Pour Mounsieur de C. sur son traitte de la politique Francoise Sixain Si donner de moyens au plus grand Roy du monde D'Estre Maistre absolu sur la terre sur l'onde C'est marque d'un Esprit rare marveilleux Je puis dire en d'epit de toute la critique Que ce traitte de Politique Ne fut dicte que par les dieux To this effect If that to give the Great French King in hand The means to sway o're all both Seas and Land If this be Wit which none can well deny Then to the Teeth of all Critiques I 'll maintain these Politiques Are Wit above the Sky Louis XIV Roy de France et de Navarre THE POLITICKS OF FRANCE By Monsieur P. H. Marquis of C. WITH REFLECTIONS On the 4th and 5th Chapters Wherein he Censures the Roman Clergy and the Hugonots by the Sr. l'Ormegregny The Second Edition LONDON Printed for Thomas Basset at the George in Fleetstreet 1691. Sr. Richard Newdigate of Arbury in the County of Warwick Baronet 1709 The Authors EPISTLE TO THE FRENCH KING SIR ALL the Nations of the Earth wait with impatience for the Oracles which Your Majesties high Wisdom disposeth it self to Pronounce and the whole Vniverse by submitting to the Laws which you are about to give this Kingdom will declare That you alone deserve to Command all men If the Delphique Priestess scrupled not to style Lycurgus a God for his having setled the Spartans in order what must not Fame say when it shall publish Your Majesties August Name Future ages Sir shall proclaim aloud what You perform in Yours and report the splendour of Your Heroick Virtue Happy the People who already find the effects of it but a Thousand times Happy they of Your Majesties Subjects whom You permit to offer at Your feet some token of their Admiration You have often done me the Honour to grant me this precious Favour and I beseech with lowest respect that You further please to accept the Piece I now present You. It satisfies not the greatness of my Zeal that during the course of my Life I incessently speak of the Passion I have for Your Service my Writings must inform Posterity of it after my death and the whole World ever know to what degree I am Sir Your Majesties most humble most obedient and most faithful Subject and Servant P. H. D. C. THE PREFACE THE Bookseller will needs have a Preface to encourage the Sale of the Book Now for my part I think there needs no other recommendation than its Title for those that will not be induced to buy it because 't is French will not fail to have it for the sake of its Politick's yet if any should scruple laying out their Money only on the Credit of the Title Page their Scruple I doubt not will be removed when they are told that the Author of the Growth of Popery says That this Book is the measure of the French Kings Designs and I 'm sure there 's none of us all that will be-grudge Two Shillings to be made Privy to his Councels But if neither of these things nor the Credit it had in its Native Language will cause the Book to Sell I cann't imagine how a Preface should do it for I know few if any that read the Preface of a Book they intend not to Read also I have known some indeed Read the Book and omit the Preface which I doubt would be the Fate of this should I make it long I shall therefore only tell you how this Scheme of the vast Designs of the French King became Publick and so conclude The Author was a Person bred up under Mr. Colebert and to shew his Abilities he writ this Treatise and in Manuscript presented it to the French King which was favourably received but afterward Vanity prompting him to Publish it in Print the King lookt upon him as one that had discovered his Secrets and turned his Favour into Frowns caused him to be imprisoned in the Bastile where he continued a long time and was not deliver'd thence but to Banishment which to those that read the Preface affords one Encouragement more to Read the Book since it discovers a Secret which most Men seek more after and delight more in than Wisdom or Truth THE POLITICKS OF France CHAP. I. 1. What the Politicks are 2. What their Object End and Means 3. The different sorts of Governments 4. That Monarchy is the best THE Politicks are the Art of Governing States The Ancients have call'd 'em a Royal and a most Divine Science surpassing in excellency and superior to all others They have allow'd them the same precedence in practical Learning which the Metaphysicks and Theologie have among the Speculative The means which the Politicks prescribe are comprised under the heads of an exact Observance of Religion a doing Justice in all cases a providing that the People be protected in the times of Peace and War and a preserving the State in a just and laudable mediocrity by exterminating the extremes of Poverty and of Riches The Politicks have three principal