I request your opinion of the sentence which ought to be pronounced, if matters should remain in the same state, if the truth cannot be irrevocably obtained from one or other of the parties, and made to appear perfectly without a cloud.
The reasons of the general officer are thus far convincing. Natural equity is on his side. This natural equity, which God has established in the hearts of all men, is the basis of all law. Ought we to destroy this foundation of all justice, by sentencing a man to pay a hundred thousand crowns which he does not appear to owe?
He drew bills for a hundred thousand crowns, in the vain hope that he should receive the money; he negotiated with a young man whom he did not know, just as he would have done with the banker of the king or of the empress-queen. Should his bills have more validity than his reasons? A man certainly cannot owe what he has not received. Bills, policies, bonds, always imply that the corresponding sums have been delivered and had; but if there is evidence that no money has been had and delivered, there can be no obligation to return or pay any. If there is writing against writing, document against document, the last dated cancels the former ones. But in the present case the last writing is that of Du Jonquay and his mother, and it states that the opposite party in the cause never received from them a hundred thousand crowns, and that they are cheats and impostors.
What! because they have disavowed the truth of their confession, which they state to have been made in consequence of their having received a blow or an assault, shall another man's property be adjudged to them?
I will suppose for a moment (what is by no means probable), that the judges, bound down by forms, will sentence the general to pay what in fact he does not owe; – will they not in this case destroy his reputation as well as his fortune? Will not all who have sided against him in this most singular adventure, charge him with calumniously accusing his adversaries of a crime of which he is himself guilty? He will lose his honor, in their estimation, in losing his property. He will never be acquitted but in the judgments of those who examine profoundly. The number of these is always small. Where are the men to be found who have leisure, attention, capacity, impartiality, to consider anxiously every aspect and bearing of a cause in which they are not themselves interested? They judge in the same way as our ancient parliament judged of books – that is, without reading them.
You, sir, are fully acquainted with this, and know that men generally judge of everything by prejudice, hearsay, and chance. No one reflects that the cause of a citizen ought to interest the whole body of citizens, and that we may ourselves have to endure in despair the same fate which we perceive, with eyes and feelings of indifference, falling heavily upon him. We write and comment every day upon the judgments passed by the senate of Rome and the areopagus of Athens; but we think not for a moment of what passes before our own tribunals.
You, sir, who comprehend all Europe in your researches and decisions, will, I sincerely hope, deign to communicate to me a portion of your light. It is possible, certainly, that the formalities and chicanery connected with law proceedings, and with which I am little conversant, may occasion to the general the loss of the cause in court; but it appears to me that he must gain it at the tribunal of an enlightened public, that awful and accurate judge who pronounces after deep investigation, and who is the final disposer of character.
KING
King, basileus, tyrannos, rex, dux, imperator, melch, baal, bel, pharaoh, eli, shadai, adonai, shak, sophi, padisha, bogdan, chazan, kan, krall, kong, könig, etc.– all expressions which signify the same office, but which convey very different ideas.
In Greece, neither "basileus" nor "tyrannos" ever conveyed the idea of absolute power. He who was able obtained this power, but it was always obtained against the inclination of the people.
It is clear, that among the Romans kings were not despotic. The last Tarquin deserved to be expelled, and was so. We have no proof that the petty chiefs of Italy were ever able, at their pleasure, to present a bowstring to the first man of the state, as is now done to a vile Turk in his seraglio, and like barbarous slaves, still more imbecile, suffer him to use it without complaint.
There was no king on this side the Alps, and in the North, at the time we became acquainted with this large quarter of the world. The Cimbri, who marched towards Italy, and who were exterminated by Marius, were like famished wolves, who issued from those forests with their females and whelps. As to a crowned head among these animals, or orders on the part of a secretary of state, of a grand butler, of a chancellor – any notion of arbitrary taxes, commissaries, fiscal edicts, etc. – they knew no more of any of these than of the vespers and the opera.
