Temporal ruler

“ The general entered minutely into all the circumstances of the great political change, and detailed the effect which the late conspiracy had had on the minds of the people, and with what terror they contemplated the social disorders that must accrue from the death of their great ruler; how nothing short of a Government based on a Monarchy, with the right of succession established, could withstand such a terrific crisis. ”

“ Attempt to Dominate the Temporal Powers.—Having developed a strong hierarchy which completely dominated the laity, from which it had separated, having amassed wealth and gained power, and having invaded the temporal power in the apprehension and punishment of crime, the church was prepared to go a step farther and set its authority above kings and princes in the management of all temporal affairs. ”

“ To ponder too curiously the question why a State declines is like pondering too curiously the question why a man dies. In the vicissitudes of States we are on the threshold of the same Mystery as in the vicissitudes of nature and of human life. The tracts and regions governed by cause and effect are behind us. An empire, like a work of art, is an end in itself, but duration in the former is an integral portion or phase of that end. ”

“ We knew too much, he said, of the vicissitudes of human affairs, and the uncertainty of all our calculations, not to know, that, even in the most profound tranquillity, some tempest may suddenly arise, and bring us into a state requiring the exertion of military force, which cannot be created in a moment, but requires time for its collection, organization, and discipline. ”

“ France was in a ferment, as if the assembly of those States would be a cure for all the ills of the people.
The rapidity of events henceforth worked with the inevitable momentum of elemental forces. The elasticity of time was never so apparent in history; when became equivalent to months, months to years, yearn to centuries. ”

“ But the ruler, any ruler, is on his way to vanish, whereas the people and nation are the historical forces that can never disappear even though they might be enveloped in lunar or solar eclipse. In them both, the sun rises from the east, and the moon is full in its due day. ”

“ The motion which I have the honor to lay before your lordships has a double aspect—it passes judgment on the past, and expresses an opinion with regard to the policy of the future. Some people receive with considerable impatience the idea that, at the present crisis of our country’s destiny, we should examine into the past, and spend our time in judging of that which can not be recalled. ”

“ For the truth is, that there are many elements of dissolution in a state, as there are also in a ship, or in an animal; they all have their cords, and girders, and sinews―one nature diffused in many places, and called by many names; and the office of examiner is a most important element in the preservation and dissolution of states. ”

“ For, without some duration of the identical, we should have meaningless chaos, or, rather, should not have even that. States may endure, we have seen, so long as we abstract. We take some partial state, or aspect of a state, which in itself does not alter. We fix one eye upon this, while we cast, in fear of no principle, our other eye upon the succession that goes with it, and so is called simultaneous. And we solve practically in this way the problem of duration. We have enduring aspects, A, B, C, one after the other. ”

“ Whether any political measure that was unjust at the time of its institution, can become just by time, is a question that ought to be solved. It seems to me, that time can have no effect in changing the nature of it, with respect to its justice or injustice ”

“ And now being arrived at a temporal dominion, and a power above all human judicature, he reigned [17] with a look more stout than his fellows, and [18] times and laws were henceforward given into his hands, for a time times and half a time, or three times and an half; that is, for 1260 solar years, reckoning a time for a Calendar year of 360 days, and a day for a solar year. After which [19] the judgment is to sit, and they shall take away his dominion, not at once, but by degrees, to consume, and to destroy it unto the end. ”

“ Sovereigns die and Sovereignties: how all dies, and is for a Time only; is a 'Time-phantasm, yet reckons itself real!' The Merovingian Kings, slowly wending on their bullock-carts through the streets of Paris, with their long hair flowing, have all wended slowly on,—into Eternity. ”

“ It is, I think, no slight evidence of the calmness with which the statesmen of the day proceeded with their work, that in a session so momentous, in a session in which the decisive blow was to be struck of the most serious revolution through which the country as yet had passed, they should have first settled themselves calmly down to transact what was then the ordinary business of legislation, the struggle with the vital evils of society. ”

