BOOK I. no other object in view than the greater advantage of society. A wise prince knows how to reconcile justice with CHAP. XIII. clemency-the care of the public safety with that pity which is due to the unfortunate. lice. The internal police consists in the attention of the prince 3 174. Inand magistrates to preserve every thing in order. Wise re-ternal pogulations ought to prescribe whatever will best contribute to the public safety, utility, and convenience; and those who are invested with authority cannot be too attentive to enforce them. By a wise police, the sovereign accustoms the people to order and obedience, and preserves peace, tranquillity, and concord among the citizens. The magistrates of Holland are said to possess extraordinary talents in this respect a better police prevails in their cities, and even their establishments in the Indies, than in any other places in the known world. combat. [ 84 ] Laws and the authority of the magistrates having been sub-175. Duel, stituted in the room of private war, the conductors of a nation or single ought not to suffer individuals to attempt to do themselves jus- (54) tice, when they can have recourse to the magistrates. Duelling -that species of combat, in which the parties engage on account of a private quarrel-is a manifest disorder, repugnant to the ends of civil society. This frenzy was unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who raised to such a height the glory of their arms: we received it from barbarous nations who knew no other law but the sword. Louis XIV. deserves the greatest praise for his endeavours to abolish this savage custom. stop to this But why was not that prince made sensible that the most ? 176. severe punishments were incapable of curing the rage for du- Means of elling? They did not reach the source of the evil; and since putting a a ridiculous prejudice had persuaded all the nobility and gen- disorder. tlemen of the army, that a man who wears a sword is bound in honour to avenge with his own hand the least injury he has received; this is the principle on which it is proper to proceed. We must destroy this prejudice, or restrain it by a motive of the same nature. While a nobleman, by obeying the law, shall be regarded by his equals as a coward and as a man dishonoured while an officer in the same case shall be forced to quit the service-can you hinder his fighting by threatening him with death? On the contrary, he will place a part of his bravery in doubly exposing his life in order to wash away the affront. And, certainly, while the prejudice subsists, while a nobleman or an officer cannot act in opposition to it, without embittering the rest of his life, I do not know whether we can justly punish him who is forced to submit to his tyranny, or whether he be very guilty with respect to morality. That (54) As to the legal view of the offence of duelling in England, see 6 East Rep. 260; 2 East Rep. 581; 2 Barn. & Ald. 462; and Burn's J. 26 ed. tit. BOOK I. Worldly honour, be it as false and chimerical as you please, is to him a substantial and necessary possession, since without it he can neither live with his equals, nor exercise a profession that is often his only resource. When, therefore, any insolent fellow would unjustly ravish from him that chimera so esteemed and so necessary, why may he not defend it as he would his life and property against a robber? As the state does not permit an individual to pursue with arms in his hand the usurper of his property, because he may obtain justice from the magistrate-so, if the sovereign will not allow him to draw his sword against the man from whom he has received an insult, he ought necessarily to take such measures that the patience and obedience of the citizen who has been insulted shall not prove prejudicial to him. Society cannot deprive man of his natural right of making war against an aggressor, without furnishing him with some other means of securing himself from the evil his enemy would do him. On all those occasions where the public authority cannot lend us its assistance, we resume our original and natural right of self-defence. Thus a traveller may, without hesitation, kill the robber who at[85] tacks him on the highway; because it would, at that moment, be in vain for him to implore the protection of the laws and of the magistrate. Thus a chaste virgin would be praised for taking away the life of a brutal ravisher who attempted to force her to his desires. Till men have got rid of this Gothic idea, that honour obliges them, even in contempt of the laws, to avenge their personal injuries with their own hands, the most effectual method of putting a stop to the effects of this prejudice would perhaps be to make a total distinction between the offended and the aggressor-to pardon the former without difficulty, when it appears that his honour has been really attacked-and to exercise justice without mercy on the party who has committed the outrage. And as to those who draw the sword for trifles and punctilios, for little piques, or railleries in which honour. is not concerned, I would have them severely punished. By this means a restraint would be put on those peevish and insolent folks who often reduce even the moderate men to a necessity of chastising them. Every one would be on his guard, to avoid being considered as the aggressor; and with a view to gain the advantage of engaging in duel (if unavoidable) without incurring the penalties of the law, both parties would curb their passions; by which means the quarrel would fall of itself, and be attended with no consequences. It frequently happens that a bully is at bottom a coward; he gives himself haughty airs, and offers insult, in hopes that the rigour of the law will oblige people to put up with his insolence. And what is the consequence?-A man of spirit will run every risk, rather than submit to be insulted: the aggressor dares not recede: and a combat ensues, which would not have taken place, if the latter could have once imagined that there was nothing to prevent the other from chastising him for his presumption-the offended person being acquitted by the same law that condemns the aggressor. BOOK I. CHAP. XIII. To this first law, whose efficacy would, I doubt not, be soon proved by experience, it would be proper to add the following regulations:-1. Since it is an established custom that the nobility and military men should appear armed, even in time of peace, care should be taken to enforce a rigid observance of the laws which allow the privilege of wearing swords to these two orders of men only. 2. It would be proper to establish a particular court, to determine, in a summary manner, all affairs of honour between persons of these two orders. The marshals' court in France is in possession of this power; and it might be invested with it in a more formal manner and to a greater extent. The governors of provinces and strong places, with their general officers-the colonels and captains of each regiment-might, in this particular, act as deputies to the marshals. These courts, each in his own department, should alone confer the right of wearing a sword. Every nobleman at sixteen or eighteen years of age, and every soldier at his entrance into the regiment, should be obliged to appear before the court to receive the sword. 