It is certain that gold and silver, coined and uncoined, form an admirable means of placing him who has them not, in the power of him who has found out the secret of accumulation. It is for the latter alone to possess great officers, guards, cooks, girls, women, jailers, almoners, pages, and soldiers.
It would be very difficult to insure obedience with nothing to bestow but sheep and sheep-skins. It is also very likely, after all the revolutions of our globe, that it was the art of working metals which originally made kings, as it is the art of casting cannon which now maintains them.
Cæsar was right when he said, that with gold we may procure men, and with men acquire gold.
This secret had been known for ages in Asia and Egypt, where the princes and the priests shared the benefit between them.
The prince said to the priest: Take this gold, and in return uphold my power, and prophesy in my favor; I will be anointed, and thou shalt anoint me; constitute oracles, manufacture miracles; thou shalt be well paid for thy labor, provided that I am always master. The priest, thus obtaining land and wealth, prophesies for himself, makes the oracles speak for himself, chases the sovereign from the throne, and very often takes his place. Such is the history of the shotim of Egypt, the magi of Persia, the soothsayers of Babylon, the chazin of Syria (if I mistake the name it amounts to little) – all which holy persons sought to rule. Wars between the throne and the altar have in fact existed in all countries, even among the miserable Jews.
We, inhabitants of the temperate zone of Europe, have known this well for a dozen centuries. Our minds not being so temperate as our climate, we well know what it has cost us. Gold and silver form so entirely the primum mobile of the holy connection between sovereignty and religion, that many of our kings still send it to Rome, where it is seized and shared by priests as soon as it arrives.
When, in this eternal conflict for dominion, leaders have become powerful, each has exhibited his pre-eminence in a mode of his own. It was a crime to spit in the presence of the king of the Medes. The earth must be stricken nine times by the forehead in the presence of the emperor of China. A king of England imagines that he cannot take a glass of beer unless it be presented on the knees. Another king will have his right foot saluted, and all will take the money of their people. In some countries the krall, or chazin, is allowed an income, as in Poland, Sweden, and Great Britain. In others, a piece of paper is sufficient for his treasury to obtain all that it requires.
Since we write upon the rights of the people, on taxation, on customs, etc., let us endeavor, by profound reasoning, to establish the novel maxim, that a shepherd ought to shear his sheep, and not to flay them.
As to the due limits of the prerogatives of kings, and of the liberty of the people, I recommend you to examine that question at your ease in some hotel in the town of Amsterdam.
KISS
I ask pardon of young ladies and gentlemen, for they will not find here what they may possibly expect. This article is only for learned and serious people, and will suit very few of them.
There is too much of kissing in the comedies of the time of Molière. The valets are always requesting kisses from the waiting-women, which is exceedingly flat and disagreeable, especially when the actors are ugly and must necessarily exhibit against the grain.
If the reader is fond of kisses, let him peruse the "Pastor Fido": there is an entire chorus which treats only of kisses, and the piece itself is founded only on a kiss which Mirtillo one day bestows on the fair Amaryllis, in a game at blindman's buff – "un bacio molto saporito."
In a chapter on kissing by John de la Casa, archbishop of Benevento, he says, that people may kiss from the head to the foot. He complains, however, of long noses, and recommends ladies who possess such to have lovers with short ones.
To kiss was the ordinary manner of salutation throughout all antiquity. Plutarch relates, that the conspirators, before they killed Cæsar, kissed his face, his hands, and his bosom. Tacitus observes, that when his father-in-law, Agricola, returned to Rome, Domitian kissed him coldly, said nothing to him, and left him disregarded in the surrounding crowd. An inferior, who could not aspire to kiss his superior, kissed his own hand, and the latter returned the salute in a similar manner, if he thought proper.
The kiss was ever used in the worship of the gods. Job, in his parable, which is possibly the oldest of our known books, says that he had not adored the sun and moon like the other Arabs, or suffered his mouth to kiss his hand to them.