branches Namely the three sorts of regular Governments in which Men live under the Authority of Laws The First is Monarchy in which one only Prince doth command for the Publick good The Second is Aristocracy in which the honestest and wisest Persons being elected out of all the Subjects have the Direction and Administration of Publick Affairs The Third is Democracy in which all Deliberations and Orders are held and do pass by the Agency and Vote of the People The principal end to which a Democracy tendeth is Liberty That of an Aristocracy is Riches and Virtue The end of a Monarchy is the Glory the Virtue the Riches and the Liberty of the Country A Tyranny the most dangerous of all vicious and unlawful Governments stands in direct opposition unto Monarchy A Tyrant commandeth meerly for his own Personal not the Publick Profit A King does the contrary Tyranny is destructive to the Glory the Virtue the Riches and the Liberty of the People An Aristocracy often falls into an Oligarchy and this happens when a determinate number of persons is no longer chosen out of the whole to Govern and the choice is made of the Rich and Noble only not generally out of all the Citizens Sometimes there riseth up Oligarchy even within Oligarchy and this comes to pass when the Magistrates are chosen of the Noblest and Richest of some preferred Families not of all the rich Gentry An Aristocracy is in some sort an Oligarchy but much better than that which is simply such Forasmuch as in an Aristocracy Justice is administred to persons of all ranks according to desert which in an Oligarchique State is not done A well-temper'd Aristocracy is of long duration and seldom comes into the danger of suffering any Change An Oligarchy on the contrary such as was the Government of the Decem-viri or Ten at
Rome and of the Thirty at Athens is easily corrupted For the persons who are in command do frequently usurp a Soveraign Authority Such Usurpation is not stiled a Tyranny for this is of one alone but strictly a Dynastie that is a Potentacy or Power violently assumed and retained contrary to the disposition of the Laws The Greeks whose the word Dynastie is do take it in this case in an ill sense An Aristocracy and an Oligarchy are dissolved when some one among the Rich the Noble or the Brave does attain to an overgrown height Thus Caesar became Master of Rome The Aristocracy is also in danger when they that Govern come into contempt with the multitude or are hated by them so that the inferiors grow factious and mutiny against them as hapned at Rome when the Tribunes of the People were first created The apprehensions which the more than ordinary virtue of some excellent persons gave the People of Greece caused the introducing of Ostracisme among the Athenians and of Petalisme at Syracuse Punishments but glorious for such as were condemn'd to them A Democracy likewise sometimes turns into an Oligarchy And that is when the dregs of the ignorant people seduced by evil Orators whom the Greeks call Demagogues or Leaders of the People do dispose of Affairs tumultuously with uproar and violence without respect to Law or Equity Thus the Athenians seduced by their speakers did put to death Aristogenes and other Captains who had fought in company with Thrasibulus and gain'd a notable Victory upon the Lacedomonians their enemies Obligarchies are the means sometimes that People lose their liberty and fall into servitude Pisistratius became Tyrant of Athens that way and Dionysius of the Syracusians There are as various Monarchies Aristocracies and Democracies as there are different manners of men But I have discours'd all this only cursorily and I design not any further to engage my self in these matters my purpose being to speak precisely of the concerns of the French Monarchy There are two sorts of Monarchy unto which all Regal Governments of whatever quality imaginable are reduced whether Elective Hereditary Barbarous Despotical or any other The first of these is entituled The Lacedemonian in which the King hath but a limited Authority The second Aeconomical in which the King hath a Sovereign and Absolute power in his Kingdom as the Father of a Family hath in his house 'T is no longer a question Whether Monarchy be the best Government the case having been often debated by Politicians and still decided for Regality And indeed it is of greatest Antiquity least susceptible of change most conform unto the Government of GOD himself and not only represents the Authority which a Father exerciseth in his house but it also necessarily occurs in an Aristocracy and in Democracy it self For both in the one and the other of these States the Sovereignty is entirely one so that no single person can possess any the least parcel of it In an Aristocracy