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 STUDIES IN STATECRAFT
 
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 STUDIES IN STATECRAFT 
 
 BEING CHAPTERS, BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL, MAINLY ON THE 
 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY BUTLER, K.B.E., M.A. 
 
 FELLOW, LIBRARIAN AND PRAELECTOR IN DIPLOMATIC HISTORY 
 AT CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1920
 
 TO 
 
 MONSIEUR ANDRE TARDIEU, 
 
 AUTHOR, STATESMAN, DIPLOMAT, 
 
 THESE ESSAYS AND NOTES, 
 
 MOSTLY UPON THE HISTORY OF FRENCH THOUGHT, 
 
 ARE DEDICATED, 
 
 IN RECOLLECTION OF 
 
 HAPPY FRANCO-BRITISH COOPERATION 
 
 IN THE PAST, 
 
 PARTICULARLY OURS IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 1917— 1919.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 "An ounce of example is worth a ton of theory" (Surtees). 
 
 THESE essays make but the humblest of pre- 
 tensions. Material for their composition was 
 gathered when, with my pupils at Corpus, I was 
 pursuing the subject of the development of European 
 history in the XV and XVI centuries. Recent 
 events have kindled general interest in the history 
 of international relations and of the theories which 
 have governed them. Since Wheaton, now nearly 
 a century ago, wrote his famous and useful book 
 the treatment of the subject has outgrown the 
 capacity of any one writer. The field to be covered 
 is vast and the maps are not good: to complete even 
 a preliminary survey there is need of cooperation 
 between students. If these chapters have any value, 
 it will be in that they can save a fellow student trouble 
 in connection with a certain area hitherto not ex- 
 haustively explored. Certainly these sketches are far 
 from exhausting it. The various studies, biographical 
 and bibliographical, are consecutive only in the sense 
 that we were following through two crucial centuries 
 the process by which men came to realise that a new 
 political conception — the nation state — had found 
 embodiment, and those by which they grasped that 
 the relation which these nation states bore to each 
 other brought with it certain logical results. It is a 
 sphere covered by the most able of modern historians, 
 jurists and philosophers. 
 
 Man, since the Renaissance, has remained at 
 heart the same. It is not therefore novel ideas that
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 are to be expected in these pages. Pacificism, 
 "Weltmacht," internationalism, diplomacy based 
 upon ideals — all were ideas familiar to the men of 
 these two centuries, as they are to us still, but four 
 or five hundred years ago men were poorer in generic 
 terms than we are, and, as the labels are missing, the 
 facts are sometimes overlooked. 
 
 I have been inconsistent in leaving my quoted 
 passages in the second chapter untranslated. As the 
 interest of this chapter is far more technical than any 
 of the others, I have thought it best to do so. The 
 reader who prefers them will find an English trans- 
 lation at the end of the book in Appendix C. 
 
 My thanks are due to the publishers and editors 
 of the Edinburgh Review, the English Historical 
 Review and the XIX Century and After for per- 
 mission to reproduce from articles which appeared 
 in their pages. 
 
 My wife helped me to read the proofs. Mr Stephen 
 Gaselee, Librarian to H.M. Foreign Office, showed 
 great kindness in reading them also. To them, to 
 Professor W. W. Buckland and to Mr G. T. Lapsley, 
 among others, I owe a deep debt of obligation, which 
 must not involve them in responsibility for any of the 
 more serious mistakes of treatment which my readers 
 may discover. For these the responsibility is mine. 
 
 GEOFFREY BUTLER. 
 
 Corpus Christi College, 
 Cambridge. 
 
 i October 1920.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE v 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. BISHOP RODERICK AND RENAISSANCE PACI- 
 FICISM ! 
 
 II. THE FRENCH "CIVILIANS," ROMAN LAW AND 
 
 THE NEW MONARCHY 26 
 
 III. WILLIAM POSTEL, WORLD PEACE THROUGH 
 
 WORLD POWER 38 
 
 IV. SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN ... 65 
 V. "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 91 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 A. PASSAGES QUOTED IN CHAPTER I . . 105 
 
 B. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RODERICUS SANCIUS 108 
 
 C. ENGLISH VERSION OF PASSAGES QUOTED 
 
 IN CHAPTER II u 4 
 
 D. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL . 117 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 133 
 
 INDEX I35
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BISHOP RODERICK AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 
 
 Among the manuscripts which form the princely 
 gift of Archbishop Parker to the Library at Corpus 
 Christi College, Cambridge, is one 1 whose contents 
 may justly claim attention from the historian of the 
 Law of Nations. Written, in a Roman hand of the 
 fifteenth century, on vellum, it is a copy of amanuscript 2 
 in the Vatican Library, which still exists in the binding 
 in which it was presented to Pope Paul II. How the 
 Cambridge copy came into the hands of Parker is 
 uncertain. It may have been a Canterbury book, one 
 of those perhaps brought back by Prior Sellinge 3 to 
 the Christ Church Priory, on the occasion of the 
 Italian visit upon which Thomas Linacre was his 
 companion. Even if this were so, there are indications 
 that the Corpus book had other owners 4 . Data no 
 longer exist for forming an incontrovertible opinion. 
 The manuscript contains among other historical 
 documents of value 5 a dialogue upon the nature of 
 
 1 No. 1 66. 
 
 2 Vat. 4881. See Antonio, Bibl. Hisp. vet. under the author's name ; 
 Vairani, Cremonensium monnmenta, p. 67. 
 
 3 James, Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, p. 1. Prior 
 Sellinge was Prior of Christ Church 1472 to 1494. 
 
 4 On several pages occurs the name Thomas Godsalve of Norwich, 
 notary, sometime of Lichfield. On August 20, 1567, it belonged to 
 Peter Hubbard (hobard) of Dennington. On the last flyleaf is fixed a 
 piece of parchment with the following written upon it " henry blower 
 
 re of... wax chandelour in S. Margetmoyses parishe in fridaye strete." 
 Parker died in 1574. 
 
 5 Creighton {History of the Papacy, Vol. ill, p. 276) reproduces 
 some of these. An error gives the number of the Corpus MS. as 161. 
 
 B. T
 
 2 BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 peace and war. It was written during the papacy of 
 Paul II (1464-147 1 )\ Any discussion of this subject 
 in past ages is likely to interest those who know how 
 strong an influence mere hatred of war has had upon 
 the growth of international law and organisation. But 
 the epoch at which this dialogue was written gives it 
 added point. The mediaeval world was passing into 
 the modern world and of this process Italy was to see 
 the first fruits. Into the unities of religion, language 
 and social order, unbroken throughout Europe in the 
 Middle Ages, men felt the imminent irruption of new 
 categories, national churches, national literatures, the 
 nation state. The symptoms were to spread and to 
 become more clearly recognisable when (not in the 
 religious sphere alone) the time was ripe for men to 
 square their actions with their logic. In 1470, even in 
 Italy, that time had not yet come and about the writings 
 of this period there is an air of incompleteness. 
 Largely this is due to the fact that those who wrote 
 both incompletely grasped the point which was to be 
 at issue and also employed to express themselves a 
 terminology that was fast growing out of date. When 
 the Spaniards first flooded Europe with silver from the 
 Indies, statesmen and philosophers were not equipped 
 with the mental machinery to meet the conditions to 
 which the glut had led, until an inherited vocabulary 
 had yielded way to those words and phrases which we 
 can now see are fundamental to a theory of exchange. 
 So it was with all the problems which the passing of 
 the Middle Ages was to bring upon the world, not least 
 the question of the relation between states, the theory 
 of war and peace. 
 
 1 It is dedicated to the Pope's nephew the Cardinal Marco Barbo, 
 Bishop of Vicenza.
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 3 
 
 The author of the dialogue which is here under 
 discussion, was in his own day a man of great literary 
 prominence. Rodericus Sancius of Arevalo, who was 
 born in 1404 and died in 1471, was well known in his 
 own Spain successively as student, then doctor of laws 
 of Salamanca, archdeacon of Burgos and finally 
 Bishop of Zamora. He was more however than an 
 ecclesiastical administrator. At an early age he was 
 well seen at court and may be said to have joined the 
 diplomatic service of King John II of Castille. He 
 acted as his representative on missions to the Emperor, 
 the Pope Eugenius IV then at Basel, to the French, 
 the Milanese and the Burgundian courts. These 
 journeys won for him European reputation and Pope 
 Pius II brought him finally to Italy and within the 
 circle of the Curia. In the complicated transactions 
 in which the reign of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini 
 abounded the pen of Rodericus was always at the 
 service of his master up to the day on which, at An- 
 cona, the dying Pontiff saw his well-meant efforts to 
 lead a new crusade against the Turk were doomed 
 to failure. 
 
 The new Pope Peter Barbo, Paul II, inherited a 
 situation in which, even at the seat of government, 
 Rome itself, lawlessness and discord were predomi- 
 nant. The Duke of Amalfi, alleging an unpaid debt 
 of thirty thousand ducats, had occupied the Papal 
 fortresses of Ostia, Spoleto and Tivoli, together with 
 the castle of St Angelo. It needed a full fortnight's 
 negotiation to dislodge him and, profiting perhaps 
 from this humiliating experience, the Pope determined, 
 in the selection of his fortress officers, that ability and 
 discretion should weigh with him as well as congeni- 
 ality or kinship. The day St Angelo was handed
 
 4 BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 over Rodericus was appointed its castellan and the 
 services which he had rendered the last Pope were 
 continued to his successor. 
 
 Without a doubt the successor had every need of 
 help and help in particular from men of brain. As we 
 look back it is possible for us to see that the vital event 
 of the period was the steady progress of the Turks, 
 which had added to the capture of Constantinople the 
 overrunning of the Balkan peninsula and the forma- 
 tion of an Eastern question still the bugbear of our 
 diplomats. It was characteristic of the mind of Pius 1 1 
 that he should be the first of those who have sug- 
 gested for the solution of that question a policy based 
 upon "heroics." He loved the righteousness which 
 looked to the mediaeval conception of a Christian 
 Europe led by the successor of St Peter, he hated 
 the iniquity behind the divisions and the selfishness 
 which prevented the translation of that conception 
 into fact ; accordingly he died in the spiritual and 
 political exile of Ancona. His life and his death pro- 
 vided a warning to all thinking statesmen ; and Paul 
 was not the statesman to neglect it. 
 
 The failure of Pius in his eyes was not one of mis- 
 directed aims but faulty methods. He had tried to 
 sail the ship of state against the wind. It might seem 
 to be a longer process but none the less it was quicker 
 far to tack. To continue the metaphor it might be 
 desirable to overhaul the ship before the voyage was 
 attempted. The pontificate of Paul II, therefore, is 
 one in which a Turkish policy but indirectly figures. 
 His defenders, and they are many and convincing 1 , 
 explain his concentration upon the reform of the Curia, 
 
 1 See for instance Pastor, History of the Popes (edition by Antrobus), 
 Vol. IV, passim.
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 5 
 
 his efforts to adopt sound plans for Papal action in 
 Italy, as well as in other European countries, as the 
 fruit of his conviction as to the necessity of a period 
 of preparation. It was a case of drawing back and of 
 retrenchment in order later more effectively to spring. 
 A policy like this must be justified by its success; and 
 the success can best be judged by the position of the 
 Papacy after the Counter Reformation, at which time the 
 Holy See stands out as an organ of the life of Europe 
 readjusted to the new world of action and of thought. 
 In the connecting chain between its former and its 
 later state the pontificate of Pius II perhaps does, 
 that of Paul 1 1 indubitably does not, appear a faulty 
 link, although to pass from the character of Pius to 
 that of Paul is to leave the study of the grand for that 
 of the merely interesting. Accordingly in studying 
 the life of Paul 1 1, instead of speculating on the possi- 
 bilities of a revived crusade, the student must unravel 
 the intricacies of an adroit foreign policy, which ended 
 in the complete subjection to the Pope of the patri- 
 mony of St Peter, in the establishment of the Papacy 
 as an Italian power of note, yet one that is not too 
 closely interwoven in the petty politics of the penin- 
 sula. He will see too the crushing of a noteworthy 
 figure, George Podiebrad 1 , King of Bohemia, who 
 
 1 It may be said without fear of contradiction that George Podiebrad 
 was the most remarkable man of his day. He himself would have been 
 prepared to act as champion for Europe against the Turk, but the 
 Utraquist heresy which divided his subjects estranged him from the 
 rest of Christendom. His efforts to nullify this restraining condition by 
 schemes, which extended so far as a proposal that would have modified 
 the European state system, were bootless. He was faced by enemies 
 within and enemies without (e.g., Mathias of Hungary) and he himself 
 was declared an excommunicated outlaw by the Pope. In 147 1 he died. 
 In a sense the Papacy had triumphed but Mathias never made good 
 his claim to the throne of Bohemia, Utraquism gave way to extremer 
 forms of religious heresy and nothing had been effected towards re- 
 sistance of the Turk.
 
 6 BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 had defied the Pope, and the resultant collapse of the 
 Utraquist heresy, victories for which the see of Rome 
 was to pay a solid price. These are the achievements 
 not of an heroic figure but of a cunctator, a man who 
 is feeling his way amid forces whose nature he cannot 
 fathom. They called for qualities of statecraft and 
 experience. They implied at times the taking of con- 
 temporaries into confidence; they often involved 
 reliance upon the force of a reasoned public exposition 
 of a point of view. For such a purpose the learned 
 and benign castellan of St Angelo was to hand. The 
 forty odd treatises which are known to have fallen 
 from his pen indicate that in his case both the spirit 
 and the flesh were willing. 
 
 It would be wrong, however, to hold that the only 
 difficulties which faced the papal statesmen were in 
 the sphere of action. Grave indeed were the problems 
 which lay before them in the world of thought. The 
 Conciliar movement, which had begun in a spirit of 
 hopefulness and promise, had ended in general dis- 
 illusionment. The ideas which had lain behind it had, 
 to use a vulgarism, run to seed 1 . In part this may be 
 traced to the shadow which the coming events of the 
 Renaissancecast before them, for theRenaissanceepoch 
 proper was a time during which progress and reform 
 were usually reached not, as is at times the case, by 
 action deliberative and constitutional, or by subjective 
 methods, but objectively, by vigorous executive action 
 marked by spontaneity. It is to the credit of Pius 
 and of Paul that they appraised at their true value the 
 
 1 We find that the abbreviators, minor civil servants of the Papal 
 Chancellory, irritated by the reorganisation of their body by Paul II, 
 had the effrontery to assert in a letter of protest that they would lay 
 their grievances before a general council. The conception of the func- 
 tions of a general council implied by action such as this is illumi- 
 nating.
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 7 
 
 loose talk and unsubstantial projects for the democra- 
 tisation of the Church, which were put forward in this 
 aftermath of the Conciliar period; but beyond this 
 negative accomplishment there lay before them a con- 
 structive duty. The excesses of some of those who 
 followed the new learning, could not obscure the fact 
 that one of those epochs had been reached which de- 
 manded an elasticity in the Church's attitude such as 
 the worldly wisdom of the Roman communion has 
 displayed at many crises. In plain language it was 
 open to Paul II to recognise, or to ignore, a tendency 
 among those of the new learning to split into two 
 halves, a Christian and a Pagan school. Some within 
 the Church had of their own accord already bridged 
 the o-ulf which threatened to cut them off from the new 
 attitude of mind. Were these to be actively opposed 
 or tacitly approved? 
 
 There was nothing unfamiliar, still less dramatic, 
 in the points which raised the issue. Seldom in- 
 deed in history does a generation find itself face to 
 face with an isolated issue. Thought in the Middle 
 Ages was dominated by two principles, or favoured 
 two directions, the logical and the mystical. Some- 
 times one element was dominant, sometimes the other, 
 sometimes both were blended. It is roughly true to 
 say that the teaching of Aristotle and Plato, grasped 
 in some instances through the medium of single, or 
 even double, translation, or filtered through the trans- 
 forming- channel of neo-Aristotelian or neo-Platonist 
 schools, coloured, with alternatingintensity, succeeding 
 schools of thought throughout these centuries. If the 
 Aristotelian influence, growing since the days of 
 Abelard, culminated in the thirteenth century, the 
 fourteenth was to see its influence challenged. There
 
 8 BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 was a quickening of the Platonic influence. At first 
 it was instinctive or romantic, remaining largely 
 uninformed 1 . Yet in the course of time it proved 
 introductory to a fresh interest in Plato of an un- 
 mediaeval type, both from the point of view of the 
 moral 2 and the natural 3 scientist. In providing a 
 learned background to the movement scholars assign 
 supreme importance to the advent in Italy of the eighty 
 years old Hellenist, Gemistos Plethon, who lectured 
 at Florence in 1438 upon the works of Plato. The 
 influence exercised by him had more than one effect 4 . 
 In the sphere of secular philosophy his barely Chris- 
 tianised revival of paganism on a philosophic basis 
 had a negative effect in its breach with Aristotelianised 
 Scholasticism 5 and as such vitally promoted the cause 
 of liberated thought; but also after his inspiration of 
 pupils like the learned cardinal Bessarion 6 , it became 
 clear that a Hellenistic, a Platonised party within the 
 Church itself was beyond a doubt in being 7 . Correct 
 beyond a question in its opposition to the fantastic 
 teaching of Gemistos Plethon, blind obstruction on 
 the part of the Papacy would have resulted in the loss 
 to the whole Church of a party which made contact 
 
 1 Thus Petrarch kept a MS. of some of Plato's dialogues in his library 
 on an honoured shelf though he was unable to read them. 
 
 2 E.g., Campanella (i 568-1639), Giordano Bruno (1 550-1600). 
 
 3 E.g., Paracelsus (1493-1541). 
 
 4 F. Schultze devotes the first volume of his unfinished Geschichte 
 der Philosophie der Renaissance to the philosophy of this remarkable 
 teacher. 
 
 5 See Georgius Trapezuntius, Comparatio Platonis et Aristotelis, for 
 the impression produced by Gemistos Plethon's teaching. 
 
 Creighton, History of the Papacy, Vol. Ill, p. 40, quotes a letter 
 written by Bessarion on learning the death of Gemistos Plethon which 
 startlingly illustrates the influence which he had had upon him. 
 
 7 Bessarion took up the cudgels for Plato when Georgius Trapezuntius 
 attacked the works of that philosopher with acrimony.
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 9 
 
 with an important manifestation of the spirit of the 
 aee. He would be a bold man who would maintain 
 that under all circumstances a challenge to "the spirit 
 of the age" is a mischievous policy for the Church 
 and its leaders to pursue, but fundamentals were not 
 then in question, to any large extent, and what may 
 have been wisdom in the Tridentine Fathers might 
 very well have been unwise in the age of Paul II. 
 
 In close touch with this scholarly, if exaggerated, 
 revival of Platonic studies went hand in hand a revived 
 interest in classical antiquity. Here too was nothing 
 new as can be testified by anyone familiar with the 
 lives of two such different men as Petrarch and Rienzi 1 . 
 But just as Gemistos Plethon elaborated his neo- 
 Platonic, neo-Christian cosmogony, so men turned 
 again to recreate the glories of ancient Rome and to 
 dabble in the construction of classical Utopias. In 
 connection with this tendency academies were founded 
 in various centres modelled upon that of Bessarion 
 at Venice. They were centres of studies, rallying 
 grounds for men of common interests. With them in 
 general there was no reason why the Church should 
 quarrel and, as a rule, the Church did not. The academy 
 at Rome brought down upon itself however strong 
 ecclesiastical displeasure, and an examination of its 
 behaviour tends to the conclusion that in his strong- 
 handling of this body we need see no exception to the 
 rule that Paul 1 1 in dealing with contemporary move- 
 ments exercised a wise and an informed discretion 2 . 
 
 1 Those in Rome during the days when Italy was deciding to enter 
 the European War will remember in this connection the moonlight 
 recitations of D'Annunzio in the Pantheon. 
 
