winds upon the Sea Peace by general consent is that at which all Politicians do aim nor can it be deny'd to be preferrable to War being natural as Liberty is Yet War hath its peculiar advantages and those to such a degree that we may account it to be of Divine Right To say true what other right did GOD give His People against the Kings of Canaan In short War makes the Peace of Kingdoms the more firm as a Storm causeth the Air to resume a more setled serenity The prudence of Laws therefore should have provided Expedients for the preservation of States in each of these seasons and the Wisdom of Legislators hath been justly taxed in that they have not sufficiently thought upon this provision The Poet upon this ground gives his Vlysses all along the company of Minerva and disguiseth her a great many ways that she might not be parted from him In sum the Mythologists representing this Goddess armed and
and Equipage for the Horses of the Train The King should have for the security of his State several Fortified Places in his Kingdom 'T is an ill piece of Policy to neglect them and good heed had need be taken that he that may chance to win a Battel and become Master of the Field do not at the same time become Master of the Cities also It is known what Revolutions England hath suffer'd by it And on the contrary Flanders clearly shews what a Countrey thick set with Fortresses is Yet Excess being every where vicious-I would observe a mediocrity here But above all there must be left no Fortifications in Towns or Castles which belong to particular Lords except the King places in them other Governors than the Proprietors These kind of Places embolden Persons of Quality that possess them to Declare themselves and make Parties in a time of Civil War what pass'd at Tailebourg in the last Troubles is an example fully authorizing what I have propos'd I will say more of strong Places and Garisons in the Chapter of the Education of Children It is not sufficient to have such strong places and them well furnished with Garisons and brave Soldiers unless there be given them Captains fit to Command them and to be their Governors In each place then there must be four sorts of Officers The Governor the King's Lieutenant the Governor's Lieutenant and the Major These all having their Commissions from His Majesty it is expedient that as far as is possible their bearing Office be limited to a certain time to the end that the continuing of 'em longer may be in nature of a recompence for their Services And they thus attending with the greater diligence to their Duty I should also wish that being continued in employment they should change place As for example That a person who hath been the King's Lieutenant three years at Dunkirk should go serve as Lieutenant-Governor at Peronne or elsewhere Not that such a Change were fit to pass upon all the Officers of a place at the same time But let their Commissions last three Years and every Year one be changed that they may serve together one Year only It is meet to after the manner of the Turks that their Commissions expired they be kept a Year without employment to see whether there be any complaint against them These alterations would work two effects equally advantagious to the King's Service The First is that every one would stick to his Duty The Second that the King always having such kind of Employments to give there would be more persons to hope for them which would much more strongly engage them to well-doing The same usage should be introduc'd if it be possible in reference to Governors the King's Lieutenants There is a concluding observation to be made namely that it being the Custom for Governors to have some Companies of Carabines which they call their Guards they give them Cassocks of their own Livery I would have this Order changed and that the King should every year send each Governor a Troop of Horse to serve about him for a Guard they having the King's Cassocks as a Badge of their Commission and their Officers carrying the Staff in presence of their Governor during their year of service This would be a means to augment the Authority of the King and not diminish that of the Governors As to Armies it cannot be precisely said of what number of Men they should consist nor whether they ought to be strongest in Horse or in Foot This wholly depends upon the enterprizes that are made upon the quality of the Country and nature of the Enemy I should advise that a Great King do keep Troops on foot even during Peace nothing is so necessary to a State as old Soldiers Augustus after his Victories did not cashier the Forty Roman Legions which prov'd to be the safety of the Empire Constantine on the contrary disbanded them and thence came in the issue the dissolution of the Power of the Romans Augustus however and the other Caesars committed a great fault in keeping the Pretorians in a Body for the Grandeur of their Persons and History tells us what lamentable changes they made in the succession of the Emperors The Turks have fallen into like disasters by following the like usage I should therefore judge it expedient to divide the Troops into several Quarters and keep them in far distant Garisons The ancient Kings of Aegypt had a great many Soldiers perpetually in Pay and were always apprehensive of their Instructions but found a way to secure themselves from all such Seditions of their Armies Dividing them into Bodies according to the diversity of Nations they gave them different Ensigns as for instance to some a Crocodile to others a Dog to a third sort a Cat and so the rest Now the Aegyptians being hugely Superstitious they were easily induced to believe that their Tutelary Deities were included in the figure of those Beasts which were given them for Ensigns and that they had the same Antipathies among them in Heaven which those Beasts that represented them had to one another upon Earth Thus under a Veil of Religion those People were possess'd with an aversion for each other like those Animals which they had been ordered to carry in their Banners yet all were close united and perfectly at accord for the common defence of the State so nothing could be executed against the intentions of the Prince because as soon as any should begin to stir the rest would immediately have opposed them Upon this example the King might divide all his Troops by Provinces and though there should be no engaging of Religion in the case yet much advantage would without fail be drawn from thence For the Nations would strive to out-vie one another with more zeal and ardor than the Regiments now do These Regiments themselves might have names given them from the Arms of their Provinces as that of the Bretons might be called the Regiment of the Ermine that of the Normans the Regiment of the Leopards c. Jutius Caesar raised a new Legion among the Gauls and gave it the name of the Lark But what I say in this particular is but the giving my Opinion For I am not of the mind that the order of the Militia should be changed or Regiments disbanded which consist of the best and most War-like Troops that are in the World 'T is ordinarily a great question of what Soldiers an Army should be composed We have Subjects and Forreigners The Subjects are Gentlemen and Plebeians The Plebeians are Citizens and Rusticks On the other hand of Forreigners some are the Auxiliary Troops of Allies which serve at the cost of their own Princes as when the King sent succors into Germany and unto the Hollanders Others are Troops that serve at the cost of the State which employs them The Ancients termed them Mercinaries Such at this time are the Suissers and not a
I suggested in the precedent Chapter is to be remembred namely That Conquests do afford a State one expedient to get Money In this the Roman Captains are to be imitated who made it a point of Glory to lay up extraordinary sums in the Publick Treasury and their Triumphs were as illustrious by the wealth they brought home with them as by the Enemies they had defeated in their Expeditions It would be very material therefore that Generals should account it a Glory to them to bring the Spoils of their Enemies unto the profit of the King and Kingdom or at least make the Conquered Countrys maintain and pay their Armies But the difficulty is not to make Conquests the Arms of the French will be Victorious wherever they appear All the trouble is to find out the secret how to keep what hath been gotten It is fit to say something on this particular The means to preserve Conquer'd Countrys which the Ancients used and that with good success are in a manner these Transportations and shiftings of the People As when the Chaldeans led away the Jews to Babylon The taking away of their Money of their richest Goods their Antiquities their Holy Things and things of Religion as was done with the ancient Idol-gods and as the Ark of the Covenant the Tables of Moses and the Israelites holy Writings were dealt withall The same for substance might be done among us by shifting of Saints Reliques and Consecrated Images The leading away of the ablest Men and such as have greatest credit with the People So did the Romans when they carried some of the Greeks out of their Country to Rome and treated them there with all possible kindness and civility In like manner as to Artificers the Turks drew at one time 30000 Work-men out of Persia The Romans out of their Enemies whom they had vanquish'd and taken in War reserved those whom they thought stoutest and made them fight on the Theatre the People being Spectators destroying them by that means Christianity suffers not such inhumanity Slavery was alway practis'd in the case of Prisoners of War and the ransom we make them pay is an Image of that old Custom Some People to this day stay their Prisoners or send them away to punishment after the fashion of the Ancients To proceed other means in reference to conquer'd Countrys are the mixing of the old and new Subjects by Marriage the Conquerors accommodating themselves to the manners of the Conquered taking up their modes eating with them as Alexander demeaned himself towards the Persians Then again the ruining the Fortifications of their Towns the taking Hostages of them the taking away their Arms and keeping them weak the abstaining from their Wives the giving them no jealousie in matter of Love To have little converse with them especially in their Houses and when any is to see it be with seriousness and decency to honour them to do them a pleasure on occasion not play with them not pick any quarrel with them not touch their Liberty nor the Goods that have been left them not disquiet them for matters of Religion To do them Justice maintain them in their Laws and Customs and in their manner of Government as the Romans did who permitted the People whom they had subdued to have their accustomed Laws To be diffedent of them and shew a confiderde in them To appear not desirous of their secrets not interrupt them in their pleasures make them pay the Tribute agreed upon with them exactly not at all augmenting it To keep word with them in all things seldom meddle in their affairs except it be to accord them to lend them no Money but owe them some and punctually pay the Interests of it not let them know the true State of affairs not give them entrance into strong holds which must always be well furnish'd with Men and Provisions That the Governor never come among them without being strongest or having Hostages To prevent their assembling and hinder as much as may be their having Commerce with Neighbours that are under another Prince's Dominion to keep off all kind Strangers from Houses and severely punish such of 'em as shall cause the least trouble or any motion that may tend to Sedition If our Conquerors had practis'd in this manner Italy and Sicily would have been French to this day CHAP. XII Of the Sea and its usefulness 2. Means to augment the Kings Power there 3. Of Commerce 4. Of Colonies THE Water of the Sea are wholly obnoxious to the humorousness of Fortune and the Wind that governs them turneth and changeth with as much inconstancy as that blind Goddess Yet it is certain that those States whose renown is greatest in Story did not establish their supreme Dominion but upon the power they attained to at Sea as if Virtue stout and undaunted had resolv'd to Combat and Conquer her Enemy in the very seat of her Empire The Romans are one instance whose example is ever to be follow'd with as peculiar a diligence as their conduct of matters was with singular wisdom and hard to be imitated They imposed not upon the World their Laws till they had forced the Seas to receive and acknowledge them Had they not set out War-like Fleets they had never accomplished their glorious Designs they had never extended their Frontier beyond Italy never brought down the Pride of Carthage nor Triumphed over all the Crowns on Earth The Aegyptians the Persians and the Grecians considered the Sea as the principal support of their Domination Xerxes having caus'd the Hâ—liâ—spout to be to punish'd as he termed it with Stripes accounted his Vanity satisfy'd in the sight of all Asia which he drew after him into Greece with so much Magnificence and Pomp that it seemed as if Jupiter Himself was come down from Heaven The Venetians still renew every year their Alliance with this Element by an old fond superstitious Custom casting into the Sea a Ring as if they espoused it perhaps by this use they would inform all the particular Subjects of their Common wealth that they should be content with the inconstancy and infidelity of their Women since the State of espousing the Sea espouseth inconstancy and infidelity it self The Riches of Tunis of Algier of Holland and England plainly prove the necessity there is for Princes to be Strong at Sea and do shew the Profit which does thence accrue These are petty States yet dare measure their Forces with those of the Greatest Monarchs The former of them are Turkish Slaves the others revolted Burghers and how insolent soever the English are they must confess that all the Brittish Isles laid together do not equal the half of our Continent either in Extent or in Fruitfulness of Ground or for Commodiousness of Scituation or in number of Men in Wealth in Valour Industry and Understanding yet they fear not to affirm themselves Sovereigns of the Sea Had they cast up the Wracks they have suffered and the Battles
