2 10 161 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document The Parlement declares "the said Robert-François Damiens has been convicted of having committed a very mean, very terrible, and very dreadful parricidal crime against the King. The said Damiens is sentenced to pay for his crime in front of the main gate of the Church of Paris. He will be taken there in a tipcart naked and will hold a burning wax torch weighing two pounds. There, on his knees, he will say and declare that he had committed a very mean, very terrible and very dreadful parricide, and that he had hurt the King. . . . He will repent and ask God, the King and Justice to forgive him. When this will be done, he will be taken in the same tipcart to the Place de Grève and will be put on a scaffold. Then his breasts, arms, thighs, and legs will be tortured. While holding the knife with which he committed the said Parricide, his right hand will be burnt. On his tortured body parts, melted lead, boiling oil, burning pitch, and melted wax and sulfur will be thrown. Then four horses will pull him apart until he is dismembered. His limbs will be thrown on the stake, and his ashes will be spread. All his belongings, furniture, housings, wherever they are, will be confiscated and given to the King. Before the execution, the said Damiens will be asked to tell the names of his accomplices. His house will not be demolished, but nothing will be allowed to be built on this same house." Sortable Date 1757-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Anonymous, Pièces originales et procédures du procès, fait à Robert-François Damiens (Paris: Pierre Guillaume Simon, 1757). Description An account of the resource Having found Damiens guilty, the judges ordered him punished in a gruesome public spectacle, with the intention of repressing symbolically, through his body, the threat to order that the judges perceived in his attack on the King. Such punishment, characteristic of the Middle Ages and early modern period was much opposed by the Enlightenment view that crime would be better handled by rehabilitating criminals’ minds rather than mutilating their bodies. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 242 Title A name given to the resource The Sentence against Damiens (1757) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/242/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1757 Laws Monarchy Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document We, clerks, had the convict escorted to the Place de Grève. There, in the presence of the people, I read for the last time, the judgment, which was first done by the Enforcer of High Justice. Then the convict was put and tied up on the scaffold. First his hand was burnt while he was holding the knife with which he committed the parricide. We came closer to the convict, exhorted him again to tell us the names of his accomplices, and we told him that the President of the Court and the Court Administrator would come if he had any statements to make. The convict told us that he had no accomplices or statements to make. At this time, the convict had his breasts, arms, thighs, and legs tortured. Then melted lead, boiling oil, burning pitch, and melted wax and sulfur were thrown on these parts. During the whole torture, the convict screamed several times: "My God, give me strength, give me strength. Lord, my God, have pity on me. Lord, my God, I am suffering so much. Lord, my God, give me patience." Then four horses pulled the convict [in the four cardinal directions], and after a while he was dismembered. His limbs were then thrown on the stake. We reported everything to the President and the Administrator, and stayed at the Place de Grève until everything was over. Sortable Date 1757-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Anonymous, Pièces originales et procédures du procès, fait à Robert-François Damiens (Paris: Pierre Guillaume Simon, 1757). Description An account of the resource After a three–month trial, the magistrates found Damiens guilty of parricide against the person of the King on 26 March 1757. In a final interrogation, Damiens is once again asked about accomplices. He then denies having them. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 241 Title A name given to the resource Decree of the Parlement of Paris against Robert–François Damiens Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/241/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1757 Laws Monarchy Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document He said his name is Robert-François Damiens and he is a forty-two-year-old servant living in the City of Paris. When he was questioned about telling when he had made plans to kill the King, he answered he planned on doing it three years ago and because of the Archbishop's bad behavior. When asked if somebody had inspired his plan, he said he had been inspired by everybody around him. When asked if he had told somebody about this project, either in Paris, in Artois, or in a foreign country, he said no. He had wanted to say it but would not say it here. When asked if he had said to Playouft instead of Poperingue that he could not adapt to this country and that he would come back to France and said: "Yes, I will come back there, I will die there, and the Greatest of the earth will also die," he admitted he said these words. . . . When asked if any secular or legitimate Priest had inspired this dreadful plan, he answered that nobody had inspired him to it, but he had heard many ecclesiastics talk dangerously. When asked about the dangerous things these ecclesiastics were talking about, he answered that he heard them saying that the King was risking a lot for not preventing the Archbishop's actions. . . . When asked what he had understood in this following statement: "What a pity that your Subjects had tendered their resignations, they were the only ones who created this conspiracy," he answered that the conspiracy could not come from the Parlement, but from the Archbishop who started it by refusing sacraments. . . . When asked why and how long ago he had stopped making religious acts, he answered that he used to do them in the different places when he was a servant but he stopped three or four years ago, since the Archbishop's turmoil. When he was told that the Archbishop's actions could never have made a man like him commit this crime, he answered that he had nothing else to say except that if the Archbishop had not refused some Sacraments, these things would not have happened. When asked if he, his family or friends had been refused Sacraments, he answered no. When asked about the idea he has concerning Religion, he answered that no one should refuse Sacraments to good people who pray in Churches every day, from morning to evening. When asked if he thinks that Religion allows one to kill Kings, he answered that he had nothing to say about it. When he was told that his silence proves that he thought that it is was allowable for him to kill Kings in some cases, he said he had nothing to say. . . . When asked if he had any regret of having committed this dreadful crime and had any desire to save his soul, he said he regretted it and that he hopes God will forgive him. When asked how he thinks God will forgive him, since he does not want to confess his accomplices, he answered he does not have any accomplices and cannot tell their names. . . . After having read all this, the prisoner persisted in saying his answers were real and true, and he also persisted by not wanting to answer, and he signed his name, Damiens. At this time, the prisoner was tied up. When asked who had suggested him this crime, he answered the Archbishop did, because of his bad actions, and he added: forgive me. When asked who his accomplices were, he said he was alone. When asked who was talking to him under the vault of the Versailles Chapel, he answered that it was the one he told us about. When asked about the people he had seen in Paris, he answered no one. When he was told this is only the beginning of some hard time, and he could stop everything by telling the names of his accomplices, he screamed: "Ah, this Archbishop, what a rascal!" When asked about what he was promised or what money he had received, he answered that no one promised or gave him anything. The Archbishop's refusal to give Sacraments was the cause. . . . *** He was told he could not have committed the crime he was accused of, that he was pushed into doing it by other people. He was summoned to tell us the names, nicknames, positions, and addresses of the people who had pushed him into killing the King. He answered he could not give a precise answer to this question. He only declared that he had met priests in Arras and Paris who belonged to the Parlement, and the poor treatments these same Priests have received and the poverty of the French people had convinced him to kill the King. However, he said that if the King wanted to spare his life, he will give more detailed explanations. He was summoned to tell us the names, nicknames, positions, addresses of the priests and lay people with whom he talked about Religion and other topics. He answered he would never tell their names, even if he was thrown in Hell or in a blazing fire. He was asked if he had said . . . that the Dauphin had to be warned and that he should be careful, or go out because the same thing that happened to the King could also happen to him. He answered yes. He was asked if he had said that six months after his death, more important events will occur, and that the Dauphin will perish along with many other people. He answered yes. He was asked if he knew the persons who will be involved in these actions. He answered he will only tell their names to the Chief Provost, after the King promises to pardon him. He only asked to have his life spared and not to be chained. He knows he deserves to die . . . [but] he submits to the King's will from whom he asks forgiveness. Sortable Date 1757-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Anonymous, Pièces originales et procédures du procès, fait à Robert-François Damiens (Paris: Pierre Guillaume Simon, 1757). Description An account of the resource During the course of his trial, Damiens was interrogated over fifty times by the magistrates of the Parlement of Paris and by the King’s prosecutors. The interrogators were concerned above all to determine if Damiens had accomplices and if so, what group was behind the attack. In this passage, Damiens testifies that his action had been prompted by "preachers of the Parlementary party," meaning those who criticized the excessive power of the court and the bishops. Attributing his actions to dissatisfaction with the state of the kingdom, Damiens then asks the King to show his concern for the hard–pressed French people by pardoning him. