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
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
the King assembles at Paris his Knights Barons and Prelates and demanded of them of whom they held their Fiefs and their Church-Temporalties They answered That they hold them of the King and not of the Pope whom they accus'd of Heresie Murder and of other Crimes In the mean while the Pope made it his business to stir up Germany and the Low Countrys against France But the King sent into Italy William de Nogaret who assisted with the advice of Sciarra a Polander took the Pope at Anagnia and having mounted him upon an hurdle carried him Prisoner to Rome where he died of grief and anger Observe that this Pope who thundered against Kings had so little Power at Rome and so little love of the People that not a Roman stirr'd a foot to deliver the Bishop of Rome so rudely treated even in Rome it self For all this the King had immediately from the Successors of Boniface rare Bulls for abolishing the memory of all these Transactions as may be seen in the Extravaganta Meruit of Clement V. where this King is prais'd as a Religious Prince who had deserv'd well of the Holy See For the Popes are of the nature of Spaniards who will lick their Masters feet when they have soundly bang'd them In the Year 1408. Pope Benedict XIII angry because Charles VI. had express'd the exactions and pilferings of the Popes Court which drain'd France sends into France a Bull of Excommunication against the King and his Princes The University of Paris Order'd That these Bulls be torn in pieces and that the Pope Benedict whom they call'd Peter de Luna be declar'd Heretick and Schismatick and Disturber of the Peace And these Bulls were torn by the Sentence of the Court June 16. 1408. and ten days after the Court being risen at Eleven a Clock in the Morning two Bullbearers who had brought this Excommunication made their honourable Amends upon the stairs of the Palace and after were carried back to the Lovre in the same manner they had been brought being drawn on two Sledges adorn'd with Coats of Painted Canvas and Miters of Paper on their heads with the sound of Trumpets and the publick Laughter So little did they care for the Popes thunder And what would they have done if these Bulls had brought the Sentence of Deposition against the King Charles de Moulin in his Treatise against the Perites Dates relates a pretty Sentence of the Court against the Pope under Charles VI. From the same vigor of the French to defend the Dignity of the Crown of their Kings are risen these customs which have been observ'd many Ages that a Legate of the Pope is not receiv'd in France nor any Rescript nor Command of the Pope without the Kings leave and without that the Legate communicate his Powers to the Kings Procurator-General and that they be view'd and verified in the Court of Parliament who modifie and and restrain them to Masters that do not derogate from the Rights of the King the Liberties of the Church nor the Ordinances Royal. Against which ancient form Cardinal Balui being come into France an 1484. and there acting as a Legate without the Kings permission the Court at the request of the Procurator-General decreed a Commission for an Information to be brought against him by two Counsellors of the Court and did forbid him to use farther any Faculty or Legantine Power on pain of being declared Rebel An. 1510. the Gallican-Church being assembled at Tours it was concluded That the King Lewis XII might with a good Conscience dispise the abusive Bulls and unjust Censures of Pope Julius II. and might by Arms oppose his Usurpations though the Pope should go on to excommunicate or to depose him Which is more by a Council held at Pisa he declar'd himself fallen from the Papacy and caus'd Money to be coin'd with this Inscription around it Perdam nomen Babylonis There is some reason to believe he would have made good his word had he been 30 years younger And we hope that God has reserv'd this Glory for another Lewis in our days who with the vigour of a flourishing Youth has the prudence of an old Cato as also the courage and fortune of an Alexander When Lewis XII and his Adherents were depos'd John D'Albert King of Navarre was entangl'd with the same misfortune whose Kingdom by this Pope Julius II. was given to Ferdinand King of Arragon And this is all the Right the Spaniard has to that our great Kings Hereditary Kingdom In the Year 1561. on Friday 12th of December Master John Tanquerel a Batchelor of Divinity was condemn'd by a Sentence of the Court to make confession publickly that he had indiscreetly and rashly held this Proposition That the Pope is Vicar of Christ having Power spiritual and secular and that he may deprive of their Dignities the Princes that rebel against his Commands And notwithstanding that Tanquerel protested that he had propos'd this Doctrin aliter tantum non juridice that is to say not for affirming it as true but as a Subject for dispute in the Schools was he compell'd to make this acknowledgment During the Wars of the League an 1591. were sent from Rome Bulls monitory