François Guizot

“ Du Guesclin, having more intelligence and firmness, even before becoming constable, and at the moment of quitting the Duke of Anjou at Toulouse, had advised him not to accept battle, to well fortify all the places that had been recovered, and to let the English scatter and waste themselves in a host of small expeditions and distant skirmishes constantly renewed. When once he was constable, Du Guesclin put determinedly in practice the king’s maxim, calmly confident in his own fame for valor whenever he had to refuse to yield to the impatience of his comrades. ”

“ I am very glad to inform them here, in presence of you all, that I would rather this were the last day of my life than take any step which might cause me to be suspected of having dreamt of renouncing the religion that I sucked in with my mother’s milk, before I have been better instructed by a lawful council, to whose authority I bow in advance. Let him who thinks so ill of me get him gone as soon as he pleases; I lay more store by a hundred good Frenchmen than by two hundred who could harbor sentiments so unworthy. ”

“ Since the explosion, and after all the changes, liberal and illiberal, due to the revolution of 1789, there has been a common-place, ceaselessly repeated, to the effect that there are no more classes in French society —there is only a nation of thirty-seven millions of persons. If it be meant that there are now no more privileges in France, no special laws and private rights for such and such families, proprietorships, and occupations, and that legislation is the same, and there is perfect freedom of movement for all, at all steps of the social ladder, it is true ”

“ He was a sincere and melancholy visionary, convinced that all social evils spring from human laws, and bent on promoting every kind of reform, although he had little confidence in the reformers. By his position in society, the generous tone of his sentiments, the seriousness of his convictions, the attraction of an affectionate although reserved disposition, and the charm of a refined and elegant mind, which extracted from his false philosophy bold and original views, he held, in the projects and preliminary deliberations of the conspiring opposition, a tolerably important place ”

“ The joy was so much the greater in that it was accompanied by great surprise: save a few members of the king’s council, nobody expected this conquest. “I certainly thought that you must be occupied in preparing for some great exploit, and that you wished to wait until you could apprise me of the execution rather than the design,” wrote Marshal de Brissac to the Duke of Guise, on the 22d of January, from Italy. Foreigners were not less surprised than the French themselves; they had supposed that France would remain for a long while under the effects of the reverse experienced at Saint-Quentin. ”

“ Not long after, at Vienna, he manifested the same endowments, and others even more rare and apposite, when representing the House of Bourbon and the European interests of France. But except in a crisis or a congress, he was neither able nor powerful. A courtier and a politician, no advocate upon conviction, for any particular form of government, and less for representative government than for any other, he excelled in negotiating with insulated individuals, by the power of conversation, by the charm and skilful employment of social relations ”

“ On the 12th of April, 1369, he signed the treaty which, by a contract of marriage between his brother, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and the Princess Marguerite of Flanders, transferred the latter rich province to the House of France. Lastly he summoned to Paris Du Guesclin, who since the recovery of his freedom had been fighting at one time in Spain, and at another in the south of France, and announced to him his intention of making him constable. “Dear sir and noble king,” said the honest and modest Breton, “I do pray you to have me excused; I am a poor knight and petty bachelor. ”

“ A repetition of petty requisitions soon becomes an odious tyranny. An understanding was established between very different sorts of malcontents; they all said and spread abroad that the Guises were the authors of these oppressive and unjustifiable acts. They made common cause in seeking for means of delivering themselves, at the same time drawing an open distinction between the Guises and the king, the latter of whom there was no idea of attacking. The inviolability of kings and the responsibility of ministers, those two fundamental maxims of a free monarchy, had already become fixed ideas ”

“ We love her beyond measure, and we are pleased to find that the Signiory shares our affection.” Another day he expressed to him his disapprobation of the League. “We cannot praise, indeed we must blame, the first act committed by the Duke of Guise, which was to take up arms and unite with other princes against the king; though he made religion a pretext, he had no right to take up arms against his sovereign.” And again: “The union of the King of France with the heretics is no longer a matter of doubt; but, after all, Henry of Navarre is worth a great many of Henry III. ”

“ She is always very much powdered, with a good deal of pomade, and almost never puts on gloves. She has, at the very least, as much swagger and haughtiness as the great Gustavus, her father, can have had; she is mighty civil and coaxing, speaks eight languages, and principally French, as if she had been born in Paris. She knows as much about it as all our Academy and the Sorbonne put together, has an admirable knowledge of painting as well as of everything else, and knows all the intrigues of our court better than I. In fact, she is quite an extraordinary person. ”

“ The heron is the most timid of birds, for it fears its own shadow; it is for the heron to receive the vows of King Edward, who, though lawful King of France, dares not claim that noble heritage.’ At these words the king flushed, his heart was wroth, and he cried aloud, ‘Since coward is thrown in my teeth, I make vow [on this heron] to the God of Paradise that ere a single year rolls by I will defy the King of Paris.’ Count Robert hears and smiles ”

“ Towards midnight, the queen-mother went down to the king, followed by her son Henry and four other councillors. They found the king more put out than ever. The conversation began again, and resolved itself into a regular attack upon the king. “The Guises,” he was told, “will denounce the king himself, together with his mother and brother; the Huguenots will believe that the king was in concert with the party, and they will take the whole royal family to task. War is inevitable. Better to win a battle in Paris, where we hold all the chiefs in our clutches, than put it to hazard in the field. ”