they have lost had they well examin'd our Ports and Havens in fine had they compar'd the Coasts of France with those of England they would condemn their Vanity as Canutus one of their ancient Kings did 'T is true all States are not disposed unto Navigation either because they are too far up in Midland Countries or because the temper of the People suits not with it or because they want Subjects but 't is so far that any of these Obstacles should hinder the French from addicting themselves unto it that on the contrary all things conspire to raise desire of it in them and to give them hope of advantageous success The work however is such as must be leisurably carried on and perfected by little and little so great a design continually allarming Europe Asia Africa and America Friends and Foes A precipitation of it would be its ruine I say not what number of Vessels would be fit for France to put to Sea But I affirm that the King may keep an hundred Gallies and an hundred Ships on the Mediterranean and a Fleet of Two hundred Sail upon the Ocean The more Vessels He shall have the more enabled He will be to recover the expence made about ' em As to the building of such numbers six or ten years of time may be allotted for it and there is Timber in France there is Cordage there are Sails there is Iron and Brass there are Victuals and Workmen so that the King's Subjects will gain the Money which is laid out in ' em Is it not far better for the King of France to build Ships for the employing and enriching of His Subjects than it was for the Kings of Aegypt to build their useless Pyramids There need be no anxious enquiry whence a Stock should rise for this advance every year will bring in Money and the Vessels once made and their Guns mounted it will not cost the King a Quardecu for other Equippings 'T will be but to give the Captains Places in the Ships and Gallies on condition to fit them out and there will more persons come to take them than there will be Offices and Places to be bestowed 'T is true Fleets being out there will need vast Sums to maintain them but the Sea will yield a maintenance for the Sea either by Commerce or by War Neither will it be always proper to keep so many Vessels in service On the other hand it will not be necessary to have so many Troops at Land as are at present For Spain or Italy will not dare to disfurnish themselves of their Men so there will be no need of a Land-Army but towards Germany The number of Rowers will be made up by bringing Men from Canada and the American Islands or by buying Negroes at Cape Verde or by sending all Malefactors to the Gallies And when things have taken their course Seamen will be had time and the profit that will accrue will afford store and bring them in from all parts of the World Hereupon the Corsairs of Algiers Tunis and Tripoli will not be able to keep at Sea and the French being continually on their Coasts they will be constrain'd to tarry at home for the guarding of their Towns so not in a condition to send out Troops for collecting the Tribute which they exact of the Arabs and Princes who lye further up in Africa the Tributaries will without fail revolt and the King may in the sequel Treat with them for their recovering their Liberty and take them into his Protection There is no cause to fear the Power of the Ottoman Port in this particular For beside that the Turks are no good Seamen the Grand Signior doth make no such account of the Pyrats of Algier as that their fortune is considerable to Him The Friendship of the French is more necessary for Him both in point of Commerce and in reference to other Interests The Fleets which the King might keep upon the Ocean would make Him Master of all the Powers and Trade of the North. Yea though the English and Hollanders should unite against France they could not avoid their ruin in the end For how should the one and the other make good their Commerce which is all they have to trust to if they were forced to maintain great Armada's to continue it The point of Bretannie is the Gate to enter into and go out of the Channel Fifty Ships of War at Brest would keep this Gate fast shut and they should not open it but by the King's Command Spain and Portugal would not be able to attempt any thing but by His permission if there were kept a Fleet on the Coast of Guyenne Thus there would need no War almost to be made for all these things nor His Majesties Forces hazarded It would be sufficient to give his Order to Forreiners Nor will it be difficult to cut them out work in their own Countries and by this means stay their Arms at home and make them spend their strength there I shall something of this in its place hereafter There is one further excellent means to strengthen the King at Sea and it is the taking Order that no more of His Subjects go to Malta To do this there must be given in Fee to the French Knights of St. John of Jerusalem some Isle in the Mediterranean as for Instance the Isle du Levant for which they should pay an acknowledgment to the King as they do for Malta to the King of Spain There might be given them too on the same condition an Isle in the Ocean as Besle-Isle l'Isle-Dieu or the Isle of Ree so that the French Knights fighting not but against the Enemies of their Country they would make War upon the English as upon Turks and keep the Islands at their own charge whereas the King is fain to keep great Garisons and be at vast expence to do it There is no cause to fear that they will ever give the King any trouble for being French they cannot fail of Affection or Obedience and their Kindred together with the Wealth they have in France will be perpetual Hostages to the King and caution for their Fidelity This Project is just for of ten parts of the Knights of Malta no less than eight do come from the Commanderies of France and it is easie to be put in execution for there need be only a stopping the income of the Commanderies to effect it The Order in general will find its advantages in it both in that there will be an addition made it of two considerable Islands and that the King will receive the Knights into a more particular Protection than he hath done hitherto The number of Commanderies may also be augmented by giving them some Maladeries or Hospitals for the diseased which are always usurped by People that have no right to them at all Be it observed in the last place that it is very requisite the Office of Admiral and Powers of the Admiralty
should be united to the Crown It hath been an ill Policy in France and a Diminution of the King's Authority to communicate unto a Subject so much of His Soveraignty at Sea as hath been done He must resume it to Himself and be every way Supreme alone Then He may appoint a select number whose charge may be to give Him advice of the State of Maritime concerns and hold a Council from time to time upon them in His Majesties Presence if He please to assist These Officers shall in this Council judge of Prizes and other Sea-affairs and when its necessary be Commission'd some of them to visit the Ships and make report or send their acts in Writing concerning them Other Officers for the Marine shall be Military they to execute the King's Orders and have the conduct of Designs and Enterprizes in the usual manner It is important to the King's Service that the Captains of Ships and Gallies be honoured with Dignities and Rewards There may be created Mareschals of France for Armies at Sea as there are for those at Land with the same Honours and Prerogatives The Romans decreed a Triumph for Captains who had been victorious at Sea and called it a Naval Triumph They gave also Naval Crowns as well as Mural and Civical These Honours would eminently promote the King's intention as to the Marine There must be two Arsenals erected One in Provence in some Town upon the Rhosen for what relates to Naval Expeditions on the Mediterranean another upon the River Loire for all occasions on the Ocean By means of these two Rivers it will be easie to bring out to Sea all the Vessels that are builded and all necessary Provisions and Tackling whatever Nor need it be feared that any Enemy should get up these Rivers they too may be shut up by Bridges or by Chains or by Forts His Majesties Power thus strongly setled on each Sea it will be easie to secure Commerce in France and even draw the Merchants thither from all parts I say secure Commerce for till all this be done it will ever be uncertain and dangerous Now 't is unnecessary to expatiate here in proving what profit Commerce brings in to most potent States the thing is generally known and all Men convinc'd of it Again I know not why it hath been said that Trading is contrary to Virtue except it be for that Merchants are incessantly busied in studying inventions to get Money and be in a sort Servants to the Publick The Romans the Thebans and the Spartans admitted not any Citizen of theirs unto the administration of Affairs unless he had for Ten whole years sorborn Merchandizing because they would not have their principal Magistrates accustomed to Gain and expert in the means to do it These kind of inclinations being blameable in persons who being destined to great Employments ought to be above all Considerations of private Interest Commerce in every Common-wealth ought to take its measure from the temper of the People from their strength their wealth the fertility of their Grounds and the situation of their Country Therefore Order must be taken that things traded in be useful and in a manner necessary For it is a rule in Oeconomie that a Man spend not his Money in what is pleasing though he needs it but only in what is absolutely necessary But necessity is stated by the Birth the Dignity and the Estate of Persons as for example noble Furniture is necessary for a great Lord not so for every meaner Gentleman and thus in othes cases proportionably still to the rank and fortune of Men. It must be studiously prevented that Commerce introduce not into a State Superfluity Excess and Luxury which are often followed with Ambition Avarice and a dangerous corruption of Manners And forasmuch as it is not sufficient to Commerce that there be people to Sell but Merchants must be had to buy otherwise no Wares can go off in which all the advantage of Trade doth consist it is meet that Traders furnish themselve with necessaries rather than with things that meerly tend to Ease or Magnificence Among necessaries those make up the first rank which do sustain Life it self the second is of them that are for convenience others are also necessary to preservation from Diseases the injuries of Time and violence of Enemies as Medicinals Dwelling Arms. There is every where a twofold Commerce which is visible in France more than in any other part of the World The First is for things ordinarily found in the Country some of which are spent by the Inhabitants themselves and others transported The Second for Foreign Merchandises We have in France Wines Corn Linnen and Salt in so great a quantity that we send them into the neighbor Kingdoms and the quality of them is so excellent that strangers cannot forbear to come and carry them out of our Ports We have Cattle Skins Wooll Tallow Oils and other things necessary for Man of which Foreiners export very little but our selves do in a manner spend them all and this is the great wealthiness of France that we have enough to serve our turn without Foreign Merchandises but Forreigners cannot do well without ours We receive from other Countries Minerals Pearls Precious Stones Silks Spices and what seems to be matter of Luxury Order should be given that in France the Commodities we have be made use of before any Foreign Merchandises be employed because this Order followed would bring in the people Money and take off their Commodities which would incline every one to fall to the work of his Calling and the whole Kingdom be thereby hugely benefited It hath been a question offer'd to debate Whether Traffique in France should be managed by the Subjects or by Forreigners Many Reasons might be produced in the case upon each hand but to make a short decision 't is evident that Foreigners must be allowed to gain by our Merchandises if we would have them take them off For if we carry them home into their Ports we shall make less sales and be at greater cost than if they came to fetch them Yet that our Merchants may share in the profit they may enter into Partnership with them or be their Commissioners here or freight them themselves provided they sell at somewhat cheaper rates and so be content with moderate gain or take in payment and exchange the Foreign Commodities By means of Commerce as well as by War there may be French Colonies planted abroad and so the dominion of the King extended even to far distant Countries All the Nations of the Earth are intermix'd and may be termed Colonies some of one People some of another Of as many as are known few can be affirmed to be originally of the places they inhabit But to plant Colonies out of danger they must be seated in as much nearness still as is possible For if they be separated at too great a distance it will be difficult to relieve them and perhaps