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 240 Title A name given to the resource Damiens’s Testimony to Parlement Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/240/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1757 Laws Monarchy Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Yes sir, no matter how big our misfortunes may have been, I dread that bigger are yet to come. When I think about everything that is happening to us, it could be said that it has been happening against nature . . . everything that should put a stop to our ills, in fact only makes them worse. First of all, what is really the true source of the problems that beset us? Is it not solely a stubbornness, a spurious point of honor, a spirit of domination and independence found in the bishops and clerics? They, who by their very nature should set an example of the opposite virtues? I have not avoided putting myself at risk to show that the pretext of religion, which they use to cover themselves, is nothing but a mask. I know that you were never fooled by it, and that now no one is fooled anymore. . . . If our bishops had thought for one instant about the uselessness of these bulls [such as Unigenitus] . . . or about the atrocious damage that they cause their clergies and parishes, they would have been the most ardent defenders of this law that condemned them to eternal oblivion. But the true authors of these fateful decrees, and the only people with an interest in maintaining them, knew how to convince our prelates that, after the commitments that they had made, the law that spelled the doom of these decrees was also, inevitably, the same that bestowed their honor and their authority. That is how they came to finally hatch the secret plot of a powerful league against the most important monument of our monarch's wisdom. Monsieur de Beaumont [Archbishop of Paris], so worthy in every respect of being in charge, on 29 September gave Conflans the first sign of combat by publishing a mandate which, in religious language, offers merely senseless lies, and spirit of division, independence and rebellion. Immediately thereafter, the flames of discord ignited from all corners, and the Vicars of Jesus Christ's charity and gentleness no longer preach the gospel of peace, but rather pronounce the manifesto of an internecine war between Church and State from the altar. Who would have believed that the goodness of the King, tired of the rebels' stubbornness, would finally allow his justice free reign; who would have believed that in his wisdom, convinced by experience that impunity or past ways only serve to make the guilty more audacious, he would decide that no another means remained to extinguish the fire that threatened the State and the throne itself but to deliver them up to the severity and convention of law? However (posterity will have trouble believing this), one witnesses his religion at the point of using his absolute authority to arrest the Magistrates as soon as they want to take the first step, to grant pardons to criminals who, far from asking for it and repenting, loudly declare that they are determined to add to their past crimes. Sortable Date 1757-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Anonymous, Pièces originales et procédures du procès, fait à Robert-François Damiens (Paris: Pierre Guillaume Simon, 1757). Description An account of the resource This pamphlet was one of the many published in France in response to the news of Damiens’s attack on the King. It is written from the standpoint of the so–called patriot party, which opposed the concentration of power in the hands of the King, the royal advisers at court (mostly aristocrats), and the bishops of the church (mostly Jesuits). Patriots instead supported the parlements and the lower clergy as more morally suited to represent the interests of all three orders that composed the French "nation." Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 239 Title A name given to the resource Letter from a Patriot Claiming to Prove Damiens Had Accomplices Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/239/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1757 Monarchy Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Of all sorts of madness this appears to be the worst: for, whereas the generality of madmen reason right from wrong principles; these people are for the most part wrong both in their fundamentals and in their deductions from them, representing murder, gun-powder-plots, &c. as innocent under the masque of religion and pious zeal. Hence the enterprize of the fryar, who murdered Henry the third of France; hence Ravaillac stabbed Henry the fourth, and hence another assassin has made an execrable attempt upon Lewis [Louis] the XVth. The name of this enthusiastical assassin is Robert Francis Damien, born in St. Catherine's suburb in the city of Arras; he is 42 years of age, and about five feet seven inches high. He had lived in the service of several families, but was turned off by all of them with the character of a loose profligate. His occupation of late has been to sell balls to take spots out of cloaths; and yet from this mean and contemptible station in life hath this lunatic dared to walk forth, and attempt to deprive a whole nation of their sovereign's life. He was a very superstitious enthusiastical sort of a man, and therefore a very proper tool or cat's-paw for the Romish priests to work upon. What horrid crimes are committed under the sanction of religion! The artful popish clergy had worked him up to such a pitch of enthusiasm; that, faint-like, he was proud to die in so glorious a cause, imagining his meritorious sufferings would certainly procure him a residence in heaven. The king was supported by the counte de Brionne and the matter of the horse, who were leading him to his coach, a page of the bed-chamber walked before him with lights; the dauphin was behind him along with the duke d'Ayen, captain of the guards in waiting, and several exempts and equerries followed. A footman, named Selim, near whom the assassin stood, seeing the king approach, said to the villain, why don't you take off your hat, don't you see the king? While he was saying this, the monster struck the king with a knife, which had two blades of different sizes; with one of these blades he wounded the king between the fourth and fifth rib, but the stroke glanced to the right side, and most fortunately did not reach the bowels. The king, who at first had scarce felt any thing, then turning to the footman who had just bid the fellow take off his hat, said, looking at the assassin, that man has given me a terrible blow; and clapping his hand to the place where he had been struck, and feeling it warm, he drew back his hand all bloody, and said, I am wounded, seize him, but do not hurt him. Whatever may be the sallies of this monarch's private life, he certainly has publick virtue, and therefore his mind must soon have rested in a conviction that he did not deserve an assault upon his life. Certainly there appears somewhat providential in the escape the king had from this treasonable design. It happened, that on that day, besides his usual cloathing, he put on a sur-tout of thick velvet, which no doubt greatly obstructed the blow, and hundred the wound from proving mortal. The execrable assassin, after striking this horrid blow, never stirred from the place, and the duke d'Ayen having asked which was the man, the fellow answered with the countenance of a Ravaillac. "Tis I." He was seized and led to the guardroom, which stands at the gate from whence he had just come out. There he was stripped to his shirt, and there were found about him the knife, a New Testament, some images, and between thirty and thirty-five Louis d'Ors. The trial of the villain was agreed to be committed to the parliament; and the people in general began to rid themselves of their anxiety, when it was reported abroad, that the stab was no more than a common wound, and that his majesty wanted but a few days to recover his strength, which was somewhat reduced by being bled so plentifully after the wound was given. Damien appears very resolute; his feet have been scorched, and the calf of his leg pinched with red hot tongs. He shrieked indeed, but confessed nothing. He was afterwards carried to prison, and chained in a dungeon, and guards set over him. He