The secret history of the court of France, under Louis XV Volume 1 - Tapa blanda

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1861 Excerpt: ...inefficient, when it is considered that the civil and military authorities were both under the control of the established religion, which was supposed to hold the power of life or death; but it was a step in the right direction. The Due de Richelieu had, for ten years, been trying to obtain the present comparative moderation in the treatment of the Protestants. The miseries that had intervened are not attributable to pure Catholicism, but to the insane malevolence to which polemic party-spirit can attain in a country traditionally submitted to it. These miseries and cruelties also show that a King is but the shadow of authority, however many and glorious his conquests may be, if fettered in conscience to 170 A STRUGGLING PRESS. act for the good of his subjects and to the honour of common humanity. One Pope himself confessed this, though those to whom his power was delegated were prepared to resist this first principle of civilised monarchy, as we shall presently see. Yet the following was the reflection in that century of the head of the Church. "A king ought to be as the image of God, not only as His representative of power, but by the intelligence dwelling within him. David was but a shepherdboy, but he was inspired to become a great king." The press bore spasmodic testimony to the spirit of freedom that now began to assert itself. The "Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques" had long harassed the Jesuits, and had encouraged philosophy to issue pamphlets containing speculations directly opposed to tyranny of conscience. Voltaire, as foretold by his tutor Father de Jay, was the leader of that counter-movement, which, like all the re-actions of necessity, was subversive, for a time, of the faith of many. Even the Marquise as beforesaid, was alarmed a...