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
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
care of the Service of God belongs as much to the Authority of the Prince as that of Justice and Civil Government Those Expressions of the Marquess That Secular Princes are the Protectors of the Church of its Doctrine and of its Canons are intended by him in a more liberal and ingenious sense than they meant from whom he takes them For they are the ordinary terms of those who make the King subject to the Pope and who own not the King for the Sovereign of the Church but only for its Protector and to execute the Commands of his Holiness and for that his Canons be observed This is the Stile of my Lord Bishop of Montauban Peter Bertier in his Remonstrance made to the King in the City of Rheims June 8th 1654. where after he had term'd his Sovereign Power a true resemblance of the Deity he sinks it again not only below the Pope but even below the Bishops who are the Kings subjects saying That the Bishops are the Head to govern and the Mouth of the Church to speak but that the King is its arm and its right hand to execute its Decrees and Ordinances This Scholar of the Jesuits speaks like his Masters for all the Jesuits harp on the same string which Becanus in Pref. ad Reg. Jac. Kings are only to execute the Popes Commands What is the duty of Kings says he in relation to the Church and to Religion I will tell you in one word they ought to guard and defendit not as Lords but as Servants not as Judges but as Executioners And why I pray has not the King the same Sovereignty in France that the Emperor Constantine and the Emperor Charlemaigne enjoy'd under whom the Canons of the Synods were none other than counsel and advice till these Emperors had examin'd and authoriz'd them Did not these Sovereigns altogether call and dissolve those Synods of Bishops at pleasure and wherefore shall our Kings be rob'd of that Power Our great King who surpasses all his Predecessors in Glory and Magnanimity shall he suffer a stranger Bishop to snatch from his Crown this essential Right of governing the Church of his Kingdom and He of a King become a Serjeant to put in execution the Commands of that Bishop and those of the Bishops his Subjects The world is well chang'd since Pope Adrian in his Letters inserted in the second Council of Nice express'd himself to the Emperor Constantine to this effect We beseech your Clemency with ardour of Spirit and as though we were present we cast our selves at your knees and lie at your feet I with my Brethren Then it was that Popes kissed the Feet of Emperors whereas now Emperors kiss the Popes Toe In the Year 679. the Pope Agathon pray'd the Emperor Constantine to discharge the Tribute which the Bishops of Rome pay'd Ordinarily to the Emperor for their Conservation Very far from compelling the Emperors the day of their Conservation to lay a sum of Money at the Popes feet for Tribute as a token of subjection which afterwards the Emperors of Germany have been oblig'd to do Gregory the First gave a good Example for our Popes at this day how they should demean themselves towards the Emperor for he speaks thus to the Emperor l. 3. Ep. 6. I am the unworthy Servant of your pity And in the same Epistle Whilst I speak thus before my Masters what am I other than Dust and a Worm And l. 2. Ep. 61. I am subject to your Commands I might bring many Examples how anciently the Christian Emperors and the Kings of Italy created and depos'd the Popes commanding them and deposing them at their pleasure Not to go farther than our France there we may see what Power our Kings of the first Line exercis'd in the Government of the Church The History of Gregory of Tours may furnish us with many examples l. 4. c. 5. King Glotharius speaks thus to the Inhabitants of Tours Have not I commanded that the Priest Cato be made a Bishop Why are my Commands slighted and Chap. 18. Pascentius is made Bishop of Paris ex jussu Regis Chariberti by the Command of King Heribert The same King being provok'd because Emerius had been turn'd out of the Bishoprick of Xaintes caused him to be beaten who came to signifie to him that deposition and made him be drawn upon a Cart loaden with Thorns into banishment and restor'd Emerius to his place from whence he had been cast out l. 6. c. 27. Felix Bishop of Xaintes being deceas'd Nonnichius Consobrinus rege ordinante successit His Cousin Nonnichius succeeded him by the King's Order C. 39. King Guntram created Sulpitius Bishop of Bourges rejecting the Presents offered him for promoting another and saying It is not our Custom to sell the Priesthood for the price of Money l. 8. c. 22. are these words Then the King commanded that Gundegesil be made a Bishop which was done accordingly And C. 39. Evantius Bishop of Vienna died and in his place was substituted Vitus a Priest the King chusing him In all these passages we find no mention of the Pope nor of Annates nor of Letters of Investiture For in those days the Bishops of Rome meddl'd not at all with the Election of the Bishops of France Above all is memorable the Francique Synod to be found in the Third Tome of the Councils of the Edition of Cologne Pag. 39. Where Carloman who stiles himself Duke and Prince of the French thus speaks By the advice of my Priests and of the chief of the Realm we have appointed Bishops for the Towns and have set over them Boniface Archbishop Pope Adrian the First by a Council made this Law to pass That Charlemain should have the Right and Power to choose the Pope and to govern the Roman See Which Constitution is inserted in the Roman Decretal The Council of Mayence held under Charlemain an 813. dist 63. Can. Hadrians begins thus To Charles August Rector of the True Religion and Defendor of the Holy Church of God And the Second Council of Mayence under Lewis the Debonnaire to Lewis the most Soveraign Rector of the True Religion At this day these Titles would be counted wicked Now for all that Charlemain and Lewis the Debonnaire have advanc'd the Pope out of measure yet his Authority even in Spirituals was no better than precarious and suject to those Kings that were Emperors For proof of this Hincmar relates l. 55. c. 20. That the Emperor Charlemain did convoke a general Synod in France whereby the worshipping of Images was condemn'd and the Second Council of Nice which defended them was rejected as a false Synod thô the Pope had approv'd it And thô at this Synod convoked by Charlemain the Authority of the Pope was admitted For the History of those times teaches us That Charlemain who had advanced the Pope made use of the Authority given him to his own advantage even against the Pope himself when he had a
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
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
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
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
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
for a Seal At the beginning these Letters which the Popes thus sent were but simple Letters of favour and recommendation but it hapning that the Chapters reverenced them and that here and there at least one who had obtained them was chosen all pretenders to Bishopricks came to believe that it was necessary to obtain them Thus what was at first but as hath been said a recommendation became at length a point of right and duty Such was its Rise Now this being certain there may be use made of the example and thus when a considerable Benefice should be vacant the King might order that a Letter be written to the Patron and some Person recommended to his Nomination There is no cause to doubt but the Patron will Nominate whom His Majesty hath thus recommended so that insensibly it will grow a Custom to take the King's recommendations as otherwhile persons did those of the Popes and as the Bulls became at length necessary for Bishopricks and Abbies so the King's Letters shall become necessary for all sorts of Benefices and He render Himself Master of all Church-men The King in this will have sufficient reason because He being Protector of Religion which is the prime Pillar of every State it is His interest to know whether they that shall be provided of Benefices be Orthodox and of good Life lest they spread some bad Doctrine among the people for Heresies and Scandals do cause division in the Common-wealth as well as Schisms in the Church Besides it concerns the tranquillity of the State that Curates who have the direction of Consciences be well-inclin'd for the good of the Kingdom and ready to keep particulr Persons in their duty To descend now unto the case of the Monastick Religious and find out a way for rendring them useful to the State to take them off from that laziness and loathsome beggery in which they live as also reduce them to such a number as may be proportionate to other ranks of men in the Kingdom It is to be noted that there are three sorts of Monasticks The first is made up of the Orders of S. Augustin S. Benedict S. Bernard and Premonstrey These are they that possess the bulkie riches of the Church I mean the Abbies and Priories The second sort comprehends the Carthusians the Minimes the Coelestins the Feuillans and some others who possess Goods with propriety and beg not but by Toleration The third kind is that of the meer Mendicants who subsist by Alms as do the Jacobins the Cordeliers the Carmelites and their branches that is the Reform'd as they term 'em who are issued from them These notwithstanding their Vow of Monastick Poverty yet are not destitute of some foundations but they plead for themselves that the Pope is Proprietor of the Goods they do but take the Profits which certainly is a vain and frivolous subtilty The Female Religious being comprised under these three kinds there is no need to make of them a separate Article There are too to many Monks It s an abuse so prejudicial to the Kingdom that the King can no longer dissemble it it is time to take it seriously and effectually in hand For Monks live in single state they raise no Families get no Children and so are barren grounds that bring forth no fruit to the Crown Beside the blind obedience by which they are tyed to the pleasure of the Pope doth form a foreign Monarchy in the very bowels of France and into it they train along the credulous people which is a thing of very great consequence This Politie is founded on the abusive and pernicious Maxims of Rome which too are purely Political For that the obedience which Monasticks give the Pope is Religious there is no colour to pretend nor is there a Christian but sees what his duty binds him to in this case and is altogether subject to his Holiness in Doctrinals without need of making particular vows to oblige him The name of Religion in the matter is but a phantasm and a false pretext which the Court of Rome assumeth to augment its Temporal Power and to have its creatures in all quarters By consequence the abuses ought to be retrenched as was done by Charlemagne in his time and sundry other great Kings But for the effecting of this I should not at all advise that the attempt be openly made For that would be to draw upon the undertakers the importune clamours of all the Monks and their Zealots nay to draw Rome upon their backs which might cost them some trouble In fine it would be to draw on them the People who are ever fond of Novelties that surprise them or are prejudicial to them and always averse to those which they have foreseen and are profitable for them 'T is therefore by-ways that must be taken The first which seems to me fit to be pitcht upon would be to require of the Monastick Communities that they dispatch Missions unto America and the Indies to convert the Salvages and administer the