done because they are ill husbands and lay up nothing Their Reward-money must be put in a Publick purse or into some Merchant's hands who will be responsible for it The share of Lacquies that die will serve for other Youths that shall be chosen This would prove an excellent means for the having of Soldiers For the Apprentices would serve in their turn on Military occasions they would go upon the Guard c. nor would this take them off from perfecting their skill in the Calling they had chosen It would too be profitable that poor Soldiers have skill in one handicraft or other and be made to work at it whenever they are not on the Guard by this means they would avoid idling and get Money for a subsistance The Parishes both in Town and Country might be obliged to set forth and maintain each of them a Soldier or two in Garison giving also a sum for their being taught a Trade at the same time There would be Parishes able to maintain a Man and half others half a Man the rest in proportion to the number of communicants in each of them So the King would have 50000 Men well-nigh in Garison and a Nursery of Soldiers without its costing Him a Quardecu for none must have pay but old Soldiers it s by taking this course that the Turks raise their Janizaries and they become their best Men and most Warlike When the young Men have been a while in Garison that is two or three years they shall be sent to the Army if there be War on foot and all recruits shall be rais'd out of the Garisons by this means they will be rais'd without any expence at all for instance if there need a recruit of 4000 Men each of the Governors shall be ordered to send one an hundred another two hundred and the Men being drawn out of the Garisons new supplies shall be put in taken out of the Parishes which sent the former Thus the Armies would be alway compos'd of none but expert Soldiers which is a matter of exceeding great consequence I will not prescribe in what Towns or in how many places it is fit to settle Garisons because this depends on the Kings Will and Pleasure and Towns to be chosen for this purpose need not be nominated the most commodious and best scituated are known As to those that should be destin'd for Sea-service they might be taken out of the same Garisons and should be taught principally Navigation but it would be better to breed them up in the Ships themselves that they might be accustomed to the Sea It is fit that they should understand all the practise of Mariners and also be Handicrafts men as well as Soldiers it would be very good that some of the number were Carpenters or at least each of them somewhat skilled in use of the Axe and Adice If Soldiers both at Sea and on Land were Artificers their Captains or others might cause them to work They should be paid for what they made and the Person that employed them might fell their work either in gross or by retail as Garments Shooes Cloth Hatts Gloves and this would prove hugely beneficial all the Soldiers would find content in it hardly one of them fall into debauch When the Youngsters have been some time in Garison and are not needed for recruits they should be sent home with their Discharge and Certificate Hereupon they may set up the Trade they have learned or addict themselves to Husbandry as they should think most commodious for them The Country Youth not chosen by the King's Commissioners for the Garisons should abide in their Parishes to learn the Art of Husbandry and be exercised in it A like course as is to be taken with young Men should also be taken with young Women There must be School-Mistresses in every City publickly pay'd who may teach them all kind of works the Maids giving them too something for a reward It would do well to use means that Women and even those of highest rank might count it a shame to be unskilfull work would notably fix their thoughts and busy them to excellent good purpose Of Women I had not yet spoken nor will I say of them ought more herein I shall Imitate Lycurgus and besides him Aristotle who both conceiv'd it not possible to give them any Rules and that their temper was so imperious that they could not endure to be restrained by Law this is more to be excused in French Women than in others 't is their due to be Mistresses since they may Glory upon better Title than the Lacedemonian Dames that they give birth to Men who are capable of rendring themselves by their Valour Conquerors of all the Earth It seems to me a fault that Maids should be suffer'd to Marry at Twelve and Males at Fourteen at which Ages the too too indulgent Laws have fixed the Puberty of the Sexes For as to Nature it is not possible but persons of those years only must extremely prejudice their Health by Marriage and spend their strength before they have attain'd it 'T is the making of young Trees bear Fruit before the time the Children are without doubt the less vigorous for it How can the Parents give them what they as yet have not themselves Again Morality and the Laws are concerned in the case the truth is when a Girl is put so young into the possession of a Husband she hath the less of bashfulness and Modesty nor is Virtue so well secured for her Besides at this age neither Man nor Woman is of understanding to know their Duty and hence it comes that the Marriages of persons so young are ordinarily attended with no very sure Felicity and Success Finally how can the one or the other take care of the Affairs of an House being altogether unexperienced or duly govern their Children needing Government themselves and having not by allowance of the Laws power to dispose of any thing So that it must be ordained they shall not be capable of making a valid contract of Marriage till they have attained Females the age of Eighteen years compleat and Males of Twenty CHAP. XIV 1. How France should act with Forreign Princes and First with the King of Spain and King of Portugal 2. With the Pope with Venice with the Princes of Italy 3. With the Swisses with England 4. With the Emperor and Princes of Germany 5. With the Hollanders the Crowns of Denmark Sweden and Poland 6. With the Turks and King of Persia 7. With the Kings of the Coast of Barbary and the King of Morocco 8. With all remote Princes as the Emperor of the Negroes Prestor John the Great Mogul The other Kings of the Indies of China and of Tartary HAving treated in the precedent Ceapters of things Internal to the State I think it reasonable to speak of Externals and what course is to be taken in them For to promote the happiness of People and govern them
3 Months would utterly ruin him He may be induc'd to hope that he shall be reinstated in the Principality of Geneva If War be made in Italy the Italians must not have time given them to look about them As they are the Wisest so when inur'd to War they are the bravest upon Earth In one word they are the Masters of the Universe The Swisses are Mercenaries who will alway serve the King for his Money As for matter of the English they have not any Friends themselves be a sort of People without Faith without Religion without Honesty without any Justice at all of the greatest levity that can be Cruel Impatient Gluttonous Proud Audacious Covetous fit for Handy strokes and a sudden execution but unable to carry on a War with judgment Their Country is good enough for sustenance of Life but not rich enough to afford them means for issuing forth and making any Conquest accordingly they never conquered any thing but Ireland whose Inhabitants are weak and ill Soldiers On the contrary the Romans conquer'd them then the Danes and the Normans in such a manner too that their present Kings are the Heirs of a Conqueror They hate one another and are in continual Division either about Religion or about the Government A War of France for three or four years upon them would totally ruin them So it seems reasonable that we should make no Peace with them but upon conditions of greatest advantage for us unless the King think meet to defer the execution of this Project to another time or that His Majesty press'd with the love He hath for His own People do incline to prefer their ease before so fair hopes One had need be a Monarch to know what it is to love Subjects as be a Father to know how Children are loved In fine if we had a mind to ruin the English we need but oblige them to keep an Army on foot and there is no fear that they should make any invasion upon France that would be their undoubted ruin if they be not call'd in by some Rebels Now if they have an Army they will infallibly make War upon one another and so ruin themselves You must put them upon making great expences and for this end raise a jealousie in them for the Isles of Jersey and Guernsey of Wight and Man for the Cinque-Ports and Ireland and by that means oblige them to keep strong Garisons in all those places this will create a belief in the people that the King formeth great Projects against their pretended Liberty and while He is in Arms His Subjects will hate Him They must be wrought to distrusts of one another by writing Letters in Cypher to some particular persons and causing them to be intercepted For being suspicious and imprudent they will soon be perswaded that the Letters were seriously written Some Forces should be landed in Ireland and in other parts The Irish may be induced to revolt as having a mortal hatred for the English The Scots also will not neglect to set themselves at liberty Factions must be rais'd and the Sects favoured against one another especially the Catholicks among whom the Benedictine Monks in particular should be secretly promis'd on the King of England's behalf wherein it will be easie to deceive them that they shall be restored to all the Estates which they once possessed in the Island according to the Monasticon there Printed Upon this the Monks will move Heaven and Earth and the Catholicks declare themselves The rumor which hath already gone abroad that the King of England is a Catholick must be fortifi'd and so all will fall into utter confusion and the English Monarchy be in case to be divided On the other hand our League with the Hollanders should be renew'd and they put into a belief that we will give them all the Trade still because they have a through Knowledge of it and are proper for it whereas the French have no inclination that way and Nature cannot be forced They must be told that now they are come to the happy time for advancing their affairs and ruining their Competitors in the Sovereignty of the Northen Seas Beside these particulars if the King give Belle-Isle or L'Isle Dieu or the Isle of Ree to the Knights of Malta as I have said before these Knights will make irreconcilable War upon the English redemand the Commanderies of their Order and by their courses and Piracies oblige them to keep great Fleets at Sea which will ruine them by ruining the profit of their Trade Mean time the King shall increase His Strength at Sea and then finding His Enemies weakned consummate their Depression and Subversion It is not difficult to make defence against any enterprises of the Emperor for He cannot make War upon France though He would such a War would be too costly for Him and and to make any progress in it He must needs bring into the Field excessive great Armies But if He armed Him so potently the Princes of Germany would grow jealous of Him and make Levies to oppose Him and to hinder His passage through their Territories beside His Hereditary Countrys would be disfurnish'd of Men and so expos'd to the inroads of the Turks so that there is no cause to apprehend any thing on the part of the Emperor On the contrary He hath intentions to give the King content because He may receive great succors from Him in Wars with the Turk as happen'd of late Years The Princes of Germany whether Catholicks or Protestants have an equal interest to keep themselves in the King's Protection for the reasons I noted afore in the Chapter of the Huguenots so that they will always oppose the Emperors growing greater on the side of France as it may be they would oppose the designs of the King if He should carry His Arms too far up into Germany 'T is the interest of lesser States that the Kings their Neighbours be equal in Power that the one may maintain them against the others To conclude the King hath no Allies whom He should so highly esteem as the Germans there is not a braver Nation a Nation more open more honest Their Original is also ours They have no Vices are Just and Faithfull there is among them an inexhaustible Seminary of good Soldiers their generosity put Alexander the Great into admiration for 'em and wrought affection and confidence in 'em in the first Caesars who by committinâ— their Persons to the virtue of these People entrusted them with the quiet of the Universe The Hollanders will never attempt any thing against France but keep themselves in our Alliance as much as possibly they may They are Rich and interessed as Merchants commonly are If the King had relinquish'd them theâ—… State would have sunk which yet by the rules of Policy cannot last long Democracieâ— being subject to changes It would be expedient that the King do interpose in their Affairs and some division be raised among
