It is by such similar types and the rules derived from social necessities that the moralist must judge the men of the past. Praising those which were useful and blaming the rest, he thus helps to form the moral types which are indispensable to the progress of civilisation and which may serve others as models. Poets such as Corneille, for example, create heroes superior to the majority of men, and possibly inimitable; but they thereby help greatly to stimulate our efforts. The example of heroes must always be set before a people in order to ennoble its mind. Such is the moralist's point of view. That of the psychologist would be quite different. While a society has no right to be tolerant, because its first duty is to live, the psychologist may remain indifferent. Considering things as a scientist, he no longer asks their utilitarian value, but seeks merely to explain them. His situation is that of the observer before any phenomenon. It is obviously difficult to read in cold blood that Carrier ordered his victims to be buried up to the neck so that they might then be blinded and subjected to horrible torments. Yet if we wish to comprehend such acts we must be no more indignant than the naturalist before the spider slowly devouring a fly. As soon as the reason is moved it is no longer reason, and can explain nothing. The functions of the historian and the psychologist are not, as we see, identical, but of both we may demand the endeavour, by a wise interpretation of the facts, to discover, under the visible evidences, the invisible forces which determine them. CHAPTER II THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE ANCIEN REGIME 1. The Absolute Monarchy and the Bases of the Ancien Regime. Many historians assure us that the Revolution was directed against the autocracy of the monarchy. In reality the kings of France had ceased to be absolute monarchs long before its outbreak. Only very late in history--not until the reign of Louis XIV.--did they finally obtain incontestable power. All the preceding sovereigns, even the most powerful, such as Francis I., for example, had to sustain a constant struggle either against the seigneurs, or the clergy, or the parliaments, and they did not always win. Francis himself had not sufficient power to protect his most intimate friends against the Sorbonne and the Parliament. His friend and councillor Berquin, having offended the Sorbonne, was arrested upon the order of the latter body. The king ordered his release, which was refused. He was obliged to send archers to remove him from the Conciergerie, and could find no other means of protecting him than that of keeping him beside him in the Louvre. The Sorbonne by no means considered itself beaten. Profiting by the king's absence, it arrested Berquin again and had him tried by Parliament. Condemned at ten in the morning, he was burned alive at noon.