Holy Sacraments to Christians The Monks who are commonly imprudent will strain to set forth the greatest number of their fraternity they possibly may in hope to make considerable Establishments thus there will be forwardness enough to embarque The present juncture is advantageous for this design For they are charged with more Persons than they are able to maintain Charity being evidently cooled toward them A second means may be to debar them the conversation of Women It is scandalous to see Religious Men receive visits from them in Churches and there in presence of the Holy Sacrament spend whole Afternoons with them For remedy it might be ordained that they should have Parlours where Women might go to consult them The thing is a point of deceney and Parlours the Carthusian Friars and all Nuns generally have The third means might be that the Fathers of such as enter into Religion should pay an Annual Pension to the Order by way of Alms during their Sons life which is the practice in Spain This Pension some will say causeth in Spain an huge multiplication of Monks But 't is not the Pension that fills the Cloisters in that Country 't is the licence the Monks have to do what they please In France they are not upon such Terms A fourth means is to oblige the Monasticks to abide in their Convents and not go abroad but very rarely and for urgent affairs so do the Carthusians A fifth to embroil the Monks with the Bishops for which they are sufficiently disposed A sixth to prohibit that Children of Sixteen when as yet they know not what they do bind not themselves by Vows which engage them for the whole remainder of their lives but remit that Ceremony till their 22d year of Age. The seventh means would be to suppress that Congregation as they call it among Monastick persons as for instance there are the Congregations of S. Maur and command that the Religious who make profession in
Sect and the world well know that the Zeal there was to reduce Hereticks to their duty did take up the Reigns of Six of our Kings the glory of cutting off the last head of this Hydra being reserved for his present Majesty But it is expedient to see what weapons must be used for an execution so long expected There is no cause to doubt but that upon the Principles of Christianity and Maxims of Policy its necessary to reduce all the Kings Subjects to one and the same Belief And though they that make Profession of the pretended Reformed Religion be now without Arms without Strong-holds without Treasure without an Head and without Allies yet they are not out of case to be feared They still retain a remembrance of their boldness and by-pass'd Rebellions they look back on the Towns they once seized and out of which they could not be driven but by force of Arms as if they were their proper Inheritance and had been unjustly pluck'd out of their hands they bear in their hearts the same aversion for Order and Discipline that they ever had and their minds are always inclining to revolt and to Confusion and Anarchy It disquiets them not to think who shall head them they have Soldiers of their own number whom they can advance to be Captains by giving them Authority to command e'm They persuade themselves that if they were in Arms they should want neither Money nor Friends They believe that the Glory of the King attracts as much Envy on him as Admiration and that his Virtue raiseth in his Neighbours no less Anger than Terrour In short there is ground to think that he will have more than an Hundred Thousand Men of his Enemies in the heart of his State while there are Huguenots in France they too perhaps do but wait an occasion to make their Musters Thus they are perpetual Obstacles to the Designs that might be formed and though weak may nothwithstanding be dreaded 'T is true the honest men of their Communion do well know that they cannot be in a calmer repose than they now enjoy by the Grace of the King and under the security of his Edicts but in these matters the multitude carries it These are a Torrent that by its Rapidity overturns Rocks which seems unmoveable It will be said that the good treatment which the Huguenots receive doth preserve the friendship of the German Princes for France and if favourable Justice should be no longer done them the King would lose the most potent and most considerable of his Allies This discourse is but a found and void of all substance of reason for beside that the Princes of Germany are not of the Religion of our Hereticks They need not the Kings Protection for maintaining the Huguenots in their pretended liberty of Conscience but the French Arms securing them against the power of Austria and principally of the Emperor who hath divers pretensions upon them they cannot recede from the Alliance they have made with his Majesty nor will they do it though the last man of the Huguenots was brought to the Scaffold nay forasmuch as the Kings Forces are so useful to all those Protestants it will would be their interest not at all to Arm themselves for the Huguenots preservation but far otherwise even to promote their expulsion out of France and the reason is because if this party were in a condition to raise stirs the King would have his hands full of work to repress them and so his Forces being dissipated the Emperor might take his time to enlarge his Domination the thing that Charles the Fifth did when Francis the First was not in a possibility to succour the Princes It being therefore certain that the Liberty of Germany hath its support and prop in the Arms of the King they are not sollicitous there for the affairs of the Huguenots in France and since the Protestants of the Empire are knit to his Majesty by other engagements than those of Religion they will continue the same Deportment and his Majesty on his part will always have the same reasons to succour them though the time should come that he should have no more Huguenots in his Kingdom No succour neither may they hope for from England that 's a State too weak to make any trial of strength against France all the English there are must pass the Sea and the Isle be disfurnish'd of Soldiers and Provisions yet this all would be nothing to purpose mean time their affairs would lie expos'd to the Levity and Lunacy of the people Holland and Swedeland are of like consideration and they both have other Interests to Negotiate with the King than those of the Huguenots Denmark is defective in power The Calvinists mount unto a strain of Policy above ordinary when they would have us believe That whatever is not of the Roman Communion is of the Opinion of Charenton the Lutherans of Germany notwithstanding sympathize with them less than with us Thus the King hath nothing to be afraid of from the pretended Allies of the Huguenots Yet these men as I have already said are to be feared and they would be seen stoutly to bestir themselves if some extraordinary Commotion should happen in France as a Civil War or some great Invasion by Foreign Enemies in such a Juncture they would do as they did in the War of Paris they took up Arms and respectively protested they were for the Kings Service but if the Peace had not been soon made they would not have forborn to think themselves necessary and to make all the Propositions that they could imagine advantageous to their party They would have re-demanded their places of Security they would have press'd for a restoring of their Temples for an augmentation of their pretended Priviledges and for a free exercise of their Religion and according to their good old custom have uttered Complaints and Menaces But if by ill chance a Victorious Army of Strangers whether Catholicks or Religionaries should enter the Kingdom the King must resolve to see the Hereticks declare against him or else content them in all their pretensions which would prove an engaging of his State in like Calamities as our Fathers in their time saw It ought to be ordained that they shall exactly follow their ancient Confession of Faith which was permitted them in France and that such as vary from it shall be no longer reckon'd in the number of those of the Protestant Reformed Religion who have Liberty of Conscience given them These Huguenots have no ground at all to plead the Edict of Nantes so loudly and bravingly as they do they extorted it by violence and with Sword in hand yet was it but an Interim an Order taken until they should inform themselves of the truth which they have had time enough to do But did they not violate it themselves by the War of Languedock that other of Sevennes and again by that of Rochelle nay they call'd the Enemies of
The Huguenots have there a Temple and a Religious Exercise this Town they must exchange and have another for it given them reasons will not be wanting to colour such permutations there is nothing that may contribute more to their Conversion For it will be an incredible displeasure to them to live among people with whom they have no Acquaintance nor any Union either by Interest or Blood A Seventh means is to suppress by natural death all Huguenot Counsellors The Chambers of the Edict are now of no more use The Eighth is to give them for their Synods Catholick Commissaries such as are somewhat vers'd in the Controversies and have the skill to favour the Wranglings that are continually among them These Commissaries were heretofore all of them Catholicks Particular Synods when Petition'd for must not be deny'd them but National ones should never be granted and at the close of all their Sydonal Assemblies Money should be demanded of the Ministers for the King's Affairs by way of Loan or of Tenths or under some other pretexts The Ninth means is to get them prosecuted for their common Debts and so cause them to sell by Decree some of their Temples which sure cannot be judged to be in Mortmain or Un-alienable A Tenth is to Prohibit that any Subject go out of the Kingdom without the King's Permission For the Huguenots must not depart out of France and they will be compris'd under a general Prohibition The Eleventh is to take order the Confessors may intimate to the poorer sort of Catholicks that it is a point of Conscience to serve Huguenots The Twelfth is to oblige them on a Political account unto an Abstinence from Flesh upon those days which the Catholicks do so observe in like manner as they are already obliged to heed the Festivals out of respect to the Publick Religion then hereupon severely punish such as shall transgress in the one or the other of these two things The Thirteenth means is to endeavour the Marrying of Catholicks to the Huguenots and cause the Children issuing from such Marriages to be Educated in the Roman Religion A Fourteenth may be to hinder the Huguenots from selling any Estate they have in Land for this kind of possession does tye them to the Interests of the State The Fifteenth and last is to change the place of that Academy which they have at Saumur and fix it in some other Town as Vange or Beaufort There is a President for such a change in the Translation of the like Academy from Montauban to Pullaurens The pretext for drawing them out of Saumur is that this Town being a Pass on the Loire and maintaining the Communication of divers great Provinces the King cannot be too well secured of it beside this planting an Academy at Saumur is an Usurpation the Huguenots having never had a Patent for it It would signifie nothing should the Huguenots alledge that they have it for a place of security For they are now as the King 's other Subjects be who do not at all demand any What would come of it if all Collective Bodies should demand places of Security 'T is a madness Further yet it might be declared That Proponents who aspire to the Office of Ministers should be obliged to teach a course of