was asked if he had any accomplices, and answered he had, but was sure they had escaped before this time, but that great care ought to be taken of the dauphin, otherwise the like accident might, perhaps, befall him soon. When he was urged to discover more, he answered, he would speak when it was time; that he was very sensible he deserved death, and begged it might be hastened. The wife and daughter of Damien were sent to the Bastille, in hopes that some discoveries would be made. Nothing however of consequence has come to light from them; though they freely told all they knew of the abominable life and conversation of this monster. It is reported that there was great commotions in Paris; that several religious houses were shut up, to prevent cabals among the clergy, and that the archbishop of Paris was publickly accused of being at the bottom of this atrocious design; but these givings out have since totally vanished for want of any kind of confirmation. His majesty was not ill for any considerable length of time: it appears that on the 14th of the same month the wound, which he had received on the 5th, was quite healed, and his health restored, insomuch that he assumed the reins of government, which had been entrusted to the dauphin; whose conduct, during his short administration, gave such satisfaction to the king, that he ordered he should for the future attend at all the councils of state. But before he parted from Versailles, he begged to speak with the king and the dauphin, in hopes that notwithstanding the heinousness of his crime he might still obtain mercy from his majesty's known good nature and lenity. He was much surprized when they put him into a vehicle in order to convey him to the Conciergerie. He said he had many things to reveal, but was told he must discover them to his judges. Sortable Date 1757-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived "Letter from a Gentleman in Paris to His Friend in London," in A Particular and Authentic Narration of the Life, Examination, Torture, and Execution of Robert Francis Damien [sic], trans. Thomas Jones (London, 1757). Description An account of the resource The news of Robert–François Damiens’s attack on the King and his subsequent trial spread rapidly and generated great interest across France and all of Europe. This pamphlet, published in London, describes for English readers the goings–on in Paris, especially the public outpouring of sympathy for the King and the general hostility toward Damiens. Damiens, even for this English observer, was horrible for having dared to touch, let alone try to kill the King—God’s anointed representative in France and the guarantor of public order and domestic peace. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 238 Title A name given to the resource "Letter from a Gentleman in Paris to His Friend in London" (1757) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/238/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1757 Monarchy Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Basically Sire, due to these utterances and the risks they pose for all of Your Majesty's subjects who are concerned with the success of the remonstrances that they lay before the throne, your parlement finds itself forced to respectfully remind you what one of your august predecessors, speaking through an envoy, said. "According to our government's constitution and former rulings by Most Christian Kings, kept thus far with religious exactness, nothing may have the force of public law in France, either for ecclesiastical or public matters, that has not been authorized and publicized by parlementary decree." Or what another of your predecessors also stated: that "verification by parlement is required and necessary, such that the measures applicable to the affairs of State remain in abeyance until they have been verified." These formal and authentic assertions emphatically contain the maxims that your parlement has always supported. These maxims were also tacitly stressed by another of our sovereigns when, in his presence, his minister came to parlement and said, "The need to verify edicts by parlement is one of the most sacred public laws, and one that the kings have always observed most religiously. This verification occurs by free vote, and it is illusory and contradictory to believe that the edicts which, in accordance with the laws of the kingdom are not open to execution until they have been brought and deliberated in the presence of the sovereign, are considered verified once the King has them read and published in his presence." If the registration of parlement's edicts is one of the most appropriate ways of imposing them on foreign nations, it is because these nations know that the constitution of the French monarchy is such that until these edicts have been verified and registered by the parlement, they are not legitimate. To reduce the focus on the registration by your parlement to the effect of contributing to its imposition on enemies, is to admit only the long-term consequences, rather than the immediate and appropriate effects from which it should stem. In this way, it distorts the nature of the registration and gives an opening for false impressions by which some would want to persuade Your Majesty that this registration can be supplanted by extraordinary means. Sire, it would be against the views and interests of Your Majesty to allow an attack on principles that are as old as the monarchy itself and that are intimately tied to the conservation of your very authority. These principles are as important to the preservation of the obedience you are due by the execution of duly verified laws, as they are useful to those subjects who owe you this obedience. And it is your parlement, more than those who are close to the throne, that is more capable of assembling the needs and the just demands of your subjects. Sire, we implore you to only see expressions of an unlimited faithfulness in all aspects of our respectful representation. It is with zeal, as well as discretion, that this faithfulness aims at deepening our understanding of all the aspects of the State that are capable of having an influence on the interests of Your Majesty and on those of your subjects. This faithfulness refuses to accept the registration of the above-mentioned edicts which, for reasons of order and public interest, are so essential, so powerful, so important, that it would be a reprehensible and fatal weakness to only try to be rid of them. Finally, this faithfulness insists on the conservation of the essential rights of the ministry that your parlement fulfills for the State, because the protection of these rights is the only guarantee for the State and of all Your Majesty's subjects. If, in doing its duty, your parlement dedicates itself to the strict obligation of usefully serving Your Majesty and the State by overcoming the obstacles that become a part of registering of the above-mentioned edicts, it could converge with Your Majesty's views with as much zeal and more satisfaction if it could present him with the projects which could be reconciled with the most important interests of which it must never lose sight. Your parlement thus begs you Sire, with all the more confidence, to find resources that agree with the feelings of your own heart and with the situation of your people. It is assured by Your Majesty's answer that none of the number of projects that could be approved will find the idea of new taxes on land, so fatal to the State, so justly disapproved by your parlement, when against its formal vow they were introduced in the Kingdom. And this insidious announcement, too widely divulged to the public, alarmed the magistrates as much as it did your parlement and all citizens. Sire, your parlement will not stop representing to you with the love and respect with which it is imbued for your sacred person. Among the projects to improve the finances, the one that is the surest, fairest, and the most worthy of Your Majesty, shall always be the affirmation and the progress of prudent savings by the administration. With this is also the reformation of the enormous abuses that render most of the treaties and companies that are created for your service as onerous for Your Majesty as they are onerous and ruinous for your subjects. Finally, there is the greater and greater reduction of useless expenses. Sire, if these reductions were as obvious as they are in agreement with Your Majesty's intentions, your subjects' courage would take on new force. The French nation, so noble, so generous and so attached to its kings, would raise the infallible means, would make the greatest efforts to save it through these reductions on the immense amounts raised from it if only they are used for the dignity of the throne, the effective service of Your Majesty, and the good of the State Respectfully, Sire, etc. The Parlement of Paris, 18 September 1759. The King, upon receiving these remonstrances, said only that he would study them and would make his intentions known to his parlement. Sortable Date 1759-09-18 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Jules Flammermont, Remonstrances du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle, vol. 2 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1888–98), 243–66 Description An account of the resource Later in the 1750s, the Parlement turned its attention from religious controversy to royal fiscal policy. With the outbreak of yet another war—the Seven Years’ (or French and Indian) War against Britain—the royal treasury needed even more revenues, and the King proposed adding, for the third time in a decade, a surtax of one–twentieth on all income from property, including normally exempt noble lands. The magistrates—many of them landowning nobles—opposed this idea, not by arguing that nobles should be exempt from taxes (an idea they believed fervently), but by claiming that the crown, by so drastically breaking with tradition, was violating the unwritten constitution of the kingdom. In response, the King held a special "seat of justice" ceremony the next day to enforce registration of the edicts. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 246 Title A name given to the resource Parlementary Remonstrance against the Third "Twentieth" Tax Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/246/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 18, 1759 Economic Conditions Laws Monarchy Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Since no man has any natural authority over his fellow men, and since force is not the source of right, conventions remain as the basis of all lawful authority among men. Now, as men cannot create any new forces, but only combine and direct those that exist, they have no other means of self-preservation than to form by aggregation a sum of forces which may overcome the resistance, to put them in action by a single motive power, and to make them work in concert. This sum of forces can be produced only by the combination of many; but the strength and freedom of each man being the chief instruments of his preservation, how can he pledge them without injuring himself, and without neglecting the cares which he owes to himself? This difficulty, applied to my subject, may be expressed in these terms. "To find a form of association which may defend and protect with the whole force of the community the person and property of every associate, and by means of which each, coalescing with all, may nevertheless obey only himself, and remain as free as before." Such is the fundamental problem of which the social contract furnishes the solution. If then we set aside what is not of the essence of the social contract, we shall find that it is reducible to the following terms: "Each of us puts in common his person and his whole power under the supreme direction of the general will, and in return we receive every member as an indivisible part of the whole." But the body politic or sovereign, deriving its existence only from the contract, can never bind itself, even to others, in anything that derogates from the original act, such as alienation of some portion of itself, or submission to another sovereign. To violate the act by which it exists would be to annihilate itself, and what is nothing produces nothing. It follows from what precedes, that the general will is always right and always tends to the public advantage; but it does not follow that the resolutions of the people have always the same rectitude. Men always desire their own good, but do not always discern it; the people are never corrupted, though often deceived, and it is only then that they seem to will what is evil. The public force, then, requires a suitable agent to concentrate it and put it in action according to the directions of the general will, to serve as a means of communication between the state and the sovereign, to effect in some manner in the public person what the union of soul and body effects in a man. This is, in the state, the function of government, improperly confounded with sovereign of which it is only the minister. What, then, is the government? An intermediate body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and with the maintenance of liberty both civil and political. It is not sufficient that the assembled people should have once fixed the constitution of the state by giving their sanction to a body of laws; it is not sufficient that they should have established a perpetual government, or that they should have once [and] for all provided for the election of magistrates. Besides the extraordinary assemblies which unforeseen events may require, it is necessary that there should be fixed and periodical ones which nothing can abolish or prorogue; so that, on the appointed day, the people are rightfully convoked by the law, without needing for that purpose any formal summons. So soon as the people are lawfully assembled as a sovereign body, the whole jurisdiction of the government ceases, the executive power is suspended, and the person of the meanest citizen is as sacred and inviolable as that of the first magistrate, because where the represented are, there is no longer any representative. These assemblies, which have as their object the maintenance of the social treaty, ought always to be opened with two propositions, which no one should be able to suppress, and which should pass separately by vote. The first: "Whether it pleases the sovereign to maintain the present form of government." The second: "Whether it pleases the people to leave the administration to those at present entrusted with it." I presuppose here what I believe I have proved, viz., that there is in the State no fundamental law which cannot be revoked, not even this social compact; for if all the citizens assembled in order to break the compact by a solemn agreement, no one can doubt that it could be quite legitimately broken. Sortable Date 1762-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Merrick Whitcomb, ed., Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, vol. 6 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania History Department, 1899), 14–16. Description An account of the resource Jean–Jacques Rousseau was the maverick of the Enlightenment. Born a Protestant in Geneva in 1712 (d. 1778), he had to support himself as a music copyist. Unlike Voltaire and Montesquieu, both of whom came from rich families, Rousseau faced poverty nearly all his life. He wrote on an astounding variety of topics, including a best–selling novel (Julie or the New Heloïse, 1761), a major tract on education (Émile, 1762), and the work selected here, The Social Contract (1762). Rousseau believed that life in society was essentially corrupting, but that men (it is not clear whether women figured in the social contract) could achieve true morality by joining in the social contract and living under laws that they themselves made. Rousseau’s concept of the "general will" can be, and has been, interpreted as simultaneously providing the origins of democracy and of totalitarianism. This ambiguity emerges in the fact that the general will requires no support from history, tradition, or custom (such as monarchy), but it also "is always right"; that is, there are no checks on its power. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 275 Title A name given to the resource Rousseau’s The Social Contract Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/275/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1762 Enlightenment Laws Middle Classes – Bourgeoisie Monarchy Popular Politics Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Sire, At a time when a people who adores you are impatiently awaiting the pleasures of peace, are preparing to let the transports of their joy erupt, and to etch in bronze their gratitude for your benevolence, why is it necessary that an imposing combination of power and authority will not allow a glimpse of the respect that inspires them? . . . Sire, your parlement could not proceed to the registering of the disposition of your edict that orders the census and estimation of all the goods of the Kingdom, without first having some knowledge of the rules and instructions on how to conduct it. In addition, there currently exists a no-less efficient means of rectifying the arbitrary nature of the division of taxes—by bringing them all back under the jurisdiction of the regular tribunals and by having the different taxation roles remitted to the individual's Office of the Clerk of the Court. The first "twentieth" is a tax reserved for wartime but which nevertheless represents the idea of a tax that is indefinite in duration, and this can only stir up the most emphatic alarm in the minds of your subjects. Should your parlement not quickly solicit the goodness of your Majesty, not only to request that he set an imminent deadline for stopping the first "twentieth," but also to receive approval for its collection based on the notifications currently in effect, without their being able to be increased? The continuation of the second "twentieth" over six years is equally contrary to the promises that Your Majesty deigned to make, and to the state of poverty that the people have been reduced to. The "free gift" of the cities, in principle considered as a free and voluntary aid, is in fact prorogated against the explicit statement of Your Majesty. Additionally, your parlement has observed, with the most poignant sadness, illegal collections and the authorized misappropriation of public funds, even though the offenders were to be severely punished. Sire, how can your parlement not feel obligated to insist to Your Majesty on the fifth sous per livre on the farm taxes when they were created! And now with the return of peace, when your subjects should be able to foster the hope that this tax would be repealed, they have the pain of seeing that your Majesty is requiring a sixth. Sire, we dare show you that these accumulated taxes are causing immense harm to commerce and agriculture by their reduction of consumption. . . . When your Majesty deigned to set the guidelines for the liquidation of the State's debt, should your parlement not have shown you, Sire, the