no one of the Senators is a Sovereign but the whole Senate being united of one accord is King In a Democracy no one of himself hath power to make the least Ordinance the People assembled are the Monarch Thus every where appears an indivisible Sovereignty so conform to the Laws of Nature is Monarchy In fine it may be said that there never was Aristocracy but founded upon the corruptions and ruins of some Monarchy moreover that Tyranny it 's direct contrary is the worst of all Governments Now from all that I have said it follows by a necessary consequence That the Monarchique State is better than any other CHAP. II. 1. Of the true good and happiness of States 2. Of the true good and happiness of a King 3. How Felicity may be acquired THings reckon'd under the notion of Good are of three sorts Corporal as Health Beauty Strength Agility and the like External which we commonly call Goods of Fortune as Birth Riches Dignities Reputation Friends and such others The third sort are those of the Soul these are simply and absolutely good that is good of themselves and so they can be no other but virtue alone Things accounted good are no further such indeed than as they promote our Felicity and bring us to it Corporal and External things are not instruments to effect this But the good of the Soul is the true happiness Felicity is not a simple habit otherwise a man asleep would be happy but it consisteth in action which is the true use of Virtue The Soul makes us capable of living happily for happiness is measured by virtue nor can we be counted happy but proportionably as we are counted good The intention of Political Science is to bring to pass that men lead their lives happily as I have observ'd in the precedent Chapter 'T is therefore certain that it requires they be actually virtuous All that I have been discoursing is of constant and confesseth truth Whence clearly results That the Politicks consider virtue in a much more noble manner than Ethicks do for these confining themselves to the forming of idle speculations can produce but an imperfect felicity which the Schools do call Theoretical The Politicks on the contrary go further and causing us to exercise virtue do give us a Practical that is solid and perfect Felicity In fine it is not doubted but the Act is preferrable to the habit Besides the Ethical or Moral discourses of virtue can have no other aim but at most the welfare of particular persons which does not always produce that of the Publick And the Politicks regarding the welfare of an whole State provide at once for that of each particular as a good Pilot in endeavouring the safety of his Ship procures necessarily the safety of all that are embarqued in it Also the care of the welfare of particular persons seems to be beneath the Politicks except so far as it is necessary for the publick good Yet sometimes particular Men must of force suffer for the Publick Good as when a Malefactor is punished and when some Houses are pull'd down to save a Town from Fire and from Enemies The happiness of a State is of the same quality with that of particular persons For as we say a Man is happy when he hath Strength Riches and Virtue in like manner we say a Common-wealth is happy when it is potent rich and justly governed A Monarch is in reference to His State what the Soul is to Man There is no doubt therefore but that the proper Goods of a King are those of the Soul and that he can possess no other Fortune being beneath a true Soveraign and extrinsick to Him cannot give him ought of that kind from Gold or Glory All that He hath doth arise from His own Virtue His Power His Treasures and the various effects of Beneficence which he holdeth in His Hand do not constitute His Happiness as GOD Himself is not Blessed by external Blessings but only
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
rather renewed in France is to banish thence all Usuries of whatever quality except among Merchants and those should be expresly prohibited which arise from personal Obligations under pretence of damages and interests even interests adjudged by sentence not excluded this pretence being but a means to authorize Usury and defraud the Law which forbids it Usury was strictly prohibited among the ancient Inhabitants of Candie but the coveting of Riches to elude the severity of this Statute disposed the borrower that he should seem to have stollen the Money he had need of and which in reality was lent him By this Artifice the Debtor was constrained to pay the Interests which were not adjudged to the Creditor on the account of any Loan but in hatred of Robbery which he said had been committed upon him This means cannot be used in France for that Theft is there a capital Crime both in Religion and in Policy