Philosophy or two years in Theology Thus there would be fewer Ministers than there are and at length their number being diminished the number of Huguenots would infallibly diminish also The King might likewise ordain That the Proponents should be examin'd in presence of such Commissioners as he should please to appoint to the end they might undergo a rigorous Trial. For His Majesty is concern'd that these Ministers be perfectly well studied left they prove promoters of Sedition and not Pastors At the time of their Examination the same Proponents should be oblig'd to answer all the Catholick Doctors in any controversial questions they should think fit to move The Huguenots cannot refuse this Proposition because their Proponents ought to be prepared in all matters and since the Huguenots affirm that their Ministers are their Bishops there must no person be a Minister who hath not attained to the Age of Twenty seven years at least These are summarily the humane means that seem to me most conducible to the Conversion of the Professors of the Protestant Reformed Religion CHAP. VI. 1. What Nobility is 2. Of the Nobles of France of their Degrees and the Ranks of Gentlemen 3. Of the Orders of Knighthood 4. In what respects Gentlemen may be useful to the King HAving examined what relates to the Clergy the First of the Three Orders that compose the Body Politick of France it is time to speak of the Second which is that of the Nobility Nobility is a Quality that renders the Possessors of it Generous and secretly disly disposeth their Soul unto an affection for Honourable things The Virtue of Ancestors does make this excellent impression of Nobility upon persons and there is in seminal matter I know not what spirituous and energetical Principle that transmitteth and propagateth the inclinations of Parents unto their descendants as is obvious to remark not only in Men and in all the Animals which have a natural Generation but also in Plants and in things evidently most inanimate This Ancestral Virtue verily gives us the first tincture in order to a right Noble Accomplishment and every Man issued from great and illustrious Bersonages does continually feel a kind of elastick impulse in the secret recesses of his Heart which thrusts him on to imitate them and their Memory spurs him on to Glory and brave Actions but if through negligence or the degeneracy of an ill nature it so comes to pass that he answers not the hope which the Grandeur of his Progenitors gave ground to conceive of his Deportment in this case all the Lustre of their Ancient Reputation which environ'd him from the instant of his Birth and whether he will or no accompany'd him all along the course of his life it does I say by making him be noted for Nobilitas a noscendo dicitur but promote his shame and the more conspicuously shew his defects unto the augmenting and justifying a contempt of his Person Thus an actual Virtue is necessary for Gentlemen that they may be able to bear up the weight of their condition which otherwise presseth them quite down The greater the Rank and Honor of their House is the greater their Dishonor and so much the deeper that Precipice into which their dissoluteness doth cast them There are usually noted three kinds of Nobility The First is a Nobleness of Blood when the source of a great extraction is hidden in the obscurity of a long succession of years and cannot now be discovered This kind is in greatest esteem among Men and indeed we call things that are left us of this quality Venerable and do bear a sort of Religious Respect to them we are generally possess'd too with a perswasion that whatever
none makes a perpetual Lye a thing directly contrary to his Honour and to the profession he makes of being a devoted constant defender of Truth Beside this huge number of Marquesses Lords and Knights does bring those Qualities into contempt and is a cause that true Marquesses are not considered now as they of right ought to be 'T is therefore extreamly important that provision be speedily made in the case For this confusion destroys the usefulness of those Dignities they being such as his Majesty should keep in his own hand and Husband them with deliberation and frugality that they might be distributed on occasion to Men of Honour and such as have evidenced a Zeal for his Service and for the good of his Kingdom that the persons also to whom they are Granted might fully enjoy them with all the advantages and Prerogatives that are by custom annexed to them I will not omit that it is necessary to give the Nolity the greatest respect that may be to the end that Citizens may conceive the greater desire to become Gentlemen which should be granted them when they have rais'd themselves to a Worthiness of it either by just acquiring a remarkable Estate or doing some illustrious exploit in War The whole Constitution of the Nobility is Military Nevertheless there have been instituted in France particular Orders of Knighthood of which the King is Grand Master Himself and into which He admitteth such Gentlemen as He accounts most worthy of it Such are the Orders of the Holy Ghost and of St. Michael There are others of which the King is barely Protector The Order of S. Lazarus is of that nature But this is of no great advantage to the State Because all Beneficences all Favours all Honours and Employments should come directly and immediately from the Hand and Bounty of the King For the continuation therefore of this Order of S. Lazarus His Majesty might unite the Grand Mastership of it to the Regality as the King of Spain does CHAP. VII 1. Of the Third Estate 2. Of the Husbandmen 3. Of Artificers 4. Of Merchants MY beginning to Treat of the Three Orders of the Body Politick of France as the Clergy and the Nobility leaving the Third Estate to be last spoken of is a method like theirs who having some Edifice to examine do begin at the top and settle to consider the upper Stories before they look on the Foundations In truth the People are the Basis upon which all Republiques have their standing 'T is they that manure the Ground and cause it to bear Fruit. 'T is they that pay the Subsidies that breed Workmen and furnish the Merchants Yet that which we call the Third Estate does not consist of Peasants or the meer rural sort 'T is principally the Freemen and Communalties of Towns and Officers of Justice that compose it This Third Estate was not called to the General Assemblies of the Gauls either in the time of the Romans or during the First and Second Race of our Kings it was well forward in the Third before they had that priviledge I believe not until the Reign of Philip the Fair. But it is not upon this matter that I am now to insist However in speaking of the Third Estate the whole Popular body is to be consider'd and it may be divided into three parties of men namely Husbandmen Artificers and Merchants Of the Officers of Justice we will speak in the next Chapter The least-infected and best party of the People is the Husband-men that daily labour which takes up their Heads and Hands all the year long without intermission keeps them in simplicity and obedience There cannot be too great a number of 'em especially not in France by reason of the Fertility of the Country and our Corn being Transported into Foreign parts we ought to make great Stores of it and have as much as may be in a readiness Exact care must be taken that these Men may always be in a condition to take pains and that they have but little converse with Townsmen whose little labour and other manners might corrupt their innocence And that Ease and Plenty do not render them insolent For there is nothing more dangerous and insufferable than a sort of rich Peasants No less care must be taken that an extream penury do not reduce them to extream misery For too great Poverty lying on them they no longer have either Men or Cattle they are ty'd up to ill Diet lodge on the ground suffer Hunger and Cold their Children perish for want of Food there are Epidemical Diseases bred among them they are not succour'd they dye away by this means the Country is dispeopled and being void of Inhabitants the Grounds are unhusbanded and abandoned When I shall come to discourse of the Finances I will point out a way to preserve Country-people in a moderately-commodious Estate at present I will only say that it would be to very good purpose to create a Superintendant of Husbandry who should have his Eye on those affairs and see that the Grounds be cultivated Vineyards well kept and Meadows fitly ordered in like manner as there are Masters of Waters and Forests who take care that the Woods be not damnifi'd and Surveyors for the High-ways and in fine Jurats for every Craft The Second party of the Popular order is the Handicrafts-men or Artificers these are no less useful to the State than any other For besides that Manufactures do keep men at work and engage them they are the cause that the Silk the Wool the Skins the Flax the Timber and the other Commodities that grow in France are made use of and that Country People have the means to barter these things and put them off especially being wrought into Wares not made in Foreign parts we shall grow to be further principal Manufacturers as we already are of Hats for Spain and Stuffs for all Europe which is a matter of exceeding great consequence and in process of time when the work is once on foot things will pass from hand to hand and oft-times go out of the Kingdom All this quickens Trade and makes Money pass to and fro which promoteth the Publick and therewithall at once every ones private welfare 'T is not enough to have Husband-men and Artificers in a Kingdom there must of necessity be Merchants also for without their Industry the Artificers Shops would be Stores never emptied the Granaries would remain full of Corn and the Cellars of Wines and nothing be gone We will more largely treat of this when we come to the Article of Commerce CHAP. VIII 1. Of Officers of Justice 2. Of Parliments and other Supreme Courts 3. Of Presidial Courts 4. Of the King's Council 5. Vseful means for the good of the State in relation to Officers of Justice 6. Of Sollicitations IF men were entirely just to one another and each of 'em in the phrase of one of the greatest Greek Philosophers a Law unto himself there