results of the city paying an annuity, the burden of which falls almost entirely on the inhabitants of this capital that already contributes in so many ways and so bountifully to the costs of the State? And should the parlement not also have warned you of the public disrepute they would receive because of this annuity? And if your Majesty has formed a plan to reimburse the life annuities . . . your parlement should have shown you, Sire, that it is time to arrange for the privilege of liquidating them when your finances allow. The measures of the edict . . . are very contrary to the rights of feudalism, to the acts and intentions of the founders, to the interest of creditors and, in general, to property rights. Besides, as a source of interest for Your Majesty's finances, it is so minor, and the possibility of fraud so great, that your parlement must beg your Majesty to repeal this edict. . . . Sire, to demonstrate the need to rely on economy and better administration, what more convincing or more heartrending proof is there to give to your Majesty than the Kingdom's state of decline? Sire this decline is evidenced by falling population, the desertion that leaves a portion of the land uncultivated, the increase in begging, the despondency and disappointment rife among the workers in the countryside. . . . And finally, Sire, it is also evidenced through the loss of the patriotic spirit and, if we dare say, the fear of seeing oneself reborn into a future destined for heavier impositions that those that one endured oneself. . . . The sad result of inequality in the division of taxes, a nefarious source of the fortune of some and the ruin of others, is an inequality that is contrary to your justice and your beneficence. . . . Sire, your parlement must make the most adamant and the most respectful entreaties to your Majesty, and beg him to make the State's budget available so that it can be compared to the old peacetime budget so that it can be seen what your Majesty judges to be necessary to maintain the country's borders, police the state police, keep the peace, while protecting the peace, commerce, and the dignity of the throne. Actually, the increase of different types of taxes that fall on the lands and their produce, and on individuals and the actions of society, give rise to government control that is so diversified that a throng of officers would be needed just to make it profitable—officers whose salaries should remain in Your Majesty's coffers. . . . Sire, as long as you are seeing to this matter of reimbursing the State's debts, your parlement dares to hope that your Majesty will not resort to new loans . . . since the ever increasing number of loans is the cause of your finances being unsettled, and of excessive taxes. The King responded: I know the needs of my people, and am aware of all of the efforts that they have made during the duration of the war. When I decided on the edicts and on the statement that I had entered into the register, I had already thought about the points that my parlement brings to my attention in their remonstrances. I was constrained by necessity to provide for the expenses of the State and for its freedom. I cannot change anything in the plan that I have proposed. My parlement shall become aware of its usefulness when it is executed, and shall recognize my views that are aimed at relieving my people. Sortable Date 1763-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Jules Flammermont, Remonstrances du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle, vol. 2 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1888–98), 323–44. Description An account of the resource In 1763, with the Seven Years’ War having gone badly for France and the treasury facing ever greater shortfalls, the crown issued a series of new edicts on fiscal matters, necessary in large measure to pay off the war debts, which would extend the "twentieth" surtax (originally levied in 1750); add a new surtax on the "capitation" or "head tax" on all subjects of the King, including nobles; and create a special tax on revenues from non–real property (including royally issued bonds, held by most magistrates, judges, and provincial elites). Once again forced to register these measures under protest, the magistrates took the opportunity to upbraid the crown and to warn that once the current debts were retired the new taxes would have to be revoked. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 247 Title A name given to the resource Parlementary Remonstrance against Reforms of Royal Debts Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/247/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1763 Economic Conditions Laws Monarchy Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document We go to China seeking clay as though we had none of our own; cloth, as though we lacked cloth; a small herb to steep in water, as though we didn't have medicinal plants in our own parts. In repayment, we should like to convert the Chinese; that's very praiseworthy zeal, but we should not question their antiquity, nor tell them they are idolaters. Really, would people like it if a capuchin friar, having been well received in a château of the Montmorencys, tried to persuade them that they were recent nobility, like the secretaries of the King, and accused them of being idolaters because he had found in the château two or three statues of High Constables, for whom they have profound respect? The celebrated Wolff, professor of mathematics at the university of Halle, one day delivered a fine oration in praise of Chinese philosophy; he praised that ancient species of men who differ from us in their beard, their eyes, their nose, their ears, and their arguments; he praised, I say, the Chinese for worshiping a supreme God and loving virtue; he did the emperors of China, the Kalao, tribunals, the men of letters, full justice. The justice he did the bonzes was of a different kind. Wolff, I must tell you, attracted to Halle a thousand students from every nation. There was in the same university a professor of theology named Lange, who attracted nobody; in despair at freezing to death alone in his lecture hall, he quite reasonably decided to ruin the professor of mathematics; following the custom of his kind, he promptly accused him of not believing in God. Some European writers who had never been to China had claimed that the government of Peking was atheistic; Wolff had praised the philosophers of Peking, hence Wolff was an atheist. Envy and hatred never constructed a better syllogism. This argument of Lange's, supported by a cabal and a protector, was considered conclusive by the king of the land, who presented the mathematician with this formal dilemma: leave Halle in twenty-four hours or be hanged. And, excellent reasoner that he was, Wolff promptly left; his departure deprived the King of two or three hundred thousand écus per year which the philosopher had brought to the kingdom through the affluence of his disciples. This example ought to impress sovereigns that they shouldn't always listen to calumny and sacrifice a great man to the insanity of a fool. But let's return to China. Why do we presume, on this side of the world, to argue bitterly, amid torrents of insults, over whether there were or were not fourteen princes before Fo-hi, emperor of China, and whether this Fo-hi lived three thousand or two thousand nine hundred years before our common era? I'd like to see two Irishmen take it into their heads to quarrel in Dublin over who, in the twelfth century, was the owner of the lands I occupy today: isn't it obvious that they must refer to me, who has the archives in his hands? In my opinion, the same thing is true of the first emperors of China: we must refer to the tribunals of the country. Argue as much as you like about the fourteen princes who ruled before Fo-hi, your fine argument will only end by proving that China was very populous at that time, and lived under the rule of law. Now I ask you whether a united nation, with laws and princes, does not suggest prodigious antiquity. Think how much time is needed before an extraordinary conjunction of circumstances leads to the discovery of iron in mines, before it is used in agriculture, before the shuttle and all the other skills are invented. Those who make children with a stroke of the pen have thought up a very odd calculation. Through a pretty computation, the Jesuit Pétau calculates that two hundred and eighty-five years after the deluge, the world had a hundred times as many inhabitants as we dare estimate it has today. The Cumberlands and the Whistons have made equally comical calculations; these gentlemen need only have consulted the registers of our colonies in America; they would have been greatly astonished: they would have learned how slowly mankind multiplies, and that it often diminishes instead of increasing. Let us then, men merely of yesterday, descendants of the Celts who have barely cleared the forests of our savage lands—let us leave the Chinese and Indians to enjoy their lovely climate and their antiquity in peace. Above all let us stop calling the emperor of China and the soubab of Decan idolaters. We should not be fanatical about the merits of the Chinese: the constitution of their empire is in fact the best in the world, the only one founded entirely on paternal power (which doesn't prevent the mandarins from caning their children); the only one in which the governor of a province is punished when he fails to win the acclamation of the people upon leaving office; the only one that has instituted prizes for virtue, while