of Pope Gregory XIV by the which King Henry the Great was declar'd uncapable of the Crown of France as an Heretick and a Relapser and his Kingdom was exposed to prey Whereupon the Court of Parliament assembled at Tours made this Decree The Court having regard to the conclusions of the Kings Procurator-General have declared and do declare the Bulls monitory given at Rome the first of March 1591. null abusive damnable full of impiety and impostures contrary to the holy Decretals Rights Franchises and Liberties of the Gallican-Church Do Order that the Copies sealed with the Seal of Marsilius Landrianus under-seal'd Septilius Lamprius be torn by the Executioner of High-Justice and burnt in a Fire which shall be kindled for this occasion before the great Gate of the Palace c. which was executed August 5th of the same year I verily believe that many good Freuch men read not these Examples with pleasure and reckon it no glory that the Pope has never set his foot on the neck of a King of France as Pope Alexander the Third did to the Emperor Frederick nor kick'd off his Crown with his foot as Celestine II. to the Emperor Henry VI. nor brought our Kings to yield homage to the Pope for their Kingdom as other Kings have done and do to this day Without doubt they will laugh at the just punishment which Boniface VIII had for his Insolence from the Officers of the generous King Philip the Fair and to see how after this treatment the Popes Successors of Boniface did compliment him with a many Commendations and Apostolick Benedictions Without doubt also these good French-men are well satisfied with the pragmatick Sanctions whereby our Kings have repress'd the Exactions of the Court of Rome and have appropriated
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
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
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
Yet this Arrest innovateth nothing but is in all respects conform to the prescript and pursuant to the use of Charles the VIII his Pragmatique Sanction Kings and Emperors never practis'd otherwise in such cases Nor can it be deny'd but that Religion coming among others under a Political consideration and Kings being Protectors of the Church of its Doctrine and of its Canons it 's a part of their Office to notifie to men the Laws of GOD. The Tables were consigned to the hands of Moses not to the hands of Aaron and in the Temple of GOD the Law of GOD was often heard by the People from the Mouth of their Kings 'T is upon this account that Melchisedec was both King and Priest and 't is from this intention that the Emperors confirmed the first Synods that They sometimes gave judgments contrary to Sydonical decisions and that other Christian Princes have had liberty to receive or not receive Councils though Legitimate and Universal Nothing is more consentaneous to perfect equity than that the Gentlemen of the Clergy be obliged to contribute to the publick charges They receive vast sums from the State and what they pay to the King out of 'em amouts not to a sixth part of what they duly ought to pay But to reduce them gently to reason approaches must be made by degrees and in ways that may be to them unperceivable First they may be calmly told of the right of Mortmain which being part of the ancient inheritance of the Crown cannot be alienated They may ever and anon be put in mind that Residence is of Divine Right that it is unbecoming a Prelate or an Ecclesiastick to keep a great Table to have a multitude of Pages Horses Dogs intimation may be made them that the King intends to restore the ancient Law of Fiefs by which all sorts of persons concerned are obliged to set forth at any time a certain number of Soldiers equipped and paid at their charge In fine they may be required to make a new valuation of ordinary Rents For what pretext will they have to complain or be discontented Can they find any fault at all in it if His Majesty doth put things in their Primitive State which is the foundation of all publick Order and Discipline Other insinuative means may be set on work which shall make no shew at first yet may prove in the sequel of incredible advantage to the King's Affairs While I speak here of the Clergy I pretend not to speak of any but Bishops Canons Parish-Priests and Chappellans I know well that taking the word Clerus in its ancient latitude it may be said to comprehend all Christians but I extend it not so much as to Monasticks who in truth were at their rise so far from having particular and conventual Churches as now they have that they were reckoned Laicks that is of the People and had their places separate from the Priests Whatever care Kings hitherto could possibly take to hinder frauds in Beneficiary matters they have not been able to find means effectual for it Their prudence hath been still surmounted by the pravity of men which never wanteh artifice and expedients in occasions that concern their profit However these frauds are of such a quality and so important in reference to the salvation of all Christians that the charitable sagacity of the Laws ought to be indefatigably