would need neither Law nor Magistrate to keep them in perfect tranquility But Nature being corrupted we no longer consult that Original Righteousness which is inseparable from reason and which without intermission inwardly presseth us to render to all their due as exactly as we would should be done to ourselves Always self-love often necessity sometimes hatred avarice or one passion or other does blind us and induce us to violate this eminently holy and equitable Law in such sort also that we suffer ourselves to be transported unto excesses hard to be believed We equally use fraud and force to content our injustice and irregular desires Whereupon it hath been commodiously done by wise Men to form as may be said a new reason which they called Law But because Laws are of no use except they be armed with Correction to punish such as despise them and have some soul and living principle therefore Magistrates have been created who are to pronounce the Oracles which those Laws inspire to put the Laws in Execution and maintain the Authority of them These Officers are chosen of the best and most intelligent Men in a State and if Common-wealths be duly regulated ordinarily the Rich are preferred before the Poor and Nobles before Plebeians because 't is supposed they have a greater measure of knowledge and virtue and by consequence are less capable of certain mean things in which a necessitous condition and a mean extraction might engage them Thus Ministers of Justice in France call'd Men of the Robe are in truth necessary in Publick Society For if there was no evil-doer Laws and Magistrates would be of no more use than Joyners and the Doors they make for the security of Houses if there were no Thieves whereas should not a Man in a whole Kingdom ever swerve from right reason and pure equity there must nevertheless be Priests for Religion Soldiers for defence against Foreign Invasions that might happen and People who may some of 'em Till the Ground others apply themselves to Trades and Manufactures that Men cannot be without So that these three sorts of Persons are inseparable from a Common-wealth and they make up the Three Estates we have spoken of which have been receiv'd without any contest Yet it seems that of late the Parliaments have sought to infuse into some green heads that they compos'd a Fourth Order in the Kingdom and the same not only distinct from the other Three but altogether superiour to them by reason of their Sovereignty and of the Power they have to deliberate upon the pleasure and Edicts of the King If they should not be brought off from this opinion perhaps they would draw the other Sovereign Courts and Officers of Judicature into the same Error an Union of them all not being deniable because otherwise the affair of Justice would in France form two bodies which may not be But from allowing this Fourth Body in the State namely that of Justice a ridiculous inconvenience would follow to wit that a Sergeant or Catchpole of a Village would be a member of a body superior to that of the Nobility and by consequence in some sort superior to a Marquis For in matter of Hierarchy the last of a more excellent Order is greater than the first of a less excellent one as the lowest of the Arch-Angels is greater than the highest of the Angels But to clear the difficulty before us it must be remembred that heretofore in France the Estates which were called Parliaments did assemble twice a year for two considerations one was to judge of Appeals that were made from judgments pass'd by inferior Officers The other to give the King Counsel when He demanded their Opinion about Government of the State For alway during the first and second Race the King 's did dispose of Publick Affairs as of Peace and War and this is so much a truth that if those ancient Parliaments had had the disposing of the State they would never have suffered that the Children of Lewis when they had divided the Kingdom among them should have fallen to make War one upon another which could tend to nothing but a publick desolation They would as little have permitted the enmities of Brize Haudet and Fredegonde In like manner under the Second Race they would not have endured that the Sons of Lewis the Mild should act such outrages on their Father that Charles the Bald should have given Neustria to the Normans In the Third Race that Lewis the Gross should have ruin'd so many great Lords who made up the greatest-part of the Parliaments that Lewis the Younger should have yielded up Guienne by the Divorce of Eleanore that the Count of Burgundy and the Duke of Britannie and some others should have leagu'd together against Queen Blanche In fine there are thousand and a thousand examples in History which do evidence that these Kings always had the free and Sovereign administration of their State nor will there one be found to prove that the Parliaments ever contradicted them They presented themselves at the feet of their Princes with Petitions and humble Remonstrances they made no resistance nor exercis'd Authority So that our King 's have been King's indeed always absolute Masters and for proof hereof it will be sufficient to look into all the Statutes there it may be seen how they spake and what part the Estates had in them The principal end of Parliaments therefore was to the end the Law-suits of particular Persons and people perceiving that Appeals brought to them were received and sentences invalidated many to try Opinions in their cases once again became Appellants by this means affairs were multiply'd and that contesting parties might not have the trouble to come up from the remotest parts of the Kingdom Deputies of the General Parliament were appointed they also stiled Parliaments and to be ambulatory The Commission they had was sometimes for three Months sometimes for six according to exigence of State but alway by the Command and Letters of the King These Parliaments went into the Provinces to judge the causes that were brought them almost in like manner as we now see done at the Extraordinary Sessions which instead of diminishing the number of Causes to be dispatch'd as had been conceiv'd really augmented them Philip the Fair saw cause to make such a Parliament sedentary at Paris another at Rouen a third at Thoulouse and succeeding Kings establish'd others in other Cities as they are at present From this faithful account it resulteth that the Parliaments are not a Fourth Body in the State but be extracted out of the Three ancient Orders at first they were taken out of the Clergy and Nobility only because the Commons at that time were not considerable afterwards These also were received in Other Sovereign Societies are but Images of these Parliaments As to the Sovereignty of the Parliaments themselves it neither is nor ever was other than an emination of the Sovereignty of the King in whom
that Quality is natural and indivisible The Parliaments can pretend to no more than His Majesty may please to impart to them The Sale of Offices of Judicature having been introduc'd there follow'd divers creations of new Officers both in matter of the Revenue and also in that of Justice among others those of Presidial Courts were instituted which perhaps was done only out of a pecuniary interest a needless degree of Jarisdiction being thereby set up and such a one as tendeth to the involving and oppression of the Kings Subjects These Courts are so many petty Parliaments in judging supreamly and finally in some cases yet by the trick of Petty-fogging Practice ways are found to get Appeals from judgment pass'd to be received and new processes begun to the vexation and undoing of the parties concern'd There have been in all times chief Judges in Towns as Bailiffs and Seneschals a thing of indispensible necessity for keeping the People in order all the fault that can be found in it is by reason of their number which certainly is excessive 'T is not enough that the King hath Parliaments and other Officers to determinate differenamong His Subjects there must also be a Counsel about His Majesty by whose Advice He may correct all ill Administration of Justice may reverse all Sentences given against the Mind and Intention of the Statutes and maintain Order through the whole extent of His State This Counsel is the Sacrarium of the Monarchy and the persons admitted into it who may justly be stiled the Eyes the Ears and Hands of the Prince ought to have a profound Knowledge in Affairs acquired by long and approved Experiences They must love the Kingdom the Kingly Power and the King's Person They are the Seminary whence are taken Intendants of Provinces Ambassadors and Ministers for Negotiations with Strangers The Counsel is compos'd at present of Gownmen only It would not be much amiss nay on the contrary it would be very well done if the King pleased to communicate this Honour unto other Professions when there were found Persons capable of it Because this Preference gives the Gentlemen of the Long Robe too much Authority whereas there is need of retrenching what they have already much rather than of conferring any new advantage upon them as we shall shew hereafter As for the Royal Privy Council in which Secret Affairs are debated and which ought to be of very few Persons that Matters may be kept in silence and not untimously divulged I will not speak of it in this place nor say in what manner it ought to be composed because this depends upon the pleasure of the Master of it and each King takes a different course in it There have been Princes who committed the principal Care of all Affairs to one single person and France hath seen for instance the Cardinals of Amboise and Richlieu Others have parted Employments and shared them among as many persons as there were different Affairs So did King Henry the Fourth This in my Opinion was the more wisely done for that in matter of Government the great Secret is to divide Authority and hold the ballance even between a plurality of Persons History teacheth us of what consequence it was to our Kings of the first Race that they had but one Maire of the Palace and how dear it cost their Posterity Upon a like reason of State the Roman Emperors divided the charge of the Praetorian Prefect But Ministers whatever for number must for qualification be Men of Virtue and approved sufficiency They likewise after the manner of the Aegyptians ought to be reprehended and punish'd for all that the King does amiss and contrary to Law The incredible number of the Ministers of Justices in France is in truth somewhat monstrous Neither is there any disorder in the State more pressing or requiring a more speedy Application of the Royal Authority The truth is if a Man consider this multitude of Magistrates will he not have ground to say that the French are extream hard to be governed seeing so many great Personages are employed in Governing them Again it may be said That this Nation so Illustrious by the Glory of its Actions and by so many Victories wherewith its Arms have been honoured is yet incapable of virtuous Inclinations since there is need of force to reduce them to the rule of the Laws though GOD never gave Men a more precious Present On the other hand can it be affirmed that our Legislators wanted Wisdom or did not sufficiently shew it in making the Laws Yet if reflection be made upon the multitude of Law-suits whereof the vexation is a grievance to the Kingdom may not a Man perswade himself that Equity is banish'd thence and Upright dealing utterly discarded Should it then hereupon be taken for granted that the private sort in France are not good condition'd People can it be imagin'd that the Publick Government is any thing reasonable and proper for its due ends But if a Man proceed to penetrate further into the Internals of the State and there behold what a desolation the corrupting of Justice hath made loosning and breaking the most Sacred ties of Friendship in fine if he observe how the Monarchy hath often been in danger of subversion will he not wonder that the Publick Fortune hath held out and Families been born up in the Storms that have so many times turmoild them The excessively great multitude of Officers being the principal cause whence so many mischiefs take their rise the remedy must be first apply'd thereto And this remedy is nothing else but such a retrenchment as is expedient or to say better necessary to be made The fewer Officers of Justice there are the more Soldiers and Artificers and Merchants and the fewer litigious Actions will be For it is manifest that business of that kind has ever multiply'd as the number of Officers hath been augmented in like manner as the more Physicians the more Patients To arrive at the end propos'd it would be convenient that after mature deliberation upon the estate of France the number of its Inhabitants and the quantity of Law-business it be advisedly stated in the King's Council what number of Officers were fit to be reserved and of what quality they should be then that the rest be suppress'd gradually as the persons dye away or at once by a Declaration What in my opinion might particularly be done is as follows First The Presidial Courts being compos'd of Officers that are needless to the State a charge unto the People having also but a novel interloping Jurisdiction the fruit of an evil Counsel given to King Henry II. and a mere invention to get Money the extinction of them is not to be doubted of but effected by a substraction of the Officers Annuities By this means the King will save that Pay which amounts unto a Sum considerable to the State and the Royal Jurisdictions each in its Precinct may do what those Presidials