“ We now leave them to the rotations of time, and the reaction of human events, to the period which shall be pointed by the providential government of Him, to whom a thousand years are as one day; when they also may be viewed a spectacle of woe, by the remnant nations, annihilated by their rapacity, ambition, and victorious arms. ”

“ The time was altogether a dangerous one, and a terrible revolution might have been brought in with blood but for those leaders of the people who were able in the emergency to possess their souls in quietness. ”

“ Sometimes in history there have been so many changes within a short time that the effect has been cumulative and an epoch has been created, as at the break-up of the Roman Empire, when civilization was merged in the ‘Dark Ages’. ”

“ It is doubtful if any epoch in history was more important or freighted with more difficult or greater problems to be solved than those presented during the time just preceding, during and subsequent to our great Civil War. ”

“ Then the sun set, and it was the hour when the bats and the dark creatures are abroad and the lions come down from their lairs, and the desert robbers go into the plains again, and fevers rise up winged and hot out of chill marshes, and it was the hour when safety leaves the thrones of Kings, the hour when dynasties change. ”

“ It was foreseen, that if this was true, a revolution of some kind was near at hand, probably the deposing and death of the king, and that, in the interim, all subordination would cease in the town, and every man do what seemed good in his own eyes. ”

“ And whatever difficulty there may be in tracing through past history the remoter connections of event and cause, one chain of sequence is always clear: the formation, namely, of the character of nations by their employments, and the determination of their final fate by their character. The moment and the first direction of circumstances, of decisive revolutions, often depend on accident; but their persistent course, and their consequences, depend wholly on the nature of the people. ”

“ On a mis en pratique des aperçus, et toujours on a pu dire: ‘malheur à celui qui dans son fol orgueil veut aller au-delà des nécessités du temps, l’abîme ou quelque révolution l’attendent.’ Mais quand on ne fait que ce que le temps commande, on est sûr de ne pas s’égarer.
“Or, Messieurs, voulez-vous savoir quelles étaient en 1789 les véritables nécessités du temps? ouvrez les cahiers des différents ordres. Tout ce qui était alors le vœu réfléchi des hommes éclairés, voilà ce que j’appelle des nécessités. ”

“ All Europe is acquainted with the Troubles, which have so often disturbed these Kingdoms, and the Wrongs We have suffered. She knows that Length of Time cannot alter the Constitution of the State, nor Ground a Prescription against the fundamental Laws. ”

“ When we arrive, however, at a just understanding and appreciation of the mechanism of this wondrous British constitutional watch, jewelled in ever so many holes as it is, with its levers, and escapements, and unnumbered compensation balances, the lateness of our legislative hours will not be by far so much of a mystery to us. We are altogether a sitting-up late people. ”

“ Whether from the weather, or the day, or the occasion, the crowd was a curiously quiet one. The weight of the new King’s authority, no doubt, rested upon it heavily. A general air of numbness and stupefaction appeared to prevail. Events of late had come, matured, and yielded to others so rapidly. ”

“ After all, we are inadequate to any calculation on future events. The ways of Heaven are hidden in the depths of time, and a small circumstance frequently gives a new turn to the most probable contingencies that seem to measure the fate of men of empires. ”

“ Speaking generally, you are to decide on the means for the final suppression of the Rebellion, and the establishment of security for the future. Shall the Rebellion which you have subdued on the bloody field be permitted to assert its power again, or shall it be trampled out, so that its infamous pretensions shall disappear forever? ”

“ Our rulers, grown wise by experience of smashed windows, pelted heads, and occasional (when the people were very hard driven) political annihilation, and hurling into the limbo of red tapism, have of late years placed few or no restrictions upon grumbling. The noble lord at the head of the Government daily receives deputations, who grumble at his measures, or at the measures he won’t guarantee to propose, fearfully. ”

