eft
their bones on the sands of Egypt, for which he was made a saint? while
I--But I,' she added, '_failed_.' She bowed her head and was silent
for some moments. I no longer beheld a queen, but rather one of those
ancient druidesses to whom human lives are sacrificed; who unroll the
pages of the future and exhume the teachings of the past. But soon she
uplifted her regal and majestic form. 'Luther and Calvin,' she said, 'by
calling the attention of the burghers to the abuses of the Roman Church,
gave birth in Europe to a spirit of investigation which was certain
to lead the peoples to examine all things. Examination leads to doubt.
Instead of faith, which is necessary to all societies, those two men
drew after them, in the far distance, a strange philosophy, armed with
hammers, hungry for destruction. Science sprang, sparkling with her
specious lights, from the bosom of heresy. It was far less a question of
reforming a Church than of winning indefinite liberty for man--which is
the death of power. I saw that. The consequence of the successes won
by the religionists in their struggle against the priesthood (already
better armed and more formidable than the Crown) was the destruction
of the monarchical power raised by Louis IX. at such vast cost upon
the ruins of feudality. It involved, in fact, nothing less than the
annihilation of religion and royalty, on the ruins of which the whole
burgher class of Europe meant to stand. The struggle was therefore war
without quarter between the new ideas and the law,--that is, the old
beliefs. The Catholics were the emblem of the material interests of
royalty, of the great lords, and of the clergy. It was a duel to the
death between two giants; unfortunately, the Saint-Bartholomew proved to
be only a wound. Remember this: because a few drops of blood were spared
at that opportune moment, torrents were compelled to flow at a later
period. The intellect which soars above a nation cannot escape a great
misfortune; I mean the misfortune of finding no equals capable of
judging it when it succumbs beneath the weight of untoward events. My
equals are few; fools are in the majority: that statement explains
it all. If my name is execrated in France, the fault lies with the
commonplace minds who form the mass of all generations. In the great
crises through which I passed, the duty of reigning was not the mere
giving of audiences, reviewing of troops, signing of decrees. I may have
committed mis