Regality because of all Governments it comes nearest to it As to use the very terms of Hesiod a Potter envies and is against a Potter Be it remembred here briefly that Theopompus King of Sparta having created the Ephori at last after a great deal of time Cleomenes was fain to put them to death when they had slain King Agis The Senate becoming too potent overthrew the first Roman Monarchy and in one word what hath our Age seen in the trial of Chenailles and what did a former in that of Chancellor Poyet A second source from which the Evils of litigious suits do arise is the sale of Magistracies The Emperor Alexander Severus sound this mischief in his Empire it having been introduced by Domician S. Lewis saw cause to weed the abuse out of His Kingdom it having got in through the confusion and trouble of some precedent Reigns It will be glorious for the King to do in His State what the Emperour Severus and S. Lewis did in theirs with greatest glory to their Memory But as Policy requires that in such enterprises way be made by degrees and greatest events brought on by small beginnings so it is necessary here to proceed leisurely and with measured steps The fixation of Offices hath been much advanced already for though what hath been done seemed to signifie an authorizing the sale of them yet in truth there hath been ground gotten To continue the work and bring it to perfection there must a Decree pass or a Declaration be made and publish'd at the Seal by which the King declares that he purposeth no longer to admit any opposition in matter of Title to Offices This is just for the King ought to be ever Master and have the liberty to bestow the charges of His Kingdom on whom he pleaseth and thinks worthy of ' em Thus no one will be alarm'd but this Declaration will extend unto the price it self by a consequence easily deducible namely since the principal and essential right to Offices consisteth in the Title and the price is but an accessory as they term it 't is reasonable that the price alway follow the Law of the Title as the Title to a Benefice brings in the Revenue of it And as in Marriage the Validity of the Sacrament makes the Validity of the Contract and of the civil effects Thus receiving no more opposition at the Seal for the Title there neither will be any in reference to the price and hence it will come to pass in tract of time that Offices will be no longer security for Money which will diminish the price of them and insensibly bring it to nothing But it is very just too that the Mortgaging of Offices as hath been done hitherto be obstructed for the future For the Officer may dye before he hath paid the Paulette whereby his Office is extinct or if of Grace the King revives it the value of what ariseth from the casualty is much less than the sum for which the thing was engag'd so that there must loss certainly accrue But if the King make a new creation of an Officer all engagements are gone for 't is then no longer the Office that formerly it was Let it not be said that without the Sale of Offices the Casualties will be worth the King nothing For the contrary is true and if the Casualties be worth Him Two Millions by reason of that sale of them His Majesty will make Four Millions of 'em if they be no longer saleable Forasmuch as in this Case they will be no longer Hereditary and being no more Hereditary they will revert to the King upon the decease of every Titulary and so the King may dispose of 'em in favour of the Person that is most acceptable to Him and if it please His Majesty the new admitted Officer may fine to the Coffers of His Treasury Royal as the Officers of Gentlemen do to the profit of the Monasticks As to the Objection that by such suppression of Officers and Jurisdictions and taking away the sale of Offices the King will lose the Revenue of many of His Clerks places and of the Paulette The Answer is easie for as to the Clerks places suppress'd the King will be recompenc'd by the greater value of those that shall remain and as for the Paulette the retrenchment of the wages of the Officers suppress'd will be much more considerable A third cause of vexatious Law-driving is that Offices of Judicature are gainful to those that execute them An evil this the dangerousest of any that can affect a State for all becomes suspected all becomes corrupt where profit is to be made Avarice and Ambition creep in Justice Uprightness and Truth depart whereupon we may conclude with the ancient Proverb That Money doth many things which the Devil cannot do For an entrance upon a Reformation in this matter it would be good to ordain First That Judges not the Kings should take no more Spices Secondly That Judges in the Royal Courts should not decree Executions for their attendance against the parties that are in contest Thirdly That if Spices or Fees upon sentence obtained be allowed the parties shall give what they will as the former custom was and not be compelled Fourthly That there be no more transacting by Commissaries in Sovereign Courts Judges should be forbidden to admit any sollicitation from parties at Law even though it be but to let them know the difficulties of their Affairs and put them in a way to clear the same For a Judge ought not to be prayed to do his Office in favour of a man whose case is good much less of one whose case is bad CHAP. IX 1. Of some general Orders in Government 2. Of punishment and recompence 3. Of Royal Virtues IN the Chapters now dispatch'd I have inserted many things which may be of use for the Kings service for the general good of His State and of every of His Subjects in particular In the Chapters that are to follow others very considerable shall be added However I judge it not amiss to make here a distinct Chapter of some important points which I cannot easily rank any other where It hath been long in dispute whether it be good to alter Publick Laws and upon debate of the Question to and fro 't is concluded that there is oft-times so pressing a necessity that it cannot be forborn but withal that such alterations must be insensible to the People who hardly come off from old Customs and cannot be brought to any new observance but by a long circumference and ways to them unknown Legislators are Physicians of Common-wealths and in this case ought to imitate the ordinary Artists of that Profession who seeing the whole habit of a body out of order and that to preserve the Patient from Perishing 't is necessary to change it do prescribe remedies which the more slowly they operate the surer their effect Now the first Law which in my Opinion might be made or
King do give His Letters for personal Marquessates in such form as they may be verified in the Parisian Chamber of Accompts and the Persons Honoured with them do homage to His Majesty thereupon Such kind of Homages have been done heretofore for Officers and even for Pensions though but of two hundred Livres The Emperour in Germany hath in this manner made Gentlemen and Counts of the Empire as for example the late Count de Guimene who had not a foot of Land within the Emperours Jurisdiction The King of England creates a Gentleman Baron and Earl of a Barony or County in which the Gentleman possesseth Nothing The second kind of Gratifications and Rewards is of those that are purely gainful and pecuniary as Pensions Tickets for Money Acquittances by Patent Ransoms Confiscations of deceasing Strangers goods and the like These however carry a great deal of honour with them as I said afore The third kind is of those that are at once both gainful an honourable as Great Offices Governments c. Upon this matter of Rewards there is this further Reflection to be made namely that a King never be inform'd of a good Action but He gratifie the Actor either with Praises or with Benefits In fine all these favours must be regulated by consideration of His Service and the welfare of His State GOD in giving Princes a Sovereign Power inspires into them Affection for their People But His will is that it be a Paternal Affection that a King do open His Bosom to His Subjects as His very Children and that all His Counsels and Designs be levell'd at their Felicity without which Himself cannot be happy 'T is principally for this great and glorious effect that Kings are Images of GOD and be fortified with His Spirit I have said that Monarchs are in their Kingdoms what the Soul is in the Body of Man that external Goods cannot enrich them that Virtue alone is their proper Portion as it is of GOD Himself It now remaineth I should say what kind of Virtue it ought to be 'T is necessary that a Great Prince have Piety to give His Subjects an Example of it and bettering of them in this is the security of His State He must be just to govern them A Government never is of long duration without Justice This Queen of Virtues comprehends as Aristotle judiciously noted all the rest A King I say must be Just to render unto every one and unto Himself what is respectively due The third Virtue of a Prince is Prudence to foresee of Himself what may betide His States Thus a wise Pilot hath the skill to foresee Calms and Storms he knows by secret notices whether the Winds will be favourable or contrary to his Voyage The fourth Virtue is Magnanimity a weight this that keeps the Soul always in the same position and gives it so setled a firmness that neither good nor bad successes can put it out of place and a King appears unalterable He thus bears up the hope of His Subjects they look upon Him as an assured succour against Fortune and persuade themselves there is somewhat of Divine Quality in His Person Of Royal Virtues a fifth is Clemency It pertains to the greatness of a King that He be benign and do commiserate the weaknesses of His Subjects who are Men as He is Mischances are pardonable and it seems to me 't is too much rigor to punish a poor wretch for a Crime committed out of imprudence or by necessity and of which he is less guilty if I may say it than his ill destiny 'T is to Criminals of this kind that Grace should not be deny'd and when a King gives one of His Subjects his Life who hath been condemn'd to death he should rejoyce more at the feeling in the Secret of his Heart a Will to Pardon than at the having in His hand the power to punish To give a Man his Life is in some sort to create him and the preserving of his Being is a giving of it It would be 't is true a great fault to stop the course of Justice in case of publick Crimes and such as have disturb'd the Peoples Peace Yet in sum it is Noble that a King be inclin'd to compassion and Mercy 'T is an action appropriated unto GOD to disarm His Anger Upon this ground the Roman Poet said That those Thunderbolts which Jupiter throws might be diverted The sixth Royal Virtue is Liberality One of the Ancients pronounced that it was less disadvantageous for a King to be overcome by Arms than by Liberality A Poet introduceth Mark Anthony excellently saying That he had nothing left him but the Benefits he had conferred And to say true A Great Prince never enjoys His Wealth but when He hath given it Liberality enricheth Him and makes Him Purchases of inestimable value For thereby 't is that He wins the love of his own People and becomes admired of all others When I say Liberality I mean a judicious Liberality such as is a Virtue not an exorbitant profuseness