“ What should be the proper duration of office is matter of more doubt and speculation. On the one hand, it may be said, that the shorter the period of office, the more security there will be against any dangerous abuse of power. The longer the period, the less will responsibility be felt, and the more personal ambition will be indulged. On the other hand, the considerations above stated prove, that a very short period is, practically speaking, equivalent to a surrender of the executive power, as a check in government, or subjects it to an intolerable vacillation and imbecility. ”

“ But, surveyed as a whole and restricted to decisive turns in the destiny of whole nations or dynasties, the proposition did not necessarily repel a well-trained and scientific mind, that, as time is only an illusion and, truly viewed, all happenings are stationary in eternity, such revolutions while still in the lap of the future might give the human brain a premonitory shock and reveal themselves palpably to it. ”

“ Had a balance of power, among orders or factions, caused tranquillity, its absence would have caused broils and tumult. Tranquillity is one of the phenomena, arising from the unbalanced sovereignty of a single order; and broil and tumult are phenomena, which have ever attended a division of power among orders. Democracy was quiet under the feudal aristocracy, the church estates under the popes, the plebeians under the late government of Venice, and the peers of England are quiet under patronage, paper and armies. ”

“ When I speak of government by the clock, I should, perhaps, use capital letters to indicate that I have in mind that timepiece on which is recorded God's Time; whose ticking is the forward march of progress. Clocks as they touch our lives require human intervention. The winders of these clocks perform something that may be described as an office. ”

“ Changes produced by time—Correspondence between the Provisional Government and Hartwell—Louis XVIII's reception in London— His arrival at Calais—Berthier's address to the King at Compiegne— My presentation to his Majesty at St. Ouen-Louis—XVIII's entry into Paris—Unexpected dismissal from my post—M. de Talleyrand's departure for the Congress of Vienna—Signs of a commotion— Impossibility of seeing M. de Blacas—The Abby Fleuriel—Unanswered letters—My letter to M. de Talleyrand at Vienna.
No power is so great as that resulting from the changes produced by time. ”

“ But, if the period of its continuance should thus be extended from three to seven years, the natural course of encroachment, or some momentous circumstances like the present, might lead to fresh prolongations, and gradually to an entire repeal of what had been thought so important a safeguard of its purity. Time has happily put an end to apprehensions which are not on that account to be reckoned unreasonable. ”

“ There has been an absolute terror of fixing upon any settled course, and the result has been that, when the time came that external pressure forced a decision on some definite course, the moment for satisfactory action had already passed, and the measures that were taken were taken in haste, with little preparation, and often with little fitness for the emergencies with which they had to cope. The conduct of the government has been an alternation of periods of slumber and periods of rush. ”

“ In the interval the new republic had passed through—a period of Sturm und Drang whose gigantic perils and passions we have begun to forget a period in which disaster ever menaced, and the foes within were no less bold and pertinacious than the foes without. ”

“ Threats of dissolution, if executed, become rebellion and treason. The machinery of this government is now moving onward in its majestic course. Custom-houses, post-offices, land-offices, army, navy, are fulfilling their prescribed circle of duties. ”

“ It is an acknowledged fact, that every revolution requires a provisional power to regulate its disorganizing movements, and to direct the methodical demolition of every part of the ancient social constitution.— Such ought to be the revolutionary power. ”

“ It does not ring, and the fingers of the clock are moving. The world seems to be on tiptoe, listening for a thunderstroke of Fate. The Ministers at length sit silent, rigid, almost petrified, looking fixedly at floor or ceiling. ”

“ These eternal principles happen now, in a peculiar degree, to be implicated in the shifting and uncertain current of politics; and political storms may seem for a time to overwhelm them. But the cloud which obscures the sun does not annihilate it ”

“ But although we feel, we shall not flinch. We must consider now, as in the Revolutionary war, that although the evils of resistance are great, those of submission would be greater. We must meet, therefore, the former as the casualties of tempests and earthquakes, and, like them, necessarily resulting from the constitution of the world. ”