 2 The view of the older historians that Paul II was unsympathetic 
 to the new learning (see Bayle, Diet, crit.) was based upon the personal 
 malice of Platina {Vita Pauli II). Creighton (Vol. ill, p. 274) shows
 
 io BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 The leading spirit of the Roman academy was a 
 learned crank in whose veins ran the illustrious blood 
 of the family of Sanseverini. His real name was 
 Piero but, hating a connection which could only be 
 acknowledged by the confession of its illegitimacy, he 
 gladly set the fashion to his fellow academicians by 
 the adoption of a name in thegood old style, Pomponius 
 Letus. A pupil of Lorenzo Valla, he assumed the 
 point of view of a Rienzi, keeping clear however of 
 any open political activities. His life, as is the case 
 with cranks, was quite consistent. It breathed at 
 every turn the classic spirit and carried that spirit 
 to absurd excesses, as is the case with antiquarian 
 revivals. To his side he gathered men of like mind, 
 some of questioned reputation. Filippo Buonacursi, 
 alias Callimachus Experiens, who at an early age 
 found it safer to transfer his activities to Poland 1 , 
 was enrolled among his followers, while the presence 
 of a Glaucus and an Asclepiades and a Petreius upon 
 the roll of fellowship only emphasised, to the amuse- 
 ment of ordinary citizens, that members of many a 
 Roman family had time to waste in discussions and 
 in recitations and upon an intensive course of mutual 
 admiration. The society was anti-clerical and even 
 anti-Christian. It was darkly said that the brethren 
 met of nights within the Catacombs, where their 
 adoption of pedantic ritual and of strictly antique 
 formularies bordered upon a parody of the early 
 Christian church. The traces of their doings still 
 remain and have formed the object of scholarly 
 
 that this biography " may serve as a conspicuous example of the re- 
 venge taken by a man of letters on one whom he had a cause for dis- 
 liking." The view which I have urged presents a possible alternative. 
 1 See on Callimachus' activities in Poland Zeissberg, Die Polnische 
 Geschichtschreibu?ig des Mittelalters, p. 351.
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM n 
 
 investigation. What seems certain is that a very 
 severe attack of swollen head led them to overstep 
 the bounds of prudence. Reforms in the Papal 
 secretariat had thrown a number of disgruntled civil 
 servants upon their own resources. Some of these 
 were already academicians and from this section 
 action seems to have developed. Threats of a pagan 
 revival upon a larger scale were uttered. Treasonable 
 language was repeated to the Pope passing all 
 tolerable limits. In 1468 Paul II adopted severe 
 measures. Orders were issued for the apprehension 
 of Pomponius Letus, Callimachus, and the chief 
 author of the mischief, the former Papal clerk, 
 Platina 1 . The two former had left Rome, though 
 Pomponius was soon handed over to the Papal 
 officers by the Venetian Government. After a brief 
 imprisonment, in which his conduct showed up as the 
 reverse of philosophic or heroic, he was released and 
 does not seem to have neglected his sharp warning. 
 The Pope rightly discerned that Platina was the 
 more serious offender 2 . He, like Pomponius Letus, 
 was confined within the castle of St Angelo. 
 
 Readers of Platina's life of Paul 1 1 are given an 
 inspiring account of the author's behaviour in ad- 
 versity. According to this account, although subjected 
 
 1 Platina, whose real name was Bartolomeo Sacchi da Piadena, had 
 been a Papal abbreviator. Whereas Pius II had fostered the interests 
 of the abbreviators, Paul II had cut down their number and altered 
 their status. Platina lost his sense of proportion, wrote and uttered 
 sedition and finally was imprisoned for four months. On his release he 
 seems to have become a centre of mischief at the academy. 
 
 2 See Creighton, Vol. Ill, p. 45 and p. 276, for the amusing corre- 
 spondence between the grovelling Pomponius and his gaoler Rodericus. 
 Paul II, although he raised no objection to the continuance of lec- 
 tures by Pomponius, dissolved the academy. It was revived, however, 
 under his successors and continued till it disappeared in the sack of 
 Rome in 1527.
 
 12 BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 to the vilest tortures, he preserved his dignity, 
 answered his persecutors with spirit and upheld the 
 independence and sanctity of letters. Unfortunately 
 we have preserved to us the actual epistles written 
 by the prisoner. They present a wholly different 
 picture. He wearied with his importunities not only 
 the Pope 1 himself but anyone he conceived as able 
 to be instrumental in obtaining his release. "I 
 undertake," he writes, "that if I hear anything, even 
 from the birds as they fly past, which is directed 
 against your name and safety, I will at once inform 
 your Holiness 2 ." He defends his orthodoxy, offers 
 his pen to celebrate the Pope's virtues and his policy, 
 makes any and every grovelling promise if only he 
 may be freed from prison 3 . After a year's humiliating 
 experience Platina was liberated but not restored to 
 favour till the election of the next Pontiff, Sixtus IV, 
 who made him Vatican Librarian 4 . His revenge was 
 embodied in the lives of the Popes which he then 
 composed. The account of Paul 1 1 is distorted with 
 so much mean and trivial gossip that it would merit 
 no attention were it not a work of such high literary 
 skill that for centuries it bamboozled historians of 
 the Papacy. Creighton wisely remarks that there 
 are few indications of Paul II 's admirable qualities 
 so striking as the triviality of what his worst enemy 
 can find to say against him. 
 
 Severe as was the torture and the discomfort of 
 prison life, to which Platina was subjected, it was his 
 injured pride which gave him deepest and most lasting 
 
 1 See Appendix A, No. i. 
 
 2 See Creighton, Vol. II, p. 46. 
 
 3 See Appendix A, No. 2. 
 
 4 For an appreciation of his great merits as a librarian see J. W. Clark, 
 The Care of Books, p. 207.
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 13 
 
 pain. It must have been galling to the literary re- 
 volutionist to find his gaoler to be Rodericus Sancius, 
 the man of all others who may be supposed to have 
 represented in his eyes learning and literary gifts 
 made odious by orthodoxy. It was the old story of 
 the rebel facing the orthodox tradition ; and there was 
 no doubt this time which of the two was in a position 
 to adopt the satiric attitude. If Platina's account can 
 be trusted, he started his sojourn in a spirit of 
 defiance, and his sentiments can be easily appreciated. 
 As a matter of fact there are indications that Rodericus 
 proved a not unkindly guardian when his charge's 
 obduracy had once been broken down. Platina, in 
 his later writings, never refers to him by name, a fact 
 which is remarkable, considering the malice with 
 which he was accustomed to pursue his enemies. It 
 may indicate a desire to forgive, or to forget, one who 
 in a time of personal humiliation did not press home 
 his advantage. It can hardly be fortuitous omission. 
 It is Platina with whom Rodericus Sancius is 
 associated in the dialogue under discussion, De 
 pace et bello. In the introduction reference is made 
 to the peace lately composed among the peoples of 
 Italy by means of the Pope's benevolent interposition. 
 This probably refers to the temporary lull in the 
 bickerings of the peninsula which Paul II brought 
 about in 1468. The dialogue, if this suggestion is 
 correct, was composed during the period of Platina's 
 incarceration. It is well to follow the words of the 
 introduction further: 
 
 Nothing is so effective in securing recognition for the wonder 
 of the blessings of peace and tranquillity on earth, in our opinion, 
 as the conviction of its supreme desirability provoked by trumpet- 
 ing aloud the dignity of war and arms. It was a habit of the
 
 i 4 BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 ancients, on attaining a peace, to hold for the public delectation 
 single combats among selected athletes, or other mimic battles. 
 By analogy, in order that our delight in this cessation of hostilities 
 may be the more abundant, we have determined upon staging a 
 single and a weaponless contest. Thus, while we give glory to 
 Immortal God and to his Supreme Vicar on earth, we organise a 
 duel over war and peace, having in mind to celebrate the peace by, 
 as it were, a kind of war. We are confident that you will find our 
 discussion neither insipid nor uncongenial; and this will be the 
 method of procedure which we shall adopt. With your permission I, 
 Bartholomew Platina, will open the conflict in favour and on the 
 side of peace, being the younger of the two and by nature a man to 
 open argument.... In opposition I, Rodericus Bishop of Calahorra, 
 shall make every possible point against that earthly tranquillity 
 which goes under the name of peace, alleging it to be the prop of 
 every crime, an indefensible, selfish, unreliable and illusory con- 
 dition. As regards war and military training directed to that end, 
 I shall not only constitute myself their apologist but I shall go out 
 of my way to sing their praises.... My friend Platina will answer on 
 behalf of peace.... I shall endeavour to fix upon peace the charge 
 of cowardice, of a lack of spirit and of sloth, while at the same time 
 the origin, the essential dignity as well as the necessity of arms and 
 warfare, I shall endeavour to establish by a logical process of 
 argument that can not be refuted. 
 
 There is really much that needs explaining here. 
 For example, how is it that we find Platina, the 
 rebel and scoffer, engaged upon, or allowing his 
 name to be used in connection with, a literary work 
 which he never later mentions, and whose end is the 
 purveying of sentiments most sober and correct? 
 The situation precludes voluntary action on his part 
 and substantiates the surmised date of 1468. In this 
 year we know that he was eating humble pie. His 
 abject attitude of mind may have extended to the 
 acceptance of an offer of the most incongruous of 
 literary partnerships. Speculation need not reach so 
 far. It is simpler to suppose that the so-called 
 dialogue was in reality no dialogue at all, but, on the
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 15 
 
 contrary, a satiric piece of composition from the pen 
 of the kindly, if slightly malicious, castellan, pointing 
 the moral of his charge's downfall in a treatise that 
 really looked towards the intellectual problems of the 
 day. There is banter in the attribution of hot youth 
 to his supposed opponent and in the reference to 
 warfare without weapons. These allusions would not 
 miss their mark for the inmate of St Angelo: his 
 readers outside would understand the satire of the 
 whole in a way impossible at first for later generations. 
 Examination of the text confirms this attitude to- 
 wards the dialogue. There is no striking difference 
 in the style of the two speakers: and the language 
 of Platina breathes, if possible, a more fervent piety 
 than that of his opponent 1 . Finally, it is to a high 
 degree suspicious that the author, engrossed in the 
 development of his contentions, forgets that he 
 promised in the preface that there should be an 
 answer from Platina. It is not improbable that, 
 parallel with their severe treatment of the academy, 
 the Papal authorities considered it desirable to issue 
 publications, which should have upon informed opinion 
 in the papal states, and even other districts, a steady- 
 ing effect. Faced on the one side by a Turkish 
 menace, which on more than one occasion occupied 
 the pen of Rodericus, and on the other by conduct 
 which hampered the Papal policy at every turn, ranging 
 from the open insubordination of Bohemia to the paro- 
 chialism of almost all Italian states or principalities, 
 the Curia might well see in the pacificism of decad- 
 ence and intellectuality an inebriating poison with very 
 wide and very bad effects. The moment was opportune 
 for the counterblast. In giving it Rodericus once more 
 
 1 See Appendix A, No. 3.
 
 16 BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 performed a valuable task in elucidating the Papal 
 point of view upon these matters for those who had 
 both learning and goodwill. 
 
 The opening argument of Platina is skilfully- 
 composed. It is sufficiently embellished with the 
 appropriate classical allusions and arguments, while, 
 at the same time, its main contention is expressed in 
 language conformable to Christian standards. To 
 pass fair judgment on his exposition of the case it is 
 not necessary to say more than that his reasoning 
 at times seems trite and commonplace. This is no 
 rare judgment to pass on authors of the fifteenth 
 century. Yet from the quaint fancies and special 
 peculiarities that are frequently met with in their 
 writings, save for one brief incursion into the ever 
 popular realm of astronomical speculation, Platina's 
 "case" is curiously free. 
 
 It starts indeed with a spirited description of the 
 horrors caused by war, depicting the tortures of 
 parents, wife and children disappointed of their 
 loved one's return, he lying meanwhile without 
 Christian burial and deprived of the rites of the 
 Church, a corpse for vultures and wild beasts to prey 
 on 1 . Having thus introduced the subject by a proper 
 flight of rhetoric Platina traces the continuance of 
 this sad state of things to the warped judgment 
 and false standards of mankind. In forming these 
 historians 2 are accused of being specially blameworthy 
 in that it is their doing that the false glamour of 
 hero-worship surrounds the so-called "men of action," 
 who in reality are nothing more or less than murderers 
 
 1 See Appendix A, No. 4. 
 
 2 One is reminded of Lord Acton's sentence " After the strong man 
 with the dagger follows the weak man with the sponge."
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 17 
 
 transferred to a public from a private arena 1 . In 
 early, and purer, days the opinion of mankind was 
 revolted even by the idea of capital punishment so 
 sacred was man's body held, made as it was in the 
 image of God 2 . Upon the enormity of interfering 
 with God's handiwork Platina is made — surely with 
 a touch of Spanish humour — to descant at length 
 and in great flights of eloquence. To rob a human 
 being of his life is to destroy the work of years of 
 gradual fashioning. Farmers would indeed deplore 
 the felling of a fruit tree brought at length to the 
 stage of bearing: what must one think then of him, 
 who would cut down the tree of life with its promise 
 not of figs, nuts, acorns or apples, but of human 
 activities, intelligence and qualities 3 ? 
 
 Very grudgingly Platina concedes the illogical 
 concession of most pacifists — the right of defence 
 against aggression from without. He observes only 
 that the spirit of aggression is contagious and that 
 victorious defence is invariably the prelude to 
 reprisals equally reprehensible to the actions of the 
 party first at fault 4 . This said, he passes to con- 
 structive argument and to argument very much in 
 the spirit of his generation. 
 
 Men, he believed, should look up at the heavens 5 
 and, so far as humans may, should base their conduct 
 on the heavenly example. God, the great and good, 
 had ended the confused state, which the Greeks 
 called Chaos, by the introduction of a heavenly 
 order. Of the nine spheres, between the innermost, 
 the earth, and the outermost, on which the fixed 
 
 1 See Appendix A, No. 5. 2 See Appendix A, No. 6. 
 
 3 See Appendix A, No. 7. 4 See Appendix A, No. 8. 
 
 5 See Appendix A, No. 9. 
 
 B. 2
 
 18 BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 stars rest, there intervene seven to which the planets 
 are attached revolving each in its own orbit. The 
 symmetry, in which the whole is placed, is prototype 
 of earthly concord, for this itself is nothing but the 
 proper disposition and harmonious ordering of human 
 beings. God too created the sun, the dispeller of 
 darkness, Venus too, Mercury and the moon, whose 
 ordered conduct delights God and is man's blessing. 
 Mercury is the composer of discord. Minerva, born 
 from the head of Jove, is Goddess alike of peace and 
 wisdom by the aid of which former humanity obtains the 
 latter. Her sacred emblem is the olive, green alike in 
 summer and in winter. On His entry to Jerusalem, our 
 Redeemer trod on olive branches (sic), sure sign that 
 He brought peace not war to men. .So runs Platina's 
 argument, less convincing to present-day pacifists 
 perhaps than to those, whose minds were nurtured in 
 the astronomical tradition of the translucent spheres 
 and whose tastes were tuned to the verbal quiddities 
 of Italian literature of the fifteenth century and a tech- 
 nique which men were to learn in England not many 
 decades later. Peace, Platina concludes, is natural, for 
 who ever heard the normal person pray for war? It is 
 divine, for to leave peace with us was the promise 
 of the Saviour. In a passage of some real beauty 
 he shows that the comforts of peace have physical 
 analogies in nature 1 . He enumerates the works and 
 arts and industries for which peace is pre-requisite. 
 All leads to prove the hatefulness of war, the wisdom 
 and the virtue of the Pope in ending it. 
 
 This is the case which Rodericus builds up in order 
 that he may destroy it. His own answer is singularly 
 uneven, both in its sufficiency for the immediate pur- 
 
 1 See Appendix A, No. 10.
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 19 
 
 pose and in respect of the permanent interest attaching 
 to it. Upon some points raised by Platina he is con- 
 tent merely to challenge the deductions from premises 
 which he does not dispute. Thus to the argument 
 for peace based upon the theory of cosmic harmony, 
 he cogently points out that there is much in nature 
 in which discord is the natural rule, and that this is 
 true, not least of all, of man and man's affairs 1 . Even 
 in minerals, he adds, one finds attraction and repul- 
 sion, as witnesses the magnet ; while common phrase- 
 ology presents the same phenomenon: one speaks 
 of discordant notes, of clashing colours, of different 
 schools of thought. Arguments like these meet 
 Platina's points upon a level, but one may be par- 
 doned if one does not dwell upon them. Along with 
 verbal jugglery in derivations 2 they should be noticed 
 only to pass on. 
 
 Nor perhaps is it necessary to follow Rodericus 
 very closely where, misquoting and editing for his 
 purpose passages in the seventh book of Aristotle's 
 Politics, he speaks of war existing for the purpose of 
 securing peace and thus being itself an indispensable 
 condition. A more modern, and more telling, passage 
 is that in which he praises war as a producer of 
 virtues which cannot otherwise be cultivated, and as 
 a necessary purge for a world, which would otherwise 
 degenerate : a point of view which, if it has in very 
 recent times spectacularly displayed to the world its 
 essential vileness, is one, with which each European 
 generation has had familiarity since the recording of 
 European history 3 . "Non sine divina providentia 
 
 1 See Appendix A, No. ir. 2 See Appendix A, No. 12. 
 
 3 The shifting tides of European thought upon the subject of the 
 place of war in the world have not always worked towards abhorrence 
 
 2 — 2
 
 20 BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 bella geruntur humana in cuius potestate est ut quis 
 bello subjuget aut subjugetur." The ring of the sen- 
 tence lingers a moment in the mind, as one first reads 
 it, not merely because the latinity is unclassical or the 
 note struck unecclesiastical. The answering chord 
 comes from the recollection of a very modern phrase 
 — "Weltmacht oder Niedergang 1 ." To link the argu- 
 ments of the polished castellan with the philosophers 
 of Modern Germany is to take them far too seriously. 
 In this particular direction he is but giving the con- 
 ventional Renaissance parry to Platina's conventional 
 Renaissance thrust. It is no more, and no less, note- 
 worthy than the massed quotation of classical parallels 
 and precedents which figure in both the combatants' 
 remarks 2 . 
 
 Where then, it may well be asked, lies the signifi- 
 cance for posterity of this dialogue ? One may answer 
 in the fact that Rodericus possessed the power of 
 analysing phrases. His method was scholastic but 
 there is something modern in the results he reached. 
 To-day the question can be taken further, but it is 
 
 for it. John of Salisbury (mo — 1182) would have blushed to use the 
 Prussian argument of Rodericus ; see the sixth book of the Policraticus. 
 
 1 See Politik, Vorlesungen von Heinrich von Treitschke, Vol. I, 
 p. 72 (Leipsig Ed. 1899), and compare also the theological views of 
 Bismarck. 
 
 2 In a few pages Platina refers to Alexander the Great, Achilles, 
 Themistocles, Cimon, Caesar, Hannibal, Cyrus, Nero, Marius, Sylla, 
 Pompey, Pyrrhus, Epaminondas, Philopoemen, Darius, Saguntum, 
 Carthage, Fabius, Marcellus, the Lenaean Hydra, the Nemean Lion, 
 Pausanias, Anthony, Camillus, Cincinnatus, Cato, Scipio major, Manilius, 
 Ptolemy. Rodericus is slightly less profuse, as fits the argument, but 
 from other works of his it can be seen that he was capable of just as 
 much profusion (e.g. Speculum humanae vitae). His quotation of 
 Vegetius is a case in point: "Si bella cessantac armorum delitescit usus, 
 nihil plebeius distat a nobili, nihil servilis a milite." This is the 
 language of the Renaissance scholar, not the Papal civil servant.
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 21 
 
 only further on the selfsame road. The sophistries 
 of his opponent passed under dialectical examination 
 and the result was fresh and salutary emphasis upon 
 considerations which the half-truths of the pacifist are 
 often successful in obscuring. He held, as men should 
 hold, that war, although an evil, is not the worst 
 conceivable of evils, that, in a word, there are things 
 worse than war. He said, and he repeated, that war 
 must not be considered as a condition of human 
 affairs unrelated to the reasons for which men set to 
 wage it: that it was, on the contrary, an instrument 
 capable of uses good and bad. He pointed out that 
 there are nameless horrors more contaminating than 
 recourse to arms. That facts are facts and words are 
 words, though in superficial minds the two may be 
 confused, he showed with cogent logic: and yet 
 through all his reasoning the note of the idealist 
 recurred, a warning that there was still room for the 
 crusading spirit. 
 