exercised about them neither Pains nor Authority should be spared in a design whose accomplishment is so necessary And indeed what mischief doth not follow for example when a wicked man by intrusion gets possession of some Benefice with Cure of Souls all his Sacerdotal Functions are so many Sacriledges for he is a suspended person ipso facto all the Absolutions he gives are null the Fruits of the Benefice cannot be his because he is not the lawful Guardian of it and so his appropriating them to his use is a continued Larceny for which he is indispensibly bound to make restitution But be it a Bishop that commits this act of intrusion and all the Consecrations of Priests which he shall solemnize are null whence will result a nullity of all the Absolutions those pretended Priests shall give What a concatenation of Crimes what a dreadful series of Evils Simonies Confidences and other bad means which are used to finger Benefices do tend to the same Consequences Sure the cure of this Malady Mortal to so many thousands of Souls is an atchievement worthy of a King I am of Opinion then that to cut up the root of all these disorders the King might create a Secretary in his Council of Conscience and when this Officer is in possession of his charge a Declaration of His Majesties should come forth by which to obviate the great abuses that have crept int-Beneficiary matters it should be ordained that all the Benefices in the Kingdom be Registred by the said Secretary of that Council and no dispatch there made until the Deeds upon which a Benefice is claimed have been seen and signed and placed in the Register by the same Secretary upon pain of the nullity of all that may have been petition'd for and granted Cognizance of all causes arising in consequence of this Declaration must be given to the Grand Council and this addition of Jurisdiction would facilitate the verification of it This Declaration would produce several advantages One is that there could be no more fraud used in order to demissions or to resignations and the Bankers of the Court of Rome would no longer have means to promote the cheats of pretenders to Benefices Another is that the King would exactly know all that the Church does possess in France which is a matter of extreme necessity both for the regulating of the Tenths and also for other considerations A third advantage would be that in process of time this Secretary of Conscience might make a Bank in the Roman Court which is to the King of unspeakable consequence for by this means all the Money that goes into Italy out of France would be known and upon such knowledge it would be more easie for him to take his measures with the Pope and Colledge of Cardinals A fourth advantage is that the King by degrees might become Master of all the Benefices of the Kingdom in the same manner as the Pope is Master of the Bishopricks and Abbies which would augment the Royal Authority That I may explain my self I will resume the thing from its original In the first Age of Christianity the first Bishopricks were conferred without any Bulls from the Pope at all Afterward He bethought Him to send or write unto the Chapters who then chose the Bishops and recommended to them to respect the merit of such or such a one when they should proceed to the Election I think that Alexander the III. was the first Inventer of these kind of Letters and they were called Bulls because they were seal'd up with the Pope's Seal Bulla being Latin
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
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
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
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
mind Insomuch that he was not content to make the Popes Opinion be condemn'd in this Synod assembled pro forma at least by order of the Pope but he sent to the Pope a Book which he writ against the Second Council of Nice and against Images which we have still to this day After that Charlemain had rais'd the Pope in giving him a good share of the Country which he had taken from the Lombards the Popes began to be puft up extreamly and by little and little made themselves formidable taking upon them the Figure of Judges and Correctors of the Actions of Princes throughout Christendom by Excommunications Interdictions and finally by the Deposition of their Crowns Now 't is very remarkable that whereas by their imaginary Arms they have laid at their feet the Emperors of Germany and and the Kings of England and brought their Estates into a miserable confusion yet had they never the like success against France they never have been able to Depose our Kings never could prevail to have any Interdict receiv'd in their Kingdoms which so often as they attempted they were mock'd their Officers beaten and their Partisans ruin'd But alas the Submission which Henry the Great made to the Pope the only Instance that we can be reproacht withal is a cooling cast in our way Under Lewis the Debonnaire was held at Paris a Council against Images that is to say against the Pope who maintain'd them Of which Council we have all the Acts entire And in