In the West there remains of this civility only the simple and innocent practice yet taught in country places to children – that of kissing their right hands in return for a sugar-plum.
It is horrible to betray while saluting; the assassination of Cæsar is thereby rendered much more odious. It is unnecessary to add, that the kiss of Judas has become a proverb.
Joab, one of the captains of David, being jealous of Amasa, another captain, said to him, "Art thou in health, my brother?" and took him by the beard with his right hand to kiss him, while with the other he drew his sword and smote him so that his bowels were "shed upon the ground".
We know not of any kissing in the other assassinations so frequent among the Jews, except possibly the kisses given by Judith to the captain Holofernes, before she cut off his head in his bed; but no mention is made of them, and therefore the fact is only to be regarded as probable.
In Shakespeare's tragedy of "Othello", the hero, who is a Moor, gives two kisses to his wife before he strangles her. This appears abominable to orderly persons, but the partisans of Shakespeare say, that it is a fine specimen of nature, especially in a Moor.
When John Galeas Sforza was assassinated in the cathedral of Milan, on St. Stephen's day; the two Medicis, in the church of Reparata; Admiral Coligni, the prince of Orange, Marshal d'Ancre, the brothers De Witt, and so many others, there was at least no kissing.
Among the ancients there was something, I know not what, symbolical and sacred attached to the kiss, since the statues of the gods were kissed, as also their beards, when the sculptors represented them with beards. The initiated kissed one another in the mysteries of Ceres, in sign of concord.
The first Christians, male and female, kissed with the mouth at their Agapæ, or love-feasts. They bestowed the holy kiss, the kiss of peace, the brotherly and sisterly kiss, "hagion philema." This custom, lasted for four centuries, and was finally abolished in distrust of the consequences. It was this custom, these kisses of peace, these love-feasts, these appellations of brother and sister, which drew on the Christians, while little known, those imputations of debauchery bestowed upon them by the priests of Jupiter and the priestesses of Vesta. We read in Petronius and in other authors, that the dissolute called one another brother and sister; and it was thought, that among Christians the same licentiousness was intended. They innocently gave occasion for the scandal upon themselves.
In the commencement, seventeen different Christian societies existed, as there had been nine among the Jews, including the two kinds of Samaritans. Those bodies which considered themselves the most orthodox accused the others of inconceivable impurities. The term "gnostic", at first so honorable, and which signifies the learned, enlightened, pure, became an epithet of horror and of contempt, and a reproach of heresy. St. Epiphanius, in the third century, pretended that the males and females at first tickled each other, and at length proceeded to lascivious kisses, judging of the degree of faith in each other by the warmth of them. A Christian husband in presenting his wife to a newly-initiated member, would exhort her to receive him, as above stated, and was always obeyed.
We dare not repeat, in our chaste language, all that Epiphanius adds in Greek. We shall simply observe, that this saint was probably a little imposed upon, that he suffered himself to be transported by his zeal, and that all the heretics were not execrable debauchees. The sect of pietists, wishing to imitate the early Christians, at present bestow on each other kisses of peace, on departing from their assemblies, and also call one another brother and sister. The ancient ceremony was a kiss with the lips, and the pietists have carefully preserved it.
There was no other manner of saluting the ladies in France, Italy, Germany, and England. The cardinals enjoyed the privilege of kissing the lips of queens, even in Spain, though – what is singular – not in France, where the ladies have always had more liberties than elsewhere; but every country has its ceremonies, and there is no custom so general but chance may have produced an exception. It was an incivility, a rudeness, in receiving the first visit of a nobleman, if a lady did not kiss his lips – no matter about his mustaches. "It is an unpleasant custom," says Montaigne, "and offensive to the ladies to have to offer their lips to the three valets in his suite, however repulsive." This custom is, however, the most ancient in the world.
If it is disagreeable to a young and pretty mouth to glue itself to one which is old and ugly, there is also great danger in the junction of fresh and vermilion lips of the age of twenty to twenty-five – a truth which has finally abolished the ceremony of kissing in mysteries and love-feasts. Hence also the seclusion of women throughout the East, who kiss only their fathers and brothers – a custom long ago introduced into Spain by the Arabs.
