Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/105

Rh the title to his high estate from the hand of God, is believed by no one nowadays, not even the most credulous old woman, to be more than a legend. But the monarch keeps repeating this fairy-tale with energy while the parson and the policeman see to it that the people pay attention and believe or at least appear to.

In ancient times and during the Middle Ages, even up to a late period, as there was then no science of history, and an analysis of origins and development was entirely unknown, the halo of divinity surrounding the king was a material reality to the eyes of the people, during all those years of dawning intelligence. The memory of the nation did not extend more than one or two generations back. The darkness of the past was impenetrable, and it settled down gradually upon the origins of everything. Who could remember the beginnings of a dynasty? It was not difficult for any one to credit the legends sung by the bards, who traced the descent of the monarch to divinities, whose rank depended directly upon the rewards paid for these improvised genealogies. But in our age these ballads and traditions have lost their reliability beneath the broad glare of critical history. We are all familiar with the origin and growth of the European reigning houses, who are today the legitimate representatives of God's will on earth, according to their own statement.

We can trace the Bourbon dynasty, the most ancient and sacred of all the royal houses of Europe, to Hugh Capet, a rebellious landed proprietor, whom some believe to be its founder, or to Robert le Fort, a butcher's assistant in Paris, if we believe the traditions of the people. The Habsburgs of Austria, in whose veins by the way, now very few drops of the blood of the original stock, are the descendants of a poverty stricken Frankish nobleman