 The author of the dialogue falls too into his place 
 in the history of those who deal with Christian Ethics. 
 That those, who take the sword, shall perish with the 
 sword, summed up thearguments which the notoriously 
 sceptical Platina drew from the religious sphere. The 
 point, honestly or dishonestly held in Platina's case, 
 is serious and needs an answer. The resources of 
 biblical scholarship which modern theologians ac- 
 quire, were not at the disposal of the bishop. He 
 grasped, however, in rudimentary fashion that the 
 ethical teaching of the Gospels, like that of all the 
 world's great teachers, took as a general rule, a con- 
 crete form, and that the principles, of which such 
 concrete teaching was but the application to specific 
 circumstances, needed elucidation by careful thought
 
 22 BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 and by the collocation of a number of such cases. 
 Thus, in answer to Platina's point he quoted John 
 the Baptist who, when questioned of their duty by 
 the Roman soldiers, replied in terms at least tacitly 
 approving their occupation, " Do violence to no man, 
 neither accuse any falsely, and be contented with your 
 wages." The larger synthesis which is possible to-day 
 would explain the seeming contradiction by referring 
 to the teaching of the Zealots in contemporary Pales- 
 tine, their inadequate conception of the Messianic 
 Kingdom, the equitable nature of the Roman rule, 
 the hopelessness and the mischievous consequences 
 of an armed rebellion and in particular of participation 
 in it by the Galilean's followers. That might be one 
 way, by modern methods, of reconciling the condemna- 
 tion and the toleration of arms found side by side 
 in Gospel teaching; and who will maintain that in 
 method it differs from that of an age of thinkers, for 
 whom in argument the word "distinguo" was for ever 
 on the lips, or who will deny that there is essential 
 similarity in the conclusions to which such method 
 in the two cases leads? "For war in its own nature," 
 concludes the Bishop, "is not bad ; it is our fault that 
 makes it so. Light is good, yet to invalids it may be 
 a curse. But blame the eyes then, not the way that 
 light is made." 
 
 There is a further point that may be emphasised 
 in this connection. Much pacificist argument, which is 
 otherwise cogent, errs in confusing the individual and 
 the state. It is content with demonstrating that a 
 certaincourseof conduct is obligatory upon individuals 
 and it will take for granted that it is obligatory also 
 on communities. It is at the least a large philosophic 
 assumption that the state is a person in the sense that
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 23 
 
 this is true of the individuals composing it. As regards 
 the question of non-resistance, conceded that it is the 
 duty of the individual to sacrifice himself to this 
 extent, it cannot be assumed that any similar duty 
 follows for the state. The moral value of the practice 
 lies in the deliberate sacrifice of self which is required. 
 The moral value vanishes if it is the sacrifice of 
 others, even a minority, that is entailed, and unani- 
 mity within a state as regards such a course of action 
 is not easily conceivable. The subject has been well 
 treated by a recent writer 1 , who points out that even 
 were such unanimity conceivable, no one generation 
 has the right to saddle posterity with the conse- 
 quences of action so momentous for it. It is the 
 essence of democratic Government that to everv 
 generation as open a choice of action as is possible 
 should be preserved. Now it is interesting to notice 
 that, at least by implication, Rodericus lays stress upon 
 the fact that matters of war and peace are first and 
 foremost the concern of the community, and only to 
 a much less degree of individuals. He pointed to the 
 Roman cult of the war goddess Bellona as intentional 
 elevation on their part of war and military virtues to 
 the rank of national and sacred institutions not lightly 
 waved aside. He was glad to quote, and to dwell on, 
 the example of the Maccabees as God-inspired trustees 
 of Israel's honour and its national existence. He 
 traced Rome's history showing that the foundation 
 of its greatness lay in a wisely blended policy of peace 
 and war. He argued more platonico that only in a state 
 can human beings live the perfect life, and that for 
 the state's existence armed forces of defence were 
 
 1 Will Spens, Belief a?td Practice^ Longmans, Green & Co., 2nd 
 edition, Lecture VIII.
 
 24 BISHOP RODERICK 
 
 necessary. He seemed indeed to rack his brains for 
 arguments which emphasised the corporate character 
 of military questions and duties. That public statues, 
 raised by the community to honour famous men, 
 depicted their subjects by preference in military dress 
 and pose, is not for him too trivial an illustration of 
 this point. Thepoint matters justbecause the tendency 
 of the pacifist all down the ages has been to adopt an 
 individualistic approach in a discussion of the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 The last third of his answer to Platina, Rodericus 
 Sancius devotes to an analysis of peace. In great 
 part it is a repetition of his former argument mutatis 
 mutandis from the different angle of approach. 
 Running through his whole contention is a desire to 
 make clear and forcible the distinction between what 
 he terms the "pax terrena" and the "pax coelestis." 
 Modern writers have described the former by speak- 
 ing of a blind or a selfish peace, one conceived or 
 clung to in a fool's paradise. Couched in language, 
 which varies between the syllogistic jargon of the 
 Middle Ages and the flowery vocabulary of the 
 Renaissance academies, it is still worth while to read 
 this section of the dialogue in any quest in search of 
 what men thought in different ages about war. But 
 the main point is quickly made and retains its 
 effectiveness to-day against those who speak of 
 peace without discrimination into species. That is the 
 feature of this forgotten dialogue, topical as almost 
 all the writings of its author, aimed at current mis- 
 chiefs, full of inspiration for which the immediate 
 need has passed away. Yet one cannot handle the 
 rare and scattered manuscripts, from which the 
 dialogue may be deciphered, without forgetting
 
 AND RENAISSANCE PACIFICISM 25 
 
 Bessarion, or the pin-pricks of the Rome academy, or 
 the nettled Paul II, or the Polish question, or the 
 other questions of the day, as one realises that in 
 one's hand there is a key to the rich and varied 
 contribution of a first-rate mind to one of those 
 questions that is always in debate.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE FRENCH "CIVILIANS," ROMAN LAW AND THE 
 
 NEW MONARCHY 
 
 The light which has been thrown upon that period 
 of history in which the modern nation states took 
 shape, has brought into full notice the part played 
 by the revived study of the Roman Law. Writing 
 thirty years ago 1 Mr Armstrong, for example, speak- 
 ing of the rise of the new monarchy in France, said 
 that in so far as its new-won power could be traced 
 to any theoretical basis it rested on the authority of 
 Roman Law, and it is common knowledge that the 
 work of Maitland, Pollard, Figgis and others has 
 illustrated with a variety of illuminating examples 
 the application of this truism. If, however, it is 
 beyond dispute that each fresh application of Euro- 
 pean scholars to the study of Roman Law was ac- 
 companied by political results of moment, it is also 
 true that there is a danger in generalisation. The 
 "civilians" in France, for example, were not men of 
 one type, and their division into various schools 
 provoked the comment of Hotman 2 in 1567. It is 
 well then that historians should take counsel of their 
 legal brethren, and, pending final judgment, it may 
 be useful to record the impressions of one who has 
 attempted to do so. 
 
 1 English Historical Review, I v. 14, 1889. 
 
 2 "En nos Universitez de maintenant il se void deux sortes et comme 
 partialitez de Le"gistes : dont les uns sont hommes chaffourreurs, 
 Bartolistes et barbares ; les autres humanistes purifiez et grammairiens." 
 A ntitribonian.
 
 THE FRENCH "CIVILIANS" 27 
 
 In 1453 King Charles VII of France, by the 
 advice of the legal reformers of his day, thought fit 
 to ordain "que les coutumes, usages et stiles de tous 
 les pays du royaume soient rediges et mis en ecrit, 
 accordes par les coutumiers, practiciens et gens de 
 chacun desdits pays du royaume 1 ." Over a hundred 
 years later Denys Godfrey (1 549-1622) in editing 
 the Consuetudines Pansienses, Biturenses, Aurehan- 
 enses, Turonenses, arranged them according to a 
 classification by title, section, gloss, etc., in the order 
 of the matters treated in the Pandects. In his glosses 
 he was faced with not a little difficulty of definition, 
 for words like "nobilitas" do not too easily conform 
 to classic standards 2 . Something has certainly hap- 
 pened between these dates and revolutions of thought 
 generally cause, or are caused by, corresponding 
 changes in the world of action. Men had been intro- 
 duced to the idea that for bringing order out of chaos 
 in the matter of French and feudal usage there was 
 much to be said for a law that was all-embracing and 
 which knew nothing of peculiars, for a system which 
 familiarised the nation with the notion of a princeps, 
 whose will would bear with equal force on all 3 . It 
 
 1 The ordinance of Montils-les-Jours. 
 
 2 After dismissing definitions of "nobilitas" which do not altogether 
 commend themselves to his judgment, Denys Godfrey professes to 
 see the essential point in the method of its concession and quotes the 
 definition of Bartholus: 
 
 " Nobilitas conceditur a principatum tenente. Sed plerumque expresse 
 et plerumque tacite. Expresse autem ut per instrumenta vel vivae vocis 
 organo, et ista dicitur nobilitas cum charta ; tacite autem et in conscientia 
 seu per indirectum conceditur nobilitas quando aliquid confertur quod 
 nobilitatem habeat annexam ut regnum ducatus vel comitatus. Ista 
 autem nobilitant suos posessores." See Appendix C, No. 1. Consuetu- 
 dines Turonenses, Tit. 24, vm, Gloss. 1. 
 
 3 Thus Duaren writing to Sebastian Albaspinaeus in 1550 of the 
 complicated laws and procedure then administered in France, says 
 "...eo magis quia Romanum iusquodin manibushabemusadamputanda
 
 28 THE FRENCH "CIVILIANS," 
 
 was doctrine which Louis XI or Henry IV did not 
 find distasteful and which Louis XIV was in his 
 time to regard as common sense. 
 
 If, however, the principles of Roman Law told for 
 centralisation and for concentrated power, we must 
 be careful on the other hand not to make the com- 
 mentators outrun their principles and turn them into 
 the theory-mongers of despotism by finding in their 
 writings an analogy which, as a matter of fact, they 
 never drew without some reservations. They were 
 not pamphleteers even in the royal way in which 
 Hooker might be called a pamphleteer. It is true of 
 all of them that they were first and foremost com- 
 mentators. It is interesting, perhaps significant, that 
 in the works of Alciat, Cujas, Duaren, Doneau, 
 Connan, Brisson and Denys Godfrey, the only royal 
 dedications to be found are in Brisson's work on De 
 verborum quae ad ius pertinent significatione , which 
 in 1 596 appeared with a dedication to King Henry III, 
 and in the tract on duelling which Alciat dedicated 
 to Francis I, who after all had invited him to France 
 from Italy. The alleged retort of Cujas to those who 
 would embroil him in religious controversy has 
 achieved renown 1 : while in analogous circumstances 
 
 semel huius Hydrae capita maxime idoneum commodumque videtur." 
 Hotman writes in favour of a code. In England too, as well as in France 
 and Germany, the continuance of a state of legal chaos, which no juris- 
 prudential theory of the day had power to remedy, would have ended 
 either in personal despotism or in disaster. The French jurists were 
 first concerned with providing an effective system for the administration 
 of justice. For this they needed the monarchy as much as the monarchy 
 needed them. Anything which the monarchy may have got from them 
 in the way of a theory of monarchy flattering to monarchs was a by- 
 product and a carefully guarded by-product. Of the slow parallel 
 development of kingship and the common law in England the same 
 mutatis mutandis may be postulated. 
 1 " Nihil hoc ad edictum praetoris."
 
 ROMAN LAW AND THE NEW MONARCHY 29 
 
 he writes expressing his reluctance to enter the arena, 
 "cogitans quam sit alienum a studiis meis congredi 
 cum hominibus nullo alio quam maledicendi studio 
 praeditis 1 ." The standard of reserved severity which 
 Cujas set himself caused comment at the time, but 
 polemics, except legally internecine polemics, were 
 not characteristic of the French "civilians." 
 
 But there is a more important reason for using 
 caution in attributing to the French "civilians" too 
 rigidly monarchic views. Some opinions they express 
 themselves will show it. There is a passage in Alciat's 
 comments from the ancient jurisconsults on the 
 Digest, book L, title 16 {De verborum signifi cat zone), 
 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 ser- 
 vatum 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 trans- 
 latum est. Sic et Franci, Chilperico ejecto, quod regno idoneus 
 non esset, Pipinum 7ra.vKcA.riKa> consilio substituerunt. Et cum 
 Pipini proles a majoribus degenerasset, rursus Odonem, mox eius 
 fratrem Robertum et deinde Roberti nepotem Hugonem 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 justum principem esse qui ex 
 populi consensu regnet quod et Aristot. tradit: qui vero invitis 
 dominetur, eum tyrannum esse, etiamsi Caesar sit, a Septemviris 
 electus vel quaqua alia ratione civili iure potentiam suam tueatur. 
 
 1 '■'■Pro Io. Monlucio episcopo et comiti Valentino Diensi praescriptio 
 adversus libellum quendam nuper editum Zachariae Fur?iesteri sub- 
 dititio nomine."
 
 3 o THE FRENCH "CIVILIANS," 
 
 Unde cum magna regna non ex subditorum consensu sed per vio- 
 lentiam primo constituta sint merito divus Augustinus lib. de civ. 
 Dei iiii magna latrocinia esse dixit 1 . (Ulp. lib. x. ad edict. L. xv.) 
 
 This is hardly the typical Italian utterance which 
 caused so much hostility among French writers of 
 that day 2 . One might almost feel that one was reading 
 a sentence of Hotman or Postel, and that every 
 canon of the nicest French patriotic, yet constitutional, 
 standards had been satisfied 3 . 
 
 1 See Appendix C, No. 2. 
 
 2 Machiavelli is one source of their discontent. But the views of this 
 Italian School, of which Catharine de Medici was alleged to be a prac- 
 tising 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 similitudo sive imago quidem divinitatis est in terris dum 
 idipsum agit in limitato circumspectoque regno quod deus in universo. 
 Hinc reges in Exodo dii vocantur. In his est provinciarum quas regunt 
 summa potestas." This is the "fair Italian hand" of Rodericus Sancius 
 of Arevalo, Bishop of Calahorra, a Spaniard but Castellan of the Castle 
 of Angelo (see Chapter 1). The book {Speculum humanae vitae) was 
 popular. In France, Gering, Kranz and Friburger printed two editions 
 in Paris in 1472 and 1475, when Machiavelli was 3 and 6 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 Besancon 
 in 1488. 
 
 3 "Satis igitur demonstratum esse arbitramur, Regibus Franco- 
 Galliae non immensam atque infinitam potestatem a suis civibus 
 permissam fuissc.sed eos certis legibus et pactionibus obligatos esse." 
 Hotman, Franco-Gallia, Cap. xxv. (Frankfort Ed. of 1665). 
 
 Postel, who has grandiose schemes for the organisation of the world 
 under the French monarchy (see Chapter in), writes nevertheless "il 
 faut, necessairement qu'une Monarchie soit esleue et conformee au 
 monde et prenne son fondement en la Gaule de la force et consentement 
 du peuple Gaulois. ..ilfaut que selon mon principal penser dire et escripre, 
 le treschrestien Monarchie soit par consentement du peuple Gallique 
 esleu, approuve, soubstenu et defendu pour avoir a iamais telle authorite 
 sur l'universel monde en choses temporelles comme Sainct Pierre jadis 
 receut en spirituelle." (See Appendix C, No. 3.) {Histoire des expeditions 
 faites par les Gaulois, pp. 5 and 95.) The popular sanction for Govern- 
 ment is stressed both here and in the conception of the French 
 Monarchy developed in his La Loi salique published in the same year 
 1552. See below, pp. 123, 124.
 
 ROMAN LAW AND THE NEW MONARCHY 31 
 
 It is another aspect of sovereignty which is stressed 
 
 in the following passage of Duaren taken from his 
 
 comment on the Digest, book 1, title 4, 1. 1. 
 
 Nam jus, quod princeps constituit, vim legis habet, etsi non 
 intervenerit populi consensus sed sola principis voluntas. Sic enim 
 accipiendum est quod hie dicitur ab Ulpiano in lib. I. Quod prin- 
 cipi placuit legis habet vigorem : ne alias inde aliqua absurditas 
 consequatur. Quis enim edictum Claudii pro lege habendum 
 putet, quo admonebat populum, nihil aeque facere ad viperae 
 morsum quam taxi arboris succum? Ut ait Suetonius in Claudio. 
 Caesar quidem dixisse aliquando fertur homines debere pro legibus 
 habere, quae diceret. Sed haec invidiosa oratio ac principe indigna 
 exitium ei haud dubium attulit. Superiora verba intelligere debemus 
 de voluntate principis ius constituere volentis, quae voluntas legis 
 vim habet et constitutio dicitur 1 . 
 
 This is the utterance of a teacher who, as the letter 
 I have quoted indicates, believes in the simplicity of 
 the Roman System and in maintaining simplicity 
 within it. He believed in the danger of ultramon- 
 tanism, as witnesses his Defensio pro libertate ecclesiae 
 Gallicanae", and may thus be said in one sense to 
 join hands with the mutually incongruous company 
 of those whom Dr Figgis catalogued as believers in 
 the doctrine of the Divine Right of "Kings" or civil 
 government. That he would have expostulated 
 against too topical or controversial an application 
 of his views is suggested by his quotation from 
 Seneca's epistle xiv, which he is not the only 
 civilian of that time to quote 3 . Moreover his pupil, 
 
 1 See Appendix C, No. 4. 
 
 2 " Dubitandum non est quin rex qui praecipuus est fundator, tutor, 
 custos et propugnator ecclesiarum sui regni, non solum iure possit, sed 
 debeat dare operam et curare ut decreta et constitutiones, quibus haud 
 dubie propulsantur ea quae diximus incommoda, diligenter et bona 
 fide observentur." Defensio etc. § 22 (Appendix C, No. 6). 
 
 3 " Interdum populus est quern timere debeamus ; interdum si ea 
 civitatis disciplina est, ut plurima per senatum transigantur, gratiosi in 
 eo viri, interdum singuli quibus potestas populi et in populum data est" 
 (Appendix C, No. 7).
 
 32 THE FRENCH "CIVILIANS," 
 
 Doneau, is either scholarly or antiquarian, as in his 
 interpretation of Ulpian's famous Dictum 1 , or inclined 
 to take a frankly utilitarian attitude as to the origin 
 of settled government. 
 
 Ad urbes tuendas regna condita. Intellexerunt enim homines, 
 plus esse praesidii et commoditatis ad res bene gerendas unius 
 sapientis et regis in imperio quam in imperio aut totius populi aut 
 plurium: quia vir sapiens vel per se vel sapientium consiliis 
 adjutus facile ac statim consulere posset in commune, ac quae 
 recta decrevisset, statim exsequi, cum ei omnes parerent: in 
 plurium autem administratione propter varia hominum judicia et 
 naturalem ad differentiendum proclivitatem facile eveniret ut dis- 
 traherentur animae in diversas sententias, atque hoc modo aut 
 tandem nihil statueretur certi; aut si quid fieret serius, interim res 
 et bene gerendi opportunitas elaboretur 3 . 
 