them We can hope for little from their Armies and they would always be a charge and expence to us The King of Denmark is a Prince whose State is but of small extent His whole Strength consists in the King's Protection who upholds Him against the Suedes his Enemies Sueden will never break off from the Interest of France It 's a Country unfertile except in Soldiers but there being little Money in Sueden and they far of they can of themselves make no considerable War they are feared and hated in Germany So we ought to consider them as Instruments which for our Money we may make use of to avenge our Quarrels either against the Emperor or the German Princes or to divert the English and the Holland Forces when His Majesty makes any enterprise which pleaseth them not Poland and Muscovy are of almost no use to 〈…〉 except it be to serve us in stopping the enâ—erprises of the Emperour Furs may be had â—om them and Cloth and Silk-stuffs sent â—hem The Friendship of the Turks is good for â—rance to be made use of on occasion against â—he Emperor and that of the King of Persia to â—e made use of against the Turks The one and â—he other may favour our Commerce There must be no reliance upon the promises of the Kings of Tripoly Tunis and Algier they â—re Pirates that take a Pride in breaking their Words and have no Faith at all Whenever â—ccasion serves War must be made upon them â—nd they attacqued home to their own doors in â—heir Harbours but with considerable Forces They may be ruin'd in time by hindring their courses at Sea and by causing the Tributary Princes to rise against them by Land as I have observed asore Upon this the King as the Carthaginians did might employ the Numidian Troops so much magnified by the Ancients The Emperor of Fez and Morocco is a Potent Prince who 's Alliance may be useful to the King against the Spaniards and for Commerce He is a Mahometan and I would not have too much trust put in His Oaths In fine when occasions for it are offered we must not fail to compliment the African Kings as the Emperors of the Negros and of the Abyssins then the Great Mogol and the other Kings of the Indies of China of Tartary and Japan letting them know by Presents the Virtue the Greatness and Magnificence of the King The Conclusion Such are the Political Maxims by which I have judged that the Subjects of this French Monarchy might attain to the possession of a true and stable felicity and so the Heroick labours of the King be Crowned with immortal Glory and France enjoy in all its parts the highly beneficial Virtue of its incomparable Monarch FINIS REFLECTIONS ON THE Fourth Chapter OF THE POLITICKS OF FRANCE Which Treats of the CLERGY LONDON Printed for Thomas Basset at the George in Fleetstreet 1691. TO Monsieur P. H. Marquess of C. SIR I Took so great satisfaction in the reading of those your Reflections upon the Roman Clergy that I have thought I could not better employ my time than illustrating them with a large Comment and though sometimes I improvs upon your judgement and make bold to push on somewhat farther than you are pleased to go yet shall you not find that I have gloss'd upon your discourse as some Monks have done on the Bible for I have faithfully confirm'd your Opinion by the History of our France and by the wise sayings of the best Authors And if by their help I let you see that your Maxims carry you to much higher enterprises than your Counsels aim at this is not to Contradict but to Assist you and per adventure to say for rou what you would have been content to have said your self After having thus fought under your Banners the interest of my Party which in your Fifth Chapter you are so hard upon obliges me to engage in their defence And I know you are too generous Sir to take this ill But I bestow not above a Third part of this Discourse on that Subject that you may clearly perceive I have more than double the pleasure in following your steps than I find in opposing you To return then to my chief design which is to espouse your quarrel and take your part against the Vsurpations of Rome I will shew you what more remains to be said on that occasion there is a pretty Book called An Examination of the Powers of Cardinal Chigi then when he came in the quality of Leg at to His Majesty A Book furnish'd with invincible Reasons and a profound knowledge of Antiquity especially for what concerns our France And from thence I acknowledge to have received some of the Authorities that I alledge As in those two Chapters where you speak against two contrary Parties you consider not Religion otherwise than as it affects the Policy of France I likewise have confin'd my self within the same bounds and have not examin'd this or the other Religion and the Professors farther than the State has or may have damage or benefit by them in Temporals I shall throughout this Discourse forbear to say what I now only mention at parting viz. That the Interest of God ought to be dearer to us than that of the State and that these two Interests accord so well that where Truth and Piety Reign Peace Justice and the State can never fail to Flourish God of his Goodness grant such happy times to France this is the Prayer of Your most Humble and most Obedient Servant De L'Ormegeigny REFLECTIONS ON THE Fourth Chapter OF THE Politicks of France Which Treats of the CLERGY FRance is much oblig'd to my Lord the Marquess of C. for having mark'd the many Vsurpations of the Court of Rome upon the Rights of our Kings He has wisely observ'd That the Churchmen have attempted on several occasions to render themselves Masters of all the Temporal Jurisdiction That their obstinacy has proceeded so far that making advantage of trouble some times they have forced our Kings to Declare in their Favour upon very unjust Conditions and to yield to them the Rights of Mortmain and Indemnity for the Lands they possess Whereby the State is so much the weaker as they grow in strength and that the conceipt of these Priviledges is so full in their Heads that to this day they can hardly acknowledge the King's Sovereignty That the multitude of Monks is an abuse of so sensible that the King can dissemble it no longer and that 't is high time seriously and effectually to apply some remedy That their blind subjection and dependance on the Pope's Will makes a Foreign Monarchy even in the very bosom of France And that they seduce the silly credulous People which is a matter of pernicious consequence That this Policy is founded on the abusive and destructive Maxims of Rome which are meerly Politick That those particular Vows of Obedience to the Pope and the name of Religion in
the Collation of a number of Benefices and think we are well helpt up in that the King the Magistrates and the Sorbonne will own no other Superior to the King but God for what concerns Temporals But I pray to what end is all this briskness in our Kings in our Parliaments and in the Sorbon against the Usurpations of the Pope in Temporals but to yield him the Spirituals and to confirm his pretensions even in Temporals Grant him the Spiritual Power and he will be Master of the Temporal without contradiction and he shall bring under his Jurisdiction all secular Causes under the colour of a Sacrament of an Oath of Charitable Uses or of matters of Conscience The Concords of our Kings with Rome and their pragmatick Sanctions about the Collations of Benefices what have they come to Is not this to come in for a share with the Robbers who had seiz'd the Royalties and by solemn Articles to make them a Title which they had no pretence to before their Invasions And what other do our Kings in acknowledging the Spiritual Power of the Pope but own themselves his Subjects in Temporals for the one hooks in the other of necessity The experience of six ages has prov'd this truth 'T is the voluntary Subjection of Emperors and Kings to the Spiritual Power of the Pope that has given him the liberty to Excommunicate them for this belongs to the Spiritual Jurisdiction And the very same Jurisdiction has authoris'd him to exempt their Subjects from the Oath of Fidelity for the keeping of an Oath is a duty of Religion so that if the Pope be obey'd by a discontented and factious People you see an Emperor or King is depos'd by the Spiritual Jurisdiction and the Pope may spare the other Power that he pretends to over the Temporalties of Kings seeing that his Spiritual power all alone is sufficient to ruine the poor Prince And if that the Christian Princes that are of his Communion own him for the Vicar of Jesus Christ let the Kings understand it in what sense they please he will make them know when-ever their weakness shall give him an opportunity that he takes himself for the Vicar of the Secular Power of Jesus Christ as well as of the Spiritual And that to him as to Christ whom he represents all Power is given in Heaven and on Earth This is what the last Council of Lateran attributes to him and applies to him that Prophesie of Psalm 72. particular to Jesus Christ All Kings shall be prostrate before him and all Nations shall serve him The Kings that prostrate themselves the most humbly before him are those he throws at his Feet Witness the Treatment he gave our good King Henry the Third who Ador'd him and yet he Thundered upon him and persecuted him even to death and beyond death For after he was Assassinated in pursuance of his Excommunication and Deposition by his Creatures of the League and particularly of the House of Guise that he favour'd He would not at all suffer any Obits or Services to be made for him at Rome as if he had a mind to have him Damn'd after he had caus'd him to be Murder'd Particularly he extoll'd in a Publick Harangue the execrable Parricide Jacob Clement and compares his Fact to the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God The design of this persecution drawn out so at length against the King the Princes of the Blood and against all the Kingdom is to be seen in the Memoirs of the Advocate David intercepted at Lions An. 1577. as he was upon his return from Rome where he had been Secretary to the Bishop of Paris the King's Ambassador with the Pope This Bishop of Paris a Creature of the Duke of Guise being at Rome An. 1576. instead of serving the Interests of the King his Master who had sent him to make an excuse by reason of the necessity of the King's Affairs for the Peace he had made with the Duke Alenzon his Brother and with the Princes of the Blood that were Protestants He apply'd himself wholly to the Interests of the Duke of Guise and the Pope who had then complotted together their devilish design of the League For the Pope whose custom it is to build his Greatness upon the weakness of Kings and the troubles of their States seeing the Royal-House declining despis'd and drawing to an end and France harassed with Civil Wars was easily wrought upon to favour the House of Guise which aspir'd manifestly to the Crown by the exclusion of the Princes of the Blood So upon the whole matter the Duke of Guise a Prince well made and of high undertaking powerful in Friends lov'd and ador'd by the People promised to give him all the Soveraignty in France which he counts himself debarr'd of by the pragmatick Sanctions and by the Liberties of the Gallicane-Church Then during the stay of this Ambassador at Rome An. 1576. an Agreement was drawn between the Pope and Duke of Guise whereby the Pope Declares That Hugh Capet had seiz'd the Crown of France which of Right belong'd to the House of Charlemaign That he and his Race had render'd the French refractory and disobedient to the Holy See by that damnable Error which they call the Liberties of the Gallicane-Church which is none other says he but the Doctrine of the Valdenses Albigenses the Poor of Lyons Lutherans and Calvinists That it is this Error which makes the Arms of the Kings of France in defence of the Holy Church unfortunate and that they never will prosper so long as the Crown shall continue in this Line In order thereunto an opportunity was now offer'd by reason of the present Divisions to labour in good earnest the Restoration of the Crown to the true Successors of Charlemaign who had always constantly obey'd the Commands of the Holy See And who had in effect shew'd themselves the lawful Heirs of the Apostolick Benediction upon that Crown though depriv'd of their Inheritance by fraud and violence That 't is plain the Race of the Capets are wholly deliver'd over to a reprobate Sense some being possess'd with a spirit of Mopishness Stupid and of no Valour Others rejected by God and Men for their Heresie proscribed and shut out from the Communion of the Holy Church Whereas the Branches of Charlemaign are fresh and flourishing Lovers of Virtue vigorous of Body and in Mind for the execution of high and laudable Enterprizes He goes on and Prophesies for them that as War bad been the means whereby they lost their Degree so Peace shall do them the service to restore them to their ancient Heritage of the Kingdom with the good Will the Consent and the Choice of all the People Afterwards follows a Lesson of the Conclave for the execution of this Design well worthy to be read For it is the whole plot and project of the League which was exactly observ'd all along even to the very last Act with the States
no longer now any ambitious Prince within the Kingdom to rob him of his Peoples Affection or that may dare to make any Alliance with the Pope to tumble him from his Throne and share the Crown We have this good fortune that we may set out to the life the ill aspect of Rome upon our Kings and that dangerous vigilance over France without any danger of abating the Courage of our Great King but on the contrary were his truly Royal Courage capable of an increase it would yet swell the higher from the consideration of the Evils that Rome has done and will yet do to France if he do not heartily oppose the Usurpations she exercises with impunity in all the parts of his Kingdom The honest French men that have the Honour to be near his Person might represent to Him the danger of this Doctrine maintain'd by the Popelings of His Kingdom That Jesus Christ committed to St. Peter as well the earthly as the heavenly Empire which are the very words of Pope Nicolas Therefore Cardinal Bellarmine Ch. 27. against Barclay holds absolutely That the Pope may dispose of all the Temporals of the World I affirm says he with confidence That our Lord Jesus Christ the time he was Mortal might dispose of all Temporal things and deprive the Kings and the Princes of their Kingdoms and Dominions and that without doubt he has left the same Power to his Vicar to be employ'd when he shall judge it necessary for the good of Souls The Pope Pius V. displays this Power with great Ostentation in his Bull against Queen Elizabeth of England wherein after that he calls Himself Servant of Servants he declares That God has establisht the Bishop of Rome Prince over all Nations and Kingdoms to take destroy disperse consume plant and build and in the Power hereof he does Anathemize degrade and depose this Queen absolves all her Subjects from the Oath of Fidelity that they had made her and forbids them absolutely to give her Obedience Gregory XIV set out such another Bull against our Great Henry declaring him uncapable of the Crown and exposing His Kingdom to prey But both this and the other Bull were torn and cast into the fire by the hands of the Hangman Observe that the Pope exerciseth this Power over the Temporalties of Kings for the good of Souls and as a Spiritual Prince So that our French Statesmen may cease to have their Eyes wilfully seal'd up by that distinction of Spiritual power which they allow him and Temporal power that they deny him For that it is by virtue of the Spiritual Power that he exerciseth the Temporal See what Cardinal Bellarmin says De pont Rom. l. 5. c. 5. The Pope may change the Kingdoms take them from one and give them to another as a Sovereign Spiritual Prince when it shall be necessary for the good of Souls And of this necessity he shall be the only