3. On its being there [86] delivered to him, he should be informed that it is intrusted to him only for the defence of his country; and care might be taken to inspire him with true ideas of honour. 4. It appears to me of great importance to establish, for different cases, punishments of a different nature. Whoever should so far forget himself, as, either by word or deed, to insult a man who wears a sword, might be degraded from the rank of nobility, deprived of the privilege of carrying arms, and subjected to corporal punishment-even the punishment of death, according to the grossness of the insult: and, as I before observed, no favour should be shown to the offender in case a duel was the consequence, while at the same time the other party should stand fully acquitted. Those who fight on slight occasions, I would not have condemned to death, unless in such cases where the author of the quarrel-he, I mean, who carried it so far as to draw his sword, or to give the challenge-has killed his adversary. People hope to escape punishment when it is too severe; and, besides, a capital punishment in such cases is not considered as infamous. But let them be ignominiously degraded from the rank of nobility and the use of arms, and for ever deprived of the right of wearing a sword, without the least hope of pardon: this would be the most proper method to restrain men of spirit, provided that due care was taken to make a distinction between different offenders, according to the degree of the offence. As to persons below the rank of nobility, and who do not belong to the army, their quarrels should be BOOK I. CHAP. XIII. left to the cognisance of the ordinary courts, which in case of bloodshed should punish the offenders according to the common laws against violence and murder. It should be the same with respect to any quarrel that might arise between a commoner and a man entitled to carry arms: it is the business of the ordinary magistrate to preserve order and peace between those two classes of men, who cannot have any points of honour to settle the one with the other. To protect the people against the violence of those who wear the sword, and to punish the former severely if they should dare to insult the latter, should further be, as it is at present, the business of the magistrate. I am sanguine enough to believe that these regulations, and this method of proceeding, if strictly adhered to, would extirpate that monster, duelling, which the most severe laws have been unable to restrain. They go to the source of the evil, by preventing quarrels, and oppose a lively sensation of true and real honour to that false and punctilious honour which occasions the spilling of so much blood. It would be worthy a great monarch to make a trial of it: its success would immortalize his name: and by the bare attempt he would merit the love and gratitude of his people. CHAP. XIV. THE THIRD OBJECT OF A GOOD GOVERNMENT,—TO FORTIFY ? 177. A nation ought to fortify it tacks. ITSELF AGAINST EXTERNAL ATTACKS. WE have treated at large of what relates to the felicity of a nation: the subject is equally copious and complicated. Let self against us now proceed to a third division of the duties which a external at- nation owes to itself,-a third object of good government. One of the ends of political society is to defend itself with its combined strength against all external insult or violence (§ 15). If the society is not in a condition to repulse an aggressor, it is very imperfect,-it is unequal to the principal object of its destination, and cannot long subsist. The nation ought to put itself in such a state as to be able to repel and humble an unjust enemy: this is an important duty, which the care of its own perfection, and even of its preservation, imposes both on the state and its conductor. 2178. National strength. It is its strength alone that can enable a nation to repulse all aggressors, to secure its rights, and render itself everywhere respectable. It is called upon by every possible motive to neglect no circumstance that can tend to place it in this happy situation. The strength of a state consists in three things, the number of the citizens, their military virtues, and BOOK I. their riches. Under this last article we may comprehend fortresses, artillery, arms, horses, ammunition, and, in general, CHAP. XIV. all that immense apparatus at present necessary in war, since they can all be procured with money. To increase the number of the citizens as far as it is pos- 179. Insible or convenient, is then one of the first objects that claim crease of population. (55) the attentive care of the state or its conductor: and this will be successfully effected by complying with the obligation to procure the country a plenty of the necessaries of life,-by enabling the people to support their families with the fruits of their labour,-by giving proper directions that the poorer classes, and especially the husbandmen, be not harassed and oppressed by the levying of taxes,-by governing with mildness, and in a manner which, instead of disgusting and dispersing the present subjects of the state, shall rather attract new ones,and, finally, by encouraging marriage, after the example of the Romans. That nation, so attentive to every thing capable of increasing and supporting their power, made wise laws against celibacy (as we have already observed in § 149), and granted privileges and exemptions to married men, particularly to those who had numerous families laws that were equally wise and just, since a citizen who rears [88] subjects for the state has a right to expect more favour from it than the man who chooses to live for himself alone.* Every thing tending to depopulate a country is a defect in a state not overstocked with inhabitants. We have already spoken of convents and the celibacy of priests. It is strange that establishments so directly repugnant to the duties of a man and citizen, as well as to the advantage and safety of society, should have found such favour, and that princes, instead of opposing them, as it was their duty to do, should have protected and enriched them. A system of policy, that dextrously took advantage of superstition to extend its own power, led princes and subjects astray, caused them to mistake their real duties, and blinded sovereigns even with respect to their own interest. Experience seems at length to have opened the eyes of nations and their conductors; the pope himself (let us mention it to the honour of Benedict XIV.) endeavors grad (55) This subject, and the necessity for endeavouring to discourage the increase of population, have, in recent years, occasioned the publication of numerous works. See them commented upon, 1 Chitty's Commercial Law, 1, 2, &c. It is impossible to suppress the emotions of indignation that arise on reading what some of the fathers of the church have written against marriage, and in favour of celibacy. "Videtur † Contaminatio.-EDIT. |