Political Evolution. 49 



Tested itself now and again in opposition to the Church, 

 and when this action was apparently reversed by the 

 royal protection extended to Christianity against the re- 

 volt of Luther and Calvin, it was in reality but intensified 

 by a surrender of control in spiritual things as a return 

 for such protection. 



The cessation of the subsequent religious troubles 

 through the accession of the politic Henry IV. was the 

 occasion of the yet further domination of the Church by 

 the State, culminating in the despotism of Louis XIV., 

 who avowed himself as not only resuming in his own 

 person the whole civil power of the State, but as the 

 God-giver and sacred Vicegerent of Deity, against whose 

 will no right, whether of privilege, property, or conscience, 

 should under any circumstances assert itself. 



The wide divergence of such a social system from the 

 old mediaeval theocracy is patent enough, nevertheless 

 that system continued to exhibit a considerable deference 

 to older forms, and attempted to constitute a sort of 

 national theocracy of its own, founded on the king's 

 " divine right." 



The leprous regency and the crowned infamy which 

 succeeded could not however but greatly weaken the 

 force of the alleged supernatural authority of the royal 

 autocracy, which authority was at the same time further 

 enfeebled by the advance of the " philosophic " spirit. 



Thus, before the unhappy Louis XVI. opened the 



E 



