The Works of Honoré de Balzac: About Catherine de' Medici, Seraphita, and Other Stories — John Shaqi
The Works of Honoré de Balzac: About Catherine de' Medici, Seraphita, and Other StoriesBalzac, Honoré de
General
The Works of Honoré de Balzac: About Catherine de' Medici, Seraphita, and Other Stories
Balzac, Honoré de
French fiction -- Translations into English
As to violence--that method bears on one of the most hotly disputed points
of policy, which, in recent days, has been answered here, on the spot where
a big stone from Egypt has been placed to wipe out the memory of regicide,
and to stand as an emblem of the materialistic policy which now rules us;
it was answered at les Carmes and at the Abbaye; it was answered on the
steps of Saint Roch; it was answered in front of the Louvre in 1830, and
again by the people against the King, as it has since been answered once
more by la Fayette's "best of all republics" against the republican
rebellion, at Saint-Merri and the Rue Transnonnain.
Every power, whether legitimate or illegitimate, must defend itself when it
is attacked; but, strange to say, while the people is heroic when it
triumphs over the nobility, the authorities are murderers when they oppose
the people! And, finally, if after their appeal to force they succumb, they
are regarded as effete idiots. The present Government (1840) will try to
save itself, by two laws, from the same evil as attacked Charles X., and
which he tried to scotch by two decrees. Is not this a bitter mockery? May
those in power meet cunning with cunning? Ought they to kill those who try
to kill them?
The massacres of the Revolution are the reply to the massacre of
Saint-Bartholomew. The People, being King, did by the nobility and the King
as the King and the nobility did by the rebels in the sixteenth century.
And popular writers, who know full well that, under similar conditions, the
people would do the same again, are inexcusable when they blame Catherine
de' Medici and Charles IX.
"All power is a permanent conspiracy," said Casimir Périer, when teaching
what power ought to be. We admire the anti-social maxims published by
audacious writers; why, then, are social truths received in France with
such disfavor when they are boldly stated? This question alone
sufficiently accounts for historical mistakes. Apply the solution of this
problem to the devastating doctrines which flatter popular passion, and to
the conservative doctrines which would repress the ferocious or foolish
attempts of the populace, and you will see the reason why certain
personages are popular or unpopular. Laubardemont and Laffemas, like some
people now living, were devoted to the maintenance of the power they
believed in. Soldiers and judges, they obeyed a Royal authority. D'Orthez,
in our day, would be discharged from office for misinterpreting orders from
the Ministry, but Charles X. left him to govern his province. The power of
the masses is accountable to no one; the power of one is obliged to account
to its subjects, great and small alike.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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