Judge as the Sovereign Spiritual Prince For 't is thus the Cardinal argues Apol. pro Garnet p. 84. If the Church that is to say the Pope had not the power to dispose of Temporal things she would not be perfect and would want the Power that is necessary for the attaining her end for says he the wicked might entertain Hereticks and go scot-free and so Religion be turn'd upside down This reason charges imperfection on the Church in the Apostles time for that had no power over the Temporals These horrible Principles so strongly maintain'd by the Court of Rome were of fresh memory found so prejudicial both to the safety of our Kings and to the Peace of France that those of the third State an 1615. were mov'd to propose to the General States an Article containing the means to dispossess the people of that Opinion that the King might be depos'd by the Pope and that by the killing of Kings one might gain the Crown of Martyrdom Cardinal Du Perron in the name of the Clergy oppos'd this Article and employ'd all the strength of his Eloquence and Learning in two fair Speeches the one before the Nobility the other before the third State to perswade them that our Kings may be depos'd by the Pope offering himself to suffer Martyrdom in defence of this Truth The Lords of the Nobility to their great shame joyn'd with the Clergy for the putting their Kings Crown under the Miter of the Pope much degenerating from the vertue of their Ancestors those French Banons by whose advice Philip the August declar'd to the Cardinal D'Anagnia the Popes Legat that threatned him that it did not at all belong to the Church of Rome to pronounce Sentence against the King of France But the third State held firm to their Article that maintain'd the Dignity of their King and the safety of his Person and could never be won by promises nor affrighted by threatnings to depart from it shewing themselves in this more noble than the Nobility It is no wonder in this case that the third State shew'd more affection to their King than the Clergy seeing that the Clerks hold That they are not the King's Subjects for in effect they acknowledge another Sovereign out of the Kingdom And who can think it strange if they labour to heighten that Monarchy of which they make a Party But that the Nobility the Kings right arm that they should be so base to strike their Head and lay it at the feet of an Italian Bishop this is that which after Ages will reflect upon with astonishment and indignation and which Historians shall blush to relate and be vex'd that they cannot let pass in silence So the Nobility being joyn'd with the Clergy the Article of the third State was censur'd and rejected Whereupon the Pope writ Triumphant Letters to the Clergy and the Nobility who had been faithful to Him in this Cause glorying in His Victory and exalting the Magnanimity of these generoâ—s Nobles But in truth the Deputies of these generous Nobles deserv'd to have been degraded from their Nobility and they of the third State to have receiv'd their Titles The minority of the late King and the easiness of the Queen-Mother render'd them expos'd to these Injuries and apt to be circumvented insomuch that this Harangue made to the third State was printed with the Priviledge of the King and the Pope gain'd his point The false dealing of the Cardinal who made this Speech is remarkable namely that he had a long time followed King Henry the Great even then when he was of a contrary Religion and depos'd by the Pope and that a little before in an assembly held at the Jacobins in Paris he had resisted the Popes Nuncio who would that this Doctrine of the Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope might be held for an Article of Faith But in these two Harangues the Cardinal made a kind of a Recantation and pronounc'd himself his own condemnation Ungrateful wretch to have thus abus'd the tender Age of the Son of his King
and his great Benefactor and to have basely betray'd the Rights of the King to oblige the Court of Rome But this may not seem so strange if one consider that he got the best part of his preferment for certain Services of pleasure that do not much bind the Conscience of him that receives them nor that of him who is recompens'd for them And in truth those diverting Services that he and Monsieur De la Ravenne render'd to King Henry the Great deserve that Posterity should erect for them Statues crown'd with Myrtle God be thank'd that France now has a King vigorous both in Age and in Virtue who is the terrour of Rome having shewn himself sensible of its Usurpations upon France beyond all his Predecessors and of whom we have good occasion to hope that he will shake off this Italian Yoke and banish all Foreign Jurisdiction out of his Kingdom We also ought to bless God for that the French Nobility at this day is much of a different temper from that which in the full States submitted the Crown and life of their King to the Popes Tyranny 56 years ago And that is ready to cover their Fathers faults by generously assisting their King to make Him the only King within his Kingdom To effect this above all things those pretended Immunities and Exemptions must be taken from the Clergy which indeed are revolts from the Kings Authority to that of the Popes 'T is in truth very reasonable that they who have the charge of Souls should be discharg'd from many publick Services by reason they are vow'd and reserv'd to the Service of God but however not that they and their Lands should no longer depend on the King and be subject to another Sovereign This is what was represented to King Henry the Great by that illustrious Personage Achilles de Harley first President of his Court of Parliament at Paris in a Speech he made to him to disswade him from recalling the Jesuits he Remonstrates to him That according to their Doctrine he who has taken the lowest Orders of the Church could not be guilty of High Treason whatever Crime he committed for that the Clergy are no longer the Kings Subjects nor belonging to his Jurisdiction In such manner that the Church-men if one would believe them are exempt from Secular Powers and may without punishment attempt against Kings with their bloody-hands and that this Doctrine they maintain in their publish'd Books Thuanus l. 130. ad an 1604. To this effect the Jesuit Emanuel Sa holds That the Rebellion of a Clerk against the Prince is not the Crime laesae Majestatis because he is not a Subject of the Prince Words that have been left out in the Edition of Paris but remain in that of Cologne and that of Antwerp Bellarmin that has not been purged says the same thing He affirms De Cl. C. 28. That a Clerk cannot be punished by the Civil Judges or in any wise brought before the Judicial Seat of a Secular Magistrate He likewise says That the Sovereign Pontifex having deliver'd the Clerks from the subjection of Princes Kings are no more the superiors of Clerks The Pope then by his reckoning is the King of Kings if he can deliver whom he pleases from their subjection due to their Princes by their birth by making them Clerks and it will be in his Power not to leave in France any Subject to the King if all his Subjects will but accept of the meanest Orders This Body of the Clergy has its Judges and Officers apart and Prisons apart Their Causes will not bide the Trial before the Kings Judges but fly to the Rota or to the Consistory at Rome There may be found an incredible number of Persons in France who under the Title of the Clergy have shaken off the Yoke of the Kings Authority and a third part of the Land of the Kingdom is in the Church-mens hands for which they will neither render Homage nor Service to the King And though the lots and vents the quints requints and other Rights of Lordship belong to the King all these Rights are lost after that the moveable goods are enter'd into the possession of the Clergy The King also loses his Rights D'Aubanir of Confiscation and of Deforence the Clergy being a Body that never dies yet mortifies the Inheritances new Donations falling to them every day but none goes from them A famous Writer said pleasantly That as the Arms and Thighs dwindle when the Belly swels to excess so in the Body of a State the Nobility and People that are as the Arms and Legs of a Commonweal are impair'd by the fatning of the Clergy I am of those who wish the Clergy may have those means and that Dignity which may lift them above Contempt and Oppression and render them respected even of Kings But because I love them I wish their Riches may not be so excessive as to create in Kings a jealousie that may cause them to be taken away as has happen'd in England and in other places 'T is therefore a great imprudence of our Lords the Clergy of France who possess the best part and the fat of the Kingdom enough to cause jealousie in the Seculars and the avarice of Sacriledge to add yet this unjust pretension of immunity from all Charges both for their persons and for their goods and defend themselves with the Popes Authority which exempts them Which in effect is to tell the King That they are another Kings Subjects who has Power to Command Him to dispose of the Lands under his Obedience and to limit his Authority over the Persons of the Native French If for this they alledge a long Custom we may say That the Popes to settle their Usurpations in France have ever embroil'd our Kings in Troubles and oblig'd them to think of somewhat else besides the repelling the blind encroachments of a stranger Kingdom that crept into their Realm and that they had to do with weak Princes or such as had their hands full other ways But now that God has given France a King wise powerful flourishing and who has leisure to have an Eye or all his Interests will these Gentlemen expect that he will suffer long that a third of his Kingdom lie unprofitable to him and even that it be reserv'd to fortifie a Foreign Monarchy and though natural reason requires that they who live at ease should comfort those who fight for their preservation all this while that the Nobles and the third State oppose the invasion of Strangers all this while that the King is fortifying his Frontiers entertaining Garisons setling Officers both for the State and for the War Why do not the Church-men who are thereby maintain'd in the quiet enjoyment of so great plenty contribute one Mite towards the defraying of publick Charges Why shall their increase be a diminution to the strength of the King who is kept waking for their repose and preservation Shall not the King
adviseable to appear in it barefac'd for says he That would be to bring upon us the Clamours and importunity of all the Monks and their followers this would be to bring Rome upon our back which might give us trouble I confess that no good can be acquir'd without trouble But I cannot conceive that it would be much trouble to deliver France from the Usurpations and the Exactions of Rome To forbid that there be in France no more Courts depending on the Pope nor Money carried from France to Rome or any Cause removed thither by Appeal And that no provision of Benefices be receiv'd from thence This in truth would be to bring Rome on our backs but not one Sword would be drawn in the Cause either within the Kingdom or without Should the Emperor do the same within his Principalities our King would not stir nor would the Emperor any more be concern'd if the King should set back the Jurisdiction of the Pope to beyond the Alps. When King Henry VIII of England did the same in his Kingdom what Prince undertook the quarrel against him How easily would the People accustom themselves to be free from the Papal Exactions and how vain and idle were the Attempts of the Popes Partisans in England to restore his Authority that Prince hack'd and harass'd what he had a mind to in the Ecclesiastick Estate and the clamours of the Monks which the Marquess is affraid on frighted not him though he treated them coursely Nor are we at all to fear least the Monks take up Arms as the Chiefs of the League forc'd them to do which would serve only to make them be laught at and gave a subject to the Painters for those antick and ridiculous Portracts that they have left us Or if any little broil should be rais'd by some of the Bigots how soon must it fall before a great King who is never without an Army Who shall read over all the Book of the Marquiss shall find that he proposes Reformations in the State far more hand to be effected than the banishing of the Canon-Law and Papal Jurisdiction out of the Kingdom For he would perfectly melt down the Justice and Policy and cast them all anew He has truly made it appear that he understands the Malady of the State and yet his Projects to remedy them cannot be put in execution without bringing to ruine and despair many active Spirits that live on their Prosessions which is very dangerous to attempt in a State Whereas the expulsion of the Canon-Law out of France and the reduction of all Causes thereon depending to the Civil Magistrate and of all persons acknowledging the Pope to the Obedience of the King would not at all be any dangerous Innovation To discontent the regular Ecclesiasticks that are unactive as bred up in the shade and in contemplation or in idleness can be no great danger especially leaving them their Revenues at least for life I neither have the wit nor the presumption to give a model of what Orders should be prescrib'd the Church after the Papal Jurisdiction is banisht the Kingdom And I shall go no farther than to say that I see no vigour in the Roman Jurisdiction and their Partisans in France that may hinder the King from cashiering them absolutely and making himself Master at home Even the Excommunications and Interdicts that would follow would strengthen him being of no other effect but to provoke the Parliaments and to animate the People against the Pope The greatest part of the Clergy would submit to the King and would cast off all Foreign Domination and the dissenting Clergy would be inconsiderable would be disperst and vanish before the Rays of the Authority Royal. And I pray a King of England could he accomplish this Work to free himself from the Papal-Yoke though carried thereunto more by passion than prudence