Attend to the danger: there is a nerve which runs from the mouth to the heart, and thence lower still, which produces in the kiss an exquisitely dangerous sensation. Virtue may suffer from a prolonged and ardent kiss between two young pietists of the age of eighteen.
It is remarkable that mankind, and turtles, and pigeons alone practise kissing; hence the Latin word "columbatim", which our language cannot render.
We cannot decorously dwell longer on this interesting subject, although Montaigne says, "It should be spoken of without reserve; we boldly speak of killing, wounding, and betraying, while on this point we dare only whisper."
LAUGHTER
That laughter is the sign of joy, as tears are of grief, is doubted by no one that ever laughed. They who seek for metaphysical causes of laughter are not mirthful, while they who are aware that laughter draws the zygomatic muscle backwards towards the ears, are doubtless very learned. Other animals have this muscle as well as ourselves, yet never laugh any more than they shed tears. The stag, to be sure, drops moisture from its eyes when in the extremity of distress, as does a dog dissected alive; but they weep not for their mistresses or friends, as we do. They break not out like us into fits of laughter at the sight of anything droll. Man is the only animal which laughs and weeps.
As we weep only when we are afflicted, and laugh only when we are gay, certain reasoners have pretended that laughter springs from pride, and that we deem ourselves superior to that which we laugh at. It is true that man, who is a risible animal, is also a proud one; but it is not pride which produces laughter. A child who laughs heartily, is not merry because he regards himself as superior to those who excite his mirth; nor, laughing when he is tickled, is he to be held guilty of the mortal sin of pride. I was eleven years of age when I read to myself, for the first time, the "Amphitryon" of Molière, and laughed until I nearly fell backward. Was this pride? We are seldom proud when alone. Was it pride which caused the master of the golden ass to laugh when he saw the ass eat his supper? He who laughs is joyful at the moment, and is prompted by no other cause.
It is not all joy which produces laughter: the greatest enjoyments are serious. The pleasures of love, ambition, or avarice, make nobody laugh.
Laughter may sometimes extend to convulsions; it is even said that persons may die of laughter. I can scarcely believe it; but certainly there are more who die of grief.
Violent emotions, which sometimes move to tears and sometimes to the appearance of laughter, no doubt distort the muscles of the mouth; this, however, is not genuine laughter, but a convulsion and a pain. The tears may sometimes be genuine, because the object is suffering, but laughter is not. It must have another name, and be called the "risus sardonicus" – sardonic smile.
The malicious smile, the "perfidum ridens," is another thing; being the joy which is excited by the humiliation of another. The grin, "cachinnus," is bestowed on those who promise wonders and perform absurdities; it is nearer to hooting than to laughter. Our pride derides the vanity which would impose upon us. They hoot our friend Fréron in "The Scotchwoman", rather than laugh at him. I love to speak of friend Fréron, as in that case I laugh unequivocally.
LAW (NATURAL)
B. What is natural law?
A. The instinct by which we feel justice.
B. What do you call just and unjust?
A. That which appears so to the whole world.
B. The world is made up of a great many heads. It is said that at Lacedæmon thieves were applauded, while at Athens they were condemned to the mines.
A. That is all a mere abuse of words, mere logomachy and ambiguity. Theft was impossible at Sparta, where all property was common. What you call theft was the punishment of avarice.
B. It was forbidden for a man to marry his sister at Rome. Among the Egyptians, the Athenians, and even the Jews, a man was permitted to marry his sister by the father's side. It is not without regret that I cite the small and wretched nation of the Jews, who certainly ought never to be considered as a rule for any person, and who – setting aside religion – were never anything better than an ignorant, fanatical, and plundering horde. According to their books, however, the young Tamar, before she was violated by her brother Ammon, addressed him in these words: "I pray thee, my brother, do not so foolishly, but ask me in marriage of my father: he will not refuse thee."