everywhere else the laws are restricted to punishing crime; the only one that has made its conquerors adopt its laws, while we are still subject to the customs of the Burgundians, the Franks, and the Goths, who subjugated us. But I must admit that the common people, governed by bonzes, are as rascally as ours; that they sell everything to foreigners very expensively, just as we do; that in the sciences the Chinese are still at the point we were at two hundred years ago; that they have a thousand ridiculous prejudices, as we do; that they believe in talismans and in judicial astrology, as we used to believe for a long time. Let me admit also that they were amazed at our thermometer, at our manner of freezing liquids with saltpeter, and at all the experiments of Torricelli and Otto von Guericke, just as we were when we saw these scientific amusements for the first time; let me add that their doctors cure mortal illnesses no better than ours do, and that nature cures minor ailments by herself in China, as it does here. Still, four thousand years ago, when we couldn't even read, the Chinese knew all the absolutely useful things we boast about today. Once again, the religion of the men of letters of China is admirable. No superstitions, no absurd legends, none of those dogmas which insult reason and nature and to which the bonzes give a thousand different meanings, because they don't have any. The simplest cult has seemed to them the best for more than forty centuries. They are what we think Seth, Enoch, and Noah were; they are content to worship a God with all the sages of the world, while in Europe we are divided between Thomas and Bonaventure, between Calvin and Luther, between Jansenius and Molina. "Dogmas" On the 18th of February of the year 1763 of the common era, with the sun entering the sign of Pisces, I was conveyed to heaven, as all my friends know. Borac, Mahomet's mare, was not my mount; Elijah's fiery chariot was not my car; I was carried neither on the elephant of Sammonocodom the Siamese, nor on the horse of St. George, patron saint of England, nor on St. Anthony's pig: I confess without guile that I took my trip I don't know how. You can imagine how dazzled I was; but what you won't believe is that I saw the judging of all the dead. And who were the judges? They were, if you please, all those who had done well by mankind. Confucius, Solon, Socrates, Titus, the Antoinines, Epictetus, all the great men who, having taught and practiced the virtues God demands, alone seemed to have the right to pronounce his judgments. I won't say what thrones they were sitting on, nor how many million celestial beings were prostrated before the creator of all globes, nor what a crowd of inhabitants from these innumerable globes appeared before the judges. Here I shall only give an account of a few small, quite interesting details that struck me. I observed that every dead man who pleaded his case and paraded his fine sentiments was instantly surrounded by all the witnesses of his true actions. For example, when the cardinal of Lorraine boasted that he had got the Council of Trent to adopt some of his views, and demanded eternal life as a reward for his orthodoxy, immediately courtesans (or ladies of the court) appeared, each bearing on her forehead the number of her rendezvous with the cardinal. I saw those who had laid the foundations of the League with him; all the accomplices of his perverse plans surrounded him. Opposite the cardinal of Lorraine was C . . . , who boasted in his crude dialect that he had kicked the papal idol with his feet after others had thrown it down. "I wrote against painting and sculpture," he said; "I made it clear that good works count for nothing at all, and I proved that it is diabolical to dance the minuet: drive the cardinal of Lorraine away quickly, and put me at the side of St. Paul." As he was speaking, I saw a burning stake near him; a frightful specter, wearing a half-burned Spanish frill around his neck, rose from the flames with dreadful cries. "Monster," he shouted, "execrable monster, tremble! recognize S . . . , whom you put to death by the cruelest of tortures, because he had argued with you about the manner in which three persons can make a single substance." Then all the judges ordered the cardinal of Lorraine thrown into the abyss, but C . . . , to be punished even more severely. I saw an immense crowd of dead who said: "I believed, I believed"; but on their foreheads it was written, "I acted" and they were condemned. The Jesuit Le Tellier proudly appeared, the bull Unigenitus in his hand. But at his side a pile of two thousand lettres de cachet suddenly heaped itself up. A Jansenist set fire to them: Le Tellier was burned to a cinder; and the Jansenist, who had plotted no less than the Jesuit, received his share of the burning too. I saw troops of fakirs arriving right and left, Buddhist priests, white, black, and gray monks, who all imagined that in order to pay their court to the Supreme Being, they must either chant or scourge themselves, or walk stark naked. I heard a terrible voice ask them: "What good did you do mankind?" This question was succeeded by a gloomy silence; no one dared to answer; presently they were all led off to the madhouse of the universe: that's one of the biggest buildings you can imagine. One shouted: "We must believe in the metamorphoses of Xaca"; another: "In those of Sammonocodom."—"Bacchus stopped the sun and the moon," said that one. "Here is the bull In Coena Domini," said a newcomer; and the judges' usher shouted: "To the madhouse, to the madhouse!" When all these cases were completed, I heard this judgment promulgated: "By order of the eternal Creator, Conserver, Rewarder, Avenger, Forgiver, etc., etc., be it known to all the inhabitants of the hundred thousand millions of billions of worlds it has pleased us to create, that we will never judge any of the said inhabitants on their chimerical ideas, but solely on their actions; for such is our justice." I confess that this was the first time I heard such an edict: all the ones I have read on the little grain of sand where I was born end with these words: For such is our pleasure. "Fanaticism" Fanaticism is to superstition what delirium is to fever and rage to anger. The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities and his fancies for prophecies, is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic. Jean Diaz, in retreat at Nuremberg, was firmly convinced that the pope was the Antichrist of the Apocalypse, and that he bore the sign of the beast; he was merely an enthusiast; his brother, Bartholomew Diaz, who came from Rome to assassinate his brother out of piety, and who did in fact kill him for the love of God, was one of the most abominable fanatics ever raised up by superstition. Polyeucte, who goes to the temple on a solemn holiday to knock over and smash the statues and ornaments, is a less dreadful but no less ridiculous fanatic than Diaz. The assassins of the duke François de Guise, of William, prince of Orange, of King Henri III, of King Henri IV, and of so many others, were fanatics sick with the same mania as Diaz. The most detestable example of fanaticism was that of the burghers of Paris who on St. Bartholomew's Night went about assassinating and butchering all their fellow citizens who did not go to mass, throwing them out of windows, cutting them in pieces. There are cold-blooded fanatics: such as judges who condemn to death those who have committed no other crime than failing to think like them; and these judges are all the more guilty, all the more deserving of the execration of mankind, since, unlike Clément, Châtel, Ravaillac, Damiens, they were not suffering from an attack of insanity; surely they should have been able to listen to reason. Once fanaticism has corrupted a mind, the malady is almost incurable. I have seen convulsionaries who, speaking of the miracles of St. Pâris, gradually grew impassioned despite themselves: their eyes got inflamed, their limbs trembled, madness disfigured their faces, and they would have killed anyone who contradicted them. The only remedy for this epidemic malady is the philosophical spirit which, spread gradually, at last tames men's habits and prevents the disease from starting; for, once the disease has made any progress, one must flee and wait for the air to clear itself. Laws and religion are not strong enough against the spiritual pest; religion, far from being healthy food for infected brains, turns to poison in them. These miserable men have forever in their minds the example of Ehud, who assassinated king Eglon; of Judith, who cut off Holofernes' head while she was sleeping with him; of Samuel, who chopped king Agag in pieces. They cannot see that these examples which were respectable in antiquity are abominable in the present; they borrow their frenzies from the very religion that condemns them. Even the law is impotent against these attacks of rage; it is like reading a court decree to a raving maniac. These fellows are certain that the holy spirit with which they are filled is above the law, that their enthusiasm is the only law they must obey. What can we say to a man who tells you that he would rather obey God than men, and that therefore he is sure to go to heaven for butchering you? Ordinarily fanatics are guided by rascals, who put the dagger into their hands; these latter resemble that Old Man of the Mountain who is supposed to have made imbeciles taste the joys of paradise and who promised them an eternity of the pleasures of which he had given them a foretaste, on condition that