But the Spirit of Man being unbounded and having more craft when bent to transgress than the Law hath prudence to hinder evil doing the taking of damages and interests hath been introduced amongst us which is an equivalent to the Cretan expedient For the feigning a detension of Money against the owners will as is done in France and the Debtor thereupon condemn'd to pay the Interests can be no other thing for substance than the feigning a Robbery as was done in Candie There is not any Nation of note in which Usurious Contracts have not been prohibited among the Subjects 'T is known what the Law of the Church in this behalf is and what that of the Old Testament so often repeated in Scripture was Usury sure hath caused the greatest disorders that have hitherto troubled the tranquility of States The Athenians the Spartans and the Romans did not forbid it only but were also forced to abolish Debts contracted and for publick benefit rescin'd the compacts and promises that private Men had made though they seemed inviolable as having been made under the Authority of the Laws and upon the security of general custom which they were not wont to over-rule An act of very particular consequence All Usurious Contracts should be annulled yea the culpable and complices as to the crime of Usury put to death the Usurer in Plato's opinion being worse than the Thief The second Law should be to permit Contracts for annual Rent out of Land yet with charge that they be publish'd for publick security as I have said elsewhere when I treated of the shortning of Law-suits Withall regulating to a denier the Arrearages which are a kind of Usury but the most tolerable of any seeing there is an Alienation of the Land and it is a fiction prudently hit upon by the Popes Calixtus the Third and Martin the Fifth As for the Declaration in form of an Edict which is to be made herein Contracts even the formerly made should be reduced to the Thirtieth denier The Romans limited Use to the hundredth afterwards to the Two hundredth and at length abolish'd it altogether A third Law should be that no sum lent to any Son of a Family or to others under 25 years of age without the consent and authority of their Relations do produce any action no not thought the Contracts be ratified by the Debtors after they come of age Vespasian made a like Ordinance and there is nothing more effectual to repress the greediness of Usurers or the debauch of young people whereupon they would set themselves to labour to exercises and study The profit which these Laws would yield the State beside their stopping the course of great Evils would be that persons who are alway concern'd and impatient to be getting seeing they could not put out their Money at Interest easily and that the Interest of their Contracts would be at too low a rate must of force apply themselves to two things each of which is eminently advantageous to the Kingdom For they would addict themselves to Trades and Husbandry or put their Money in the hands of Merchants to make benefit of it if not enter into partnership with them which they should be permitted to do For Usury in matter of Commerce was never forbidden and is the Secret that the Hollanders have found to make all their people Merchants On the other hand the Genoeses have engaged themselves in Traffick upon observing the profit it yielded The fourth Law might be that Gentlemen be disabled to sell their Fiefs or Inheritances until they have made declaration of their Poverty in open Court. Among the Israelites Lands engaged reverted to their ancient owners at the Jubilee The Spartans Lands were not divided at all I mean those 7000 portions which Lycurgus had lotted out The Locrians in like manner sold not their Estates the same is observed in Flanders The Fiefs of the great Houses of Bretanie are never parted out Substitution of Heirs in France doth hinder the Alienation of Lands In Spain Gentlemen cannor sell their Estates And Lastly the Demesne of the Crown in France is in-alienable which may prescribe a Law for all Noble Families This Ordinance would make Gentlemen good Husbands When the Jews the Lacedemonians the Syracusians the Romans and all civilized-People made a partition of their Lands they consider'd the benefit that might thence redound to their States and very wisely provided that all such as possess'd Inheritances should fix in the Country having an Estate there which they could not carry away they would love the places where they had their subsistance and every one defending his own Possession all would jointly defend the Common-wealth and fight for the Publick Interests The Fifth Law should be that a Gentleman being ruin'd and having acknowledged his Poverty in Court should be no longer Noble there being