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Our Fathers Have Told Us: Part I. The Bible of Amiens, a non-fiction book by John Ruskin |
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Notes To Chapter 1 |
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_ NOTES TO CHAPTER I The reader will please observe that notes immediately necessary to the understanding of the text will be given, with _numbered_ references, under the text itself; while questions of disputing authorities, or quotations of supporting documents will have _lettered_ references, and be thrown together at the end of each chapter.[9] One good of this method will be that, after the numbered notes are all right, if I see need of farther explanation, as I revise the press, I can insert a letter referring to a _final_ note without confusion of the standing types. There will be some use also in the final notes, in summing the chapters, or saying what is to be more carefully remembered of them. Thus just now it is of no consequence to remember that the first taking of Amiens was in 445, because that is not the founding of the Merovingian dynasty; neither that Merovaeus seized the throne in 447 and died ten years later. The real date to be remembered is 481, when Clovis himself comes to the throne, a boy of fifteen; and the three battles of Clovis' reign to be remembered are Soissons, Tolbiac, and Poitiers--remembering also that this was the first of the three great battles of Poitiers;--how the Poitiers district came to have such importance as a battle-position, we must afterwards discover if we can. Of Queen Clotilde and her flight from Burgundy to her Frank lover we must hear more in next chapter,--the story of the vase at Soissons is given in "The Pictorial History of France," but must be deferred also, with such comment as it needs, to next chapter; for I wish the reader's mind, in the close of this first number, to be left fixed on two descriptions of the modern 'Frank' (taking that word in its Saracen sense), as distinguished from the modern Saracen. The first description is by Colonel Butler, entirely true and admirable, except in the implied extension of the contrast to olden time: for the Saxon soul under Alfred, the Teutonic under Charlemagne, and the Frank under St. Louis, were quite as religious as any Asiatic's, though more practical; it is only the modern mob of kingless miscreants in the West, who have sunk themselves by gambling, swindling, machine-making, and gluttony, into the scurviest louts that have ever fouled the Earth with the carcases she lent them. [Footnote 9: The plan for numbered and lettered references is not followed after the first chapter.] * * * * * "Of the features of English character brought to light by the spread of British dominion in Asia, there is nothing more observable than the contrast between the religious bias of Eastern thought and the innate absence of religion in the Anglo-Saxon mind. Turk and Greek, Buddhist and Armenian, Copt and Parsee, all manifest in a hundred ways of daily life the great fact of their belief in a God. In their vices as well as in their virtues the recognition of Deity is dominant. "With the Western, on the contrary, the outward form of practising belief in a God is a thing to be half-ashamed of--something to hide. A procession of priests in the Strada Reale would probably cause an average Briton to regard it with less tolerant eye than he would cast upon a Juggernaut festival in Orissa: but to each alike would he display the same iconoclasm of creed, the same idea, not the less fixed because it is seldom expressed in words: "You pray; therefore I do not think much of you." But there is a deeper difference between East and West lying beneath this incompatibility of temper on the part of modern Englishmen to accept the religious habit of thought in the East. All Eastern peoples possess this habit of thought. It is the one tie which links together their widely differing races. Let us give an illustration of our meaning. On an Austrian Lloyd's steamboat in the Levant a traveller from Beyrout will frequently see strange groups of men crowded together on the quarter-deck. In the morning the missal books of the Greek Church will be laid along the bulwarks of the ship, and a couple of Russian priests, coming from Jerusalem, will be busy muttering