an interfere with money. The
great statesmen who were vanquished in the long struggle (it lasted five
centuries) recognized the right of subjects to great liberties; but they
did not admit their right to publish anti-social thoughts, nor did they
admit the indefinite liberty of the subject. To them the words "subject"
and "liberty" were terms that contradicted each other; just as the
theory of citizens being all equal constitutes an absurdity which nature
contradicts at every moment. To recognize the necessity of a religion,
the necessity of authority, and then to leave to subjects the right
to deny religion, attack its worship, oppose the exercise of power
by public expression communicable and communicated by thought, was an
impossibility which the Catholics of the sixteenth century would not
hear of.

Alas! the victory of Calvinism will cost France more in the future
than it has yet cost her; for religious sects and humanitarian,
equality-levelling politics are, to-day, the tail of Calvinism;
and, judging by the mistakes of the present power, its contempt for
intellect, its love for material interests, in which it seeks the basis
of its support (though material interests are the most treacherous of
all supports), we may predict that unless some providence intervenes,
the genius of destruction will again carry the day over the genius of
preservation. The assailants, who have nothing to lose and all to gain,
understand each other thoroughly; whereas their rich adversaries
will not make any sacrifice either of money or self-love to draw to
themselves supporters.

The art of printing came to the aid of the opposition begun by the
Vaudois and the Albigenses. As soon as human thought, instead of
condensing itself, as it was formerly forced to do to remain in
communicable form, took on a multitude of garments and became, as
it were, the people itself, instead of remaining a sort of axiomatic
divinity, there were two multitudes to combat,--the multitude of ideas,
and the multitude of men. The royal power succumbed in that warfare, and
we are now assisting, in France, at its last combination with elements
which render its existence difficult, not to say impossible. Power is
action, and the elective principle is discussion. There is no policy, no
statesmanship possible where discussion is permanent.

Therefore we ought to recognize the grandeur of the woman who had the
eyes to see this future and fought it bravely. That the