no Estate so shameful as that of a Man of Quality reduc'd to an extream Misery On the contrary that a Plebeian when he hath rais'd himself an advantageous Fortune which might be limited at 50000 Crowns should be ennobled provided always that the profit had been made by laudable and lawful means A sixth Law should be to hinder the publick begging of the Poor by appointing the greatest penalties upon it and ordain for that end that every Parish both in Town and Country do maintain their own Poor not suffering them to wander punish all that make a Trade of it send the stoutest of them to the Gallies and set all the rest on work according to their ability This is a means to fetch out that idleness which is among the meaner sort The seventh Law might be to render Fathers responsible as to Civil Interests for all the Faults and Crimes their Children should commit while they depend on them and under 25 years of age or however whilst they dwell in their Fathers House The Mulct to be allowed for afterwards in the Patrimony of those faulty Children This Law is in force in Bretanie and was so at Rome Masters in like manner for the faults
this case is only a Bugg and vain pretence laid hold on by the Court of Rome for promoting their Temporal Power and making their Creatures in every corner That the shiftings of the Monks and their rambles from one end of France to the other serve only to debauch them with an universal acquaintance All these Observations are true and judicious But the fear that my Lord Marquess shews of offending the Court of Rome or at least the Complement he had made That it is the Glory of a King to Honour the Holy See hinders him from sounding the bottom of the Evil and from presenting the necessary remedy For it may be said of the wholsome Rules that he prescribes for reducing the Clergy to their Duty and for preventing of Fraud in matters of Benefices that this comes to no more than the paring a Man's Nails when his Skull is broken and ought to be trepann'd The great Honour and the great Interest of the King indeed would be to think of a way how he may roundly shake off this infamous and tyrannical Yoke of the Roman Court which my Lord Marquess calls the Holy See And deliver himself from this buzzard Superstition which rides even our very Statesmen viz. That there can be no Religion Catholick but in submitting to the Spiritual Jurisdiction of the Holy See Is it because the Pope is the Vicar of Jesus Christ His Majesty has a number of Bishops within His Realm who if they understand and do their duty are the Vicars of Jesus Christ So that we need not travail over the Alps to seek one Instead then of providing a French Secretary of Conscience who may make a Bank in the Court of Rome by which means we might know what Money passes from France to Italy which is the advice of Mouns the Marquess He should rather break the Bank in France and give order that no more Money pass out of France into Italy for this Bank is a continual Pump which draws away the fairest Cash of France which fattens a stranger with our Kingdoms Treasure which carries much away but returns nothing I know all these Tributes and Respects are paid to the Pope because he is suppos'd to be the Head of the Church and his Flatterers tell us That the Church can no more subsist without the Pope than the Body without the Head But that great Chancellor of the University of Paris John Gerson was not of this Opinion for he writ a Book expresly De auferribilitate Papa ab Ecclesia That is to say to prove that this same head might very well be quite taken away and the Church yet be never the worse nor take any harm The Cardinals have sometimes continued more than two years before they could agree about their Choice of a Pope During all which time the Body of the Church was without a Head The Churches of France and Germany did not at all feel the want of it and matters went still on there as they were wont Which puts me in mind of the Man of Wood that being mounted on Horse-back and coming under a Tree a bough struck off his head to the ground yet the heart of Oak kept the Saddle and trotted on with the company nothing dismaid for that the head was not essential to the rest of the body It is too soft an expression to call the Pope an unprofitable Head of the Church he is absolutely pernicious to it I pass by the Spirituals suiting my self herein with the humour of Mouns the Marquess who considers the Catholick Religion little farther than as it makes for the interest of France But what greater mischief can the Pope do to the Church than to render the Power of the Church suspected to Sovereign Princes as a pure politick device to invade their Rights grind their Subjects and form even an Empire within their Empire The