 In the figure of Cujas is to be found the grandest 
 personality of the French commentators and the 
 most massive qualities of intellect. In him detach- 
 ment is a passion and not even Brisson, the legal 
 lexicographer, is more scholarly aloof from current 
 issues 3 than is Cujas in his comments upon the 
 
 1 De iure civili, Lib. I, Chap IX. 
 
 2 De iure civili, Lib. I, Chap. VI. See Appendix C, No. 5. This is of 
 course Sir Robert Berkeley's argument in the Ship Money Case. "We 
 must consider that it (Parliament) is a great body, moves slowly : sudden 
 despatches can not be expected in it. Besides though Parliament can- 
 not err, parliament-men may de facto: every particular member of the 
 House hath his free voice ; some of them may chance to make scruples 
 where there is no cause ; it is possible some of them may have sinister 
 ends; these things breed delays, so they may disturbances. ...These 
 matters are considerable in such cases as ours is. Wherein apparently 
 Mora trahit periculum, and to follow the rule, Festina lente, is most 
 dangerous." This, like Doneau's, may be an argument for royalty, but 
 it is argument based on expediency and therefore cuts both ways. 
 
 3 In defining the word King for instance Brisson dwells upon the 
 Roman practice of giving that title to certain barbarian chieftains ; 
 quotes Cicero, Pro Deiotaro, Livy Bk. 31 anent the practice; and dis- 
 cusses the insignia of kingship. The manner of Brisson's death may 
 indicate that he was of like political passions with ourselves, but in his 
 purely legal books one would not think him such.
 
 ROMAN LAW AND THE NEW MONARCHY 33 
 
 Digest, book l, title 16 {De verborum significatione). 
 "Bona civitatis abusive publica dicta sunt, sola 
 enim ea publica sunt quae populi Romani sunt." 
 In his comment upon these words of Ulpian Cujas 
 proceeds to an elaborate catalogue with a distinction 
 of goods into portables, etc. His purpose is anti- 
 quarian, legal. His mind is set on undoing Tribonian, 
 not on undoing erroneous theories as to the monarchy 
 of France. As to monarchy he too took a lofty, but 
 a utilitarian, view 1 . 
 
 Nam jus quod princeps facit, necessitas facit. Nam non ob 
 aliam rem creamus principem, quam, ut decreta faciat et iura det, 
 ut est aperte scriptum...et rectissime dicetur ab Accursio rem a 
 populo venisse ad Senatum, et a Senatu ad principem, per partes, 
 per vices, paulatim, pedetentimque. Quid vero inquit, per partes 
 venit? Ut, inquit, necesse esset Reipublicae per unum consuli. 
 Nam senatus non potuit sufficere omnibus provinces regendis; ob 
 id constitutus princeps, qui rerum omnium esset dominus quique 
 potestate caeteros omnes praepolleret 2 . 
 
 In the interests of that centralisation in which he 
 conceived efficiency to lie he was ready to drive the 
 argument home to the logical conclusion of exempting 
 the princeps from the action of the laws. In his notes 
 upon the sixth section of the first book of Justinian's 
 Institutes one may read : 
 
 1 It is worth noting that in commenting in 1585 (the year after the 
 death of the Duke of Alencon made the direct right to the throne of 
 Henry IV indisputable) upon the Decretals of Gregory IX, he writes : 
 " Nam rex Francorum in spiritualibus alium superiorem non agnoscit 
 quam Romanum episcopum, in temporalibus neminem, nee Romanum 
 episcopum nee Imperatorem, quod privilegium etiam habere regem 
 Hispaniarum scholiastes tentat in Adrianus c. 63 dist. et alii." 
 
 It is significant that he includes in this immunity from external 
 temporal control the Republic of Venice also. 
 
 {Recit. solemn, ad Decretalium Gregorii IX libros 2, 3, 4. Ad cap. 
 Per venerabilem, xin.) 
 
 2 Ad tit. Digest, de Justit. et Jure ad leg. VII. Appendix C, No. 8. 
 
 B - 3
 
 34 THE FRENCH "CIVILIANS," 
 
 Sic, auctore Accursio, ait vires populi datas esse principi et 
 in principem...nec vero ullo alio distat populus a principe, quam 
 quod populus suis legibus tenetur, princeps legibus solutus est. 
 Caeterum ut suis, ita et principis legibus populus tenetur. Principem 
 igitur populus quern vice sua constituit et se principis legibus 
 obligavit 1 . 
 
 Here is political doctrine with a vengeance, one 
 may be tempted to exclaim; further study however 
 modifies the conclusion, for in his lectures on the 
 Digest is to be found the telling disclaimer of any 
 such intention. 
 
 Hodie principes non sunt soluti legibus, quod est certissimum, 
 quoniam iurant in leges patrias in quas olim non iurabant 2 . 
 
 Francois Connan, the pupil of Alciat, carries the 
 moderation of these supposed despotism-mongers a 
 stage further. His argument is this, taking the Lex 
 Regia as a text on which to base it. There were, he 
 points out, some who said that after the transference 
 of power accomplished by this "law" the princeps had 
 been left with precisely the same authority which 
 before had been vested in the populus. This being 
 so, no legislative or administrative act was within 
 the prince's scope unless it had senatorial ratification. 
 With this view Connan could not agree. It did not 
 square with the dictum of Ulpian. Nor was his doubt 
 removed by the suggestion that as princeps senatus 
 the Emperor might claim to represent the senate. 
 The transference to his mind was entire and complete. 
 The princeps in no way shared his authority. The 
 uncontrolled authority of the Emperor dated from 
 the reign of Augustus. 
 
 1 Appendix C, No. 9. 
 
 2 Ad titulos diversos Pandectarum recitatioties solemnes. Ad 
 legem v.
 
 ROMAN LAW AND THE NEW MONARCHY 35 
 
 Quodcunque igitur imperator, inquit Ulpianus 1 , per epistolam 
 
 et subscriptionem statuit, vel cognoscens decrevit vel de piano 
 
 interlocutus est, vel edicto praecepit, legem esse constat. Hae sunt, 
 quas constitutiones vulgo appellamus. 
 
 Of course no considerations of this kind could 
 
 absolve the princeps from the binding principles of 
 
 the law of nature. By these he and the citizens alike 
 
 were bound by so strong an obligation that disregard 
 
 upon his part might end in a duty of resistance... 
 
 ut si qui iusta haereditate rex est, tyrannicos mores induat, 
 divina atque humana iura pervertat, suorum non salutem petat sed 
 sanguinem, eiiciendus regno est, dum id fiat, rex est nee atten- 
 tandus a quoquam est, nisi communi suorum decreto deliberatum 
 sit et constitutum. Sanctum est enim nomen legis, sanctum et regis. 
 Hie si tyrannus expellendus est 2 . 
 
 "eiiciendus est," "communi suorum decreto," what 
 phrases are these? It might almost be a propagandist 
 pamphlet for the "Seize" that we have stumbled into 
 or an excerpt from the Franco-Gallia. If this is to be 
 the considered sentence of the teachers of the Civil 
 Law, Kings might well think that they had best turn 
 common lawyers, and the universities be checked in 
 a course which could bring nothing with it but 
 disaster to the royal cause 3 . In a word Connan's 
 
 1 See Digest, 1, 4. 1. 1. 
 
 2 Comment. Jur. Civ. I, 8. See the following passage later in the 
 book : " Postquam vero coepissent ii, quibus ad hunc modum fuerat 
 data rerum omnium potestas, contra rationis praescriptionem multa 
 pro animi libidinem facere, et periculosum videretur unius arbitrio 
 fortunas et vitam omnium committi, quidam eiectis regibus, leges 
 posuerunt, alii retentis regibus tanquam frenos legum iniecerunt, ut 
 eos nimia potentia ferociantes duritia iuris cohiberent." 161. 7. Ap- 
 pendix C, No. 10. 
 
 3 In England for instance Henry VIII had founded the Regius 
 Professorships at Cambridge in 1540 and at Oxford, it is said, in 1535, 
 though the date is more doubtful. Ten years before Francis I had 
 persuaded Alciat to leave Milan for France where he lectured at 
 Avignon, Bourges and Paris. Paris was not to shine as a school of 
 law however till a much later date. 
 
 3—2
 
 36 THE FRENCH "CIVILIANS," 
 
 utterance went further than that of any other writer 
 on the law here quoted. 
 
 It is doubtless the part of wisdom not to elaborate 
 in too great detail any theory based on quotations, 
 representative it is hoped, but all of them, to a greater 
 or a less degree, obiter in their nature. This much 
 at least is certain. The French civilians of the 
 seventeenth century approached the study of the 
 Roman Law from different points of view. Whether 
 however their method of approach to it arose from 
 a historical or from a more purely analytical pre- 
 dilection, whether they directed their interest more 
 towards the content or the system, the very nature 
 of the law they taught forced them into the position 
 of advocacy for the centralised and universal as 
 opposed to the decentralised and the particular. The 
 example set by them was to be followed with profound 
 effect by students and teachers of French Law. 
 Dumoulin was the first only of a school which em- 
 braced names like Coquille, Loisel, Pithou and even 
 Pothier. And who can doubt that the effect was, be- 
 sides being professional, political as well. Just in so far 
 as political partisanship was not characteristic of them, 
 the "civilians" of the sixteenth century in France 
 presented a united front. Their doctrine was effective 
 because it treated of sovereignty and not sovereigns. 
 The salutary lessons, which by inference from their 
 writings could be learned as to the danger of impairing 
 the unity or simplicity of the former, gained force 
 from the remarks upon popular sovereignty to be 
 found in Alciat, the argument from expediency to be 
 found in Cujas or Doneau or the strong words on 
 the duty of rebellion expressed in Connan's works. 
 It was just this impersonality, this detachment, this
 
 ROMAN LAW AND THE NEW MONARCHY 37 
 
 reliance upon principle which was absent from other 
 contemporary theorists. Many of these were content 
 to see the monarchy of France, the seat of sovereignty, 
 a prize for the more successful party in a war of wits 
 and arms. So few had that, which alone lends nobility 
 to the speculation of political philosophy, the con- 
 viction that institutions are instruments for a political 
 or social purpose, not vantage points to elevate the 
 leaders of faction, or hustings for the demagogue. 
 The very Huguenots who after St Bartholomew 
 applauded the Vindiciae or the Franco-Gallia were, 
 by what one can only in charity call a change of em- 
 phasis, those who, after the death of Alencon in 1584, 
 proclaimed most energetically the sanctity of the 
 Salic Law. A direct sequence of events again explains 
 the difference in the Catholic party's views in 1559 
 and 1588, between an adherent of the Guises during 
 the reign of Francis II and those of the Seize, for 
 the excesses of which the Guises were, if truth were 
 told, responsible. For both religious parties principles 
 seemed interchangeable, but, if the Roman jurists of 
 the day proved no exception to the rule in their 
 private capacity, it is not manifested in their work, 
 and the dominance of civilisation for the third time 
 by the Roman jurisprudence, to which end their 
 work was instrumental, lifted the development of 
 events out of the fashioning of religious controversy. 
 Here join hands the " civilians " and the Politiques, 
 the party which anticipated the modern nation state ; 
 and the new monarchy may be said to trace in part 
 its new-won power to the writings of the Roman 
 Lawyers, or, as these observations would indicate a 
 better way of putting it, to the impersonal authority 
 of Roman Law.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WILLIAM POSTEL, WORLD PEACE THROUGH 
 WORLD POWER 
 
 After every great European war the subject of world 
 organisation has taken a prominent position in the 
 minds of men. So it was in the period of the Vienna 
 Congress, so it was, as one may read in novels of the 
 period, after the Crimea; so it is with especial emphasis 
 to-day. Students of the subject have been at pains 
 to trace to its origin the idea of international law and 
 organisation. They have pointed to this or that cir- 
 cumstance, to this or that individual, as the first inci- 
 dent, or personage, in its eventful history ; and their 
 labours have led them to excavate in distant and 
 strange quarries. The chief point of interest however 
 lies not so much in the possibility of tracing for the 
 present " League of Nations" project a spiritual ances- 
 try among say the crusaders of the eleventh, or the 
 "civilians" of the sixteenth, century. Granted that 
 men of different schools of thought in different centuries 
 were moved by the international idea, the important 
 matter still remains — to learn from the study of as 
 many types as possible how to them, it, or kindred 
 projects, appeared both desirable and feasible. For 
 types of men transcend the centuries, and the grand 
 idea, which is the object of our study, seen through 
 the vision even of those most unusual, or those most 
 bizarre, has been subjected to an analysis which at 
 times may prove illuminating.
 
 WILLIAM POSTEL 39 
 
 This consideration justifies a new attempt to study 
 the life and writings of a man whose name may be 
 generally unknown, but one whose work has occupied 
 the attention of those interested in that "peculiar 
 amalgam of law, ethics and theology" at the end of 
 the Middle Ages, and at the beginning of the New 
 World', to which international law traces its origin. 
 William Postel was born on Lady Day, March 25th, 
 1 5 10: he died in Paris September 6th, 1581. His 
 life coincided therefore with the reigns of the French 
 Kings Francis I, Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX 
 and Henry III. He saw the glory and might of 
 France under Francis I broken and dissipated during 
 the distressful period of the civil wars. He did not 
 live to see the wounds bound up in the reign of 
 Henry of Navarre. It was an age prolific in great 
 men, Rabelais, Amyot and Ronsard in the sphere of 
 letters, de Thou and Jeannin, to quote two only among 
 the learned statesmen, Henri Estienne, Bude, Cujas 
 and Doneau in letters and in law, Calvin and the early 
 Jesuits in the theological arena. In an age of contro- 
 versialists he shone among the foremost ranks. 
 
 Postel ton grand ami, qui a toute remplie 
 De sa grande fureur la France et l'ltalie 
 Et qui a pu aussi ton esprit attiser, 
 
 are lines written to Ronsard by a poet of the times. 
 
 His Jesuit biographer attributes to him some sixty 
 publications, many of which are rare and some no 
 longer extant. The subjects covered are wide, 
 philology, geography, oriental languages, astrology, 
 history, theology : and if his learning, which in geo- 
 graphy and oriental languages especially perhaps 
 has remained significant, was extensive it was certainly 
 provocative. One scholar portentously proclaims his
 
 4 o WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 delight in Aristotle "because there are in this divine 
 author none of the errors of Luther, Melanchthon or 
 Postel." Lambert Danau (b. 1530) calls him "dog" 
 and his work a "nebulo impurissimus," Henri Estienne 
 (1 531-1598) an "execrable monster," de Serres 
 (d. 1598) singles him out as "the father of the deists," 
 Sutcliffe (d. 1 628) deems him "an atheist," Beza thinks 
 him "un cloaque de toutes les heresies," while his 
 chief enemy Mathias Francowitz (Flaccus Illyricus), 
 in a melting mood compared to some in which he 
 wrote, maintains that "several devils were lodged in 
 the body of this unfortunate man : it was never he, 
 but a legion of devils who vomitted the abominations 
 of which his works are full." For Postel to have pro- 
 voked such a reaction in a world of thought rich to 
 overflowing with original ideas excites our curiosity. 
 Familiarity with his life and with at least some of his 
 less repellently obscure works shows a man noble in 
 character, afflicted beyond the common lot and one 
 holding views that are of interest in the sphere of 
 international philosophy. 
 
 Postel's parents lived at Dolerie, near Barentin, in 
 Normandy in a small and obscure fashion. They did 
 not long survive his birth, leaving him upon the world 
 friendless and in need. We do not know how he lived 
 through his earliest experiences, nor how he found 
 the chance of education. At thirteen years of age he 
 held the post of usher in a small school at Sagy sur 
 l'Aubette in the modern department of Seine-et-Oise. 
 The strain of life must even at this early date have 
 frayed his nerves and rendered his disposition crabbed, 
 for the story runs that one of his pupils attempted 
 suicide in deep resentment and that another stole in 
 upon him in the night intent to kill him. He saved
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 41 
 
 some money from his pay and went to Paris, where 
 he encountered the lot of many a precocious clown 
 and was robbed of all he owned by the first strangers 
 he fell in with. He laboured in the fields and in time 
 made up his losses, winning the desired goal at last, 
 a nomination to the college of St Barbe. Here he 
 was free to indulge in full his voracious appetite for 
 study. He found a Jew who taught him Hebrew, he 
 attained a more than working knowledge of Greek 
 and, attracting the interest of a wealthy traveller from 
 Spain, he refused his offer to return with him as 
 secretary but did not let him go till he had perfected 
 himself under his tuition in Portuguese and Spanish. 
 All through his life it seems that Postel was doomed 
 to find a difficulty in remaining in one place. His 
 curiosity to see a royal pageant took him to Rheims. 
 Once there he had the offer of a private tutorship. 
 The pupil was the younger brother of a local abbot. 
 The arrangement seems to have been satisfactory. 
 The boy proved apt and affectionate : Postel on his 
 side liked the boy and many years later in 1552 dedi- 
 cated to him a volume of his works. While at Rheims, 
 or shortly afterwards, he attacked Bucer in a tract 
 defending orthodoxy, which, however, did not win the 
 doctorate for which it was presented to the Sorbonne 
 as a thesis. It was never published and we have no 
 data for judging its contents. In other lines of study 
 his efforts won more appreciation. Though they were 
 not published till 1538, he had been since 1532 pre- 
 paring material for his first linguistic publications, the 
 Introduction to the Alphabets of twelve different lan- 
 guages and The Origin and antiquity of the Hebrew 
 language and the Hebrew nationality. The fame of 
 his erudition reached the ears of King Francis I and
 
 42 WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 his learned sister Margaret. The former was engaged 
 on the task of adding to the royal library at Fontaine- 
 bleau and he coveted in particular some oriental 
 manuscripts. Who could be more apt for the purpose 
 of collecting them than the youthful and acquisitive 
 Postel ? In 1536 we find him sent, with a companion 
 Peter Giles and with four thousand crowns between 
 them, to seek for manuscripts in oriental countries. 
 They visited Egypt upon their journey, winding up 
 in Constantinople, where they attached themselves to 
 the French mission, recently accredited to the Sublime 
 Porte under the Seigneur de Forest. The French 
 ambassador was glad to use their knowledge of the 
 language and the customs of the country in the com- 
 mercial negotiations which he was then conducting 
 with the Sultan. At the same time Postel made every 
 use of his opportunities and under the tuition of a 
 learned Jew embarked upon Chaldee and cabalistic 
 studies. 
 
 After what seemed only too short a time he returned 
 in 1 537 to Paris, stopping at Venice on the way where 
 he conferred upon the subject of oriental typography 
 with the Venetian printer Daniel Bomberg. In Paris 
 his reception was cordial and like Casaubon sixty 
 years later, he was put upon the staff of the Royal 
 lectors, his subjects being Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. 
 Like Casaubon also he was destined to learn that it 
 was one thing to be assigned a salary by a royal patron 
 but quite another thing to receive it with regularity. 
 The Chancellor Poyet seems to have befriended him 
 more than once, and, outside his official emoluments, 
 he received on one occasion 225 livres in return for 
 special services. With the fall of Poyet from power 
 Postel lost his lectorship. Fortunately before this
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 43 
 
 happened he had been presented by Poyet's nephew, 
 Mgr. Gabriel Bouvery, the Bishop of Angers, to a 
 deanery, which, heldper vicarium, gave him leisure for 
 his occupations and, being more regularly compen- 
 sated, put him outside the pressure of necessity. 
 
 If Postel's career had been terminated in his thirty- 
 third year, in 1543, he would have been regarded as 
 an oriental scholar of great promise and precocious 
 achievement, whose interests extended beyond the 
 subject of Eastern languages into the spheres of 
 theology, geography and history. Beside the books 
 mentioned above he had published an A rabic Grammar 
 (1538), A Description of Syria ( 1 540), The Athenian 
 Magistracy ( 1 541), The Book of the Ko ran (1543), The 
 argument of the Holy Spirit ( 1 543) and The Christian 
 Euclid (1543). In these writings there was little to 
 presage the coming ecclesiastical disfavour which was 
 to be his portion, unless indeed from those nuisances 
 which beset every ecclesiastical system, the obscur- 
 antists, to use Postel's own words, "qui hominem 
 alicuius linguae a propria diversae peritum statim 
 proclamant hereticum." Up to this year his ecclesi- 
 astical record was a good one. In The argument of 
 the Holy Spirit he follows but in Anselm's footsteps 
 when he proclaims his desire to establish the existence 
 of the Deity by means of purely human arguments : 
 while in his Book of the Koran he goes out of his 
 way to attack the Protestants, dubbing them empty, 
 or vain, evangelists. Small wonder then that his name 
 was mentioned in connection with another palaeo- 
 graphical mission to the East, again with royal 
 patronage. Unfortunately the bent of Postel's mind 
 in these months disinclined him from the project and 
 was destined before long to alienate official favour, 
 ecclesiastical and royal.
 