the beginning of his Reign Claudius Bishop of Turin broke down all the Images he could find within his Diocess and listed himself against the Bishop of Rome who stood for their Adoration and writ a Book against Images and the Pope durst not be angry because this Bishop was supported by the Authority of Lewis Great Troubles being stirr'd in France Gregory the Fourth confederates with the Sons of this Lewis too Debonnaire who had engag'd in a wicked Conspiracy against their own Father Sigebert about an 832. testifies That Pope Gregory came into France and took part against the Emperor with his Sons And the Annals written at the same time Bochel Decret Eccl. Gall. l. 2. tit 16. and the continuer of Aimoinus a Religious of St. Benet writes That the resolution of the French Bishops was that they would by no means yield to his Will and that if he came to Excommunicate them they would Excommunicate him again After this Pope Nicholas the First Excommunicated King Lotharius for in those days Deposing was not talkt on to make him leave Waldrade and take again Thetherge his former Wife Whereupon the Articles drawn up by the French and which may be seen in Hinemar Archbishop of Bheims import That the Bishops hold that as the King ought not to be Excommunicated by his Bishops so can he not be judged by other Bishops because he ought to be subject to the Empire of God alone who alone could establish him in his Kingdom Then also the Clergy of France writ to the Pope Letters full of hard words related by Aventin in his Annals of Bavaria insomuch as to call him Thief Wolf and Tyrant The Popes growing in Insolence Adrian II. took upon him to command King Charles the Bald to leave the Kingdom of Lotharius entirely to his Son Lewis The same Hincmar a Man of great Authority in his time writ several Letters to him containing many Remonstrances on this occasion and amongst other matters informs him That the Church-men and the Seculars of the Realm assembled at Rheims have said and say by way of reproach That never was such a Command sent from that See to any of our Predecessors He adds That Bishops and Secular Lords us'd threatnings against the Pope which he dares not repeat And for the King's part see how little he valued the Pope's Commands amongst the Epistles of the said Hincmar are to be found the Letters of Charles the Bald to Pope Adrian wherein after having charg'd him with Pride and Usurpation he adds What pit of Hell has vomited out this preposterous Law What Infernal Gulf has disgorg'd it from the black and dismal Dungeons quite contrary to the way that is set before us by the Holy Scripture And he forbids the Pope to send any more such Commands to him or to his Bishops unless he would be content to meet with contempt and dishonor Pope Vrban excommunicated Philip the First and set his Kingdom under an Interdict Innocent the Third did as much to Philip the August But nether of their Thunderbolts had any effect and were only receiv'd with Mockery Which agrees with the relation of Mat. Paris that after the Pope had declar'd to Philip the August by the Cardinal D'Anagnia that he would set his Land under an Interdict unless he would reconcile himself with the King of England the King answered That he was not at all afraid of his Sentence seeing that it was not founded upon any just cause adding moreover that it belong'd not to the Church of Rome to pronounce Sentence against the King of France the which Du Tillet Clerk of the Parliament tells us was done by the advice of his Barons But what was ever more memorable in History than the truly Royal Courage of Philip the Fair an 1302 Boniface VIII that Monster of Pride was irritated against him because he held Prisoner the Bishop of Pamiers who had spoken defamatory words against him and moreover for that he assum'd to himself the Collation of Benefices The Pope then commands him to release the Bishop and writ him the following Letter Fear God and keep his Commandments We will that thou take notice That thou art subject to us in Spirituals and Temporals that no Collation of Benefices and Prebends belongs to thee that if thou hast the keeping of any that are vacant thou reserve the profits for the Successors if thou goest about to make any such Collations we Decree them void and so far as in fact they are executed we revoke Those who shall believe otherwise we shall count Hereticks A Legate came to Paris with these fine Letters which were torn from him by the King's People and thrown into the fire by the Count of Artois The answer of Philip to the Pope was this Philip by the Grace of God King of the French to Boniface that calls himself Sovereign Pontifex wisheth little health or rather none at all May thy great sottishness know That in Temporals we are subject unto none that the Collation of Churches and Prebends belongs to us by our right of Royalty and also to take to our selves the profits during the Vacancies That the Collations made by us and to be made shall be strong and good and that by vertue thereof we will defend those in possession courageously Those who believe otherwise we count Fools and Mad-men The Pope thus provok'd Excommunicates the King but no body durst publish the Excommunication nor be the bearer of it Nevertheless