A. All these cases amount to mere laws of convention, arbitrary usages, transient modes. What is essential remains ever the same. Point out to me any country where it would be deemed respectable or decent to plunder me of the fruits of my labor, to break a solemn promise, to tell an injurious lie, to slander, murder, or poison, to be ungrateful to a benefactor, or to beat a father or mother presenting food to you.
B. Have you forgotten that Jean Jacques, one of the fathers of the modern Church, has said that the first person who dared to enclose and cultivate a piece of ground was an enemy of the human race; that he ought to be exterminated; and that the fruits of the earth belonged to all, and the land to none? Have we not already examined this proposition, so beautiful in itself, and so conducive to the happiness of society?
A. Who is this Jean Jacques? It is certainly not John the Baptist, nor John the Evangelist, nor James the Greater, nor James the Less; he must inevitably be some witling of a Hun, to write such abominable impertinence, or some ill-conditioned, malicious "bufo magro," who is never more happy than when sneering at what all the rest of the world deem most valuable and sacred. For, instead of damaging and spoiling the estate of a wise and industrious neighbor, he had only to imitate him, and induce every head of a family to follow his example, in order to form in a short time a most flourishing and happy village. The author of the passage quoted seems to me a thoroughly unsocial animal.
B. You are of opinion, then, that by insulting and plundering the good man, for surrounding his garden and farmyard with a quick-set hedge, he has offended against natural law.
A. Yes, most certainly; there is, I must repeat, a natural law; and it consists in neither doing ill to another, nor rejoicing at it, when from any cause whatsoever it befalls him.
B. I conceive that man neither loves ill nor does it with any other view than to his own advantage. But so many men are urged on to obtain advantage to themselves by the injury of another; revenge is a passion of such violence; there are examples of it so terrible and fatal; and ambition, more terrible and fatal still, has so drenched the world with blood; that when I survey the frightful picture, I am tempted to confess, that a man is a being truly diabolical. I may certainly possess, deeply rooted in my heart, the notion of what is just and unjust; but an Attila, whom St. Leon extols and pays his court to; a Phocas, whom St. Gregory flatters with the most abject meanness; Alexander VI., polluted by so many incests, murders, and poisonings, and with whom the feeble Louis XII., commonly called "the Good," enters into the most strict and base alliance; a Cromwell, whose protection Cardinal Mazarin eagerly solicits, and to gratify whom he expels from France the heirs of Charles I., cousins-german of Louis XIV. – these, and a thousand similar examples, easily to be found in the records of history, totally disturb and derange my ideas, and I no longer know what I am doing or where I am.
A. Well; but should the knowledge that storms are coming prevent our enjoying the beautiful sunshine and gentle and fragrant gales of the present day? Did the earthquake that destroyed half the city of Lisbon prevent your making a very pleasant journey from Madrid? If Attila was a bandit, and Cardinal Mazarin a knave, are there not some princes and ministers respectable and amiable men? Has it not been remarked, that in the war of 1701, the Council of Louis XIV. consisted of some of the most virtuous of mankind – the duke of Beauvilliers, the Marquis de Torcy, Marshal Villars, and finally Chamillard, who was not indeed considered a very able but still an honorable man? Does not the idea of just and unjust still exist? It is in fact on this that all laws are founded. The Greeks call laws "the daughters of heaven", which means simply, the daughters of nature. Have you no laws in your country?
B. Yes; some good, and others bad.
A. Where could you have taken the idea of them, but from the notions of natural law which every well-constructed mind has within itself? They must have been derived from these or nothing.
B. You are right; there is a natural law, but it is still more natural to many people to forget or neglect it.
A. It is natural also to be one-eyed, humpbacked, lame, deformed, and sickly; but we prefer persons well made and healthy.
B. Why are there so many one-eyed and deformed minds?
A. Hush! Consult, however, the article on "Omnipotence."