 44 WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 Before everything Postel was a fanatic. He was 
 fanatical in his pursuit of truth. To him the truth was 
 personal not abstract : it was incorporated in his own 
 experience; it became either a reproof for past be- 
 haviour, or an indication of immediate duty. The 
 journeys which he undertook, the scenes he witnessed, 
 the knowledge he acquired, were to him butphenomena 
 emphasising thedivine assertion that there were sheep 
 outside the fold and the divine injunction to go forth 
 and preach the gospel. Thus it came to pass that 
 during the years 1540 to 1543, and with increasing 
 intensity, Postel meditated upon, and was distressed 
 by, the thought of the existing divisions among man- 
 kind, a standing blasphemy against the fatherhood of 
 God. 
 
 His meditations long continued had two important 
 consequences. In the first place he determined to 
 devote his life to the task of healing these divisions. 
 In the second place he sought coadjutors and found 
 them, or thought to have found them, in the little 
 company of seven, some of them fellow members of 
 his College, who in a solemn mass heard together on 
 August 15th, 1534, in the Chapel of St Denis, had 
 laid the foundations of an association which was to 
 develop into the Society of Jesus. In 1544 Postel 
 went to Rome and was attached to the Society upon 
 probation. But, if the record of the early days of the 
 Jesuits is the record of an evangelistic enthusiasm 
 and an international outlook not unlike Postel's, it also 
 records the gradual development of an iron discipline 
 which was to culminate in the ratification, by a general 
 council of the Order in 1588, of Laynez' proposals for 
 a despotic constitution. With institutionalism Postel 
 was fundamentally at loggerheads; it is not surprising 
 therefore to find that his connection with the Jesuits
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 45 
 
 endured only for twelve months. Loyola publicly 
 dismissed him in 1545 and some authorities have 
 spoken of the subsequent relations between him and 
 the Order as embittered. This is hardly an adequate 
 picture of the position, for in 1553 he speaks of "con- 
 sortium illud, in quo merito a nomine Jesu nomen 
 habent, quo duce totus Oriens in maritimis est ad 
 fidem Christi fere iam conversus," while at the end 
 of Postel's life Paschasius says he saw him on friendly 
 terms with members of the Order in Paris dining 
 with them and discussing with them in the Lombardic 
 Schools. Of his "dismissal" Postel himself writes 
 that they indeed dismissed him, but only as St Paul 
 "dismissed" St Mark. 
 
 The trouble lay in the method, which his mind had 
 come to regard as the best method, for attaining the 
 unity of mankind which he so devoutly longed to see. 
 In 1542 he was airing his views to the Sorbonne 
 which was unsympathetic: in 1543 he is said to have 
 had an interview with the King himself who proved 
 ultimately antagonistic too. His first book The Con- 
 cord of the World was published before he left France 
 for Italy in 1543. He was elaborating his views 
 throughout the next ten years and in as many volumes; 
 in essence however his contentions did not alter, and 
 it is excusable if at this period of his life's story one 
 is chronologically to anticipate a little and describe 
 them. 
 
 Added to Postel's passion and his learning there 
 was deeply embedded in his heart a tendency to 
 mysticism. Often in expounding a straightforward 
 thesis it seems that the very words, as he employs 
 them, melt before his eyes into their mystical signifi- 
 cance, and the logician becomes a dreamer. This
 
 46 WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 tendency gave him his fondness for the symbolism 
 of mathematics and made him an avid student of the 
 Cabala. To the modern reader this disposition may 
 well prove a stumbling-block. With Erasmus he 
 may well exclaim "Cabbala et Thalmud, quicquid 
 hoc est, meo animo nunquam arrisit," and it is but a 
 step from this attitude of mind to that of discounting 
 everything that Postel said on any subject. It is 
 right to remember all the same that the Cabala, and 
 cabalistic studies, worked their fascination on types 
 of men as different for example as Pico della 
 Mirandola, Reuchlin and the Admirable Crichton ; 
 while Bodin, the sanest thinker of his generation, in 
 descanting upon law and political philosophy, is not 
 out of harmony with a certain strain of thought in 
 Roman jurisprudence — to which Professor Goudy has 
 borne testimony — when he indulges in a to us in- 
 comprehensible excursus into the mystery of numbers. 
 This borne in mind one can read with patience the 
 elaborate mystical and numerical disquisitions of Postel 
 on world concord. His obsession was the number two, 
 the balanced symmetry of which he saw in all things 
 heavenly and earthly. 
 
 Starting, as did many scholastic philosophers, he 
 saw the double nature of universal law. There was 
 on the one hand the eternal law, the controlling plan 
 of the universe, existing in the mind of God. There 
 was the natural law also or the participation of man, 
 as a rational creature, in the eternal law, by doing 
 which he discovers his true end in life. The nature 
 of mankind itself was double. Beside the heart, the 
 seat of human passions, the lower part of man, the 
 anima as Postel labels it, there was the higher part, 
 the head or brain, the animus, through the agency
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 47 
 
 of which man alone reached the knowledge of good 
 and evil, of what consequently was seemly in the 
 commonwealth. For the duty, or rather the only 
 possible action, of mankind was comprised in the 
 interpretation and approximation of its condition to 
 the unity of all creation which found its consummation 
 in the simultaneous divinity and humanity of Christ. 
 What else was meant by the petition in the Lord's 
 Prayer, "Thy will be done, as in heaven so on 
 earth" ? 
 
 Que doict-on entendre et demander, disant: Soit faicte la 
 volunte en la terre comme au ciel? C'est qu'il fault du tout et en 
 tout et partout, que toutes choses soyent restituees...a celle fin 
 que comme nous voyons le Ciel avec ses estoilles estre resgle'ment 
 gouverne...par les divines intelligences, nous en semblable forme 
 voyons apres destruictz toutes les tyrannies de ce monde, tant les 
 spirituelles comme les temporelles, et ann que la forme et imitation 
 du ciel soit estendue sur la terre. 
 
 How could this end be brought about ? The chief 
 obstacles were the divisions of mankind. It was 
 appalling to the mind of Postel that nothing was 
 being done to dissipate or mollify their baleful 
 influence. The Church did not attempt to remove 
 even Christian differences. Writing to Maes, the 
 Hebrew scholar and his constant correspondent, in 
 1 563 he deplores the narrow outlook of the Tridentine 
 delegates. For his part he was of opinion that the 
 Council of Trent was a body more suited to confirm 
 the Roman domination than to convert schismatics 
 and he asks where, at this solemn gathering, were 
 the delegates of Muscovy, Armenia, Greece, Georgia 
 and Aefhiopia. The first step on the road to the 
 glorious end which he proposed, must be a study of 
 the races outside Europe. It must be done with tact
 
 48 WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 if it was to lead to a bridging of the gulf. His 
 learned books about the East never lose sight of 
 a missionary purpose. Let those who pursue this 
 purpose in the East be all things to all men, he 
 writes in his Concord of the World, before Mahom- 
 medans let them not start with asserting the divinity 
 of Christ. At first let them emphasise in conversation 
 the glory of God and the beauty of the world. Later 
 they might broach the subject of the Holy Trinity 
 and the Messianic prophecies, and so on. For this 
 purpose Postel knew his own suitability and to it he 
 dedicated his strength and his learning; "aut uni- 
 versi animos ad Christum per linguarum variarum 
 beneficia reducam aut in hoc negocio moriar" he 
 writes in 1550. The idea was not original. It had 
 been present to the minds of the fathers of the 
 Council of Vienne when they urged the furtherance 
 of oriental studies by the Universities. Nor was 
 Postel alone in being struck by the idea of what 
 could be done by Europeans who travelled through 
 a heathen country. Gro.tius himself years afterwards 
 summed up the Christian faith in rhyming couplets 
 whereby mariners, having committed them to memory 
 during the long hours of their watches, could, when 
 shipwrecked, put them to good purpose by the con- 
 version of the heathen. 
 
 Postel however laboured under no illusions as to 
 the efficacy of such counsels of perfection. God 
 wishing to fulfil himself in a manifestation of divine 
 unity on earth would, Postel thought, have chosen 
 some agent on earth through which it should be 
 accomplished. He devoted much thought to the 
 discovery of this agent and several books to the 
 explanation of his conclusions to the world. He
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 49 
 
 might have been expected to have seen this agent in 
 the Papacy, or in the Church acting through General 
 Councils, or in the Emperor. It is a fact which 
 political philosophers will deem of interest in the 
 record of the growing significance of the secular 
 nation state that he found it in the kingdom and 
 people of France. "Je suis tout assure que le coeur 
 et antique vertu des Francoys sera du tout resuscite" 
 moyennant la verite eternelle." 
 
 To this point he returns again and again and 
 brings into play along with other arguments the 
 historical. It is true that his historical argument can- 
 not be defended by modern critics. He relies on the 
 writings of his predecessors indiscriminately and 
 bows slavishly to their authority, the Pentateuch, the 
 Sibylline prophecies, the writings of Berosus, a 
 historian who wrote in the third century a Babylonian- 
 Chaldean history in Greek, fragments of which have 
 been preserved by Josephus and Eusebius. His 
 argument amounts to this. Noah had three sons ; 
 the divine curse resting upon Ham the number was 
 reduced to two, again the mystic two! Of these 
 Shem, the elder, inherited the levitical position, was 
 "set apart" to become the witness to divine purpose 
 in the world, just as Japheth, the younger, the lay 
 brother as it were, was ordained to be the instrument 
 of its accomplishment. Now Japheth had asonGomer, 
 and to Gomer as their first ancestor could be traced the 
 history of the Gomerites, or Gauls, just as Gomer's son 
 Ashkenaz was the founder of the Germanic races. 
 Shem's spiritual jurisdiction descended to the Pope. 
 The Kingdom of France inherited the duties of 
 Shem's brother Japheth. In the performance of these 
 duties, in fulfilling the stern purposes of God, no 
 
 B. 4
 
 5 o WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 earthly power could be allowed to block the way, an 
 assumption which, beside its obvious other implica- 
 tions, leads to the somewhat unexpected conclusion 
 that, in all matters of this world at least, the Papal 
 jurisdiction must yield the place to that of France. 
 
 In ruling the destinies of so sublime a nation the 
 French Kings held a position truly awful and Postel, 
 who was no respecter of persons, was not slow to tell 
 them so. The King of France according to this 
 theory became indeed God's silly vassal. "It is no 
 more glorious to be born of exalted origin," says 
 Postel, "than to be born with black hair." "Si autem 
 roges," he writes upon another occasion, "uter sit 
 potior, patricius sine laude an plebeius virtute orna- 
 tissimus, idem est ac si roges uter histrionum sit 
 praeferendus, qui servum optime an qui regem 
 pessime agat." It is not lost time to dwell upon this 
 attitude because there is in Postel's writings a theory 
 developed of an elective monarchy in France, well 
 worth a closer study from those who trace the 
 development of political theory throughout the 
 centuries. For present purposes it is enough to note 
 that in the eyes of Postel " il faut necessaire qu'une 
 monarchic soit esleuee et confirmee au monde et 
 prenne son fondement en la Gaule de la force et 
 consentiment du peuple Gauloys" and that of his 
 life work and theories he can say " estant done mon 
 general but de conduyre le monde en fondement et 
 vray principle de la concorde, union et souveraine 
 paix par le seul possible moyen de la Monarchic 
 Treschrestienne." 
 
 The arguments by which this theory is built up 
 may seem strange enough to modern ears. Familiarity 
 with the writings of the day will show them not to
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 5 r 
 
 be exceptional. They were shared by many of his 
 contemporaries, they were regarded by all as needing 
 serious consideration if they were to be refuted. The 
 phraseology is not more strange to-day than that of 
 the pages of Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the 
 World where Noah and Joshua stand side by side 
 with oriental monarchs or with Tudor sovereigns. 
 Moreover Postel was irrepressible : again and again 
 he elaborates the theme. In 1548, in a treatise on the 
 symbolism of the candelabra in the tabernacle of 
 Moses, he presses his theory as to the divine intention 
 of a French world monarchy. In 1551 he returns 
 to the attack in his Reasons for a Universal Monarchy . 
 The next year is given to apologetics for the French. 
 He publishes An account of all the expeditions ztnder- 
 taken since the Flood by the Gauls or French, following 
 it by An Apology for Gaul and a description twelve 
 months later of The Golden Age. Nor would he rest 
 content by exposition. In mordant terms he pillories 
 the authors, who in their writings have done no, or 
 insufficient, justice to the Gauls. His life was one of 
 storm and stress but, to do him justice, he remained 
 consistent in his views. 
 
 It is easy enough to understand however that the 
 Society of Jesus might find one who held these views 
 an embarrassing fellow member. It was so, partly 
 because the Jesuits in their early days had no room 
 for that diversity of opinion in their ranks upon the 
 existence of which in later days Lord Acton com- 
 ments ; partly because in a Society predominantly 
 Spanish and anxious to demonstrate its papalism 
 before exalted eyes, strong Gallicanism, rather fan- 
 tastically urged, produced a cleavage in the ranks. 
 His opinions however procured him something more 
 
 4—2
 
 52 WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 than expulsion from the Order. From letters written 
 to Maes it is clear that he spent some time in prison. 
 When and why he was thus treated, except that his 
 arrest took place before January, 1 547, and that it was 
 in connection with his opinions, is not certain. He 
 must have been pardoned and liberated by 1548, 
 because in that year we find him acting as secretary 
 for oriental languages to Pope Paul III. Moreover 
 sometime in 1547 he paid his second visit to 
 Venice. 
 
 This Venetian visit was to prove the second 
 turning point in Postel's life. Events he then 
 experienced turned Postel the orientalist and humani- 
 tarian into Postel the visionary and heretic. He had 
 been living through a nervous and intellectual strain 
 of no small nature. His high hopes had been dis- 
 illusioned, had even ended in his personal disgrace. 
 His opinions made converts slowly if at all. Physi- 
 cally he felt the wear and tear of three hard years. 
 His poverty was abject. He experienced the scholar's 
 need of books and, even when every penny he could 
 scrape together was spent upon them, the supply 
 remained inadequate. Food and vesture and even 
 coal took a second place or were neglected altogether; 
 "nisi admoto oris halitui calamo nil atramenti ob 
 gelu instillari potuisset" we find him writing to a 
 correspondent. Small wonder then that in Venice he 
 fell ill. For some time he hovered between life and 
 death. Returning health for his battered body had 
 none of the tranquil indolence which convalescence 
 brings for normal men. It was a time of fevered 
 visions and stern self-questioning* There can be little 
 doubt his mind henceforth became liable to aber- 
 ration.
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 53 
 
 It was in the hospital of St John and St Paul in 
 Venice that he met a woman, named Joanna, about 
 fifty years of age, a devout woman, who tended the 
 sick, but of whose personality and history nothing is 
 known from any other source. It so happened that 
 the mystical significance of the number two found 
 for itself in Postel's mind about this time a new 
 interpretation in the balance of the sexes. In the 
 fantastic web which the sick man's fancy wove the 
 good Joanna became implicated. A hundred years 
 later, in a dirty book, indecent explanations are sug- 
 gested. They may be disregarded. His contem- 
 poraries, with the exception of the insanely hostile 
 Francowitz, never so much as hint at them and 
 Postel had enemies enough to do so had they wished. 
 
 Man's double nature still obsessed him and it was 
 revealed to him upon his sick bed that the year 1547 
 was to see final redemption or "restoration" brought 
 within the reach of man in both his aspects. In this 
 year the efficacy of Christ's redeeming power had 
 been born again, acting with double, and equal, power 
 through a double instrument. For if the old Gospel 
 preached that man's animus or soul was to find 
 redemption in Christ Jesus, it was now Postel's 
 allotted task to demonstrate that the anima, the 
 "inferior part of the spirit," needed renewal also. As 
 man's fall was due alone to the old Eve, so his restora- 
 tion should be accomplished by a new Eve. This new 
 Eve Mother Joanna became, so he asserted, through 
 the substance of Christ dwelling in her. Postel him- 
 self became alike her forerunner, a second John the 
 Baptist, as also the firstfruits of Christ's redeeming 
 power exercised mediately through her person. She 
 it was who, by establishing his right to regeneration,
 
 54 WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 opened to him through herself all the mysteries of 
 Christianity. 
 
 Here we have, of course, another case of the 
 religious excesses to which the Reformation and its 
 counter movements sometimes led 1 . As a great 
 authority upon the subject writes : "Anabaptism 
 ranged over the whole gamut of human passions and 
 possibilities, from the pure and pious enthusiasm of 
 a Balthasar Hubmaier to the licentious and cruel 
 fanaticism of a John of Leiden." Anabaptism was 
 not alone in this ; and there were not a few who 
 speculated mischievously on the subject of Redemp- 
 tion, as the thirty-first of the thirty-nine articles of the 
 Church of England indicates by the very completeness 
 and positiveness of its assertion in refuting them. At 
 the same time it is only just to point out that into 
 the most blasphemous of errors, attributed to him 
 in some quarters, Postel never fell. He never wrote, 
 and never meant, that redemption came from the 
 New Eve herself. To him even in his wildest 
 moments she was but the instrument, and not the 
 agent, of redemption 2 . 
 
 If Postel's writings to this date had aroused un- 
 favourable comment, it was as nothing to that which 
 manifested itself when his views upon the new 
 redemption of mankind began to circulate. He was 
 known to have composed in 1549 his Revelations 
 as to the Mother of the World or the New Eve, though 
 
 1 And not the Reformation only — witness the career and pretensions 
 of Joanna Southcott. 
 
 2 The history of the Mystics furnishes more than one parallel to this 
 instance of feminine inspiration and influence upon men of religious 
 discipline. See for example The Life of Blessed Henry Suso by Him- 
 self, edited by Dr W. R. Inge (Methuen), Chapter xxxv. The record 
 of Saint Simonism furnishes more modern analogies.
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 55 
 
 it was never printed. The growing coldness of his 
 associates may have suggested that it was wise for him 
 to take another journey. In 1 549 he sailed from Italy 
 for the East and arrived in Palestine the same year full 
 of enthusiasm for missionary work among Mahom- 
 medans and Jews. His intention was to purchase 
 manuscripts, to translate the Gospels into Hebrew, 
 to preach in Arabic and to publish an Arabic New 
 Testament. His plans were frustrated by his lack 
 of means, and his funds were reduced to thirty crowns, 
 when Gabriel de Luetz, Seigneur d'Aramont, the 
 French Ambassador to Turkey, passed through 
 Jerusalem on his way back to Constantinople from 
 the Persian campaign in which he had accompanied 
 the Sultan Soleyman. He had upon his staff some 
 learned men, Thevet the geographer, Peter Bell, a 
 good friend of Postel, and Peter Giles, his old travelling 
 companion. To this staff Postel attached himself, 
 though Giles was careful to point out, very much to 
 his annoyance, that the royal authority to purchase 
 manuscripts was vested in himself alone. In their 
 company however Postel made some interesting 
 journeys, seeing the Samaritans, the Maronites and 
 Druses. After a visit to Constantinople of no long 
 duration he returned to Italy in 155 1. He brought 
 back with him on this journey the famous pseudo- 
 gospel of St James with which his name has always 
 been associated 1 . Italian scholars and divines how- 
 ever made no effort to detain him so he took the 
 road to Paris, stopping on the way at Basle and 
 
 1 The nature of this gospel, upon which Mariolatry has sometimes 
 been based, must have had a strong appeal to Postel with his tendency 
 to emphasise the high position and lofty duties of women. (See Stadia 
 Sinaitica, No. XI.)
 