of Blois when the Theatre on a suddain fell upon the Actors Heads and that the Tragical death of two of the Principals broke the great design ready to be accomplisht which was to shut the King in a Monastery and the Queen in another and to put to death all the Princes of the Blood to make way for Monsieur the Duke of Guise to whom immediately the Crown was to be given For the Conclusion of this Accord his Holiness requires of the Duke of Guise that he shall cause to be acknowledg'd the power of the Holy See by the States of the Realm without any restriction or modification abolishing the Priviledges and the Liberties of the Gallican-Church the which he shall promise and swear to do before he take the Crown The Pope enrag'd to see his great design quash'd that he had laboured and push'd on with so much Artifice by the execution made by the King upon the persons of the Duke of Guise and of the Cardinal his Brother Excommunicates and Deposes the King who for all that lost not his Crown till he lost his Life also being assassinated by James Clement a Dominican-Monk who being immediately kill'd by the King's Servants there present had undoubtedly been Canoniz'd by his Holiness for his Heroick Act if the business of the League had prosper'd for we have have seen and read with horror the Legend of St. James Clement Printed and Dispersed through France and his execrable Paracide has been defended as a just and meritorious Action by the Jesuit Guignard who has written a Book expresly on that Subject Even Bellarmine condemns highly those that kill'd the Monk who murdered his King because says he they kill'd Sacratum virum a Man consecrated accounting this detestable Monk more Sacred and more inviolable than the Sacred Majesty of the King Henry the Great having inherited the Crown of Henry the Third the Pope prosecutes the League against him with a re-doubled Zeal So that besides the open War there followed three several attempts upon his Person by Villains instructed and posted in convenient places for their design by the Jesuits who for this reason were banish'd out of France and a Pyramid was erected close by the Palace with an Inscription which declar'd the cause of their banishment Now for all that His Majesty professed the Roman Catholick Religion yet would not the Pope of a long time receive him into the bosom of the Church because as yet his Party was but weak But when his Holiness saw that the Interests of the League declin'd and that good Cities and whole Provinces treated with the King then the Holy Spirit suggested to him that he might receive into his fold of the Church this straying Sheep out of fear least France provoked too far should in the end come to do what has been often threatned that is to make a Patriarch of the Gallicane-Church And yet in this Reconciliation the Pope made appear so much Pride and Rancor this great King could not but in the Person of his Ambassador lying on the Ground at the Pope's Feet receive a bitter Cup of Repentance Never had a King of France made the Pope the like submission The Pope has taught our Kings a Lesson to take advantage in their turn of his Necessities to make him bend or break And I am full of hope that our Great and Glorious King will have a deep resentment of so great an Indignity done to His Heroick Grandfather Especially might His Majesty be pleas'd to consider that the Court of Rome notwithstanding that Reconciliation never pardon'd him keeping near his Persons Confessors that conspir'd against his Life causing Seditious Sermons to be Preacht in Paris and censuring at Rome in full Consistory the Sentence of the Court of Parliament against John Castel executed for having struck with a knife at this Great King in order to cut his Throat And this censure was made at Rome four Months before that this excellent King was kill'd to prepare their Spirits for this execrable Assassination Thereupon when Ravaillac who perform'd what the other Martyrs of the Pope had attempted was examin'd and asked why he undertook this detestable Parricide he answered That there needed no more than to have heard the Sermons preached in Paris the last Lent to inform any body of the Motives for the rest that the King was preparing to make War against God in that he would make War against the Pope and that the Pope is God In short one might find in this Wretch the sparks of that fiery Zeal and blind Devotion for His Holiness and the desperate Spirit of the League which the Pope by the means of the Jesuits industriously fomented in France to produce this horrible and dire Effect When it was represented to these Bigot Parricides that the King having been Excommunicated was afterwards Absolv'd and Reconcil'd to the Pope they answer'd That his Conversion was feign'd And they who attempted against his Person before this Reconciliation might shield themselves with the Canon Excommunicatorum of Pope Vrban which speaks thus We count them not Murderers who shall happen to kill any Excommunicated