18 Fred Morrow Fling 



the belief that this claim was just, while the wise men feared 

 to proclaim the contrary. His right to rule was of divine,^ not 

 .human origin ; it came from God and not from the people. As 

 it was from God that he had received his power, so to God 

 alone the king was responsible for the use or abuse of that 

 power. God was the sole judge of his acts. The wealth of 

 the kingdom, and the lives of his subjects were his to be dis- 

 posed of as he saw fit. A natural complement to the divine 

 right of the king was the passive obedience of the subject.^ 

 Preached from the pulpit and enunciated by publicists these 

 two theories were seldom refuted and. almost never with im- 

 punity. Public opinion, the irreconcilable foe to all such be- 

 liefs, was only in process of formation, and he who saw the 

 evil and proclaimed it could hope for no effective support from 

 the masses of the people.^ All the instruments of oppression 

 were in the hands of an absolute ruler and were used in the 

 most absolute and arbitrary manner. He who dared to raise 

 his voice against the existing state of things,'^ was cast into 

 prison without trial, without even knowing the nature of the 

 crime with which he was charged, and there left to finish his 

 days, forgotten even by the ministers themselves.^ 



Nor was anything gained for France through the continu- 

 ance of this highly centralized form of government. Capable 

 of being administered only by men of genius and force, it was 

 beyond the comprehension and control of the weak and inefii- 



1 "Une puissance qui ne tient son droit k sa covironne quedeDieu." 

 Des lettres de cachet, p. 281, note 14. 



2 "L'obeissance passive devieiit h. la mode." Essai sur le despotisme, p. 

 125. Des lettres de cachet, p. 23. 



3 "La plnpart dee hommes prostituent I'humanite par une obeissance 

 passive." Essai sur la despotisme, p. 70. 



^ "Ce temps est passe, les paroles sont des crimes; la liberty de penser 

 est presque refusee." Essai sur le despotisme, p. 67. 



^ "La justice n' y existe pas; il n' y a point de citoyen." Essai sur le 

 despotisme, p. 64. 



62 