 56 WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 Dijon, at the latter place delivering some mathematical 
 lectures. Berthot, the rector of the University, has 
 left a record of his stay at Dijon, in which he speaks 
 of Postel's piety, learning and discretion as well as 
 of the University's efforts to detain him. His mind, 
 perhaps invigorated by his travels, had shaken itself 
 free from fantasy. If this was so the reception which 
 awaited him in Paris was not one likely to ward off 
 relapses. He anticipated restoration to his royal 
 lectorship. In spite of his efforts, seconded in 
 influential quarters, he could not attain it. In 1553 
 he spoke of charging for his lectures if he could not 
 get the royal patronage. Soon after we hear of well- 
 attended lectures in the Lombard schools, but the 
 natural anxiety as to his future produced the re- 
 crudescence of his mental trouble. Beside works 
 published at this time on other subjects, especially 
 those developing his theory of the Gauls, he produced 
 The Book of Woman s ve?y famous conquests, in which 
 is given the full fruit of his meditations on the life 
 and death (for she had died in 155 1) of the New 
 Eve, Joanna. In a supplement attached to this, The 
 doctrine of the Golden Age or the evangelical reign of 
 Jesus, King of Kings, we read the following: 
 
 Done nous voyons que a la parfaicte action de nostre forme, 
 il faut que nous ayons quatre parties, qui respondent aux quatre 
 elementz du corps: L'Ame despend du corps et est constitute 
 dedans le sang: UAnime est immortel divinement cree et uni en 
 une nature avec L'ame, comme l'element de la terre avec l'eau: 
 La Mente ou la vertu superieure, ou l'intellect Agent respond au 
 feu et se conjoinct avec L'Anime: U Esprit respondant a l'air se 
 conjoinct a L'Ame comme l'air avec la terre. Le chauld humide 
 qui est propre de l'air est commencement de la vie en toutz 
 animaulx et non par le chault extreme du feu elementaire...et e'est 
 pourquoi le sexe feminin consummera la perfection du monde.
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 57 
 
 It is passages like this which can explain, if not 
 excuse, the revulsion against Postel's lectures in 
 official quarters. Feeling his freedom interfered with 
 Postel left Paris at the end of the year 1553. 
 
 His departure was deliberate, for in the records of 
 the town of Besancon there is to be found an account 
 of the city Fathers' dealings with a, to them, unknown 
 lecturer from Paris named Postel, who had approached 
 them with an offer to lecture for a salary. On con- 
 sulting the regents of the schools they learned more 
 about Postel and gladly struck a bargain. The 
 sojourn in Besancon does not seem to have been 
 happy. A few weeks after his arrival Postel was on 
 the road again. The termination of the appointment 
 may, perhaps, be traced to imprudent expressions of 
 opinion, for, a year later, a citizen suspected of 
 unsound doctrines is at pains to prove to the 
 authorities that he had had no sort of dealings with 
 Postel. In Basle he stayed some months, transacting 
 business with Operinus 1 , who published a great number 
 of his books. At the beginning of the autumn he 
 returned to Venice. 
 
 In Venice he received a visitor of interest. The 
 Jacobite Patriarch Ignatius had sent a representative 
 to Europe, one Moses Meredinaeus, charged, among 
 other matters, with bringing back printed copies of 
 the Scriptures. Tiring of the red tape methods of 
 the Papal officials, Moses determined to establish 
 contact with Postel and went to Venice. He could 
 not have come at a more opportune moment. For 
 some years Postel had owned a Syriac manuscript and 
 knew that the centre of Syriac studies was Vienna, 
 where that learned Imperial Official Widmanstadt 
 
 1 The German Herbst.
 
 58 WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 had in hand an edition of the Testament in Syriac. 
 To him occurred the plan of sending Moses to 
 Vienna with an introduction. It would prove, he no 
 doubt thought, a good excuse for himself following 
 a few weeks after with his manuscript. 
 
 All happened as he planned, thanks partly to the 
 assistance rendered him and Moses by Cardinal Pole. 
 He himself received a welcome passing his greatest 
 expectations and by the end of 1553 Postel found 
 himself installed a Regius Professor in the University 
 of Vienna, with duties and a salary equivalent to 
 those of his lectorship at Paris. More than this 
 however he found a splendid patron in Widmanstadt. 
 Mutually they inspired each other's studies. But it 
 was not to last. After six happy months the happiness 
 was shattered, the partnership with the learned Im- 
 perial Chancellor was broken up. With the taint of 
 heresy upon him he left the country in great haste. 
 We do not know the details. Perhaps his departure 
 was the firstfruits of the recent arrival in Vienna of 
 the three Jesuits, Canisius, Lejay and Bobadilla. 
 
 The year 1 554 marks the beginning of even greater 
 sufferings. Robbed and imprisoned under a mis- 
 apprehension at the Italian frontier Postel reached 
 Venice in a state of deep dejection. He found that 
 he and his works had been proscribed by the 
 ecclesiastical authorities. That some of his works 
 might be upon the Index Postel feared, but it seemed 
 outrageously unjust that Catholic readers should be 
 warned off all his books. He demanded an enquiry. 
 The tribunal after four months' deliberation passed a 
 judgment to the effect that the author was not bad 
 but mad. The blow was cruel, the sentence stung 
 him to the quick. Starvation stared him in the face.
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 59 
 
 He was compelled to sell his books for 200 ducats to 
 Otto Henry's library near Ingolstadt. One can only 
 suppose these disasters recreated the old symptoms. 
 A letter to Maes in 1555 speaks again of the constant 
 promptings of Joanna and of their leaving him no 
 peace. What final act of folly, on his part, caused 
 the Inquisitors to act is not recorded, but act they did 
 and the unfortunate scholar found himself in prison first 
 at Ravenna, then at Rome, remaining there three years 
 and six months. Once at least he attempted an escape 
 and broke his arm in the attempt. In after years he 
 was under the impression that Pope Paul IV meant 
 to have had him executed. Caraffa was the founder 
 of the Inquisition but he did not love the Jesuits. 
 Whatever the truth concerning his intention may be 
 he died in 1559 and in the Roman riots, which 
 followed the Pope's death, Postel and other prisoners 
 were freed. 
 
 The next three years were years of wandering and 
 of disappointment. He was in Basle, in Trent, in 
 Augsburg and in Lyons. A friend in Augsburg spoke 
 of buying back his books from the heirs of Otto 
 Henry, but it was never managed. In Lyons, where 
 he published at least one book, he was again pursued 
 for heresy, but seems to have been able to justify 
 himself on this occasion. At last he came to Paris 
 after nine years' absence. He boldly faced his accusers 
 before the court of Parlement. The sentence went 
 against him. For three months he was to be confined 
 in the monastery of St Martin, a close prisoner; after 
 the three months were ended it was ordered that he 
 should remain there under supervision. In spite of 
 this decision he was liberated and, before long, lectured 
 to vast audiences on geography. If we may judge
 
 60 WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 however from a private letter, his mental symptoms 
 once again returned. Recent political events had 
 made the Queen Mother anxious to avoid further 
 brawls in Paris touching the religious, or any kindred, 
 questions. It would appear that after kind, but firm 
 persuasion, he resumed his sojourn at the monastery, 
 leaving the hospitable house of Joseph Scaliger in 
 which he had resided. And, strange to say, as 
 voluntary prisoner, or compulsory guest, in the 
 monastery of St Martin he found the peace which all 
 his life he had not known. The brain cleared, the 
 visions left him. He became the glory of the com- 
 munity in which he lived, for learned men flocked to 
 its doors that they might visit the wise and ageing 
 scholar. Nobles and senators came to hear his 
 conversation, the learned brought him oriental manu- 
 scripts, the courtiers consulted him as to the nature 
 and the history of the royal presents which came 
 from Eastern countries. No inmate showed more 
 piety or attended Mass with greater regularity. In 
 1564 he wrote a recantation of his errors, but, before 
 this he was re-established in the royal favour. 
 Catharine de Medici wished him as a tutor for her 
 sons, but he had savoured to the full the benefits of 
 princes and preferred his cloistered studies varied by 
 relaxation, taken in strolling round the garden or in 
 performance on the flute. Though with the straitest 
 sect of theologians his theological reputation never 
 quite recovered, he was invited to resume his academic 
 labours. He lectured and may have rejoined the staff 
 of royal lectors, for, in a book written in this period, 
 he gives himself the title "Doyen des lecteurs ou 
 professeurs du roy en la tres fameuse Haccademie 
 de Paris." On the other hand, when he stood for
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 61 
 
 the mathematical professorship upon the death of 
 Rame, it was not he, but Bressiaeus, who was elected. 
 In these years the fame of his learning penetrated 
 far and wide. Francis Bacon tells, in terms a little 
 too far fetched to be believed, of the singular virility 
 of his old age. He died in the odour of sanctity 
 seventy-one years old. He was buried in the chapel 
 of the monastery. 
 
 On his tombstone was inscribed: 
 
 POSTELLUS POSTQUAM PERAGRAVIT PLURIMA PASSUS 
 
 PRO PIETATE POLOS PARISIIS PETIIT 
 
 OBIIT 6 SEPTEMBRIS 1581 
 
 MOERENS PONEBAT ADRIANUS TARTRIER MEDICUS. 
 
 In conclusion it is well to think how and why this 
 broken life has its importance. Over it all, as over 
 the life of Swift, hung the evil spirit of insanity. At 
 the time when such a visitation was regarded as in 
 the immediate and especial purpose of Almighty God, 
 it furnished another weapon to the armoury of his 
 theological opponents. Postel's career will not be 
 finally appraised, "quoad ad humanum pertinet," by 
 these, but rather by those who could see through the 
 aberrations to the solid learning which, when circum- 
 stances allowed it, produced what they were glad 
 to think the fruits most characteristic of his real 
 personality. In the grudging praise of Plantin ("qui 
 vir, etiamsi fantasticus habeatur, multa certe ingeniosa 
 neque semper vana tractare videtur in suis operibus") 
 through the whole circle up to the generous tribute 
 of Bressiaeus' Inaugural Lecture (" Postelli virtutes 
 et literas non mihi si centum linguae sint...enumerare 
 queam... omnium est homo linguarum, omnium artium 
 et disciplinarum, omnes virtutes- {sic) promtuarium") 
 there is a juster estimate and the names subscribed
 
 62 WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 to it, including as they do that of Scaliger, are 
 weightier than those of his detractors. Modern 
 orientalists may not have paid him tribute, but 
 learning will look with a tolerant eye on "mere 
 Bibliography" when it chronicles the fact that, along 
 with other notable services to the typography of 
 oriental languages, Postel's ill-starred Vienna visit 
 was the means of introducing the first fount of Arabic 
 type into the German countries. 
 
 A modern historian 1 at any rate, whose life of the 
 founder of the Jesuits gives his opinion on any 
 learned matter weight, ranking his work on a level 
 in importance with Mercator's, points out Postel's 
 immeasurable superiority to preceding geographers 
 and maintains that he was the first to give scientific 
 geography its place in historical and theological 
 exegesis. 
 
 For students of International Law Postel's im- 
 portance is of another kind and his name will rightly 
 be included in their works. Since men have specu- 
 lated on the possibility, and the direction, of develop- 
 ments in international comity there has always been 
 a school of thinkers who believe that no force but 
 that of a single predominating power can make a 
 system of international law an abiding influence in 
 world affairs. According to one version of this theory 
 the nations may agree to observe such a system by 
 the most solemn promises or contracts, but none the 
 less history has shown that sooner or later one of 
 them, which has most to gain by doing so, will break 
 away to follow, perhaps under cover of the noblest 
 professions, interests that are peculiar to itself and 
 selfish. There is no half-way house, according to 
 
 1 See Gothein, Ignatius Loyola und die Gegenreformaiion, p. 373.
 
 WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD POWER 63 
 
 this school, between the perpetuation of a national 
 system of world development and the establishment 
 of international comity by the uprising of a preponde- 
 rating power in the shape of some one nation, which 
 will forbid the others to follow their separate diver- 
 gent interests. This preponderating nation may itself 
 be guided by self interest, but it will be argued, at 
 an early stage in any system of society that which 
 marks advance is the quantity, not the quality, of 
 government. When in the settlement of international 
 relations international law has been a force, not a 
 mere aspiration, for two or three hundred years, then 
 it will be time to insist that other nations beside that 
 originally in preponderance shall have a voice in what 
 international law shall be. 
 
 A position, worked out to this point of detail, is no 
 doubt a modern product. It, for example, or a theory 
 very like it, proved in the hands of German propa- 
 gandists a most effective weapon in perverting the 
 intelligence of some of the less balanced American 
 scholars and jurists during the period of United 
 States neutrality. This is not the place to distinguish 
 between the truth and falsehood which lie em- 
 bedded in it. Suffice to say that, after his own 
 manner and in the language of his own generation, 
 Postel was an early and an important exponent of 
 this attitude of mind. As such he will figure in the 
 text-books. The forces that controlled the world in 
 his day, in like manner as the forces of the last five 
 years, militated against those who would build a 
 practice on these views. The war has emphasised 
 what is a sound enough conception in their theory, 
 that international law will always rest, in a last 
 analysis, on force. It is for the nations who have
 
 64 WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 accepted opposing conceptions of a law of nations, 
 to show if they can unite among themselves and give 
 their theories the support of force, refuting thus, by 
 the harmony of their amalgamation, the identification 
 of a preponderating force in international affairs with 
 the preponderance of any single power. 
 

 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 The "Grand Design," the famous seventeenth century 
 scheme for world organisation, sometimes attributed 
 to King Henry IV of France, sometimes to his 
 minister Sully, has had, not only for political philo- 
 sophers but also for practical statesmen, an appeal 
 that does not seem to weaken as the ages pass. A 
 hundred and fifty years or so after the death of Henry 
 it provided Jean-Jacques Rousseau material for ana- 
 lytical examination: in June 191 9 Lord Robert Cecil 
 invoked its inspiration in expounding before a 
 meetino- in the Albert Hall the scheme for a League 
 of Nations recently evolved in Paris. This last alone 
 would make it opportune to consider over again the 
 details, the historical importance, still more perhaps 
 the very existence of the "Grand Design." 
 
 The undertaking justifies itself on narrowergrounds. 
 A discussion of the subject is not easily accessible in 
 English. The Camb7 r idge Modern History hardly 
 touches on the question. Lord Acton in his published 
 lectures condenses into one sentence of dismissal a 
 number of passages and arguments from foreign 
 authors still marked with his lead pencil and visible 
 in the Acton books in the University Library at 
 Cambridge. In France, where interest in the reign of 
 Henry IV has reached such a pitch that previously 
 to the war several numbers of a Revue Henri IV 
 appeared under the editorship of Monsieur Albert 
 Chamberland at Reims, a centre of French Renais-
 
 66 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 sance studies, there has been written much to help 
 the English enquirer; while in Germany, before 
 propagandist motives in domestic or external affairs 
 had tainted German scholarship, attention had been 
 successfully directed also both to unravelling the 
 diplomatic correspondence between Henry IV and 
 the minor German potentates, as also to a critical 
 study of Sully's Oeckonomies Royales, the Memoirs of 
 his years of service under Henry IV. Perhaps it will 
 not be until a modern edition of this book is pub- 
 lished that the material will be to hand for a final 
 judgment on the period and on the subject. 
 
 Maximilien de Bethune, Baron, then Marquis of 
 Rosny, Duke of Sully, was born in 1560, the year, it 
 may be noticed, which saw the publication of the four 
 volumes of the completed works of Ronsard. But on 
 a shorter view 1560 was the year of an event more 
 significant to Frenchmen, for on December 5th King 
 Francis II died and the House of Guise fell from 
 power. From that day forward this family, buttressed 
 by matrimonial alliances with half the leading men of 
 France, resting upon a natural French horror of 
 heresy, guided by far more intelligence than has been 
 allowed them by historians who have written under 
 the shadow, of the successful Bourbons, carried on a 
 losing fight to regain the dominant position which they 
 had occupied at the Court of Francis. The struggle 
 they put up was splendid. Hardly a movement of 
 domestic history during the next forty years can be 
 analysed without a Guise intrigue being discovered 
 as one of the component parts, but their hour had 
 sounded. "When all was lost," wrote protestant Beza 
 of the death of Francis II with good judgment, "the 
 Lord our God aroused himself."
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 67 
 
 In the changes and chances of these forty years 
 Sully played an honourable part and won the favour 
 and confidence of his lifelong chieftain. At the age 
 of twelve, being a Calvinist, he escaped with great 
 difficulty the massacre of St Bartholomew. Subse- 
 quently attached to Henry of Navarre he took part 
 in the future King's most adventurous expeditions, 
 fighting by his side at Arques and Ivry, in the course 
 of which latter battle he was severely wounded. In 
 1 596 Sully was appointed to the Council and charged, 
 with other counsellors, to carry out a tour through all 
 the royal provinces to verify the accounts of the 
 treasurers and receivers. His career as superinten- 
 dent of finances began in 1599. In close touch with 
 Henry all the time, financial and political administra- 
 tion was blended with policy in that happy degree 
 which makes demands of fortune, and of which the 
 Cromer-Kitchener rdgime in Egypt, during Lord 
 Salisbury's last period in office, furnishes a perfect 
 modern specimen. In 1609, when Henry wished to 
 embark upon long meditated projects, the finances 
 of the kingdom had been refurbished, the military 
 machine had been brought to a state of high efficiency, 
 a state debt of a hundred million francs had been met, 
 the revenue raised from nine to sixteen millions, and 
 a reserve of twenty-two millions had been piled up. 
 
 Of Sully himself it is not difficult to paint a picture. 
 He lived in a time of men of forceful, often eccen- 
 trically forceful, character and amid events which 
 sharpened character, not polished it to sameness. No 
 one more consistently than he could boast a life of 
 service for "the religion," yet his conviction as little 
 withdrew him from the world, like Calvin, to build 
 an holy city, as, though he had played no meagre 
 
 5—2
 
 68 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 military part, it thrust him into the hurly-burly of 
 contemporary life like many of those rugged warriors 
 from Gascony, cavaliers of Huguenotism, almost any 
 one of whom might have deserved the strange, but 
 noble, epitaph made for one of their number fallen on 
 the field of battle, homme digne des guerres civiles. 
 Adequately read in the philosophy of history and in 
 particular of military history, as his memoirs show 
 him, his counsel lacked that intellectual quality which 
 enabled Jeannin to give Mayenne the right advice 
 when the Seize cast a bolshevist pall over the life of 
 Paris at the end of 1 590 : a quality which, though Sully 
 had had his share of diplomatic missions, caused 
 Jeannin to be selected in preference by Henry IV to 
 hold a "watching brief" for France in the Low 
 Countries, when those exhausted states were negotia- 
 ting for a peace with Spain in 1607. Sully was vain, 
 long-winded, not over scrupulous and jealous; yet 
 these characteristics were set off by abilities which con- 
 tributed in a preponderating degree to that vast stock 
 of unique qualities in his public servants, upon which 
 Henry IV drew with such wise selection that he left 
 the greatness of France laid on secure foundations 
 and bequeathed a policy which, had that very great- 
 ness of France not intoxicated his successors, might 
 well have averted the suffering that France, and the 
 world through France, has since then been forced to 
 undergo. 
 
