y
duty; but they were all men of a comparatively remote past. The race
of Bayard, Duguesclin, Coligny, Duquesne, Turenne, Colbert, and Sully,
seems to have died out and left no lineage. There has been an occasional
great Frenchman of modern times who has raised the cry of Duty; but his
voice has been as that of one crying in the wilderness. De Tocqueville
was one of such; but, like all men of his stamp, he was proscribed,
imprisoned, and driven from public life. Writing on one occasion to his
friend Kergorlay, he said: "Like you, I become more and more alive to
the happiness which consists in the fulfilment of Duty. I believe there
is no other so deep and so real. There is only one great object in the
world which deserves our efforts, and that is the good of mankind." [168]

Although France has been the unquiet spirit among the nations of Europe
since the reign of Louis XIV., there have from time to time been honest
and faithful men who have lifted up their voices against the turbulent
warlike tendencies of the people, and not only preached, but endeavoured
to carry into practice, a gospel of peace. Of these, the Abbe de
St.-Pierre was one of the most courageous. He had even the boldness to
denounce the wars of Louis XIV., and to deny that monarch's right to
the epithet of 'Great,' for which he was punished by expulsion from
the Academy. The Abbe was as enthusiastic an agitator for a system of
international peace as any member of the modern Society of Friends. As
Joseph Sturge went to St. Petersburg to convert the Emperor of Russia to
his views, so the Abbe went to Utrecht to convert the Conference sitting
there, to his project for a Diet; to secure perpetual peace. Of course
he was regarded as an enthusiast, Cardinal Dubois characterising his
scheme as "the dream of an honest man." Yet the Abbe had found his dream
in the Gospel; and in what better way could he exemplify the spirit
of the Master he served than by endeavouring to abate the horrors
and abominations of war? The Conference was an assemblage of men
representing Christian States: and the Abbe merely called upon them to
put in practice the doctrines they professed to believe. It was of no
use: the potentates and their representatives turned to him a deaf ear.

The Abbe de St.-Pierre lived several hundred years too soon. But he
determined that his idea should not be lost, and in 1713 he published
his 'Project of Perpetual Peace.' He there proposed the formation