they assassinated all those he would name to them. There is only one religion in the world that has never been sullied by fanaticism, that of the Chinese men of letters. The schools of philosophers were not only free from this pest, they were its remedy; for the effect of philosophy is to make the soul tranquil, and fanaticism is incompatible with tranquility. If our holy religion has so often been corrupted by this infernal delirium, it is the madness of men which is at fault. "Toleration" What is toleration? It is the endowment of humanity. We are all steeped in weaknesses and errors; let us forgive each other our follies; that is the first law of nature. In the stock exchanges of Amsterdam, London, Surat, or Basra, the Gheber, the Banian, the Jew, the Mahometan, the Chinese Deist, the Brahmin, the Greek Christian, the Roman Christian, the Protestant Christian, the Quaker Christian, trade with one another: they don't raise their dagger against each other to gain souls for their religion. Why then have we butchered one another almost without interruption since the first Council of Nicaea? Constantine began by issuing an edict which tolerated all religions; but he ended up by persecuting. Before him, people denounced the Christians only because they had started to build a party in the state. The Romans permitted all cults, even that of the Jews, even that of the Egyptians, although they had so much contempt for both. Why did Rome tolerate these cults? Because neither the Egyptians nor even the Jews tried to exterminate the ancient religion of the empire; they didn't cross land and sea to make proselytes, but thought only of making money. It is undeniable, however, that the Christians wanted their religion to be the dominant one. The Jews didn't want the statue of Jupiter in Jerusalem; but the Christians didn't want it in the capitol. St. Thomas was candid enough to confess that if the Christians hadn't dethroned the emperors, it was because they couldn't. It was their view that the whole world should be Christian. They were therefore necessarily the enemies of the whole world, until it was converted. Among themselves, they battled each other over every controversial point. First of all, was it necessary to regard Jesus Christ as God? Those who denied it were anathematized under the name of Ebionites, who in turn anathematized the worshipers of Jesus. When some of them wanted all goods to be held in common, as they supposedly were in the age of the apostles, their adversaries called them Nicolaites and accused them of the most infamous crimes. When others laid claim to mystical devotion, they were called Gnostics, and people attacked them furiously. When Marcion disputed over the Trinity, he was called an idolater. Tertullian, Praxcas, Origen, Novatus, Novatian, Sabellius, Donatus, were all persecuted by their brethren before Constantine; and hardly had Constantine made the Christian religion prevail than the Athanasians and the Eusebians tore each other to pieces; and from that time on down to our day the Christian Church has been inundated in blood. I admit the Jewish people was a pretty barbarous people. It butchered without pity all the inhabitants of an unfortunate little country to which it had no more right than it had to Paris and London. Still, when Naaman was cured of his leprosy by plunging seven times into the Jordan; when, to show his gratitude to Elisha, who had taught him this secret, he told him that he would worship the God of the Jews out of gratitude, he reserved to himself the liberty to worship the God of his king at the same time; he asked Elisha's permission to do so, and the prophet didn't hesitate to give it to him. The Jews worshiped their God; but they were never astonished that each nation should have its own. They thought it right that Chemosh gave a certain district to the Moabites, provided their God gave them one too. Jacob didn't hesitate to marry the daughters of an idolater. Laban had his God as Jacob had his. These are examples of toleration among the most intolerant and cruel nation of all antiquity: we have imitated it in its irrational frenzies and not in its leniency. It is clear that every individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of his opinion, is a monster. There is no problem about that. But the government, the magistrates, the princes, how shall they deal with those who have a religion different from theirs? If they are powerful foreigners, it is certain that a prince will make an alliance with them. Francis I, Most Christian, allies himself with the Muslims against Charles the Fifth, Most Catholic. Francis I gives money to the Lutherans of Germany to support their rebellion against the emperor; but he begins by having the Lutherans in his own country burned, as is the practice. He pays them in Saxony for political reasons; he burns them in Paris for political reasons. But what will happen? The persecutions make proselytes; soon France is full of new Protestants. At first they allow themselves to be hanged, and afterward they do some hanging in their own turn. There are civil wars, then comes Saint Bartholomew, and this corner of the world is worse than anything the ancients and the moderns ever said about Hell. Maniacs, who have never been able to offer pure worship to the God who made you! Wretches, who could never learn from the example of the Noachides, the Chinese literati, the Parsis, and all the sages! Monsters, who need superstitions as the gizzard of a raven needs carrion! We have already told you, and there is nothing more to say: if there are two religions in your country, they will cut one another's throats; if there are thirty of them, they will live in peace. Look at the Grand Turk: he governs Ghebers, Banians, and Greek, Nestorian, Roman Christians. The first man who stirs up a tumult is impaled, and all is peaceful. "Toleration"—Second Section Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most toleration, but till now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men. Because Jesus stooped to be born in poverty and humble estate, like his brothers, he never deigned to practice the art of writing. The Jews had a law written in the greatest detail, but we don't have a single line from the hand of Jesus. The apostles disagreed on a number of points. St. Peter and St. Barnabas ate forbidden meat with foreigners recently turned Christian and then abstained with Jewish Christians. St. Paul reproached them for this conduct, and this very St. Paul—Pharisee, disciple of the Pharisee Gamaliel, the very St. Paul who had persecuted the Christians with fury, and who turned Christian himself after he broke with Gamaliel—nevertheless went afterward to sacrifice in the temple of Jerusalem, in the temple of his apostolate. For a week he publicly observed all the ceremonies of the Judaic law, which he had renounced; he even performed supererogatory devotions and purifications; he Judaized completely. For a week the greatest apostle of the Christians did the very things for which men are condemned to the stake in most Christian nations. Theodas and Judas had called themselves Messiahs before Jesus. Dositheus, Simon, Menander, called themselves Messiahs after Jesus. From the first century of the Church onward, and even before the name of Christian was known, there was a score of sects in Judea. The contemplative Gnostics, the Dositheans, the Corinthians, existed before the disciples of Jesus took the name of Christians. Soon there were thirty gospels, each of which belonged to a different society; and from the end of the first century we can count thirty sects of Christians in Asia Minor, Syria, Alexandria, and even Rome. All these sects, despised by the Roman government and concealed in their obscurity, nevertheless persecuted each other in the tunnels in which they crept; that is, they insulted each other, for that was all they were able to do in their abjectness—they were almost wholly made up of the scum of the people. When at last some Christians adopted the doctrines of Plato and mixed a little philosophy with their religion, they separated from the Jewish cult and gradually won some eminence. But they remained divided into sects; there was never a time when the Christian Church was United. It was born amid the divisions of the Jews—Samaritans, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Judaites, disciples of John, Therapeutes. It was divided in its cradle; it was even divided during the occasional persecutions it endured under the first emperors. Often the martyr was regarded as an apostate by his brethren, and the Carpocratian Christian expired under the sword of the Roman executioner, excommunicated by the Ebionite Christian, which Ebionite had been anathematized by the Sabellian. The terrible dissension which has endured for so many centuries is a striking lesson teaching us mutually to forgive our errors; dissension is the great evil of mankind, and toleration is its only remedy. There is nobody who doesn't agree with this truth, whether he meditates calmly in his study or amicably examines the truth with his friends. Why then do the very men who embrace kindness, beneficence, and justice in private denounce these virtues in public with so much fury? Why? Because their self-interest is their god, because they sacrifice everything to the monster they worship. I possess a dignity and power founded on ignorance and credulity; I tread on the heads of men prostrate at my feet: if they stand up and look me in the face, I am lost; therefore I must keep them bound to the ground with chains of iron. Thus argue