Marquess endeavours with great reason to make the King jealous of the Popes Temporal Monarchy over his Subjects He might with as good reason have mov'd him to be jealous of that Spiritual Monarchy which is in effect purely Temporal For he has well observ'd That the name of Religion is a false pretence us'd by the Court of Rome to advance his Temporal Power And that the Popes having begun with Letters of Recommendation to the Chapters to have an Eye on such an ones mirit to be chosen Bishop Have after in process of time turn'd these Letters Recommendatory to Bulls and Decrres to dispose of the Bishopricks of France at their pleasure which is a Tyranical invasion of the Rights of the King and of those of the Church Glaber who liv'd in the times of Hugh Capet relates lib. 3. cap. 4. how Pope John sent a Cardinal into France to Found and Consecrate a Monastery within the Diocess of Tours and that the Prelates of France and Hugh Archbishop of Tours opposed him and said roundly That the Bishop of Rome having a Diocess to himself ought not to meddle with the affairs of another Diocess nor send his Commands to their Bishops who are his fellow Bishops and Colleagues The Doctors of the Sorbon in their Rescriptum publish'd at the time of the Appeal concerning the abuse about the Breviary of Anjou by the Bishop of Eâ—gers and his Injunction to the Church of the Trinity to use that of Rheims amongst other Propositions declare That the other Bishops have the power of Government and Ordination within their Diocess as fully as the Bishop of Rome has within his Therefore in the time of St. Cyprian and even in St. Angustin's days the Popes did write Ad Coepiscopos Galliae Collegas Now Collegue imports equality of Power And if the Bishops of Rome have not any power over the Bishops of France they can much less pretend to any over our Kings Pope Leo VI. promised Lotharius dist 10. c. 9. can 10. to obey his Edicts both at present and for the future Pope Pelagius to the like effect to Childebert The Holy Scriptures says he command us to obey Kings and to be subject to them The Popes were always humble Subjects of the Roman Emperors so long as that Empire continued And 't is but the other day that they got free from the Emperors of Germany Onuphrius de varia Creatione Pontif l. 4. testifies That even then when they were look'd upon as the Successors of St. Peter their Authority reached no farther but only to maintain and defend the truth of the Doctrines of Faith And for the rest were wholly subject to the Emperors who ordered all things according to their wills and were wont to create the Popes It is a notable Observation the Marquess has made That the Tables were put into the hands of Moses and not into the hands of Aaron and that it is the part of Secular Princes that the People be instructed in the Laws of God He was entrusted with the first Table as well as with the second to teach us that the
care of the Service of God belongs as much to the Authority of the Prince as that of Justice and Civil Government Those Expressions of the Marquess That Secular Princes are the Protectors of the Church of its Doctrine and of its Canons are intended by him in a more liberal and ingenious sense than they meant from whom he takes them For they are the ordinary terms of those who make the King subject to the Pope and who own not the King for the Sovereign of the Church but only for its Protector and to execute the Commands of his Holiness and for that his Canons be observed This is the Stile of my Lord Bishop of Montauban Peter Bertier in his Remonstrance made to the King in the City of Rheims June 8th 1654. where after he had term'd his Sovereign Power a true resemblance of the Deity he sinks it again not only below the Pope but even below the Bishops who are the Kings subjects saying That the Bishops are the Head to govern and the Mouth of the Church to speak but that the King is its arm and its right hand to execute its Decrees and Ordinances This Scholar of the Jesuits speaks like his Masters for all the Jesuits harp on the same string which Becanus in Pref. ad Reg. Jac. Kings are only to execute the Popes Commands What is the duty of Kings says he in relation to the Church and to Religion I will tell you in one word they ought to guard and defendit not as Lords but as Servants not as Judges but as Executioners And why I pray has not the King the same Sovereignty in France that the Emperor Constantine and the Emperor Charlemaigne enjoy'd under whom the Canons of the Synods were none other than counsel and advice till these Emperors had examin'd and authoriz'd them Did not these Sovereigns altogether call and dissolve those Synods of Bishops at pleasure and wherefore shall our Kings be rob'd of that Power Our