54 8 CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY. 



the grave circumstances which led to the convocation of the States-General, 

 when the deputies of the orders which represented the nation deliberated with 

 closed doors as to the wording of the Cahi6ra, in which they expressed the 

 resolutions which were afterwards submitted to the King in the shape of 

 plaints, do/efiiices, and remonstrances. These deliberations often gave rise to 

 harangues in Latin or French, which enabled the speaker to indulge in very 

 high-flown eloquence. It was thus that, at the States-General of Tours in 1484, 

 one of the representatives of the Burgundy nobility, Philippe Pot, Seigneur of 

 La Roche, pronounced a Latin speech, in which he enunciated with great 

 boldness and logic political doctrines which were not understood until two 

 centuries afterward*. " Royalty," he said, " is a duty, and not an hereditary 

 privilege, and it should not always pass, like property, to the nearest relatives. 



Fig. 413. Portrait 6f Fig. 414. Portrait of P. Pithou. Fig. 415. Portrait of 



J. Cujas. M. de PHospital. 



Fac-simile of Line Engravings by Leonard Gaultier, from the Series called " Chronologic 

 collee." In the Library of M. Firmin-Didot, Paris. 



The State, deprived of a chief, will, it may be objected, remain exposed to 

 accident and disorder. Not at all, for its safety may be left in the hands of 

 the Assembly of the three orders, not to govern it themselves, but to select 

 persons capable of governing. Originally the suffrage of the people, who 

 were the masters, created kings, and the people selected the most virtuous 

 and the most able. Each nation, in selecting a king, acted in its own interest 

 and for its own advantage ; for princes are made princes not to prey upon the 

 people, but to make them richer and improve their condition. The kings who 

 fail to do so are tyrants and bad shepherds, because they devour their sheep ; 

 thus they are wolves, and not shepherds." 