 Neither his personality nor his conduct in handling 
 the public monies, nor his implacability in pursuing his 
 private feuds, were likely to keep Sully immune from 
 attack, or to mollify the attacks when made upon him. 
 His memoirs are full of passages in which he refuses 
 to share with anyone the credit for success; while
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 69 
 
 even more than the always debatable questions 
 arising from the incidence of taxation, the method of 
 collecting or allocating revenue, his habit of life and 
 the standard of state he kept, which were seigneurial 
 and very gorgeous, laid him open to a growing 
 volume of criticism which was not long before it 
 hardened into hatred. Against all attacks arising 
 from such animosity Henry IV stood as a sure shield 
 but Sully's authority did not long survive his master's 
 death. He retired to his estates, particularly residing 
 in his chateau at Villebon. From this retirement, 
 which was broken, it is true, by half-a-dozen visits 
 to the Court, of more importance than has always 
 been realised, he was destined to see the machinery 
 which he had created grow rusty from disuse and the 
 policy, in the striking out of which he had played the 
 chief part, give way to a chaotic situation which the 
 advisers of the boy monarch seemed powerless to end. 
 Nor, when the strong arm of Richelieu dealt faith- 
 fully with anarchy and chaos mongers, can it be said 
 that this elder statesman's position was the happier. 
 True he was created Marshal of France by Richelieu 
 but only to make vacant his post of Master of the 
 Ordnance. Elder statesmen, who find their positions 
 insufficiently realised by king and country, tend to 
 drop into reflections and reminiscences. Not in the 
 rural surroundings of a Machiavelli or a Bismarck did 
 Sully compose his Oechonomies Roy ales. The story 
 of its composition forms one of the oddest phenomena 
 in the history of authorship. 
 
 This age is not likely to be unfamiliar with the 
 idea of the domestic splendour of public men whose 
 life of service to the community has been no less 
 profitable than it has been successful. The dining
 
 70 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 hall and its equipment at Villebon were magnificent: 
 the chapel was not less stately because the devotions 
 held in it were simple. Eighty lacqueys had been 
 known to be upon the sick-list at one time, writes 
 Sully's private physician, and their absence not to be 
 so much as noticed. At any rate they hang round by 
 dozens in attendance, when the duke or his wife left 
 the raised terraces of the chateau grounds to wander 
 of a summer afternoon through the lower gardens 
 among the statuary and fountains. Years of devotion 
 to King Henry had not wrought this in Sully that he 
 had the king's easiness of access and that spontaneity 
 of transacting business, of which one often finds 
 shocked mention in the despatches of the Venetian, 
 or the Spanish, diplomatic agents at his court. It was 
 not to be expected therefore that the act of autobio- 
 graphy would be either lightly undertaken, or would 
 be carried out without due ceremonial regard for the 
 solemnity of the occasion. 
 
 When the manifold activity of the day's adminis- 
 tration was at an end, the landowner and the magis- 
 trate were laid aside and Sully retired within the 
 closed doors of his library. There, seated upon a 
 chair of state, secretaries read to him those portions 
 of his life which they had prepared that day after a 
 careful sorting of his papers and an elaborate com- 
 parison of the records in his strong room. Day by 
 day the manuscript grew but the publication of it 
 was delayed. In 1638 the first instalment, in two 
 volumes, appeared from his private press at the 
 chateau, to be followed very shortly by a second 
 edition. The very publication was attended by fresh 
 clouds of mysterious, or rather intentionally mystifying 
 pomposity. The printer was indeed sent for from
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 71 
 
 Angers to Villebon but the volumes open with the 
 
 assertion in the course of an elaborate address to 
 
 " the wise and judicious readers " that they were 
 
 printed at Amsterdam by "Alethinosgraphe de 
 
 Clearetimalee & Graphexecon de Pistariste im- 
 
 primeurs" in that city. The second part consisting 
 
 of the third and fourth volumes were published 
 
 twenty-one years after Sully's death in 1662 at Paris 
 
 under the supervision of Le Laboureur. 
 
 It is difficult without prolonged quotation to explain 
 
 to how great an extent a work, written in the second 
 
 person, is the despair of modern readers. The form in 
 
 which itwas cast made niceties of compositiondifficult, 
 
 though it was a form convenient for covering up the 
 
 author's traces and for throwing dust in the eyes of 
 
 his readers. Mr Tilley bears witness to two sentences, 
 
 one of six hundred, the other of nine hundred words 
 
 in length. Apart from this however he must be an 
 
 intrepid reader whose faculty of apprehension does 
 
 not boggle at summaries of Sully's virtues in the 
 
 fawning elaboration of an eternal vocative; while as 
 
 a specimen of the process reduced to an absurdity 
 
 taken from the more private passages of Sully's life, 
 
 Sainte-Beuve very aptly quotes the following: 
 
 De ce pas vous en allastes voir Mademoiselle de Courtenay, 
 envers laquelle vous et vos gentils hommes fistes si bien valoir ce 
 que c'estoit passe, que cette belle et sage fille vous fait en affection, 
 et peu apres vous l'espousastes : l'amour et gentilesse de laquelle 
 vous retint toute l'annee 1584 en vostre nouveau mesnage, ou vous 
 commencastes a tesmoigner, comme vous avez desja bien fait 
 auparavant en toute vostre vie, en la conduite de vostre maison, 
 une oeconomie, un ordre et un mesnage merveilleux. 
 
 Fortunately howeverthe secretaries were compelled 
 at times to use the direct letters, notes or memoranda 
 of their master, while Sully himself occasionally
 
 72 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 deigned to introduce what he himself calls "un petit 
 conte pour rire au mileu de tant de choses serieuses." 
 Some of these, which can be picked out of the bulky 
 volumes of Michaud and Poujoulat's edition, are 
 worth reading, dealing as they do with simple anec- 
 dotes of Sully's life well told; a humorous encounter 
 at an inn, with de Bois-rose, who nursed a grievance 
 against him, de Bois-rose speaking his mind freely 
 on the subject of "un seigneur qu'on nomme de 
 Rosny," unaware of whom he was addressing 1 : or 
 the ludicrous conversation between M. de Roquelaure 
 and the Archbishop of Rouen, the illegitimate brother 
 of the King, who had some scruples about marrying 
 the King's sister, Catharine, who was a protestant, 
 to the Duke of Bar 2 . These and several of King 
 Henry's letters relieve the task of reading through 
 the memoirs, but the best commentary on their strong 
 and weak points is the fact that in 1745 tne Abbe 
 de L'Ecluse des Loges rewrote the whole of the 
 Oechonomies Royales,m2\dnga. smoothly runningstory 
 of it, all in the first person. This made a pleasant 
 book, which was most inaccurately translated into 
 English in 1756 by one Charlotte Lennox, a pensioner 
 of the Duke of Newcastle, but it must be read under 
 a comprehension of its limitations. 
 
 It is in the Oechonomies Roy ales that the historian 
 is introduced to the conception of the " Grand Design," 
 that system of world organisation which Sully attri- 
 butes to Henry IV and about which controversy has 
 revolved among" historians. It will be well to see 
 how it is represented in Sully's pages. 
 
 1 Michaud et Poujoulat, Vol. xvi, p. 145. This edition of the 
 Oechonomies Royales is quoted throughout. 
 
 2 Michaud et Poujoulat, Vol. xvi, p. 306.
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 73 
 
 Here it is that the investigator of the "Grand 
 Design " is faced with the first of his difficulties. The 
 papers, letters and records of diplomatic transactions 
 scattered about in the Oechonomies Royales introduce 
 the idea of the "Grand Design" again and again but 
 in such a manner as can only provoke confusion. 
 Sometimes it is treated as a serious matter of nego- 
 tiation between Henry IV and the other potentates 
 of Europe, Elizabeth, the Landgrave of Hesse or 
 the Prince of Orange. Sometimes it is treated merely 
 as the subject of King Henry's day dreams. Some- 
 times it becomes a useful handle in negotiations 
 between Henry and his recalcitrant protestant sub- 
 jects, like Lesdiguieres or the Duke of Bouillon. All 
 sequence in narration and consistency is lacking. 
 Confronted with this difficulty the adroit editor in 
 the reign of Louis XIV, L'Ecluse, gives an account 
 embracing as it were the chief features of the plan 
 at its high water mark. Modern historians have 
 often been content to take this account at its face 
 value, and round this picture of it public opinion has 
 tended to crystallise. It will serve here as a point to 
 start from. 
 
 "Le roi," writes the pseudo-Sully, "voulait rendre la France 
 e'ternellement heureux : et corame elle ne peut gouter cette parfaite 
 felicite, qu'en un sens toute l'Europe ne la partage avec elle, c'etait 
 le bien de toute la chre'tiente qu'il voulait faire, et d'une maniere 
 si solide, que rien a, l'avenir ne fut capable d'en ebranler les fon- 
 demens." 
 
 The means suggested by the King to bring about 
 so blessed a result could at first only provoke scep- 
 ticism in the mind of Sully: "par la meme raison, ce 
 qui m'arreta le plus long temps, la situation generale 
 des affaires en Europe, et des notres en particulier,
 
 74 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 paraissant de tout point contraire a l'execution." 
 More mature reflection however convinced him that 
 many of the difficulties could be removed if a persistent 
 policy directed towards that end was followed in 
 finance as well as in internal and external matters. 
 This persistent policy could only be effective, if it 
 were unsuspected, a fact which accounted for the 
 silence of the King to all — save Sully — in the matter. 
 
 The basis of the policy was conceived to consist 
 in the reduction of European balance of power to an 
 equilibrium. This, it was thought, could be obtained 
 by a grouping, or a regrouping, of the Powers into 
 six hereditary monarchies, France, Spain, England, 
 Denmark, Sweden, and Lombardy: five elective 
 monarchies, those of the Imperial possessions, the 
 Papacy, Poland, Hungary and Bohemia: four re- 
 publics, the Venetian, the Italian, the Swiss and 
 what he terms the Belgic. These fifteen Powers 
 should form a General Council consisting of sixty- 
 six persons, chosen from all proportionately. These 
 sixty-six, rechosen every third year, should assemble 
 as a Senate to deliberate on any affairs affecting each 
 or all, discuss their joint or several interests, pacify 
 their mutual quarrels and determine any civil, political 
 and religious questions touching European nations, 
 whether as regards themselves or as regards their 
 European neighbours. 
 
 This council might be fixed in its location or 
 ambulatory ; divided into three grand committees, ac- 
 cording to geographical convenience, or undivided 
 and indivisible. Its constitution should be easily 
 changed so as to give it adaptability to circumstance. 
 Two general considerations only should, or might, be 
 written into the charter of its foundation: first, an
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 75 
 
 obligation upon all to combine counsel and forces, 
 if it were necessary, against the Turk; second, the 
 application, by all the members of the Federation, of 
 those rules of religious tolerance with regard to 
 Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists, which were 
 coming into force in France. 
 
 The simplicity of the scheme, as described by 
 L'Ecluse, will be deceptive to the reader. However 
 simple in itself, in the pages of the Oechonomies 
 Royales, the story of its conception is obscure, and 
 there is a lack of consistency in the account of the 
 various steps by which its consummation is alleged 
 to have been pursued. One may quote, as an instance 
 of Sully's obscurity in telling how or when the pro- 
 ject was first conceived, the description 1 of a famous 
 interview given him by the King on February 15th, 
 1593, in which he is consulted as to the desirability 
 of Henry making "some accommodation" with his 
 opponents in the matter of his religious beliefs. Sully 
 was not altogether opposed to such a step but poured 
 out, to already convinced ears, a passionate request 
 for the continuance of religious toleration for the 
 Huguenots. Among the other arguments which he 
 urged, or alleges that he urged, on that occasion, was 
 the impossibility in any other way of prosecuting 
 Henry's "high and magnificent designs for the estab- 
 lishment of an universal most Christian republic... 
 composed of all those Kings and potentates who 
 profess the name of Christ." This would undoubtedly 
 be a very pertinent consideration and one proper for 
 the Minister to urge on such an occasion, but it is 
 mystifying to find that, to judge from another passage 
 in the book, three years later the King seems to have 
 
 1 Vol. xvi, p. nob.
 
 76 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 forgotten that he ever cherished such a project or, at 
 least, that he had ever spoken of it to Sully in a 
 manner which would justify such strong words on 
 Sully's lips in 1593. In 1596 one sunny morning 1 in 
 the garden terrace of the Chateau Gaillon, Henry, 
 warmed by good news from the Province, expanded 
 and, while waiting for the hunt to start, enthusias- 
 tically unfolded to Sully the "ten desires" as he 
 named them "of his heart." 
 
 "The ninth, my friend," says Henry, "is the ability to carry out 
 before I die, two specific magnificent designs which I have in my 
 mind, without ever having communicated them to anyone, about 
 which... I shall not say anything to you now, never perhaps to 
 anyone, till I see that by the general establishment of peace 
 throughout my Kingdom, I have the means for the complete exe- 
 cution of them." 
 
 Was Henry thinking of the "Grand Design".? If 
 not, why had it so faded from his mind since earlier 
 days, as not to be classed among the ten desires of his 
 heart? If it was the "Grand Design," how could he 
 have forgotten Sully's knowledge of it from those 
 early days, a point upon which all Sully's utterances 
 lay such stress ? We must find reconciliation in in- 
 conceivable forgetfulness upon the part of Henry, or 
 we have in other parts of Sully's narrative to be on 
 our guard against habits of inaccuracy, of which this 
 forms a specimen. 
 
 Old men however as they grow garrulous will grow 
 forgetful. It would be pedantic to make too much of 
 inconsistencies like these. Unfortunately Henry's 
 preparation for the actual execution of the "Grand 
 Design," as told by Sully, presents not less but 
 greater inconsistencies than his witness to its origin. 
 
 1 Vol. xvi, p. 242.
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 77 
 
 Before passing final judgment it will be well to see 
 how Sully would have us believe that it came about. 
 
 According to a passage in the first part of the 
 Oechonomies Royales x in 1601 when the King was 
 visiting Calais and Queen Elizabeth happened to be 
 at Dover, the King received a letter from the Queen 
 speaking with vexation of their inability to meet, 
 because of certain mattersof consequence, about which 
 mutual consultation was desirable, but concerning 
 which she dare not put anything on paper. Puzzled 
 by the phrase the King decided that Sully should 
 make a voyage to England, as if upon a private 
 errand, leaving it to the Queen's pleasure to use his 
 coming as a method of communication. Everything 
 turned out as Henry planned. At Dover Sully 
 encountered, as by accident, Cobham, Raleigh, Devon- 
 shire and Pembroke. He had hardly settled into his 
 apartments before he was summoned to the Queen. 
 At several interviews the whole circle of the diplo- 
 matic problems of the day was covered by discussion. 
 
 When Sully returned to France he maintains that 
 an agreement had been put on paper between the 
 French and English monarchs, which however he is 
 careful to point out never reached the stage of 
 signature. In effect this agreement provided for 
 
 1. A loyal and perpetual association, a fraternity, 
 and a community, of arms and plans in the contem- 
 porary European diplomatic situation. 
 
 2. A common understanding in matters of religious 
 policy. 
 
 3. An agreement upon a joint attempt to invite 
 into such a fraternity, and upon identical terms, the 
 northern, i.e. the Scandinavian, Powers. 
 
 1 Vol. xvi, p. 364.
 
 78 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 4. Agreement to approach the north German 
 principalities as to methods for strengthening them- 
 selves by federation, as to enlisting their joint or 
 separate cooperation with the present scheme, and as 
 to reasserting the freedom of the Imperial election. 
 
 5. Agreement as to the joint duty of assisting the 
 Netherlands in their struggle with the Hapsburgs. 
 
 This, so far as it is possible to gather, is the 
 account, which Sully would have his readers believe, 
 of the results of his English visit, although the visit 
 is twice described by him 1 and the differences in 
 detail are not easily reconciled. How far the agree- 
 ment, thus evolved, might have received subsequent 
 confirmation by the parties concerned in it, or, what 
 is more important for our purpose, how far such 
 political understandings, if they ever existed, would 
 have later been caught up into something in the 
 nature of a "Grand Design," is a matter of idle 
 speculation for, as Sully points out, in the year 1603 
 Elizabeth died and with the coming of her Scotch 
 successor the diplomatic approaches would have had 
 to be made anew. 
 
 According to Sully the first news of the death of 
 Queen Elizabeth reached him in a letter written by 
 King Henry himself and dated Nancy, 10 April, 1603 2 . 
 The letter expresses great distress on the King's 
 part at losing so good an ally, so cordial an enemy 
 of the Hapsburgs, one with whom he was on the 
 verge of concerting great designs, "as none knows 
 better than yourself having been employed in them." 
 The hopes of obtaining such cooperation from her 
 successor were not good. Sully must make up his 
 mind to undertake a journey to the English Court 
 
 1 See also Vol. xvn, p. 327 b. 2 Vol. XVI, p. 426.
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 79 
 
 to sound the mind of James I and to turn the situa- 
 tion to the best purpose possible. 
 
 Thus it was according to Sully that he paid his 
 famous visit to London of which any history of 
 England bears record. He sailed, armed with all 
 kinds of greetings for the royal family and with in- 
 structions, in part official, in part confidential 1 . The 
 official instructions largely enjoined upon Sully the 
 duty of congratulation and enquiry, of sounding 
 English royal and ministerial opinion as to the situa- 
 tion in the Netherlands, as to a double marriage 
 between the English and French royal children, 
 commercial agreements and the freedom of the seas. 
 The secret instructions contained more concrete 
 proposals, which Sully might or might not find useful, 
 with reference to a joint policy of hostility towards 
 the Hapsburgs. In neither is there any mention of 
 the "Grand Design," nor is any phrase used from 
 which the contemplation of that project can be 
 inferred, except perhaps a clause providing for the 
 equal distribution among all the powers of any 
 territories taken from the Imperial family: the in- 
 ference being that no one power should by the 
 accretion of such territories upset the equilibrium 
 of Europe. As however in this passage we find 
 mention of the Kingoi Sweden, and as Duke Charles 
 did not assume the title of King of Sweden till 1604, 
 which assumption was not recognised by other Powers 
 till 1606, doubts are thrown upon the contemporary 
 character of the provision. 
 
 Arrived in London Sully was handsomely received. 
 His stay there was protracted. He had many inter- 
 views with King James upon whose impressionable 
 
 1 Vol. XVI, p. 432 onwards.
 
 8o SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 mind he appears to have worked with much success. 
 It was not alone the diplomatic dexterity of his 
 visitor which drew King James away from the more 
 cautious counsels of his chief advisers. The same 
 year a priest, named Gwynn, had been arrested on a 
 voyage to England, and had confessed, with an 
 alacrity which threw doubts upon his sanity, that he 
 was bound for London to murder King James, his 
 consort and his ministers. The ground was well 
 prepared accordingly for Sully's whispering of dark 
 designs on the part of Spain, of Austria, the Jesuits 
 and His Holiness. 
 
 Six years afterwards in a memorandum printed in 
 the Oechonomies Royales Sully sums up the result of 
 this mission to the English Court 1 . The main result 
 was a definite, though secret, agreement, signed at 
 Hampton Court, by which James promised to allow 
 the levy of soldiers in England and Scotland for the 
 defence of Ostend. It was agreed that the French 
 King should pay the expenses of this force, although 
 a third part of the cost was to be deducted from the 
 French debt to Great Britain. Beyond this progress 
 had proved difficult towards a mutual understanding 
 in the sphere of foreign politics, particularly in the 
 building up of that re-arrangement of the European 
 powers which, according to Sully, occupied so firm 
 a position in the French King's aspirations. True 
 he asserts that he had discussed these matters with 
 James, and with some of the representatives of other 
 European Powers in London, and had won some 
 acceptance for his views, an acceptance the importance 
 of which, to judge from other passages in the Oecho- 
 nomies Royales 11 , gradually swelled in his mind till 
 1 Vol. xvn, p. 329. 2 E.g. Vol. xvi, p. 491 b; Vol. xvn, p. 220.
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 81 
 
 he could be found writing of it as a definite agree- 
 ment. All the same, on his return he had to run the 
 gauntlet of criticism by his colleagues for lack of 
 concrete achievement on the English mission while 
 he himself speaks 1 of the "froideur, lenteur et 
 timidite" which characterised the temperaments of 
 those foreign statesmen who at this solemn moment 
 had contented themselves with expressions of general 
 approbation concerning not very definite schemes 
 for a geographical reorganisation of Europe, a 
 general toleration for the three religions, freedom 
 of trade on land and sea, compulsory international 
 arbitration and such self-denying ordinances on the 
 part of all the powers as customarily accompany 
 schemes for world organisation. The general im- 
 pression that Sully desires to give is that, after his 
 mission to the court of James, the King, perceiving a 
 lack of whole-hearted co-operation on the part of 
 England, turned from 1603 onwards towards the 
 lands across the Rhine to win from the German 
 princes support for his designs. 
 