And our Great King so Vigorous so Powerful so Wise shall not he dare to undertake it for fear of vexing the Pope and the Monks Shall he be scar'd with an imaginary Monarchy that has neither force nor foundation save in the Opinion of those that fear it and establish it by their sottish fear What is most considerable in this Example is That the Pope continues banisht out of England For though restor'd by Queen Mary and his Power own'd for the space of five years Queen Elizabeth and the Kings her Successors found themselves so much at ease in being deliver'd from the Roman-Yoke and in being acknowledged Supreme under God in all Causes and over all Persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil that they have maintain'd and do yet maintain this Authority essential to their Crown This Authority is no less essential to the Crown of our Great King and 't is this that the good Prince James King of England represents to all Kings and Princes of Christendom in the Remonstrance he has made them touching the Rights of their Crowns They have not hitherto been so happy to listen to it but let us hear what he says to them If you that are the most Powerful come to consider in earnest with your selves that well-nigh a third of your People and of your Lands belong to the Church will not the Thoughts of so great a loss move you which withdraws from your Jurisdiction so many Men and so much of your Lands in such manner that every where they plant Colonies and Provinces for the Pope What Thorns and Thistles suffer you to grow in the Country under your Subjection so long as so powerful a Faction flourishes and spreads over so much good Soil within your Kingdoms openly maintaining that they are exempt from your Power and that they are by no right subject to your Laws and to your Judgments insomuch that whereas formerly the Clerks desir'd no more but their Tiths and liv'd thereon content at this day the Pope chief of the Clerks is not content with less than a third part of your Subjects and of your Lands These words of a King our Neighbour happily enjoying a Sovereignty independant of the Pope of which his Ancestor robb'd this Robber an hundred and forty years ago ought to move in our Kings a virtuous Emulation to recover and after to maintain the Rights proper to their Crown And the example of so flourishing a success ought to encourage them to so just and so noble an Undertaking From this great and principal acquisition that the King shall be the only Sovereign in his Kingdom other advantages will arise These stranger Courts being put down that are the Mills whither every one brings and where the Moulture goes all to Rome or to their Creatures the Money they drain from the Kings Subjects shall stay in France and seeing that this employs a great number of Officers that only do harm to the State when this Gate shall be shut the young Men will seek out other ways to make themselves valued by and the Arts and Commerce of the Kingdom will be
more considerable We shall likewise save the Treasure that is spent unprofitably in the Embassies to Rome and in courting the good Graces of the Cardinals at the Elections of Popes and in the Reception of Legates and Nuncio's by all which France does nought else but prosess and encrease her Slavery without the return of the least advantage For what-ever Compliments what-ever Expence France may make yet the Catholick King is the Minion of Rome and the Subjects of Spain are the Chapmen that but most of their Wares and that have most blind Devotion for the Holy See And in truth seeing that the Politicks of France by the Marquess and Monfieur Silhon and before them Cardinal D'Ossat have testified their little satisfaction with Rome and publish'd her Cheats in so far that as we know that Rome does not at all love us in like manner Rome well knows that we care not for Her and I cannot understand to what end serve all our Civilities to the Court of Rome but to puff them up the more and provoke the Gentlemen to laughter who without doubt receive a wonderful pleasure in seeing their professed Enemies come to kiss their feet 'T is true that so long as France suffers Rome to dispose of many Benefices we must always have occasion to deal with them and as the Pope to Preserve his Credit amuses the Princes with com-promises and treaties which he draws out at length deporting himself as the Judge of Differences whereas he creates more than he decides So very often Princes contribute to his Inclination by their delays and in setting before his Council-board Affairs that they have no intention should be concluded And whatever their Inclination be at the bottom he is courted and caress'd as the Arbiter which pleases him extremely And why should it not please him to have at his Court the Ambassadors of the Empire of France of Spain of Poland of Portugal and other Princes that bring him Authority by their difference and bring gain to his Court and his Citizens by their Liberalities and by their Expences suitable to the Dignity of their Masters The great Men and the Sages of Council to His Majesty may when they please consider what good comes to our Kings by their keeping the Pope in this humour of his being their Judge and in letting him enjoy his pretended Rights in France And whether it is not better and a shorter way for France to do its own business without him and to take from him what does not at all belong to him in our Kingdom that we may have no more to do with him The King has been pleas'd to declare That he desir'd to re-unite his Subjects in their Religion This so Christian and Royal Design cannot be executed so long as the Pope shall have any Power in France for this Re-union cannot be made unless the Parties mutually yield some matters either in the Doctrine or in the Discipline 't is certain that the Pope will never consent at least not to be own'd the Vicar of Jesus Christ that has all the Power which Jesus Christ had upon Earth and that on the other hand the Protestants who have quite another Opinion of him and such an one as all know though they make it not an Article of their Faith they can never submit to his Authority But if that France were not govern'd in Spirituals save by the King and his Bishops an half of the way to this great Work were already over it being most certain that most of the Points in difference are not maintain'd by the Theologians vow'd to the Popes Service farther than as they serve his Interests REFLECTIONS UPON THE Fifth Chapter OF THE Politicks of France Which Treats of the HUGUENOTS I Have Treated my Lord the Marquess of C. with all the Respect that was possible for me in my Reflections upon his Chapter of the Clergy I could not do more to comply with him and serve him than by approving his Judgment and confirming it with Authorities adding only what he durst not venture and may be had a mind to say Upon his Chapter of the Huguenots I shall keep my self within the same Respect But I would hope from his Ingenuity that after I have taken some pains in commending and defending the judgment he has made on the Roman Clergy he in recompence would give me the liberty to oppose that which he has given upon those he calls Huguenots and to complain of the Treatment he would have dealt to them But because I take great delight in according with him as far as is possible I embrace the advice he gives at the entrance That a King cannot have a more noble Object of his care than to preserve in his States the Religion he has receiv'd from his Ancestors For though this Proposition be not universally true I will understand it in his Senle supposing that he means the True Christian Religion And 't is that His Majesty he receiv'd of His Ancestors the which I presume he will not limit to two or three Descents of his next Predecessors but as he has drawn from three Stocks the lawful Succession of our last Kings and affirms That they are Branches sprung from the same root he cannot take it ill that we go back to the First and Second Race to find the Religion that His Majesty has receiv'd of his Ancestors Therefore as the Noble Marquess in his Second Chapter speaking of the pretended Exemptions of the Clergy appeals for that matter to the old Kings and Emperors who own'd no such thing and says That the Clergy cannot take it amiss if His Majesty reduce things to their Primitive state In like manner the Marquess cannot take it amiss that Religion be reduc'd to its Primitive state at least to the state it was left in at the time when our Kings were Emperors Now I have shew'd in the foregoing Chapter that the Emperor Charlemaign one of His Majesties Ancestors Convok'd a Synod in which the Worship of Images was condemned and that he himself made a Book against the Second Council of Nice and against Images which we have preserv'd to this day and that under Lewis the Mild his Son another Synod was held at Paris against Images all the Acts of which we have entire This Doctrine is a principal Point of the Religion that our Kings receiv'd from their Ancestors and which we profess And as much may be said in point of the Holy Sacrament of which so much noise is made at this day that we willingly refer our selves to what was believ'd in the times of His Majesties Ancestors I should stray from my Subject should I enter upon Controversie the Marquess obliges me to stand upon another Guard employing his Eloquence in treating us as Rebels and Enemies of the State I am far from justifying the evil Actions of our Party But since we are to deal with Men of such a spirit that display the Evil and suppress the Good
the colour of Religion and particularly to destroy the King Henry III. as appear'd afterwards During these long Troubles what refuge found the King of Navarre whom God reserv'd for the Crown of France but amongst these of the Reform'd Religion These were they that aided that defended and even nourisht him in his long and cruel Adversities And after in the end when the League had pull'd off the Mask and had driven the King from Paris and besieg'd him at Tours came not they to his Relief under their brave Chieftain and did they not deliver him from the utmost danger though he had sent his Armies against them to extirpate them I would gladly ask the Noble Marquess Where were then the honest French and where were the Rebels Would he find the honest French amongst the fiery Zealots and Bigots of the League Who have shed so much Blood to beat down this dangerous Sect as he is pleas'd to brand us With your good leave Noble Marquess which of the two is this dangerous Sect that which teaches that the Persons of Kings are inviolable and that exposes their Lives to defend those Kings that had persecuted them or that which holds That a King Excommunicated by the Pope may be justly kill'd by any body and which out of zeal for Religion plunge their Bloody Hands into the Bowels of their Soveraign as St. Jacob Clement did and as John Castrel and Peter Barâ—iere attempted and as Ravaillac perform'd Where is the Huguenot that ever offer'd any thing of this Nature during all the Persecutions of their Party Or where is the Minister that ever broacht such Doctrine to his Flock to kill their King which your Spiritual Fathers have so often done I would also ask the Marquess Where he finds that term of near fourscorce years spent in quelling this dengerous Sect which is the title he is pleased to give us Would he take in to these 80 years the 38 after the death of Francis II. till the Peace of Amiens in which time the Reformed Party were the constant and the only support of the Great Henry for near 30 years Will he venture to say That those Arms which defended the hope of after Ages and the fortune of France were unjust Let him also say if he please Whether by the zeal that has been to reduce the Hereticks to their duty he means that Butchery of the St. Bartholomews and the Massacres in every Town of France at that time and before which are reductions of a strange nature And because he may Object That their defence of the Princes of the Blood was only a pretence for the Huguenots taking up Arms and their unjust resistance against their Sovereign It will suffice to answer That their Arms were necessary for the Preservation of that Great Prince whom God reserv'd for the blessing of France and that when He came to the Crown they were judg'd worthy of a Reward I would beseech also all indifferent persons to consider them simply as men that are neither Angels nor Devils and to tell us if they think it strange that men the Relicks of Fires and Slaughters which were the only arguments employ'd for their Conversion for so many years take the course at length that Nature teaches them to defend themselves against force with force This to take it at the worst is all the Rebellion can be objected against them in all that past Age till the quiet settlement of Henry the Great But the good Providence of God has well clear'd them from the necessity of that excuse having set them out an Employment so just and so fortunate for their Arms that all who love and who shall for future Ages love the Prosperity of France and the Greatness of the Royal Family will have perpetual reason to bless the timely succour of this Party and to praise God who rais'd them for the everlasting good of the Kingdom Let us come to their condition after that Henry the Great was establish'd on His Throne The King being turn'd Roman Catholick and seeing his Party of the Reformed Religion discontent and in trouble as expos'd afresh to what they had afore tried gave them Places of Security for about twenty years This was the Ground-work of all their Miseries and I am much inclin'd to believe that this was procur'd for them by those who projected their ruine For their Enemies might well think that a King that understands his Interest would not long sufler in the heart of his Kingdom places assign'd for Protection against Himself in effect and to make resistance in case he kept not all his promises That these Places would be retreats for all discontented Persons and Incendiaries that would trouble the State That Strangers seeing in France a Party strengthen'd with Garisons and holding themselves in perpetual defiance would never leave bidding them to cock up and fomenting their discontents That this thorn in the foot of France would always hinder it from advancing and after all that this would be a kind of dangerous Discipline in a State to accustom Subjects to represent their Grievances with Sword in Hand On the other hand they might well fore-see that the Reform'd being seiz'd of these places would not quit them at the end of the term assign'd imagining that the enjoyment of their Religion of their Goods and of their Lives depended all on their keeping of these Places and that by their refusal they would oblige the King to win them by force which would make them Criminals odious and objects of the Justice and Vegeance of an incens'd Master And even so it happen'd For their term for holding these places being expir'd the King demands them again and having at their instant request prolong'd their term for three or four years at length wisely resolv'd to force them this gave occasion for the Assembly of Rochel where most imprudently and contrary to their duty to God and the King they resolv'd to hold the Places by force a resolution of despair ill-grounded For though the King shew'd himself favourable to his Subjects of the Religion after he had taken these Places by his Arms he would have been yet more favourable to them had they render'd the Places humbly and peaceably at his demand When the Assembly of Rochel began was held the National Synod of Alaix in which the famous Du Moulin was President In that Country where many of these Places of Security were he apply'd himself seriously to consider the posture of the Affairs of his Party to sound their Inclinations and to give them good counsel And he found that the greatest and the best part was dispos'd to render their Places to the King and did not at all approve of the proceedings of the Assembly of Rochel of which matter he thought himself oblig'd to inform that Assembly and having return'd home he writ them an excellent Letter a Copy whereof I have procur'd which is as follows SIRS I Write not to you to pour my