Persons out of an Ardour of Zeal for the Catholick Church their Mother Observe then that all they whom the Pope taxes for Heresie they that Appeal from the Pope to a future Council and they that levy Taxes upon the Clergy are Excommunicated by the Bull De coena Domini which the Pope pronounces every Thursday absolutely a many Kings and Princes are involv'd in this Excommunication and the Kings of France amongst the rest no Heresie being more Criminal at Rome than the asserting of the Liberties of the Gallicane-Church and the not owning the Terrestrial Empire of his Holiness It concerns then those to make good provision for the securing of their Lives who are by this Canon expos'd to all those who shall be pusht on to kill them by an ardor of zeal for the Catholick Church He was much deceiv'd who thought that the Pope and the Jesuits his Emissaries take it very ill any should represent to the World that by the Doctrine and by the Censures of Rome Subjects are instructed to kill their Kings as often and as many as it shall please the Pope to Excommunicate and that the Murder of our two last Henries ensued thereupon I think the quite contrary they are well content that in laying to their charge these furious Executions which have plung'd our France in a gulph of Miseries we serve their design which is to scare our Kings and Princes and render them tame Slaves to the Court of Rome by the fear of Excommunication Deposition Rebellion Knife and Poison But this is not to be fear'd save where the People are bigotted with a sottish Zeal and believe in the Pope instead of believing in God and obeying the King France at this time is pretty well purg'd of this Zeal And by the Grace of God and the wise Conduct of His Majesty there is
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
who is so clear-sighted see what an impoverishment it is to his Kingdom that France be tributary to a Stranger under the Title of Annates Offerings Dispensations Absolutions and Causes Matrimonial Against these Depredations our ancient Kings had provided some remedy by the pragmatick Sanctions vext to see the fairest Revenue of the Kingdom pass over the Alps by a Religious spoil and go into the Purses of those who laugh at our simplicity But what reason is there that they who pay so willingly Tribute to the Pope should make so great difficulty in paying to the King Is it not because they believe they owe all to the Pope and nought to the King St. Paul teaches them to pay Tribute to the Higher Powers inasmuch as they are Ministess of God And St. Chrysostom commenting upon this Text tells them who are these higher Powers If says he the Apostle has establisht this Law whilst the Princes were Pagans how much more ought this to be done under Princes that are Believers And he had said before The Apostle commands this to all even to the Priests Which is more he adds though thou art an Apostle though thou art an Evangelist or a Prophet or what ever else thou art From St. Ambrose we have the same Lesson in his Oration of delivering the Temples If Tribute be demanded refuse it not the Lands of the Church pay Tribute Even Pope Vrban and the Roman Decretal say That the Church pays Tribute of its exterior Goods Also That Tribute must be paid to the Emperors in acknowledgment of the Peace and Repose in which they ought to maintain and defend us The right of Kings and Truth must needs be very strong that could draw from the Pope and his Canonistical Doctors this acknowledgment For the Canon Law was not founded for any other end but to supplant the Civil Laws and establish the Popes Jurisdiction throughout This is a Body of Foreign Laws that have their Tribunal apart and that depends on a Foreign Prince and where the King has nothing to do but look on I mean till such time as he shall please to take cognizance of so unreasonable an Usurpation And forbid that any Cause be judged in France by other Authority than His and much less any Cause commenc'd in France be appeal'd to Rome And in truth he is but a King by halfs till he alone possess all the Jurisdiction exercis'd within his Kingdom This is what Charles du Moulin said in an Epistle to Henry II. where he writes freely against the Empire that the Pope has set up within our France where the Pope has Subjects that submit not to the Laws of the King but to those of the Pope which are the Canon-Law and the Constitutions that come from Rome But some may object Would you have the King judge in Spirituals I Answer That if the King ought not to be Judge it does not follow that the Pope must The King has his Bishops that may and ought to judge of matters purely Spiritual but of nought without being authoriz'd by the King and there is no need of an Authority out of the Kingdom for this I will say more That the Ecclesiastical Government is a part of the Office of a King For so it was in the Kingdom of Israel And who would believe that in this Age and in Spain where the Inquisition Reigns King Philip IV. assum'd to himself the Soveraign Power of Churches within his Dominions For this purpose he apply'd that excellent passage of Isodore which