which comprehends all the rest, which gives it action upon the wick. ed who disturb, and upon the good, to defend the territory of its juris diction. This expression of lord is so much the better suited to power, the image of the minister of the divinity, since God, in his commuDications with man, has given himself the same name.

This power must have produced different feelings in its different ages; it was more dreaded in the first, because the same man sometimes at once willed and executed, as we may often find in the history of Clovis and his successors. Then the law was often caprice; its execution, violence; the king a despot, and his ministers satellites. In the third age, the most popular age of power, it has received, perhaps, more external marks of affection. But in the second age the power, more strengthened by public institutions, raised beyond the attempt of the subject, and in consequence more absolute (for the weak Louis XIII. had a more absolute power than the brave Clovis) was more respected; and so better secured against both the precautions of fear, and the inconstancy of love; for it was not till kings were so much beloved, that it was found necessary to surround them with guards. Fear and love are scntiments which partake of the fickleness of man; respect is a religious sentiment, which, being grounded on a profound belief of the necessity of power, neither the misfortunes, the faults, nor the iniquity of kings, can weaken. We find a strong proof of the religious respect formerly attached to royalty in France, in the belief that kings, at their consecration, wrought mira

cles, and cured the king's evil by a touch: a sublime idea, which con. ceals this important truth, that there is no social infirmity which religion and royalty in concert cannot cure. In the second age, the power was feudal, and required fidelity as well as obedience, as the price of its protection, and the peaceable en. joyment of the blessings of society; and does not God require fidelity from man, whom he has placed in a world of happiness on the very same terms?

It is this fundamental distinction, this division of power in France, into personal, publie, and popular, which can resolve the great historical difficulties, give the reason of all the laws of policy, and explain the successive changes of a state. Narrow minds may enquire into the fixed epochs of these several variations; they would know the day on which personal power became public, and public popular. But it is not so with the gradual changes of society; and we may here well apply what the president Henault has said on a similar occasion?— "People would be told, that in such a year, on such a day, an edict was passed to make those of fices saleable which had been elec. tive; but this is not the way with the changes which happen in a state, relative to the manners, customs, and habits of society; circumstances have preceded them; particular facts have multiplied; and in the course of time have given birth to that general law under which people have lived."

I have no hesitation in pronoun. cing, that these few general consi derations, well weighed, would con.

tribute

and duration, wanting to the pagans, are perhaps only now beginning; and when one considers that the history of France by Velly and his continuators, if ever completed, will comprise more than an hun. dred volumes, and that these only reach the beginning of the present age, he will be convinced of the impossibility of reading and remembering the history of a single people; and one feels the necessity of reducing them all to analysis which may not perhaps satisfy curiosity, but which nourish reflection, form the judgement, and regulate the conduct.

In proportion as society, like the human mind, advances in years, it will gain in strength of reason what it will lose in memory; and history, becoming more philosophical, will be less loaded with detail, and more fruitful in deduction; but history will be philosophical in proportion only as it is certain; for in cases where it is necessary to know, because it is necessary to practise, nothing can be less philo, sophical than doubt; and the man who doubts is no more wise, than he who seeks is rich. I make this observation in reply to the strange notion of M. de Gaillard, who would have an historian impassible, so that one could guess at neither his moral nor political principles. This sublime apathy, as good M. Gaillard calls it, is very different from that impartiality which is the first duty of an historian, and indicates nothing more than an extreme indifference for all opinions whether true or false, or rather a complete ignorance of the truth, which can tend only to perpetuate the errors of society. A writer should have decided opinions both

in morals and politics, because he ought to consider himself as a teacher of mankind, and surely men want no teacher to learn them to doubt. To doubt before deciding, and to decide after doubting, should be the motto of every man who assumes the honorable func tion of instructing his fellows. I know that false opinions may be ob stinately supported, and even made fashionable; but truth invites the combat, as strength calls to action, and, sure of sooner or later triumph. ing, enters the list with her enc. mies. She fears nothing but neu. trality. Who is not with me, is against me, says Truth itself; and I will venture to say, that this kind of neutrality betwixt strong or weak opinions, is no more in the genius of the French, than the neu. ter gender is in their language.

1 shall close by observing, that the distinction of power into per. sonal, public, and popular, is no less to be found in religion. The Christian religion was at first con. fined within the bosom of a family, which explains its influence upon the manners of the primitive Christians. In the second age, it became public by the frequency of its gene. ral councils, by its public adoption in various states, by its establish ments for alleviating the misery of mankind; and hence its influence on the laws of society. In the third age, the Christian religion has in many states assumed a popular and presbyterian form. A dispo sition has been generally manifested to abolish its public institutions and severe maxims; to strip it of the property which guaranteed the per. petuity of its observance; and to reduce its ministers to the poverty of the first ages. Religion, thes

become

become popular, has lost its influence on both manners and laws; but society, whether political or religious, can never settle in a popular form; and if it be not doomed to perish, it must re-ascend to the pub. lic, and thus complete its allotted circle. This return to the public state will form a grand revolution. We may observe, that already in France, religion, which had been concealed, during times of troubles, in family closets, is again peeping forth, and views her ancient establishments gradually restored. The political power is likewise become personal, as in every society which commences or re-commences, because, being at first established by some extraordinary character, it receives more strength from the personal qualities of the mind and genius of its founder than from establishments which partake of the nature of the events which have preceded them, and are for a long time rather popular than public, that is to say, rather republican than monarchical.