great King who surpasses all his Predecessors in Glory and Magnanimity shall he suffer a stranger Bishop to snatch from his Crown this essential Right of governing the Church of his Kingdom and He of a King become a Serjeant to put in execution the Commands of that Bishop and those of the Bishops his Subjects The world is well chang'd since Pope Adrian in his Letters inserted in the second Council of Nice express'd himself to the Emperor Constantine to this effect We beseech your Clemency with ardour of Spirit and as though we were present we cast our selves at your knees and lie at your feet I with my Brethren Then it was that Popes kissed the Feet of Emperors whereas now Emperors kiss the Popes Toe In the Year 679. the Pope Agathon pray'd the Emperor Constantine to discharge the Tribute which the Bishops of Rome pay'd Ordinarily to the Emperor for their Conservation Very far from compelling the Emperors the day of their Conservation to lay a sum of Money at the Popes feet for Tribute as a token of subjection which afterwards the Emperors of Germany have been oblig'd to do Gregory the First gave a good Example for our Popes at this day how they should demean themselves towards the Emperor for he speaks thus to the Emperor l. 3. Ep. 6. I am the unworthy Servant of your pity And in the same Epistle Whilst I speak thus before my Masters what am I other than Dust and a Worm And l. 2. Ep. 61. I am subject to your Commands I might bring many Examples how anciently the Christian Emperors and the Kings of Italy created and depos'd the Popes commanding them and deposing them at their pleasure Not to go farther than our France there we may see what Power our Kings of the first Line exercis'd in the Government of the Church The History of Gregory of Tours may furnish us with many examples l. 4. c. 5. King Glotharius speaks thus to the Inhabitants of Tours Have not I commanded that the Priest Cato be made a Bishop Why are my Commands slighted and Chap. 18. Pascentius is made Bishop of Paris ex jussu Regis Chariberti by the Command of King Heribert The same King being provok'd because Emerius had been turn'd out of the Bishoprick of Xaintes caused him to be beaten who came to signifie to him that deposition and made him be drawn upon a Cart loaden with Thorns into banishment and restor'd Emerius to his place from whence he had been cast out l. 6. c. 27. Felix Bishop of Xaintes being deceas'd Nonnichius Consobrinus rege ordinante successit His Cousin Nonnichius succeeded him by the King's Order C. 39. King Guntram created Sulpitius Bishop of Bourges rejecting the Presents offered him for promoting another and saying It is not our Custom to sell the Priesthood for the price of Money l. 8. c. 22. are these words Then the King commanded that Gundegesil be made a Bishop which was done accordingly And C. 39. Evantius Bishop of Vienna died and in his place was substituted Vitus a Priest the King chusing him In all these passages we find no mention of the Pope nor of Annates nor of Letters of Investiture For in those days the Bishops of Rome meddl'd not at all with the Election of the Bishops of France Above all is memorable the Francique Synod to be found in the Third Tome of the Councils of the Edition of Cologne Pag. 39. Where Carloman who stiles himself Duke and Prince of the French thus speaks By the advice of my Priests and of the chief of the Realm we have appointed Bishops for the Towns and have set over them Boniface Archbishop Pope Adrian the First by a Council made this Law to pass That Charlemain should have the Right and Power to choose the Pope and to govern the Roman See Which Constitution is inserted in the Roman Decretal The Council of Mayence held under Charlemain an 813. dist 63. Can. Hadrians begins thus To Charles August Rector of the True Religion and Defendor of the Holy Church of God And the Second Council of Mayence under Lewis the Debonnaire to Lewis the most Soveraign Rector of the True Religion At this day these Titles would be counted wicked Now for all that Charlemain and Lewis the Debonnaire have advanc'd the Pope out of measure yet his Authority even in Spirituals was no better than precarious and suject to those Kings that were Emperors For proof of this Hincmar relates l. 55. c. 20. That the Emperor Charlemain did convoke a general Synod in France whereby the worshipping of Images was condemn'd and the Second Council of Nice which defended them was rejected as a false Synod thô the Pope had approv'd it And thô at this Synod convoked by Charlemain the Authority of the Pope was admitted For the History of those times teaches us That Charlemain who had advanced the Pope made use of the Authority given him to his own advantage even against the Pope himself when he had a