is attributed also to the Council of Paris That the Secular Princes should know that they ought to give an account of the charge of the Church committed to them by Jesus Christ for whether that the Peace or the Discipline receive improvement by believing Princes or that they are impair'd He who committed the Church to their Power will demand an account O the excellent passage O the Holy Lesson God give all Christian Kings the Grace so well to learn it that they may never leave this Charge of the Church which Jesus Christ has committed to them upon the hands of Strangers and when they have taken it into their own hands to acquit themselves worthily and render a good account Alas Alas Have Kings Eyes to see their Rights and have they no hands to maintain them Are they quick-sighted enough to perceive that the Government of the Church is committed to them and that they are to render an account to God and have they not the courage to rescue them from unjust and strange Hands that snatch them away Think they to acquit themselves of this great Account of the Government of the Church of their Kingdoms by saying That the Holy Father has discharg'd them of it when they have in their hands the power to discharge Him from his Usurpations In Truth they will never be in condition to Govern the Church committed to them they will never be but Kings by halfs till they have banisht from their Territories this pretended Spiritual Jurisdiction which destroys the Civil and which will draw under its Cognizance all sorts of Causes there being none wherein there is not some matter of Conscience or some kind of Transgression of Gods Commandments and that by consequence belongs not to the Jurisdiction of the Pope if He must be own'd the Soveraign Spiritual Judge in France The Popes themselves inform our Kings of their Right to Govern the Church Leo IV. writing to Lewis and to Lotharius did not he own that the Investiture of the Bishop comes from the Emperor and the Pope has only the Consecration Did not He beseech the Emperor to invest a person he had recommended and does he not acknowledge that the Metropolitan dares not Consecrate him without the Emperors consent And Pope John X. in his Epistle to Hereiman of Cologue about the business of Heldwin of Tongres does he not observe That the old Custom has this force that none ought to confer a Bishoprick upon any Clerk save the King to whom the Scepter has been given of God The Council held at Thionvil under Lewis the Debonnair An. 835. gives us this good Maxim That the Pope ought to be call'd Pope and Brother not Father and Pontifex and that Lewis had more Power in the Government of the Gallicane-Church than the Bishop of Rome as Agobard Bishop of Lions has it in his Treatise of the Coâ—â—â—â—…ison of the Two Governments related by Bossellus in his Decretals Gregory Turonensis does furnish us with more than Ten Examples of the right of Investiture belonging to our Kings before the Empire fell into their hands In the times of Clovis they held the Royal Right of the Investiture of Bishops They had also a Right which they call'd Regal which was the Power of enjoying vacant Bishopricks and Prebends and the moveables of Bishops dying without a Will And it is very easie to prove that under the first Line of our Kings and a long while under
the Second the Kings of France were the Soveraigns as well in Spirituals as in Temporals And though they had lost their Soveraignty about the end of the Second Line and under the Third by their negligence and by the cunning of the Popes watchful for their advantage nevertheless an infinite of Persons in those times both of the Clergy and of the Law took notice of and Taxed the Usurpations of the Popes upon the Rights of our Kings Amongst others Aegydius Romanus Archbishop of Bourges in the time of Philip the Fair this Archbishop for the Reasons Registred in the Court of Parliament remonstrates That the Gallicane-Church has that Right and that Liberty to provide for its occasions by Synods of the Bishops of the Country without that the Pope ought to meddle unless by way of exhortation Cardinal D'Offat Letter 90 to the King shews That the Pope ought not to meddle at all with the Election of tâ—â— French Bishops and this he proves by the Ordinance of Orleans An. 1560 and saith That since the Popes have reserv'd to themselves the provision of Bishopricks they have been very ill serv'd The excellent Archbishop of Paris Peter de Marca in his agreement of Empire and the Priesthood has wisely and boldly Remonstrated That since the Pope would hold the same Degree in France that the Soveraign Sacrificer held in the Synagogue he ought not to pretend to more Authority in our France than the Soveraign Sacrificer had in the Kingdom of Israel where he was the Kings Subject his Person his Jurisdiction the Affairs of the Church the Order of Ceremonies were within the Kings Jurisdiction who depos'd the Sacrificer and set another in his place out of his pure and full Authority God be prais'd for that in these later times where the Throne of iniquity the Papal See is so much adored he has rais'd up such