mass. A yard to right or left a Turkish pilgrim, returning from Mecca, sits a respectful observer of the scene. It is prayer, and therefore it is holy in his sight. So, too, when the evening hour has come, and the Turk spreads out his bit of carpet for the sunset prayers and obeisance towards Mecca, the Greek looks on in silence, without trace of scorn in his face, for it is again the worship of the Creator by the created. They are both fulfilling the _first_ law of the East--prayer to God; and whether the shrine be Jerusalem, Mecca, or Lhassa, the sanctity of worship surrounds the votary, and protects the pilgrim. "Into this life comes the Englishman, frequently destitute of one touch of sympathy with the prayers of any people, or the faith of any creed; hence our rule in the East has ever rested, and will ever rest, upon the bayonet. We have never yet got beyond the stage of conquest; never assimilated a people to our ways, never even civilized a single tribe around the wide dominion of our empire. It is curious how frequently a well-meaning Briton will speak of a foreign church or temple as though it had presented itself to his mind in the same light in which the City of London appeared to Blucher--as something to loot. The other idea, that a priest was a person to hang, is one which is also often observable in the British brain. On one occasion, when we were endeavouring to enlighten our minds on the Greek question, as it had presented itself to a naval officer whose vessel had been stationed in Greek and Adriatic waters during our occupation of Corfu and the other Ionian Isles, we could only elicit from our informant the fact that one morning before breakfast he had hanged seventeen priests." The second passage which I store in these notes for future use, is the supremely magnificent one, out of a book full of magnificence,--if truth be counted as having in it the strength of deed: Alphonse Karr's "Grains de Bon Sens." I cannot praise either this or his more recent "Bourdonnements" to my own heart's content, simply because they are by a man utterly after my own heart, who has been saying in France, this many a year, what I also, this many a year, have been saying in England, neither of us knowing of the other, and both of us vainly. (See pages 11 and 12 of "Bourdonnements.") The passage here given is the sixty-third clause in "Grains de Bon Sens." "Et tout cela, monsieur, vient de ce qu'il n'y a plus de croyances--de ce qu'on ne croit plus a rien. "Ah! saperlipopette, monsieur, vous me la baillez belle! Vous dites qu'on ne croit plus a rien! Mais jamais, a aucune epoque, on n'a cru a tant de billevesees, de bourdes, de mensonges, de sottises, d'absurdites qu'aujourd'hui. "D'abord, on _croit_ a l'incredulite--l'incredulite est une croyance, une religion tres exigeante, qui a ses dogmes, sa liturgie, ses pratiques, ses rites! ...son intolerance, ses superstitions. Nous avons des incredules et des impies jesuites, et des incredules et des impies jansenistes; des impies molinistes, et des impies quietistes; des impies pratiquants, et non pratiquants; des impies indifferents et des impies fanatiques; des incredules cagots et des impies hypocrites et tartuffes.--La religion de l'incredulite ne se refuse meme pas le luxe des heresies. "On ne croit plus a la bible, je le veux bien, mais on _croit_ aux 'ecritures' des journaux, on croit au 'sacerdoce' des gazettes et carres de papier, et a leurs 'oracles' quotidiens. "On _croit_ au 'bapteme' de la police correctionnelle et de la Cour d'assises--on appelle 'martyrs' et 'confesseurs' les 'absents' a Noumea et les 'freres' de Suisse, d'Angleterre et de Belgique--et, quand on parle des 'martyrs de la Commune' ca ne s'entend pas des assassines, mais des assassins. "On se fait enterrer 'civilement,' on ne veut plus sur son cercueil des prieres de l'Eglise, on ne veut ni cierges, ni chants religieux,--mais on veut un cortege portant derriere la biere des immortelles rouges;--on veut une 'oraison,' une 'predication' de Victor Hugo qui a ajoute cette specialite a ses autres specialites, si bien qu'un de ces jours derniers, comme il suivait un convoi en amateur, un croque-mort s'approcha de lui, le poussa du coude, et lui dit en souriant: 'Est-ce que nous n'aurons pas quelque chose de vous, aujourd'hui?'