and that it is to sail against Wind and Tide But you are wise enough to see and consider the posture of our Neighbours and from whence you may hope for succor and whether amongst you the Virtue and the good Agreement and the Quality of your Chiefs is augmented or diminish'd Certainly this is not the time when the troubling of that Pool will bring us a Cure And it is plain that if any thing can help us amidst so much weakness it must be the zeal of Religon the which in our Fathers time did support us when we had less Strength and more Virtue But in this cause you will find that Zeal very cool because the most part of our People believes that this Evil might have been prevented without making a breach in the Conscience Assure your selves there will always be Divisions amongst us when we shall stir upon civil accounts and not directly for the Cause of the Gospel Against all this 't is Objected That our Enemies have resolv'd our ruin That they undermine us by little and little and that we had better begin presently than attend longer 'T is very true he must want common Sense that doubts of their ill-will Mean time when I reflect on our several Losses as that of Letoure of Privas and of Bearn I find that our selves have contributed thereto and we are not at all to wonder if our Enemies are not much in pain to set us right and if they joyn with us to undo us But herein it does not follow that we should throw the Helve after the Hatchet and set fire to our own House because others are resolv'd to burn it or undertake to remedy particular Evils by means weak for that end but strong and effectual for the general ruin God who so often has diverted the Counsels taken for our destruction has not lost his Power neither has he chang'd his Will We shall find that He is always the same if we have the Grace to wait His assistance and do not cast our selves headlong through our impatience and dash upon impossibilities Take this for certain that though our Enemies seek our ruin they will never attempt it openly and will lay hold on some other pretence more plausible than that of Religion which we never ought to give them If we contain our selves in the Obedience that Subjects owe to their Soveraign we shall see that whilst our Enemies hope in vain that we shall make our selves Criminals by some Disobedience God will cut them out some other work and furnish us with occasious to testifie to his Majesty that we are a Body profitable to his State and thereby put him in mind of the signal Services our Churches have paid to the late King of Glorious Memory But if we are so unfortunate that whilst we keep to our Duty the Calamnies of our Enemies prevail at the least we shall have this satisfaction that we have been just on our side and that we have testified that we love the peace of the State Notwithstanding all this Sirs you can and you ought to give order for the security of your Persons For His Majesty and His Council having said often That if you will separate He will leave to our Churches the enjoyment of Peace and of the benefit of his Edicts it is not reasonable that your separation should be made with danger to your Persons And when you shall require that you may separate with safety I make no doubt but you will easily obtain your desires provided that you insist upon what is possible and such things as the misery of the Times and the present necessity may admit It remains that whilst you are together you advise what ought to be done in case you may be opprest notwithstanding your separation It concerns your Prudence to give order and is not my part to suggest If in proposing these things to you I have slipt beyond the bounds of discretion impute it if you please to my zeal for the good and the preservation of the Church And if this my advice be rejected as unworthy your consideration I shall have this comfort that I have discharg'd my Conscience and retiring into a strange Country I shall there finish the few days that remain for me to live lamenting the ruin of the Church and the destruction of the Temple for the building of which I have labour'd with more Courage and Fidelity than with Success The Lord turn his Wrath from us guide your Assembly and preserve your Persons I am c. When this Letter was read in the Assembly which did not at all approve it some arose immediately went from the Assembly and never return'd more And all found in the end that the Advertisements of this Holy Person were Prophesies It appears then that notwithstanding the great Temptations of Fear and Despair that mov'd this Assembly to resist the King their resistance was disavow'd by the best and the greatest Party of the Reform'd Churches of France and that they were exhorted to obey the King by their Divines who in matters of Conscience are the representative Body of the Church when they are Solemnly Assembl'd Now this was the Sense of the National Synod of which this eminent Person came from being the President 'T is then wrongfully that the Noble Marquess taxes all our Party with Rebellion when as our Theologians declar'd themselves so strongly against it the most of those that held these Places of Security open'd their Gates to the King and more than three Fourths of his Subjects of the Reform'd Religion kept in their Obedience I cannot omit that in the greatest heat of those who resisted there yet remained many glances of Loyaly and Love for their King I shall observe two At the Siege of Montaubon the most obstinately defended of all the other Sieges the King and his Court passed before the Walls from whence they were shooting most furiously but when the Besieged beheld his Majesty they left off shooting and cry'd out with a great force Long live the King The instance of Rochel is more remarkable and it is very memorable The Rochellers besieg'd implored the assistance of England which was offer'd them but the Duke of Buckingham came late so that the Rochellers after they had eaten the Horses were now eating their Saddles In this great extremity the Duke told their Deputies that if they would deliver the Town to the King of England they should be assisted effectually The Deputies refus'd and the Rochellers resolv'd to undergo all the rigours that their King provok'd would exercise upon them rather than deliver the Town to a stranger This just King had notice thereof and treated them the more mildly at the Surrender overcoming like a Christian evil with good The Noble Marquess does the quite contrary for he studies to overcome good with evil displaying our Faults with all the aggravation and concealing our Services He says That the spirit of the Huguenots is always ready for
revolts for Confusion and Anarchy That there will be more than an hundred thousand men of the Kings Enemies in the bowels of his Kingdom so long as there shall be Huguenots in France and that perhaps they wait only an occasion to rise up in Arms. He pretends even to know their hearts saying That they have in their hearts the same hatred they had which are words flung out with more animosity than reason For 't is but ill Logick that they are all Rebels because about a six part of their number took up Arms in their defence to keep some Places of safety and that because they have sin'd they never have repented If all they who have been engag'd in the Troubles of the State within these last forty years are to be thought the Kings Enemies for ever His Majesty would find few Persons in his Kingdom whom he might trust and now forty years are past since the War for those Places of safety was ended When the Body is in a Fever the good humors are stir'd as well as the bad and all settle again when the Disease is over The same is in the Body of a State it is subject to hot fits that enflame both good and bad but all grow cool and quiet in time by the wisdom of the Sovereign and by the repentance of those that are honest good men To upbraid them as Rebells and Enemies that took up Arms against their duty and laid them down again forty years ago this is to violate the Laws of Amnesty without which no State could subsist Kings being the Lieutenants of God ought to deal with their Subjects as God does with his He forgives and forgets offences and makes them faithful that were disobedient through his Benefits The Protestants of Languedoc stay'd not for the Kings Benefits till they testifi'd their Fidelity and their Oblivion of what they had suffer'd in the reduction of the Places that they had held than when their wounds were yet bleeding This was when the Duke of Montmorency in Longuedoc where he was Governor made a Party against the King hoping to find the Protestants who are in great numbers in that Province ready for an Insurrection from the resentment of their late Sufferings But he found the quite contrary for they all joyn'd as one man with the Kings Forces and did him excellent Service in a battel where the Duke was defeated and taken and a Bishop with him The old Marshall De la Force who had scap'd the Massacre of St. Barth olomew by hiding himself under the Carkasses of his Brothers whose Throats were cut was one of the Principal Commanders in this Action That Marquess confesses That in the Wars at Paris they put themselves in Arms and with great respect protested that they were at the Kings Service and their Actions would have justify'd their Protestations if His Majesty had had occasion for their Service I will not loose time and pains in making Reflections upon the fourteen ways he proposes to torment us and make us weary of our Religion of our Country and our Lives Ways enough are found out without his proposing And now because the King of late years has had much to do with the Court of Rome it has been a part of the Policy of France whilst they affront the Pope at the same time to treat us with some extraordinary Severity to prevent the suspicion of Heresie We humble our selves under the powerfull hand of God and under that of our Sovereign confessing that we are justly chastis'd for our sins For the rest we know in whom we have trusted and shelter our selves under the Hand that strikes us assuring our selves that it will protect us and that we shall find Jesus Christ our Redeemer and his Spirit our Comforter both in this Life and in that which is to come As the Marquess is very exact in giving Instructions to ruine us he does the same towards the end of his Book for England counting it a Nation that is good for nothing but to be ruin'd We cannot take the advantage of these Instructions given against us to defend our selves against them for we are a Body meerly passive expos'd and submitted to all that God and the King will do with us But for the English when he has disoblig'd them by the most odious Character that his Malice could furnish his Eloquence withall He obliges them in publishing all those ways that must be taken to destroy them for it is likely that being told of them they will look to themselves Mean time his Readers will say of him that they who tell aforehand of their cunning are not very cunning Because that the noble Marquess terms us Rebels and Enemies of the State after the humble confession of our Faults which I have neither cloak'd nor dissembl'd I will take the boldness to compare them with those of some of the Gentlemen of the Roman Clergy especially of the Jesuits and their Disciples and that they that are not pre-possest with passion may judge whether to them rather or to us belongs the title Of Enemies of the State Let us consider the Actions and the Doctrine of the one and the other For the Actions the horrible attempts against the Sacred Persons of our Kings by Ecclesiasticks and Scholars of the Jesuits and all the Enormities of the League to destroy our Kings our Laws and our Monarchy and to transfer it to a stranger carry away without dispute the prize of Villany from those who being possest with a fear ill-grounded have with Arms defended the Places that were lent to them by Edict for the security of their Religion of their Goods and of their Lives Add hereto that they had their hearts big with the sense of their incomparable Service to the Crown and believ'd they well deserv'd what these endeavour'd to keep And as for the Doctrine these never read Lectures of Rebellion and Parricide And the resistance some of the Party made against the King was condemn'd by their Divines whose writings are full of Lessons of Obedience and of Fidelity to their Sovereigns Whereas those of the Jesuits and their Disciples teach the people to cast off and kill their King so often as it may please the Pope to Excommucate him France has felt the Effects of this Doctrine during the long Wars of the League and it was the Books and the Sermons that made the Sword be drawn and that sharpen'd the Daggers for the Murder of our Kings whilst the Protestants expos'd their Lives for their Preservation Now I am content to let pass what is past provided the same may be done to us Let us fix upon the present Whom ought you to esteem the Enemies of the State those who subject the Crown of our Kings absolutely to the Papal Mitre and who acknowledge another Sovereign than the King or they who own him their only Sovereign and maintain that his Crown depends not save on God alone What in Conscience is