the men whom centuries of fanaticism have made powerful. They have other powerful men below them, and these have still others, who all enrich themselves at the expense of the poor, fatten on their blood, and laugh at their foolishness. They all detest toleration, as political hackers who have enriched themselves at the public's expense are afraid to give an accounting and as tyrants dread the word freedom. Then, to top it all off, they hire fanatics to shout in a great voice: "Respect the absurdities of my master, tremble, pay, and shut up." This is how people have acted for a long time in a large part of the world; but today, when so many sects balance each other in power, how shall we choose among them? Every sect, as we know, is a certificate of error; there are no sects of geometers, algebraists, and arithmeticians because all the propositions of geometry, algebra, and arithmetic are true. In all other sciences men may make mistakes. What Thomist or Scotist theologian would dare to say seriously that he is sure of his facts? If there is one sect that recalls the times of the first Christians, it is surely the Quakers. None resembles the apostles more closely. The apostles received the spirit, and the Quakers receive the spirit. The apostles and disciples spoke three or four at a time in the assembly on the third floor; the Quakers do the same on the ground floor. According to St. Paul women were allowed to preach, and according to the same St. Paul they were forbidden to; female Quakers preach by virtue of the first permission. The apostles and disciples swore by Yes and No, the Quakers swear no differently. No rank, no difference in attire among the disciples and the apostles; the Quakers have sleeves without buttons, and all dress in the same manner. Jesus Christ did not baptize any of his apostles; the Quakers are not baptized. It would be easy to push the parallel further; it would be even easier to see how the Christian religion of today differs from the religion that Jesus practiced. Jesus was a Jew, and we are not Jews. Jesus abstained from pork because it was impure, and from rabbit because it ruminated and did not have a cloven foot; we boldly eat pork because for us it is not impure, and rabbit which has a cloven foot and doesn't ruminate. Jesus was circumcised, and we retain our foreskin. Jesus ate the paschal lamb with lettuce, he celebrated the feast of the tabernacles, and we do neither. He observed the sabbath, and we have changed it; he sacrificed, and we do not sacrifice. Jesus always concealed the mystery of his incarnation and his rank; he did not say that he was equal to God; St. Paul says expressly in his Epistle to the Hebrews that God created Jesus lower than the angels; and despite ill the words of St. Paul, Jesus was acknowledged to be God at the Council of Nicaea. Jesus gave the pope neither the borderland of Ancona, nor the duchy of Spoleto; and yet the pope has them by divine right. Jesus did not make a sacrament of marriage or of holy orders; and with us, holy orders and marriage are sacraments. If we wish to study the matter closely: the Catholic, apostolic, and Roman religion is in all its ceremonies and dogmas the opposite of the religion of Jesus. But really! Must we all Judaize because Jesus Judaized all his life? If we were allowed to argue consistently in religious matters, it is clear that we should all turn Jews, because Jesus Christ our Saviour was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, and died as a Jew, and because he said expressly that he came to realize, to fulfill, the Jewish religion. But it is even clearer that we should all mutually tolerate each other, because we are all weak, inconsistent, a prey to change and error. Should a reed bowed into the mud by the wind say to the neighboring reed, bowed in the opposite direction: "Creep in my fashion, wretch, or I'll send in a request to have you uprooted and burned"? Sortable Date 1764-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, trans. and ed. Peter Gay, 2 vols. (New York: Basic Books, 1962), I, 166–70, 241–43, 267–69, 482–89. Description An account of the resource Voltaire was the pen name of François–Marie Arouet (1694–1778), an Enlightenment writer known for his plays and histories and his acerbic criticism of the French Catholic Church. This set of selections is from his Philosophical Dictionary of 1764. They demonstrate his range of reading, including travel literature about China, but the main target remains religious bigotry and fanaticism, Voltaire’s chief targets throughout his life. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 273 Title A name given to the resource Voltaire, Selections from the Philosophical Dictionary Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/273/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1764 Enlightenment Middle Classes – Bourgeoisie Monarchy Nobility Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 11 August 1764 Sire, The magistracy of your kingdom has been continuously resented by those who have undertaken to change the principles of government. At this moment, your parlement is undergoing cruel proof of this. Brittany has exemptions and immunities which have never been touched, consecrated by the most authentic titles. They form a law similar to the common law of the kingdom, which was peacefully enforced until recently. The administration of Saint Louis [IX], the decisions of the Estates-General at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the rulings of 1355, 1560, and 1576, allow little doubt that under the common law of France the consent of the three orders in the assembly of the Estates-General is required to establish or prorogate taxes. . . . Sire, your parlement, trustee of the laws of the kingdom and guardian of the provinceÕs exemptions and freedoms, has not been able to simply watch them come under attack without calling for Your MajestyÕs justice against this abuse of his authority. Bound by oath to this precious duty, it can not maintain a guilty silence when the law is being broken. In a monarchical state, it is the preservation of the law which guarantees the security of the monarch and his subjects. This form of government, more perfect than all others, assures that a prince like Your Majesty who wishes to reign in accordance with the laws, will receive the obedience and love of his subjects. Quite unlike despots who recognize no other law than that of their own will, Your Majesty has nothing to fear from these resolutions inspired by tyranny. His will is always in harmony with the law that his people have voluntarily received, consequently the peopleÕs will shall always reflect that of his majesty. . . . We cannot keep it from you Sire. For a long time now, there has been those working to subjugate a free province of your fortunate realm. The constitution is being undermined and overturned. Everywhere limitations are being placed on the exemptions and freedoms which you yourself enlist us to preserve. The mayors and city representatives to the estates, elected from time immemorial by free vote in the community, can now only be elected with the approval of your commissioners. These commissioners must now also approve the choice, previously made freely by the province, of the men entrusted to distribute and collect the subscribed taxes. Finally, by a surprising order of your council on 12 October 1762, the estates were crushed by destroying their essential and original institution. A decision which, though couched in no legal form, discounts all titles and customs, rulings and constitutions, common law and national law. A decision which, without any exemptive clause, contradicts and abrogates the oldest and wisest laws, and cannot but be regarded as having been falsely defended to Your Majesty. Sire, in general such is the administration whose members had the temerity to assure you that the province was satisfied. Sortable Date 1764-08-11 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived A. Le Moy, Remonstrances du Parlement de Bretagne du dix-huitième siècle (Paris: Champion, 1909) 86Ð95. Description An account of the resource Particularly vocal in its resistance to the financial edicts of 1763 was the Parlement of Rennes, which had jurisdiction in the province of Brittany. A series of "remonstrances," issued by this court between 1763 and 1765, reveal the conflict between the parlementarians and the crown. At first, the magistrates merely protested the proposed new taxes, but when several of them were arrested for defying the King’s orders, the rest argued that they had a collective obligation to protest royal decrees that, in their view, violated the traditional "liberties" of the region. The Breton magistrates later voiced opposition to the crown’s efforts to remove them and in their place seat a new, more docile court. Particularly infuriating to the magistrates were the machinations of the regional governor, the Duke d’Aguillon, who came from a long–standing, aristocratic Breton family, who therefore saw as rivals the "robe" nobles of the parlement. D’Aguillon tried to discredit Louis René Caradeuc de La Chalotais, the public prosecutor loyal to the parlement, by accusing him of sending threatening letters to the King. Here we see an effort by the Breton Parlement to stand up for its rights. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 251 Title A name given to the resource Parlement of Brittany Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/251/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 11, 1764 Enlightenment Laws Monarchy Provinces Text