“ Such language is an insult to truth, for truth never contains evil; and when evil does appear anywhere, it arises not from truth but from error. {446} If the consequences of a principle are fatal, it is not because the principle, though in itself true, is not applicable, but because it really is not true. It has been said by the advocates of divine right: There is only one God; there ought therefore to be only one king; and all power belongs to him because he is the representative of God. The advocates of the sovereignty of the people say: There is only one people ”

“ In a meeting of the princes which was held at Tours, and in which friends and enemies were still mingled together, he used language which could not fail to meet their views. “He was powerless,” he said, “to remedy the evils of the kingdom without the love and fealty of the princes of the blood and the other lords; they were the pillars of the state; without their help one man alone could not bear the weight of the crown.” Many of those present declared their fealty. “You are our king, our sovereign lord,” said King Rene, Duke of Anjou ”

“ At parting, his Majesty would not be escorted back, but said to the King of England, ‘This is your house; when I come hither you shall do me the honors of it, as I will do you when you come to Versailles.’ The king subsequently sent the King of England ten thousand louis. The latter looked aged and worn, the queen thin and with eyes that have wept, but beautiful black ones; a fine complexion, rather pale, a large mouth, fine teeth, a fine figure and plenty of wits; all that makes up a very pleasing person. All she says is quite just and full of good sense. Her husband is not the same ”

“ God has made the condition of men, of all men, more severe than they are willing to believe; and he causes them, at all times, to purchase, at a dearer price than they had anticipated, the success of their labours and the progress of their destiny. Let us accept this stern law without a murmur; let us courageously pay the price which God puts upon success, instead of basely renouncing the hope of success itself. The leading idea, the national desire of France, in 1789, was the alliance of free institutions with hereditary monarchy. We have been carried far away from our design ”

“ I seek my repose in heaven, and God will give me grace to always find that of my conscience on earth. They say that in this war you have, not made a bad thing of it. This gives me some assurance that you will leave our poor Uvennes at peace, seeing that there are more hard knocks than pistoles to be got there.” The Prince of Conde avenged himself for this stinging reply by taking possession, in Brittany, of all the Duke of Rohan’s property, which had been confiscated, and of which the king had made him a present. ”

“ The wish of France has summoned the States-general, there was no way but to obey it. The doubling of the third (estate) is likewise proclaimed in an irresistible manner, but as yet there is nothing but your own mistakes to imperil the kingly authority.
“Your shiftings, your weaknesses, your inconsistencies no longer leave you the resource of absolute power. From the moment that, exhibiting your embarrassments, you are obliged to invoke the counsels and aid of the nation, you can no longer walk without it; from its strength you must recruit your own; but your wisdom must control its strength ”

“ At the same time he made an appeal to all his neighbors, Bretons, Manceaux, and Angevines, hunting up soldiers wherever he could find them, and promising all who desired them lands in England if he effected its conquest. Lastly he repaired in person, first to Philip I., king of France, his suzerain, then to Baldwin V., count of Flanders, his father-in-law, asking their assistance for his enterprise. Philip gave a formal refusal. “What the duke demands of you,” said his advisers, “is to his own profit and to your hurt; if you aid him, your country will be much burdened ”

“ He found in France, amongst the grandees of the kingdom, and even at the king’s court, men disposed to desert the cause of the king and of France to serve a prince who had more capacity, and who pretended to claim the crown of France as his lawful right. The feudal system lent itself to ambiguous questions and doubts of conscience: a lord who had two suzerains, and who, rightly or wrongly, believed that he had cause of complaint against one of them, was justified in serving that one who could and would protect him. Personal interest and subtle disputes soon make traitors ”

“ It is quite certain that neither Franks nor Arabs, neither Charles nor Abdel-Rhaman themselves, took any such account, as we do in our day, of the importance of the struggle in which they were on the point of engaging; it was a struggle between East and West, South and North, Asia and Europe, the Gospel and the Koran; and we now say, on a general consideration of events, peoples, and ages, that the civilization of the world depended upon it. The generations that are passing upon earth see not so far, nor from such a height, the chances and consequences of their acts ”

“ It were senseless to suppose that God, whose providence is over everything, raised me up for nought: He will see in us His own, His mighty cause. Fight we for Christ; it is Christ who will triumph in us, not for our own sake, but for the honor and blessedness of His name.” It was determined to disembark the next day. An army of Saracens lined the shore. The galley which bore the oriflamme was one of the first to touch. When the king heard tell that the banner of St. Denis was on shore, he, in spite of the pope’s legate, who was with him, would not leave it ”

“ Praise is doubly valuable when it conveys the certainty of success. This certainty once established, I care little for mere compliments, from which a certain degree of [296] puerility and ridicule is inseparable; sympathy without affected words has alone a true and desirable charm. I had a right to set some value on that which the Opposition evinced towards me; for I had done nothing to gratify the passions or conciliate the prejudices and after-thoughts which fermented in the extreme ranks of the party.
I had as frankly supported royalty, as I had opposed the Cabinet ”

“ In times of formation or transition, states and governments conform to the measure, one had almost said to the height, of the men of the period, their ideas, their sentiments, and their personal force of character; when ideas are few and narrow, when sentiments spread only over a confined circle, when means of action and expansion are wanting to men, communities become petty and local, just as the thoughts and existence of their members are. Such was the state of things in the ninth and tenth centuries; there was no general and fructifying idea, save the Christian creed ”