--Et cette predication il la lit ou la recite--ou, s'il ne juge pas a propos 'd'officier' lui-meme, s'il s'agit d'un mort de plus, il envoie pour la psalmodier M. Meurice ou tout autre 'pretre' ou 'enfant de coeur' du 'Dieu,'--A defaut de M. Hugo, s'il s'agit d'un citoyen obscur, on se contente d'une homelie improvisee pour la dixieme fois par n'importe quel depute intransigeant--et le _Miserere_ est remplace par les cris de 'Vive la Republique!' pousses dans le cimetiere. "On n'entre plus dans les eglises, mais on frequente les brasseries et les cabarets; on y officie, on y celebre les mysteres, on y chante les louanges d'une pretendue republique _sacro-sainte_, une, indivisible, democratique, sociale, athenienne, intransigeante, despotique, invisible quoique etant partout. On y communie sous differentes especes; le matin (_matines_) on 'tue le ver' avec le vin blanc,--il y a plus tard les vepres de l'absinthe, auxquelles on se ferait un crime de manquer d'assiduite. "On ne croit plus en Dieu, mais on _croit_ pieusement en M. Gambetta, en MM. Marcou, Naquet, Barodet, Tartempion, etc., et en toute une longue litanie de saints et de _dii minores_ tels que Goutte-Noire, Polosse, Boriasse et Silibat, le heros lyonnais. "On _croit_ a 'l'immuabilite' de M. Thiers, qui a dit avec aplomb 'Je ne change jamais,' et qui aujourd'hui est a la fois le protecteur et le protege de ceux qu'il a passe une partie de sa vie a fusilier, et qu'il fusillait encore hier. 'On _croit_ au republicanisme 'immacule' de l'avocat de Cahors qui a jete par-dessus bord tous les principes republicains,--qui est a la fois de son cote le protecteur et le protege de M. Thiers, qui hier l'appelait 'fou furieux,' deportait et fusillait ses amis. "Tous deux, il est vrai, en meme temps protecteurs hypocrites, et proteges dupes. "On ne croit plus aux miracles anciens, mais on _croit_ a des miracles nouveaux. "On _croit_ a une republique sans le respect religieux et presque fanatique des lois. "On _croit_ qu'on peut s'enrichir en restant imprevoyants, insouciants et paresseux, et autrement que par le travail et l'economie. "On se _croit_ libre en obeissant aveuglement et betement a deux ou trois coteries. "On se _croit_ independant parce qu'on a tue ou chasse un lion et qu'on l'a remplace par deux douzaines de caniches teints en jaune. "On _croit_ avoir conquis le 'suffrage universel' en votant par des mots d'ordre qui en font le contraire du suffrage universel,--mene au vote comme on mene un troupeau au paturage, avec cette difference que ca ne nourrit pas.--D'ailleurs, par ce suffrage universel qu'on croit avoir et qu'on n'a pas,--il faudrait _croire_ que les soldats doivent commander au general, les chevaux mener le cocher;--_croire_ que deux radis valent mieux qu'une truffe, deux cailloux mieux qu'un diamant, deux crottins mieux qu'une rose. "On se _croit_ en Republique, parce que quelques demi-quarterons de farceurs occupent les memes places, emargent les memes appointements, pratiquent les memes abus, que ceux qu'on a renverses a leur benefice. "On se _croit_ un peuple opprime, heroique, que brise ses fers, et n'est qu'un domestique capricieux qui aime a changer de maitres. "On _croit_ au genie d'avocats de sixieme ordre, qui ne se sont jetes dans la politique et n'aspirent au gouvernement despotique de la France que faute d'avoir pu gagner honnetement, sans grand travail, dans l'exercice d'un profession correcte, une vie obscure humectee de chopes. "On _croit_ que des hommes devoyes, declasses, decaves, fruits secs, etc., qui n'ont etudie que le 'domino a quatre' et le 'bezigue en quinze cents' se reveillent un matin,--apres un sommeil alourdi par le tabac et la biere--possedant la science de la politique, et l'art de la guerre; et aptes a etre dictateurs, generaux, ministres, prefets, sous-prefets, etc. "Et les soi-disant conservateurs eux-memes _croient_ que la France peut se relever et vivre tant qu'on n'aura pas fait justice de ce pretendu suffrage universel qui est le contraire du suffrage universel. "Les croyances out subi le sort de ce serpent de la fable--coupe, hache par morceaux, dont chaque troncon devenait un serpent. "Les croyances se sont changees en monnaie--en billon de credulites. "Et pour finir la liste bien incomplete des croyances et des credulites--vous _croyez_, vous, qu'on ne croit a rien!" _ |
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