On the Turks, and on the Crusades. [Extracted from M. de Bonald's

Législation Primitive.] M. DE BONALD is considered in France as a literary character of eminence; in the present hyperbolic style of flattery he is even denominated the Montesquieu of the 19th century. And, redu. cing those praises to their just value, we may say, that he is a writer of considerable merit whenever he does not lose himself in the maze of metaphysics, or suffer his judgment to be biassed by opinions prevail. ing for the moment at the court of

his master. But, his talents are too often employed in adorning the lawless plans of the usurper, with a view to hide their deformities; and, accordingly, the following extract presents the intended invasion of Turkey in the fairest way, under a religious point of view, suited only to those times when Christendom was really threatened with subjugation by the prevalence of the Crescent. The period fixed for the execution of the schemes projected against Turkey, is not very remote; and the more evidently it approaches, the greater is the interest which belongs to performances like the present, intended to facilitate such measures, and to influence the public opinion in support of them.

"Let no one wonder," says he, "that I should have distinguished by their religion the two divisions of Europe, considered even as a political body. Mahometism is the only cause of the irremediable weak. ness of the Ottoman empire, as Christianity is the true principle of the progressively increasing strength of Christian society; for in the long-run, nothing is so strong as truth, nor so weak as error, and anarchy."

After premising that his considerations are to be limited to the Turks, as the only Mussulman nation of importance within the sphere of European politics, he adds:

"We must begin from an early date the history of Mahometism, because from its birth it was in religious opposition to Christianity; as it has been ever since the Cru sades in political opposition to Christendom; which is the public and political state of Christianity.

"The

"The empire of heathen Rome ended A. D. 476; and one hun. dred years afterwards, in 570, was born, in the East, the man who was to be the founder of another reli. gion, and of another empire, that Mahomet, at the same time the enemy of idolatry and of Christianity, who announced himself to an ignorant people as an inspired personage, and led his followers to the conquest of effeminate nations; that turbulent genius, whose gloomy and licentious doctrine, maintained by an oppressive government, has sanctioned barbarism in laws, as well as in manners, and crushed the East under the double yoke of error and slavery.

"Every thing was striking in the origin and in the progress of the Mahometan religion; but every thing is easily explained.

"Its cradle was in the same regions, from whence the Jewish and Christian religions had sprung before, and these great religious systems, which were to divide, to change, or to agitate the earth, all began in the centre of the three parts of the world then known. The Arabians, among whom Mahomet appeared, are incontestably descendants from Abraham (whom they call Ibraham) by Ismael his son; and even the Koraite tribe, to which Mahomet belonged, pretended to an immediate descent from Kedar, eldest son of Ismael.

"It was a strange event to see, after so many thousand years, a renewal of the strife between the religious posterity of Isaac, and the natural posterity of the son of the bond-woman. He will be a wild man, his hand will be raised against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shali dwell in

the presence of all his brethren.' This sublime picture which Scrip. ture draws of Ismael, suits equally the Arabians, his descendants, al ways in arms, always under the tent; it suits equally the Mahometan religion, sprung from the deserts of Arabia, whose hand is raised against every other religion."

After pourtraying, in very glow. ing colours, the absurdities of the Koran, M. de B. observes that,

"The Christian religion had found the northern nations warlike and ferocious, it infused sentiments into them, and they became pacific. Mahomet found the Arabians paci. fic; he gave them opinions, (says Montesquieu,) and suddenly they became conquerors.' This alone may serve to appreciate both religions.

"Mahometism, then, sprung rea dy armed, from the head of its founder; like the Minerva of the heathen, like the French revolu tion, like all opinions of human wisdom. Christianity, like the seed which springs and grows up, or like the leaven which ferments in silence, had sprung up, imperceptibly, and converted man before it changed society; Mahometism, like a hur. ricane, was ushered in by violence, and overthrew empires, to pervert mankind.

"The doctrine of the prophet of Mecca spread rapidly among the Arabians, a nation of a lively and unsteady imagination; then was adopted by a mixture of Jews, Christians, Sabeans, Pagans, all nearly equally ignorant. From Arabia, which was its cradle, Mahometism soon extended one hand over the East, and the other over the West; it seduced men by the allurement of pleasure, or appalled them by ter

ror.