a Liberality alway exercis'd with Advantage and with Glory To conclude in short when I consider other Virtues I do not find any one of them all improper for a King but it is impossible a King should have those which I have mention'd without having every one of the rest since they are inseparable Companions and must be united to make a Virtuous Man CHAP. X. 1. Of Finances or a Princes Treasure 2. Means to make the Subjects more numerous 3. Of the Officers that manage the King's Treasure 4. Of the King's Demesnes 5. Means to recover the Demesnes 6. Of Taxes 7. Means to ease the People 8. Of the Free Cities 9. Of the Gabells 10. Means to augment the Receipt of the Gabells and ease the People 11. Of the Salt-free Country 12. Of the Countries of State and Free Gifts 13. Of the expending of Money 14. Of the reserving it THE Art of Finances or the Treasury is a principal part of the Politicks and so much the more necessary in a State in that Money is the Soul of all Affairs A Common-wealth is no further powerful than proportionably to the richness of its publick Treasury and the greatness of the yearly Income that maintain it This the French Name plainly importeth for Finance is an old Word signifying Power and comes from the ancient Verb Finer which is to be able to may or can Three particulars are here to be considered First Just and easie means to make Money Secondly the prudent expending it Thirdly the keeping it in and laying it up for necessities that may happen as Famine Pestilence War Fire Shipwrack and such like We have in France three general means to make Money The King's Demesnes Impositions on the People Merchandises c. Of this last I will speak in the Chapter of Commerce I will say nothing here of Conquests which may come in for a Fourth means of Getting I will treat of them elsewhere
Before any further advance into this matter it will be pertinent to observe that the fundamental Wealth of a State consists in the Multitude and Plenty of Subjects For 't is Men that Till the Ground that produce Manufactures that manage Trade that go to War that People Colonies and in one word that bring in Money To make way in France for multiplying of Men and oblige them to Marry the King may at once do two things after the example of the Emperor Augustus First He may decree Priviledges and Advantages in favour of such as shall have divers Children exempting them from Guardianships from being Collectors from Commissions to look to the Fruits of Sequestred Lands and other burthensom Offices He may discharge them from Subsidies and even give them some Estate Secondly He might impose penalties upon those that Marry not before a certain Age and take part in the Successions of all sorts of persons who in contempt of Law and Wedlock live single not having impediment by any natural infirmity 'T is upon a like consideration that I said in a former Chapter the King to restrain Parents from compelling their Daughters into Cloisters might Declare that the right of all Recluses in any Succession was vested in Himself And 't is for the very same reason that the Ancient Earls of Flanders were Heirs to all the Priests that were their Subjects Now to that which Augustus did for the inducing of his Subjects to Marry the King might add Two particulars One is That the First Year a Man Taxable did Marry the first time being under 26 years of age he should be exempt from all Subsidies and Impositions and publick Charges even quartering of Soldiers in case he kept House apart and was setled in a Dwelling of his own If the newly Married be the King's Officer his Office should not fall into the King's hand if he died within the year Commanders also and Soldiers should be dispens'd with as to their serving for that time unless on urgent necessity or some important occasion The other partilar which in France had need to be added to Augustus's Ordinances is to take effectual Order that persons once Married be not so easily separated again as they are For 't is to no purpose to contract Marriages if they be not stuck to and the coupled Parties cohabit not A strange abuse in this matter of separation hath crept in of late nor know I how the Officials have become so favourable in it or how the Parliaments have suffer'd it Now-a-days a Woman that would have as they say her swing and without controul practice all that her giddy witless and oft times wanton humour prompts her to raiseth stirs in the House at length tires out her Husbands patience hereupon she complains of his Vices hath Servants suborned for her purpose a Divorce comes to be adjudged upon their Depositions the Husband is sentenced to yield her up her Goods and not only do that but also to let her have possession of her Dower or of a good part of it at least to allow her a great Pension Then this Woman reties takes an House and lives after her own fashion which is not alway the most commendable in the World her Husband the while sinking under the whole weight of his Houshold Affairs Had she counted upon nothing else but that of necessity she must live with her Husband and in his House she would have formed her self to it and not have play'd her vexatious pranks so she had promoted the happiness of her Husband and of the Children and together with it her own For application therfore of a remedy in this case it must be a Law That a Wife shall not sue for a Separation ' as to Person or Habitation but by the advice ' of four of her nearest Kindred Men of known Integrity and that a Separation being ordered either by Sentence in Court or by Accommodation between the parties she shall be bound to enter a Monastery without egress again nor suffered to admit a visit from any man there it being contrary to Publick decency that a Woman who hath lost her Husband for to be separated from him is to lose him should appear openly and maintain commerce with other Men. On the other hand her Sex and all seemliness requiring that in this estate she hide her self and hide withal her ill fortune and her grief for it I would too that a very slender Pension be adjudged her And since Husbands will be found in fault on their part likewise and discover their ill husbandry it would be very just that the disposal of their Estates be not left to them nor the possession of more than a part of 'em as is the case of Wives and that supposing they have Children the Money arising from the remainder should be received employed and administred by a Guardian He to accompt for it to the said Children in due time If there be none the Revenue exceeding the Pension should be laid out on Hospitals and other necessities of the State This Law should extend to Separations already made And such rigour being practis'd in matter of Divorces there would be no more of ' em Husbands and Wives would be under a reciprocal Obligation to live together and to live together discreetly so they would breed up a Family that might prove the contentment of their Life the comfort of their elder years and be beneficial to the whole Kingdom There is a further consideration to be made in the matter of the Finances and it is this namely that it is expedient the King should declare that for the future He will be Creditor and Donotary to His Receivers and accomptable Officers fot their Wives dotal Money and Marriage settlements and for their Childrens Portions and Donatives then explaining the late Ordinances to take away all difficulty declare further the crime of misemploying the publick Money to be punishable by death and ordain that the Interests Amends and civil Reparations adjudged against Criminals of that kind should fall upon their Heirs or Legatees This Law is rigorous yet it is just and necessary forasmuch as it will strike terror on the Financiers who having no hope to escape Justice could not entertain a Thought of committing a fault that would ruine all that is dearest to them Beside the Romans punish'd even with death the very friends of those whom they condemn'd for Crimes against the State the History of Sejanus affords unquestionable proof of it That which we call the Demesne of the King and of the Crown cannot be Alienated nor is it liable to any charge or encumbrance This Law is Fundamental in all kind of Common-wealths as well as in France But here things are judged to belong to the Crown three manner of ways from all Antiquity As the Soveraignty the power of War Subsidies and the like By Declaration when the King by His Letters declares some particular united to the Crown By Confession
for sustenance of life The King might have Farmers of this Tenth in each Parish or in each Election who might let out under Farms of it to the Peasants as is done in the Tyths of the Church If it be thought fit to take things in kind there must be Magazines in Cities as there are Store-houses for Salt in them the Receivers should sell the Fruits or reserve them as Joseph did in Aegypt The King will need them for Armies for Fleets for Victualling places of strength for Transportation into Foreign parts especially in case of a Famine This is practis'd in many Countries abroad and particularly in Italy What is done in a petty State may be done in a great Kingdom It is not to be doubted but that if the Tallie were thus rais'd it would go further than it does and the People suffer no incommodity by it at all But one thing which presseth more at present is the putting of the Country in case again For this end the rich must be permitted to give Cows Sheep and other Cattle upon terms to the poor Peasants This is done in very many places yea in the greatest part of the Kingdom The too severe and over-scrupulous Parish Priests prohibit it but they will not any longer be able to do so when the thing is publickly permitted It seems unreasonable that some certain Cities should upon imaginary Privileges be for ever exempted from the charges of the State and mean time the Country bear the whole weight of them The pretext of these Franchises hath induced divers of the Peasants to retire to these places Order must be taken in the case and all these Cities obliged to contribute to the expences of the Kingdom which they are so considerable a part of They may then be brought to pay under colour of Subsistance or Loan There should be Garisons sent them or Soldiers quartered upon them that all the Beams of the State may bear their part in publick affairs and so the weight be more easie to them whereas one alone would be over-charg'd and break under it The third means the King hath to bring Him in Money consists in the Gabells Some have said that the Gabells are not of the nature of the Kings Demesne and their reason is because the Ordinances for the first imposition of them do import that it was not the Kings intention they should so be The contrary might be true For beside that the Salt-pits did heretofore belong to the Emperour as goods of the Empire the sums that are raised out of them are raised by publick Authority and turn to the profit of the whole Kingdom as hath been done for many Ages But however that be not to enter into a dispute which can be of no consequence here I will consider the Gabells according to the present state of things I will not say when this kind of Imposition did commence in France nor upon what examples of Antiquity our Kings did ground themselves Not will I explain how beside the Gabells of France which are call'd The grand party there are the Gabells of Provence Dauphine Languedoc and Lionnois because the thing is known and makes not to our purpose The Gabells are paid in France by two different means First by Impositions so in places neighbouring on the Salt-free Countries There for fear the Subjects would not take Salt at the Kings Garners the Officers see how many Minots each Parish ought to take then