Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/65

 1920 NEW MONARCHY IN FRANCE 57 On the Digest, book 1, title xvi {De verborum significatione), which will provide a useful starting-point. Semper enim apud quascunque nationes ius supremum populi fuit, idque vel legis divinae institutio ostenditur. Nam cum hominem creavit Deus, illi in caetera quidem animantia ius et dominium concessit, hominum autem ut alteri alter serviret non indixit. Unde principio rerum non divina iussione, sed ex populi consensu Reges assumpti sunt : quod et post Romani imperii occasum servatum fuit, cum Carolus Magnus a populo Romano Augustus electus est et a pontifice Leone sacro oleo inunctus, quod ius populi hodie Gregoriana lege in septem Germaniae primates translatum est. Sic et Franci Chilperico eiecto, quod regno idoneus non esset, Pipinum Trav/ccXriKw consilio substituerunt. Et cum Pipini proles a maioribus degenerasset, rursus Odonem, mox eius fratrem Robertum et deinde Roberti nepotem Hugonera ad summum fastigium evexerunt : is Hugo est qui vulgo Capetus dicebatur, unde oriundi sunt qui etiamnum Francorum rebus moderantur et quod de maximis hisce regibus, nimirum Romano et Franco, dictum est, idem et in inferioribus observatum fuisse . . . ut merito censeam divina lege eum iustum principem esse qui ex populi consensu regnet quod et Aristot. tradit : qui vero invitis dominetur, eum tjrrannum esse, etiamsi Caesar sit, a Septemviris electus vel quaqua alia ratione civili iure potentiam suam tueatur. Unde cum magna regna non ex subditorum consensu sed per violentiam primo constituta sint merito divus Augustinus lib. de civ. Dei iiii magna latrocinia esse dixit. (Ulp. lib. X ad edict. 1. xv.) This is hardly the typical Italian utterance which caused so much hostility among French writers of that day.^ One might almost feel that one was reading a sentence of Hotman or Postel, and that every canon of the nicest French patriotic yet constitu- tional standards had been satisfied.^ ' Machiavelli is one source of their discontent. But the views of this Italian school, of which Catherine de' Medici was alleged to be a practising disciple, and which was accused of importing alien conceptions of monarchic government, were, as a matter of fact, being propagated in France almost from the beginning of printing in that country. ' Rex enim simiUtudo sive imago quidem divinitatis est in terris dum idipsum agit in limitato circumspectoque regno quod deus in universo. Hinc pages in Exodo dii vocantur. In his est provinciarum quas regunt summa po- testas.' This is the ' fair ItaUan hand ' of Rodericus Sancius de Arevalo, bishop of Calahorra, a Spaniard, castellan of the castle of St. Angelo. See also Antonio, Biblio- theca Hispana Vetus, and Creighton, Hist, o/ the Papacy, iii. 276. The book (Speculum humanae vitae) was popular. In France, Gering, Kranz, and Friburger printed two editions in Paris in 1472 and 1475, when MachiaveUi was three and six years old respectively; Keyser and Stoll one in Paris in 1473. Le Roy in Lyons printed editions in 1477 and 1478 ; Peter Metlinger one in Besan5on in 1488. immensam atque infinitam potestatem a suis civibus permissam fuisse. . . sed eos eertis legibus et pactionibus obligatos esse ' : Hotman, Franco-Oallia, cap. xxv (ed. Frankfort, 1665). Postel, who has grandiose schemes for the organization of the world under the French monarchy, writes nevertheless : ' il faut necessairement qu'une Monarchic soit esleue et conformee au monde et prenne son fondement en la Gaule de la force et consentement du peuple Gaulois. . . il faut que selon mon principal penser, dire et escripre, le tr^chrestien Monarche soit par consentement du peuple Gallique
 * ' Satis igitur demonstratum esse arbitramur, Regibus Franco-GalUae non