the true ground of the great hatred that is born us is it not for that if we are to be believ'd there would not in France be any French-man that is not the Kings Subject Causes Beneficial and Matrimonial would not be carried to Rome nor the Kingdom be Tributary under the shadow of Annates and the like Impositions And on this Subject the Testimony of Cardinal Perron for us in his Harangue to the Third State is very considerable wheâ— he says The Doctrine of the Deposition of Kings by the Pope has been held in France until Calvin Whereby he tacitely acknowledges That our Kings had been ill serv'd before and that those he calls Hereticks having brought to light the Holy Scripture have made the Right of Kings be known which had been kept supprest Shall they be said Friends of the State who owning themselves Subjects of a Stranger Soveraign dare endeavour to make themselves Masters of all the Temporal Jurisdiction of which the Marquess complains loudly and with good cause and of the great resistance they have made to maintain themselves in an Usurpation so unreasonable In this kind those of the Church of the Reform'd Religion could never be accus'd in the Towns where we have had some Power Our Religion is hated because it combats the Pride the Avarice and the Usur pations of the Court of Rome and their Substitutes in the Kingdom and because we have shewn to the World that sordid Bank of spiritual Graces they have planted in the Church and how they have drawn to themselves a Third of the Lands of France for fear of Purgatory from silly People mop'd with a blind Devotion and from Robbers and Extortioners who have thought to make Peace with God by letting these share in the booty 'T is an advice very suitable to the Politicks of France to examine well the Controversies that are most gainful to the Clergy as this of Purgatory concerning which an old Poet said the Truth in his way of Drollery But if it be so That no more Souls shall go To old Purgatory Then the Pope will gain nought by the Story It would be wisely done to examine what necessity there is for so many Begging-Fryers that suck out the Blood and Marrow of devout People and for so many Markets of Pardons in honour of a number of Saints of a new Edition and for what design are made so many Controversies And whether it would not be a great Treasure for the Kings Subjects to Teach them to work out their Salvation and put their Consciences in quiet at a cheaper rate God justly provok'd by the great Sins of France gives us not yet the Grace of that Gospel-Truth St. John Ch. 8. Know the Truth and the Truth will set you free And though it shines out so clear to let us see the Usurpation of the Popes upon the Temporals of the King and upon the Spirituals of the Church yet see we not clearly enough to discover all the mystery of Iniquity and to resolve to shake off the Yoak For this great design no other War need be made by the Pope but only take from him all Jurisdiction in France all Annates and all evocation of Causes to Rome This would hardly produce any other stirrs but the complaints and murmuring of them that are loosers And the condition truly Royal that the King at present is in will sufficiently secure Him from Insurrections at home and Invasions from abroad Or should any happen behold more than an hundred thousand Huguenots that the Noble Marquess has sound him in the heart of his State whom he is pleas'd to call His Enemies but who on all occasions and on this especially would do His Majesty a hearty and faithful Service The two main Interests of France being to weaken the House of Austria the Princes of which enclose him on both sides and to throw off the yoake of Rome which holds a Monarchy within the French Monarchy 't is easie to judge that amongst the Kings Subjects the Protestants are absolutely the most proper to serve him on both these occasions I know that amongst the Roman Catholicks as well Ecclesiasticks as Seculars there are excellent Instruments to serve the King in both these Interests But there is need of great caution to well assure him by reason of the multitude of Jesuits Scholars with whom these Fathers have Industriously fill'd all Professions of the State and Church and it is for no other end that they have so many Colledges They who have been too good Scholars of these Masters are contrary to both these Interests being so great Catholicks that they espouse the Interest of the Catholick King to advance that of his Holiness But to find amongst the Protestants trusty Instruments for both these accounts he need not try them they are fitted and form'd by their Education for these two Uses so necessary to France The Marquess assures His Majesty with good reason of the friendship of the Protestant Princes of Germany which they would never testifie so freely as in serving him to ruin the Power of the Pope who savours that of the House of Austria For thereby they would kill two Birds with one Stone Not to mention our other Neighbours who have broken with Rome and being disquieted by its secret practises will be ready to contribute to its destruction Who shall well consider the Scheme of the Affairs of Christendem shall judge that all things invite His Majesty to shut out the Jurisdiction of Rome beyond the Mountains Right Honour Profit Liberty Facility his Duty to his Crown to his Subjects and to his Royal Posterity and that many Aids smile upon him both within and out of his Kingdom for so fair and so just an Enterprize This is the warm desire of the honest French-men And none there are who better deserve that Title than they who with the most Indignation resent that their Kings should kiss the Feet of that Prelate who ought of Right to kiss their Feet for having receiv'd his Principalities from Kings of France and who in recompence of their good Deeds have plotted and plot continually their ruin When the King shall have deliver'd Himself and his People from this strange yoak he will find the enmity amongst his Subjects for matter of Religon greatly diminisht and the way open to a re-union And were the difficulties about the Doctrine overcome the Protestants would not stick much at the Discipline God who is the Father of Kings and the King of Glory protect and strengthen our Great King to accomplsh the Designs that turn to the general good of His Church to the greatness and to the respect of his Sacred Person and to the Peace and Prosperity of His State FINIS
Before any further advance into this matter it will be pertinent to observe that the fundamental Wealth of a State consists in the Multitude and Plenty of Subjects For 't is Men that Till the Ground that produce Manufactures that manage Trade that go to War that People Colonies and in one word that bring in Money To make way in France for multiplying of Men and oblige them to Marry the King may at once do two things after the example of the Emperor Augustus First He may decree Priviledges and Advantages in favour of such as shall have divers Children exempting them from Guardianships from being Collectors from Commissions to look to the Fruits of Sequestred Lands and other burthensom Offices He may discharge them from Subsidies and even give them some Estate Secondly He might impose penalties upon those that Marry not before a certain Age and take part in the Successions of all sorts of persons who in contempt of Law and Wedlock live single not having impediment by any natural infirmity 'T is upon a like consideration that I said in a former Chapter the King to restrain Parents from compelling their Daughters into Cloisters might Declare that the right of all Recluses in any Succession was vested in Himself And 't is for the very same reason that the Ancient Earls of Flanders were Heirs to all the Priests that were their Subjects Now to that which Augustus did for the inducing of his Subjects to Marry the King might add Two particulars One is That the First Year a Man Taxable did Marry the first time being under 26 years of age he should be exempt from all Subsidies and Impositions and publick Charges even quartering of Soldiers in case he kept House apart and was setled in a Dwelling of his own If the newly Married be the King's Officer his Office should not fall into the King's hand if he died within the year Commanders also and Soldiers should be dispens'd with as to their serving for that time unless on urgent necessity or some important occasion The other partilar which in France had need to be added to Augustus's Ordinances is to take effectual Order that persons once Married be not so easily separated again as they are For 't is to no purpose to contract Marriages if they be not stuck to and the coupled Parties cohabit not A strange abuse in this matter of separation hath crept in of late nor know I how the Officials have become so favourable in it or how the Parliaments have suffer'd it Now-a-days a Woman that would have as they say her swing and without controul practice all that her giddy witless and oft times wanton humour prompts her to raiseth stirs in the House at length tires out her Husbands patience hereupon she complains of his Vices hath Servants suborned for her purpose a Divorce comes to be adjudged upon their Depositions the Husband is sentenced to yield her up her Goods and not only do that but also to let her have possession of her Dower or of a good part of it at least to allow her a great Pension Then this Woman reties takes an House and lives after her own fashion which is not alway the most commendable in the World her Husband the while sinking under the whole weight of his Houshold Affairs Had she counted upon nothing else but that of necessity she must live with her Husband and in his House she would have formed her self to it and not have play'd her vexatious pranks so she had promoted the happiness of her Husband and of the Children and together with it her own For application therfore of a remedy in this case it must be a Law That a Wife shall not sue for a Separation ' as to Person or Habitation but by the advice ' of four of her nearest Kindred Men of known Integrity and that a Separation being ordered either by Sentence in Court or by Accommodation between the parties she shall be bound to enter a Monastery without egress again nor suffered to admit a visit from any man there it being contrary to Publick decency that a Woman who hath lost her Husband for to be separated from him is to lose him should appear openly and maintain commerce with other Men. On the other hand her Sex and all seemliness requiring that in this estate she hide her self and hide withal her ill fortune and her grief for it I would too that a very slender Pension be adjudged her And since Husbands will be found in fault on their part likewise and discover their ill husbandry it would be very just that the disposal of their Estates be not left to them nor the possession of more than a part of 'em as is the case of Wives and that supposing they have Children the Money arising from the remainder should be received employed and administred by a Guardian He to accompt for it to the said Children in due time If there be none the Revenue exceeding the Pension should be laid out on Hospitals and other necessities of the State This Law should extend to Separations already made And such rigour being practis'd in matter of Divorces there would be no more of ' em Husbands and Wives would be under a reciprocal Obligation to live together and to live together discreetly so they would breed up a Family that might prove the contentment of their Life the comfort of their elder years and be beneficial to the whole Kingdom There is a further consideration to be made in the matter of the Finances and it is this namely that it is expedient the King should declare that for the future He will be Creditor and Donotary to His Receivers and accomptable Officers fot their Wives dotal Money and Marriage settlements and for their Childrens Portions and Donatives then explaining the late Ordinances to take away all difficulty declare further the crime of misemploying the publick Money to be punishable by death and ordain that the Interests Amends and civil Reparations adjudged against Criminals of that kind should fall upon their Heirs or Legatees This Law is rigorous yet it is just and necessary forasmuch as it will strike terror on the Financiers who having no hope to escape Justice could not entertain a Thought of committing a fault that would ruine all that is dearest to them Beside the Romans punish'd even with death the very friends of those whom they condemn'd for Crimes against the State the History of Sejanus affords unquestionable proof of it That which we call the Demesne of the King and of the Crown cannot be Alienated nor is it liable to any charge or encumbrance This Law is Fundamental in all kind of Common-wealths as well as in France But here things are judged to belong to the Crown three manner of ways from all Antiquity As the Soveraignty the power of War Subsidies and the like By Declaration when the King by His Letters declares some particular united to the Crown By Confession