a rate is made in the Parishes for it as for the Tallie The second means is without Imposition this is the use in places remote from the Salt-free Countries There because prohibited Salt cannot be brought in every one fetcheth from the Garners at the price currant The King receives a great deal of Money from these Gaballs but the People pay excessively beyond what comes into His Coffers The infinite number of Officers belonging to a Store-house the Receivers the Commissioners the Archers the Charges the Portage the Fees of Officers to whom Presents are also made do swallow up huge sums which the King fingers not and the People do pay For there is not a petty Gabeller but lives handsomely by his Employment not a Commissioner but makes him a Fortune and grows rich upon it making good chear and great expences 'T is of very much importance that a remedy be apply'd to the malady and in truth the vexations which the King's Subjects do suffer under pretext of the Gabelle are not to be comprehended The Archers enter into Houses to search they say for concealed Salt in obedience to Authority the doors are open'd to them mean time themselves covertly convey in some Bags hereupon they form a Process and the Master of the House is excessively fin'd nor do they depart till they have pillag'd all they can lay hands on If entrance be deny'd them they force the House and act all Hostilities nor dares any one complain all are at their Mercy and thus they ruine the poor Persons whom they single out This is no way beneficial to the King's affairs nor is it His intention that His Subjects should be so ill treated But it is easie to break them of this course First of all it must be debated in the Kings Council of the Finances what sum is fit to be taken for the Salt this sum being determin'd at ten or twelve Millions for example two several parts of it shall be set out to be yearly paid one for the Country-Parishes another for the Cities Each of these allotted parts shall be sent into each Generality and thence to the places where there is a Store-house of Salt The allotment for the Country shall be divided by the Parishes as is now done for the Tallie the Subjects among themselves rating every one's proportion The Gentlemen the Church men the Monasticks and others must be engaged in it and bear their part because they are charged by reason Salt is so dear as now it is and by consequence the King making a change to the profit of all all ought to be taxed to recompence the diminution that will follow in the Finances The second Sum allotted for the Cities shall in like manner be sent to the Generalties and Salt-Garners that such Rents as the Towns are to pay the King may be divided The houses may be measured by the Perch and the Rents assessed accordingly much like to what is done for cleansing the Strrets at Paris The Cities that claim a Freedom as Anger 's Orleans and Paris shall enter into this contribution for the same reason that the Ecclesiasticks and Gentlemen do inasmuch as they will notably profit by the suppression of the Gabells and abatement of the price of Salt For it is to be observed that that measure which now costs at Paris five and forty Livres might amount not to two Crowns and so proportionably in other Cities Now the number of Perches in each City being known having been taken by Commissioners of the
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
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
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
the Collation of a number of Benefices and think we are well helpt up in that the King the Magistrates and the Sorbonne will own no other Superior to the King but God for what concerns Temporals But I pray to what end is all this briskness in our Kings in our Parliaments and in the Sorbon against the Usurpations of the Pope in Temporals but to yield him the Spirituals and to confirm his pretensions even in Temporals Grant him the Spiritual Power and he will be Master of the Temporal without contradiction and he shall bring under his Jurisdiction all secular Causes under the colour of a Sacrament of an Oath of Charitable Uses or of matters of Conscience The Concords of our Kings with Rome and their pragmatick Sanctions about the Collations of Benefices what have they come to Is not this to come in for a share with the Robbers who had seiz'd the Royalties and by solemn Articles to make them a Title which they had no pretence to before their Invasions And what other do our Kings in acknowledging the Spiritual Power of the Pope but own themselves his Subjects in Temporals for the one hooks in the other of necessity The experience of six ages has prov'd this truth 'T is the voluntary Subjection of Emperors and Kings to the Spiritual Power of the Pope that has given him the liberty to Excommunicate them for this belongs to the Spiritual Jurisdiction And the very same Jurisdiction has authoris'd him to exempt their Subjects from the Oath of Fidelity for the keeping of an Oath is a duty of Religion so that if the Pope be obey'd by a discontented and factious People you see an Emperor or King is depos'd by the Spiritual Jurisdiction and the Pope may spare the other Power that he pretends to over the Temporalties of Kings seeing that his Spiritual power all alone is sufficient to ruine the poor Prince And if that the Christian Princes that are of his Communion own him for the Vicar of Jesus Christ let the Kings understand it in what sense they please he will make them know when-ever their weakness shall give him an opportunity that he takes himself for the Vicar of the Secular Power of Jesus Christ as well as of the Spiritual And that to him as to Christ whom he represents all Power is given in Heaven and on Earth This is what the last Council of Lateran attributes to him and applies to him that Prophesie of Psalm 72. particular to Jesus Christ All Kings shall be prostrate before him and all Nations shall serve him The Kings that prostrate themselves the most humbly before him are those he throws at his Feet Witness the Treatment he gave our good King Henry the Third who Ador'd him and yet he Thundered upon him and persecuted him even to death and beyond death For after he was Assassinated in pursuance of his Excommunication and Deposition by his Creatures of the League and particularly of the House of Guise that he favour'd He would not at all suffer any Obits or Services to be made for him at Rome as if he had a mind to have him Damn'd after he had caus'd him to be Murder'd Particularly he extoll'd in a Publick Harangue the execrable Parricide Jacob Clement and compares his Fact to the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God The design of this persecution drawn out so at length against the King the Princes of the Blood and against all the Kingdom is to be seen in the Memoirs of the Advocate David intercepted at Lions An. 1577. as he was upon his return from Rome where he had been Secretary to the Bishop of Paris the King's Ambassador with the Pope This Bishop of Paris a Creature of the Duke of Guise being at Rome An. 1576. instead of serving the Interests of the King his Master who had sent him to make an excuse by reason of the necessity of the King's Affairs for the Peace he had made with the Duke Alenzon his Brother and with the Princes of the Blood that were Protestants He apply'd himself wholly to the Interests of the Duke of Guise and the Pope who had then complotted together their devilish design of the League For the Pope whose custom it is to build his Greatness upon the weakness of Kings and the troubles of their States seeing the Royal-House declining despis'd and drawing to an end and France harassed with Civil Wars was easily wrought upon to favour the House of Guise which aspir'd manifestly to the Crown by the exclusion of the Princes of the Blood So upon the whole matter the Duke of Guise a Prince well made and of high undertaking powerful in Friends lov'd and ador'd by the People promised to give him all the Soveraignty in France which he counts himself debarr'd of by the pragmatick Sanctions and by the Liberties of the Gallicane-Church Then during the stay of this Ambassador at Rome An. 1576. an Agreement was drawn between the Pope and Duke of Guise whereby the Pope Declares That Hugh Capet had seiz'd the Crown of France which of Right belong'd to the House of Charlemaign That he and his Race had render'd the French refractory and disobedient to the Holy See by that damnable Error which they call the Liberties of the Gallicane-Church which is none other says he but the Doctrine of the Valdenses Albigenses the Poor of Lyons Lutherans and Calvinists That it is this Error which makes the Arms of the Kings of France in defence of the Holy Church unfortunate and that they never will prosper so long as the Crown shall continue in this Line In order thereunto an opportunity was now offer'd by reason of the present Divisions to labour in good earnest the Restoration of the Crown to the true Successors of Charlemaign who had always constantly obey'd the Commands of the Holy See And who had in effect shew'd themselves the lawful Heirs of the Apostolick Benediction upon that Crown though depriv'd of their Inheritance by fraud and violence That 't is plain the Race of the Capets are wholly deliver'd over to a reprobate Sense some being possess'd with a spirit of Mopishness Stupid and of no Valour Others rejected by God and Men for their Heresie proscribed and shut out from the Communion of the Holy Church Whereas the Branches of Charlemaign are fresh and flourishing Lovers of Virtue vigorous of Body and in Mind for the execution of high and laudable Enterprizes He goes on and Prophesies for them that as War bad been the means whereby they lost their Degree so Peace shall do them the service to restore them to their ancient Heritage of the Kingdom with the good Will the Consent and the Choice of all the People Afterwards follows a Lesson of the Conclave for the execution of this Design well worthy to be read For it is the whole plot and project of the League which was exactly observ'd all along even to the very last Act with the States
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