brave Assertors of our Christian Liberty which would bear up again and for which we want only to shake off the Yoak What is alledg'd the most specious for the necessity of a Pope to superintend the Christian Kingdom is that the Kings need an Arbiter of their Differences that may be generally respected and whose Dignity and Sanctity may oblige them to Submission and Veneration But if this general Arbiter instead of making Peace amongst Princes foment their Differences and embroil their Affairs to fish in troubl'd Waters they shall do wisely to let him alone and yet more wisely to rid themselves of him There 's no question but that when a general Peace is for the advantage of the Pope that then he will set himself seriously about it But it rarely happens otherwise then that the good of one party shall be disadvantageous to the Pope and then 't is ill trusting to his Arbitrement France has more reason to stand upon its guard than any other Nation for the Court of Rome has always sought its ruin has favour'd its Enemies or rais'd them up anew When the English made War against us Rome abetted their quarrel and aided them with Spiritual Weapons I cannot let pass the ridiculous assistance sent to Henry V. of England when he levied an Army to go into France this was a Ship loaden with Consecrated Apples which were distributed to all who would List themselves for this War and they listed themselves with a good Will having scrambl'd for the Apples with Greediness and Devotion and were well satisfied in Conscience of the Justice of this Expedition by these Apples Apostolical The Pope employ'd more powerful means against us when France was weak and the Spaniard powerful whom he assisted with all his Forces Spiritual and Temporal What a strong League did he make to destroy both King and Kingdom What Evils did he heap on France and after the injury done us how much praying did he require before he would be appeas'd Thomas Campanella speaks thus of this Judge of differences Who shall carefully read History shall find that the Popes have made more Wars amongst Christians than they have quieted Let France mark what he adds So far have the Popes been from opposing himself Hispanis Imperiorum helluonibus to the Spainiards unsatiable devourers of Empire that the Pontifical Authority has lent pretences to their Voracity Witness Navarre and France in the times of Henry III. For this last hundred years all the Popes except Vrban the VIII have favour'd the Spaniard And what reason can we have to expect better from them seeing that the greatest part of the Cardinals are born Subjects to Spain in the Principalities of Milan of Naples and of Sicily and that the Court of Rome is inclos'd within these Principalities Judge what confidence we can have in such Arbiters France loses plainly both Money and Pains ' sending Ambassadors to these Gentlemen courting them and enriching them when they are assembled for the Election of a Pope The fear they have of France's Power may gain some respect but it is a respect without Friendship and when France has gain'd it I do not see what France has gain'd They have reason to fear the King knowing that this Great Prince is sensible of their Usurpations and they have no great reason to love his Subjects because they are no great purchasers of Indulgences And the less the King cares for them the more will they fawn upon him but we may assure our selves they employ all their strength and set to work all their Art and Subtilty to put a stop to his Progress and to pull down his Greatness That agreement of the Pope with the Duke of Guise ought never to be forgotten What rancour did he testifie against the Royal Line that Reigns at this day what Pains did he take to disinherit and destroy it Into what combustion did he cast the poor Kingdom that he might have a King of his own Choice who might abolish the Liberties of the Gallican-Church and make France a Fief of the Court of Rome Let us for our experience learn the truth of that Character given by Aeneus Sylvius who was afterwards Pope Pius II. That there was never any great Slaughter in Christendom nor any great Calamity happen'd either of Church or State whereof the Bishops of Rome were not the Authors Hist Austria And as much is said by Machaivel in his History of Florence And if we consider that the great Evils done by the Pope to Kings were done under the colour of com-promise we shall find that 't is the surest way to decline his kindess and to have nought to do with him and that he always comes better off that affronts him than he that flatters him The Marquess after he has wisely consider'd that the name of Religion is a false pretext laid hold on by the Court of Rome thereby to encrease their Temporal Power and raise them Creatures every where the abuses he would have retrench'd after the example of Charlemaign and of many more great Kings But to compass this it is not
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
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
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
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