more considerable We shall likewise save the Treasure that is spent unprofitably in the Embassies to Rome and in courting the good Graces of the Cardinals at the Elections of Popes and in the Reception of Legates and Nuncio's by all which France does nought else but prosess and encrease her Slavery without the return of the least advantage For what-ever Compliments what-ever Expence France may make yet the Catholick King is the Minion of Rome and the Subjects of Spain are the Chapmen that but most of their Wares and that have most blind Devotion for the Holy See And in truth seeing that the Politicks of France by the Marquess and Monfieur Silhon and before them Cardinal D'Ossat have testified their little satisfaction with Rome and publish'd her Cheats in so far that as we know that Rome does not at all love us in like manner Rome well knows that we care not for Her and I cannot understand to what end serve all our Civilities to the Court of Rome but to puff them up the more and provoke the Gentlemen to laughter who without doubt receive a wonderful pleasure in seeing their professed Enemies come to kiss their feet 'T is true that so long as France suffers Rome to dispose of many Benefices we must always have occasion to deal with them and as the Pope to Preserve his Credit amuses the Princes with com-promises and treaties which he draws out at length deporting himself as the Judge of Differences whereas he creates more than he decides So very often Princes contribute to his Inclination by their delays and in setting before his Council-board Affairs that they have no intention should be concluded And whatever their Inclination be at the bottom he is courted and caress'd as the Arbiter which pleases him extremely And why should it not please him to have at his Court the Ambassadors of the Empire of France of Spain of Poland of Portugal and other Princes that bring him Authority by their difference and bring gain to his Court and his Citizens by their Liberalities and by their Expences suitable to the Dignity of their Masters The great Men and the Sages of Council to His Majesty may when they please consider what good comes to our Kings by their keeping the Pope in this humour of his being their Judge and in letting him enjoy his pretended Rights in France And whether it is not better and a shorter way for France to do its own business without him and to take from him what does not at all belong to him in our Kingdom that we may have no more to do with him The King has been pleas'd to declare That he desir'd to re-unite his Subjects in their Religion This so Christian and Royal Design cannot be executed so long as the Pope shall have any Power in France for this Re-union cannot be made unless the Parties mutually yield some matters either in the Doctrine or in the Discipline 't is certain that the Pope will never consent at least not to be own'd the Vicar of Jesus Christ that has all the Power which Jesus Christ had upon Earth and that on the other hand the Protestants who have quite another Opinion of him and such an one as all know though they make it not an Article of their Faith they can never submit to his Authority But if that France were not govern'd in Spirituals save by the King and his Bishops an half of the way to this great Work were already over it being most certain that most of the Points in difference are not maintain'd by the Theologians vow'd to the Popes Service farther than as they serve his Interests REFLECTIONS UPON THE Fifth Chapter OF THE Politicks of France Which Treats of the HUGUENOTS I Have Treated my Lord the Marquess of C. with all the Respect that was possible for me in my Reflections upon his Chapter of the Clergy I could not do more to comply with him and serve him than by approving his Judgment and confirming it with Authorities adding only what he durst not venture and may be had a mind to say Upon his Chapter of the Huguenots I shall keep my self within the same Respect But I would hope from his Ingenuity that after I have taken some pains in commending and defending the judgment he has made on the Roman Clergy he in recompence would give me the liberty to oppose that which he has given upon those he calls Huguenots and to complain of the Treatment he would have dealt to them But because I take great delight in according with him as far as is possible I embrace the advice he gives at the entrance That a King cannot have a more noble Object of his care than to preserve in his States the Religion he has receiv'd from his Ancestors For though this Proposition be not universally true I will understand it in his Senle supposing that he means the True Christian Religion And 't is that His Majesty he receiv'd of His Ancestors the which I presume he will not limit to two or three Descents of his next Predecessors but as he has drawn from three Stocks the lawful Succession of our last Kings and affirms That they are Branches sprung from the same root he cannot take it ill that we go back to the First and Second Race to find the Religion that His Majesty has receiv'd of his Ancestors Therefore as the Noble Marquess in his Second Chapter speaking of the pretended Exemptions of the Clergy appeals for that matter to the old Kings and Emperors who own'd no such thing and says That the Clergy cannot take it amiss if His Majesty reduce things to their Primitive state In like manner the Marquess cannot take it amiss that Religion be reduc'd to its Primitive state at least to the state it was left in at the time when our Kings were Emperors Now I have shew'd in the foregoing Chapter that the Emperor Charlemaign one of His Majesties Ancestors Convok'd a Synod in which the Worship of Images was condemned and that he himself made a Book against the Second Council of Nice and against Images which we have preserv'd to this day and that under Lewis the Mild his Son another Synod was held at Paris against Images all the Acts of which we have entire This Doctrine is a principal Point of the Religion that our Kings receiv'd from their Ancestors and which we profess And as much may be said in point of the Holy Sacrament of which so much noise is made at this day that we willingly refer our selves to what was believ'd in the times of His Majesties Ancestors I should stray from my Subject should I enter upon Controversie the Marquess obliges me to stand upon another Guard employing his Eloquence in treating us as Rebels and Enemies of the State I am far from justifying the evil Actions of our Party But since we are to deal with Men of such a spirit that display the Evil and suppress the Good
the colour of Religion and particularly to destroy the King Henry III. as appear'd afterwards During these long Troubles what refuge found the King of Navarre whom God reserv'd for the Crown of France but amongst these of the Reform'd Religion These were they that aided that defended and even nourisht him in his long and cruel Adversities And after in the end when the League had pull'd off the Mask and had driven the King from Paris and besieg'd him at Tours came not they to his Relief under their brave Chieftain and did they not deliver him from the utmost danger though he had sent his Armies against them to extirpate them I would gladly ask the Noble Marquess Where were then the honest French and where were the Rebels Would he find the honest French amongst the fiery Zealots and Bigots of the League Who have shed so much Blood to beat down this dangerous Sect as he is pleas'd to brand us With your good leave Noble Marquess which of the two is this dangerous Sect that which teaches that the Persons of Kings are inviolable and that exposes their Lives to defend those Kings that had persecuted them or that which holds That a King Excommunicated by the Pope may be justly kill'd by any body and which out of zeal for Religion plunge their Bloody Hands into the Bowels of their Soveraign as St. Jacob Clement did and as John Castrel and Peter Barâ—iere attempted and as Ravaillac perform'd Where is the Huguenot that ever offer'd any thing of this Nature during all the Persecutions of their Party Or where is the Minister that ever broacht such Doctrine to his Flock to kill their King which your Spiritual Fathers have so often done I would also ask the Marquess Where he finds that term of near fourscorce years spent in quelling this dengerous Sect which is the title he is pleased to give us Would he take in to these 80 years the 38 after the death of Francis II. till the Peace of Amiens in which time the Reformed Party were the constant and the only support of the Great Henry for near 30 years Will he venture to say That those Arms which defended the hope of after Ages and the fortune of France were unjust Let him also say if he please Whether by the zeal that has been to reduce the Hereticks to their duty he means that Butchery of the St. Bartholomews and the Massacres in every Town of France at that time and before which are reductions of a strange nature And because he may Object That their defence of the Princes of the Blood was only a pretence for the Huguenots taking up Arms and their unjust resistance against their Sovereign It will suffice to answer That their Arms were necessary for the Preservation of that Great Prince whom God reserv'd for the blessing of France and that when He came to the Crown they were judg'd worthy of a Reward I would beseech also all indifferent persons to consider them simply as men that are neither Angels nor Devils and to tell us if they think it strange that men the Relicks of Fires and Slaughters which were the only arguments employ'd for their Conversion for so many years take the course at length that Nature teaches them to defend themselves against force with force This to take it at the worst is all the Rebellion can be objected against them in all that past Age till the quiet settlement of Henry the Great But the good Providence of God has well clear'd them from the necessity of that excuse having set them out an Employment so just and so fortunate for their Arms that all who love and who shall for future Ages love the Prosperity of France and the Greatness of the Royal Family will have perpetual reason to bless the timely succour of this Party and to praise God who rais'd them for the everlasting good of the Kingdom Let us come to their condition after that Henry the Great was establish'd on His Throne The King being turn'd Roman Catholick and seeing his Party of the Reformed Religion discontent and in trouble as expos'd afresh to what they had afore tried gave them Places of Security for about twenty years This was the Ground-work of all their Miseries and I am much inclin'd to believe that this was procur'd for them by those who projected their ruine For their Enemies might well think that a King that understands his Interest would not long sufler in the heart of his Kingdom places assign'd for Protection against Himself in effect and to make resistance in case he kept not all his promises That these Places would be retreats for all discontented Persons and Incendiaries that would trouble the State That Strangers seeing in France a Party strengthen'd with Garisons and holding themselves in perpetual defiance would never leave bidding them to cock up and fomenting their discontents That this thorn in the foot of France would always hinder it from advancing and after all that this would be a kind of dangerous Discipline in a State to accustom Subjects to represent their Grievances with Sword in Hand On the other hand they might well fore-see that the Reform'd being seiz'd of these places would not quit them at the end of the term assign'd imagining that the enjoyment of their Religion of their Goods and of their Lives depended all on their keeping of these Places and that by their refusal they would oblige the King to win them by force which would make them Criminals odious and objects of the Justice and Vegeance of an incens'd Master And even so it happen'd For their term for holding these places being expir'd the King demands them again and having at their instant request prolong'd their term for three or four years at length wisely resolv'd to force them this gave occasion for the Assembly of Rochel where most imprudently and contrary to their duty to God and the King they resolv'd to hold the Places by force a resolution of despair ill-grounded For though the King shew'd himself favourable to his Subjects of the Religion after he had taken these Places by his Arms he would have been yet more favourable to them had they render'd the Places humbly and peaceably at his demand When the Assembly of Rochel began was held the National Synod of Alaix in which the famous Du Moulin was President In that Country where many of these Places of Security were he apply'd himself seriously to consider the posture of the Affairs of his Party to sound their Inclinations and to give them good counsel And he found that the greatest and the best part was dispos'd to render their Places to the King and did not at all approve of the proceedings of the Assembly of Rochel of which matter he thought himself oblig'd to inform that Assembly and having return'd home he writ them an excellent Letter a Copy whereof I have procur'd which is as follows SIRS I Write not to you to pour my