 So much for Sully's account of the King's efforts, 
 between say 1593 and 1603, to build up a "Grand 
 Design" by diplomatic methods. Before examining 
 his account it will be well to recapitulate the salient 
 features. According to this account the idea of form- 
 ing a "universal most Christian republic" occurred 
 to Henry IV some time before he won a secure 
 position as the King of France. Mingled as such 
 an idea must be with an anti-Hapsburg policy, 
 notions somewhat similiar very naturally occurred 
 about the same time to the Queen of England. 
 Henry having been approached by her, Sully was 
 
 1 Vol. xvii, p. 320.
 
 82 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 sent on a mission, which was preserved, then and 
 since, as the profoundest of State secrets. With 
 England however a shadowy agreement was sketched 
 out, some of the component parts of which were 
 suitable to form the nucleus of the "Grand Design." 
 To this agreement the assent of other nations was 
 to be gradually and discreetly wooed. The death of 
 Queen Elizabeth came as a shock to Henry, who, 
 on the very day he heard of it, wrote to Sully sug- 
 gesting that he should at once fare to England to 
 see if, peradventure, anything could be saved from 
 the wreckage of the vast Anglo-French projects. 
 Armed with instructions, from which such confidential 
 questions were naturally enough omitted, Sully paid 
 a prolonged visit to England. There, after nego- 
 tiation with King James and with the represen- 
 tatives at London of other foreign courts, he con- 
 cluded a practical agreement on the urgent question 
 of the defence of Ostend but, though he received a 
 sympathetic hearing, the more confidential object of 
 his mission had to be postponed to a more favourable 
 moment. 
 
 This is an accurate account of the project of the 
 "Grand Design" reduced to the baldest statements 
 and drawn from the confused and contradictory 
 narrative of the Oechonomies Roy ales. Modern re- 
 search, and a very moderately attentive reading of 
 that work, throws upon even the broadest features 
 of it the very gravest doubt. Of the negotiations 
 with Elizabeth it may be said that her letter to the 
 King, suggesting a conference on mysterious matters, 
 is probably a forgery: indeed Sully himself 1 in later 
 passages attributes to Henry the initiative in the 
 
 1 Vol. xvn, p. 327.
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 83 
 
 matter. It is of much greater significance of course 
 that, up to the present, no reference to Sully's visit 
 has been found in any English or French State 
 papers or in private documents. It seems almost 
 inconceivable that there should be no reference to 
 it in say the Hatfield papers. None such has yet 
 been published. The suspicion under which the visit 
 rests grows to certainty when, not only is it realised 
 that Queen Elizabeth was not in Dover at that time, 
 but that Sully's account of the visit contains other 
 chronological impossibilities. 
 
 Of Sully's later English visit his narrative, as was 
 shown above, begins with a letter to him from the 
 King, speaking of the news of Queen Elizabeth's 
 death. It is dated Nancy, April 10th. From Fresne's 
 edition of the Lettres missives it will be observed 
 that on April nth the King was still without the 
 news. As a matter of fact he heard it on the way to 
 Fontainebleau, after leaving Nancy. The letter is 
 therefore at least doubtful. Its genuineness is not 
 confirmed by the suspiciously admirable way in 
 which it both introduces the "later" mission of 
 Sully and at the same time hints that his dealings with 
 Elizabeth in 1601 render him the right man for the 
 purpose. While finally — to take no further example 
 of Sully's contradictory and confusing treatment 
 of the "Grand Design" — how is it to be explained 
 that in another passage we find him writing 1 as if it 
 was only in 1607, and in that year for the first time, 
 that the project had seemed feasible? 
 
 Neantmoins voyant que, de temps en temps pendant cette 
 derniere anne'e 1607, et quelquefois assez frequemment, vostre 
 Majeste renouvelloit telles propositions, me commandant depuis 
 
 1 Vol. xvii, p. 213. 
 
 6—2
 
 84 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 peu plus expressement qu'elle n'avoit point encore fait, de mediter 
 avec plus d'attention sur icelles...dont est advenu qu'en examinant 
 toutes circonstances et toutes humeurs et conditions... il m'a une 
 fois semble avoir trouve des moyens et des fondemens par lesquels 
 plusieurs inconveniens, accidens et difficultez qui m'avoient aupara- 
 vant effraye, se pourroient surmonter ou grandement alleger. 
 
 Well may a painstaking though not highly inspired 
 German critic of the Oechonomies Royales, reflecting 
 perhaps over the labour spent on many a preceding 
 passage, almost pathetically exclaim "Von alien 
 Verhandlungen, von alien Bedenken, die vor jene 
 Zeit fallen, sagt er sich los 1 !" The whole story of 
 the "Grand Design" is traceable to one book: after 
 critical examination of that book any literary jury 
 would pronounce a verdict of not proven. 
 
 Nor is it only from the printed edition of the book 
 that doubts arise. In the Bibliotheque Nationale 
 there exists the original manuscript from which the 
 book was printed 2 . It appears that the manuscript 
 was finished in its final form, though many versions 
 were probably drawn up before the final form was 
 reached, in or about the year 1617. That manuscript 
 twenty-five years ago was collated with the printed 
 text by a distinguished scholar 3 . Important differ- 
 ences between the two immediately appear. In the 
 written version there is no mention of the visit to 
 Queen Elizabeth; nor is there throughout the manu- 
 script any use of the words " republique tres chre- 
 tienne," the phrase invariably employed in the printed 
 version by Sully in connection with the "Grand 
 Design." Moreover though some of the letters from 
 
 1 See Ritter, Abhandl. d. k. bayer. Akad. d. Wiss. in, CI. XI, Bd. m r 
 Abt. Munich 1871. 
 
 2 Fonds francjais 10305, 10307, 10308, 10309, 10311, 10313. 
 
 3 See Charles Pfister, Revue Historique, 1894.
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 85 
 
 London exist in the manuscript, all those are missing 
 which in the printed text purport to give an account 
 of Sully's more confidential conversations with King 
 James or with the other statesmen whose opinion he 
 sought to sound upon his project for world organisa- 
 tion. Often too letters from or to Sully will differ con- 
 siderably in the printed form from the written version; 
 and in almost every case the fact, and in many cases 
 the actual form, of alteration goes to build up a 
 theory of later and tendencious manipulation on the 
 part of the author or his assistant secretaries. These 
 alterations made between the years 161 7, when the 
 manuscript was finished, and 1638, when the editio 
 princeps was published, are the work of Sully's last 
 twenty years of life, the fruit of his musings in retire- 
 ment and of his perception that the destinies of 
 France had passed from his hands for ever. In 
 these added and interpolated passages, made when 
 the reign of Henry IV had already become history, 
 one finds the elaborated construction of the "Grand 
 Design," its amphictyonic council of the fifteen 
 Powers, its senate, its arbitral powers and the sug- 
 gested regulations for procedure. 
 
 In these features of the "Grand Design" there is 
 nothing to surprise the historian of the period, though 
 modern popular opinion has either hailed them as a 
 novelty or argued from the originality of their nature 
 an anachronism indicative of later forgery. The truth 
 is that there is nothing original about them. The 
 sixteenth century in France, the century of Bodin, 
 saw a development of political philosophy and philo- 
 sophic speculation concerning national and interna- 
 tional government which has been to some extent 
 overshadowed by the work of the French eighteenth
 
 86 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 century philosophers, and so forgotten. Beside Bodin's 
 great book we have those provoked by the Massacre 
 of St Bartholomew, such as the Vindiciae contra 
 Tyrannos of Duplessis Mornay or Languet and the 
 Franco-Gallia of Hotman. But there were others in 
 these stirring times less well known, forgotten till 
 some historian of European thought stumbles across 
 them in the neglected corner of a library : the work of 
 men, who once had a European reputation, like the 
 crazy orientalist, William Postel 1 , expelled from the 
 Society of Jesus for the grandiose nature of his 
 French patriotism, or the benevolent Catholic priest 
 of Paris, Emerich Cruce 2 . Huguenot writers too 
 seemed to find a special pleasure in elaborating schemes 
 of government in meticulous detail, Jean de Ferrieres, 
 La Noue and others; so much so that one writer has 
 seen in certain passages in the history of d'Aubigne 
 an instance of close collaboration with the author of 
 the Oechonomies Royales. The provenance of Sully's 
 notions one can hardly hope to trace, but that they 
 were startlingly original it is impossible to argue in 
 view of the following extract from Le Nouveau Cyne'e 
 published by Cruc£ in 1623. 
 
 Neantmoins pour en preuenir les inconveniens (the impossi- 
 bility of making at any one moment an enduring peace) il seroit 
 necessaire de choisir une ville, ou tous les Souverains eussent per- 
 petuellement leurs ambassadeurs, afin que les differens qui pour- 
 roient survenir fussent videz par le jugement de toute l'assemblie. 
 Les ambassadeurs de ceux qui seroient interessez exposeroient la 
 les plaintes de leur maistres et les autres deputez en iugeroient 
 sans passion. Et pour authorises d'aventage le jugement on pren- 
 droit advis des grands Republiques qui auroient aussi en ce mesme 
 endroit leurs agens....Et qui seroit le Prince si temeraire qui osast 
 desdire la compagnie de tous les Monarques du Monde? Les villes 
 de Grece se rapportoient a l'arrest des Amphictyons.... 
 1 See Chapter III. 2 See Chapter V.
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 87 
 
 Ceste Compagnie done iugeroit les debats qui survindroient 
 tant pour la presence (questions of precedence from which Cruce 
 feared trouble) que pour autre chose, maintiendroit les uns et les 
 autres en bonne intelligence, iroit au devant des mescontente- 
 ments, et les appaiseroit par la voye de douceur, si faire se pouvait, 
 ou en cas de necessite par la force. 
 
 The "Grand Design" then, as Rousseau discussed 
 it, as Voltaire laughed at it, as Lord Robert Cecil 
 quoted it, was not the conception, or ideal, of King 
 Henry but the creation on paper of his wisest minister. 
 Is the forged evidence merely testimony to the in- 
 satiable amour propre of Sully? To answer this in 
 the affirmative is to take a shallow view of history, 
 which does far short of justice to a man, who, though 
 he showed himself capable of forging evidence for 
 the low end of fastening infamy upon the individuals 
 he hated, was none the less whole-heartedly a lover 
 of France and of the monarch, who for him typified 
 all wisdom and all kingly skill. Nor need it be sup- 
 posed that the ideals, which Sully chose to advocate 
 in his last years were only the creation of a disap- 
 pointed statesman. They may well in his mind, though 
 not on paper, nor elaborated to their final form, have 
 preceded his retirement. The guiding principle of 
 French foreign policy had been antagonism to the 
 Hapsburgs. A wave of anti-Spanish feeling had made 
 it possible for the throne to be secured for the house of 
 Bourbon; La Satire Me'nippe'e showed no less anti- 
 Spanish feeling than the contemporary literature of 
 England. One understands Henry's success the better 
 not so much by the study of State papers as in the read- 
 ing of a play like Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy 
 Philaster. Hatred of Spain moved Burleigh and 
 King Henry to watch each other across the English 
 Channel in earnest anxiety to detect the first sign of
 
 88 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 weakening in what both regarded as a common cause. 
 On the death of Elizabeth, despite the treaty of Ver- 
 vins, Sully's first duty was to incite in her successor 
 an apprehension of the machinations of the Hapsburgs. 
 Towards a struggle with that house all the statecraft, 
 financial or political, of the government of France was 
 aimed. The vast forces of men and money and muni- 
 tions, accumulated by Sully's skill when the affair of 
 Cleves-Jiilich disturbed the peace of Europe, can only 
 be accounted for by supposing that Henry felt that 
 the struggle between him and his great European 
 rival was now imminent. Sully saw all this but he 
 saw also beyond and round it. He visualised, as few 
 of his contemporaries, the greatness of the struggle. 
 It was with him an urgent matter that France should 
 not stand alone. In fighting the Austrians and 
 Spaniards he wished to have upon his side the great 
 northern German Powers at least and, if possible, 
 Great Britain and the Scandinavian Powers. Nothing 
 could be more helpful in the struggle than to have 
 across the Rhine a number of allies, to whom France 
 might tender its protection but whose activities it need 
 not fear. By convincing such states of the disinte- 
 rested aims of France, there would be at its very gates 
 a northern, for the most part protestant, Germany 
 at ease but impotent to pursue a hostile foreign policy. 
 Thus it behoved French statesmen to form a league 
 in Germany and to persuade into that league all the 
 primary and secondary powers in and out of Germany. 
 Towards that league France must adopt an attitude 
 of selfless benevolence. The spoils of war must not 
 be the object of French cupidity ; France must bear 
 rather more than her share of war's sacrifice and perils. 
 The diplomatic correspondence between Henry on
 
 SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 89 
 
 the one hand and the Landgrave of Hesse or Chris- 
 tian of Anhalt on the other shows with what great 
 success Sully had impressed these views upon his 
 master. True it was not without a struggle. "He\ 
 quoi," the latter is represented as exclaiming on one 
 occasion, "voudrez vous que je dependisse quarante 
 millions pour conquestre des terres pour autres sans 
 en retenir pour moi. Ce nest pas la mon intention, 
 mon amyi." But he did convince the King and the 
 policy bore fruit in the great anti-Hapsburg League 
 concluded at Halle in 16 10 between the German 
 princes 1 . 
 
 Then came the assassination of King Henry. From 
 his chateau in retirement Sully must have watched 
 during the next twenty years the negation of every 
 principle of caution, or of preparation before action, 
 upon which the policy of the preceding reign was 
 built. Is it to be wondered that at last he lifted up 
 his voice and spoke, using the most striking form of 
 utterance within his power to drive home his admoni- 
 tions and to sound a note of warning? His royal 
 master, like King Arthur, should come again to earth, 
 linked with certain arresting ideas in contemporary 
 thought, and provoke the little men of the succeeding 
 generation to salutary thought such as might still 
 save the State. He is not unique in falsifying history 
 for a purpose. The bulky volumes of the memoirs of 
 his contemporaries lie open for proof that in this he 
 was not singular, Lesdiguieres, Epernon, Nevers and 
 Bassompierre, all, save Duplessis Mornay of whom 
 this cannot be alleged. To a method of fanciful con- 
 ceits and of high lights and shadows, which cannot be 
 estimated accurately apart from the literary custom 
 
 1 See Baudrillart's article in Revue des questions Mstoriques, 1885
 
 go SULLY AND HIS GRAND DESIGN 
 
 of the French Renaissance, which too is a feature at 
 this period of its prose as well as of its poetry, even 
 of its historical writings and its scholarship, he 
 added the greater freedom which was given him by 
 devolution of authorship to his four secretaries, so 
 that his very pomposity is seen not to be without an 
 element of calculation. Tested in this fashion his 
 writings resume their place as historical authorities of 
 the first importance and the personality of Sully is 
 rescued from the vanishing process to which it was 
 subjected by some critics of a recent generation. This 
 borne in mind and bearing in mind too the political 
 forces with which he strove to wrestle, perhaps to no 
 book more than to the Oechonomies Royales can be 
 applied, at least in a special sense, the much discussed 
 dictum of a Cambridge scholar — history is past politics 
 and politics contemporary history.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 
 
 In predicting the future of the League of Nations 
 as I have already indicated statesmen and writers 
 have been led to draw analogies from the past and to 
 consider it in its historic aspect. There has been more 
 than one reference, for instance, to the "Grand 
 Design" dreamed of three hundred years ago by 
 Queen Elizabeth and Henry of Navarre. Historical 
 research has shown, if the contentions of the last 
 chapter are justified, that the "Grand Design" was 
 not conceived by Henry and that Elizabeth had 
 never heard of it. The instinct, however, to seek in 
 France of the sixteenth century for the grammar 
 and the primer of international organisation is de- 
 fensible. In the scores of books, treatises, tracts and 
 pamphlets published in this period, on the nature 
 and the origin of government, there is no tendency 
 shown to bound conceptions of government with the 
 nation state. It does not detract from Grotius, 
 the father of International Law, who lived when 
 the flames of this unparalleled intellectual activity 
 were beginning to burn low, to say that he provided 
 juridical expression for the conception of a family of 
 nations which other men than he had already opposed 
 to the cold and individualistic nationalism of Machia- 
 velli. It was his genius to employ in this direction 
 the strong sense of reality and power of analysis 
 with which he was endowed. So doing he was
 
 92 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 
 
 able to build upon rock. Others had his vision 
 without his sense and their work has passed away. 
 
 Of French thinkers in the sixteenth century none 
 stands out as a more daring speculator in the realm 
 of international relations than Emerich Cruce. It is 
 not astonishing that his name has been forgotten — 
 had even to be recovered by the researches of 
 historians — for the book upon which his claim to 
 fame is based had almost vanished from the earth. 
 His modern editor, Mr Balch of Philadelphia 1 , knew 
 only of three copies. Yet in its day it quickly achieved 
 a second edition, its author was well known and 
 sister volumes from his pen — in particular his edition 
 of the works of Statius— form the basis of an academic 
 wrangle which attracted considerable attention, 
 among its critics being Gronovius, the friend of 
 Grotius, who attacked it very violently. 
 
 We know that Cruce was born in Paris about 
 1590 and that he died in 1648. He was certainly 
 born a Frenchman, was a Catholic and possibly a 
 priest. Evidence drawn from his works would indicate 
 that he was widely read in the authors of classical 
 antiquity and the "civilians." Nothing else is known 
 for certain, and we must leave the author and discuss 
 the book. 
 
 The first edition bears the following title-page : 
 
 Le Nouveau Cynee ou Discours d'Estat representant les 
 occasions et moyens d'establir une paix generalle, et la liberte du 
 commerce par toute le monde. Aux Monarques et Princes souve- 
 rains de ce Temps. Em. Cr. Par. A Paris, chez Jacques Villery, 
 au Palais, sur le peron royal. MDCXXIII. Avec Privilege du 
 Roy. 
 
 1 I have used Mr Balch's translation throughout, but have taken the 
 liberty of occasionally altering a word to one more commonly used in 
 Cis-Atlantic circles.
 
 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 93 
 
 How steeped the writers of that day were in the 
 tradition of the classics is apparent enough in writings 
 meant for the ordinary man's enjoyment, witness the 
 plays of our English Marlowe, Shakespeare, Fletcher 
 or Ben Jonson. The publicists too thought their 
 writings none the worse for a classical allusion. 
 Hence Cruce" takes his title from Cyneas the Thes- 
 salian orator and sage, whose wisdom so impressed 
 King Pyrrhus that that monarch attached him to his 
 court and entrusted him with diplomatic missions 
 and business of State, much in the same way as a 
 modern President of the United States linked to his 
 machinery of government the services of a wise, 
 though silent, man from Texas, Colonel House. The 
 treatise hung upon this title is not lengthy but covers 
 a great stretch of ground. The object around which 
 it centres is the attaining and the preserving of per- 
 petual peace. 
 
 Very wisely the author places as the first object of 
 consideration the duty of each monarch to see that 
 internal peace, quiet and prosperity is made sure of 
 for his state. He directs the attention of his ima- 
 ginary princely reader in turn to considerations 
 concerning commerce, currency, canalisation, the 
 extirpation of pirates, the furtherance of education 
 on sound lines, and the policy that should be adopted 
 by the state towards religion. Each of these points 
 is treated with a large amount of detail, and on each 
 he has some shrewd remarks to make. Nor is he 
 merely repeating the catchwords of the date. Free- 
 trade and protection were words which meant much 
 in these days, and had done since Charles IX had 
 imported from Italy one Rene des Biragues, garde 
 des Sceaux in 1571 and Chancelier of France in
 
 94 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 
 
 1578, the founder in France of a school that followed 
 a high doctrine of protection. Cruc6 held wider views, 
 following in this the almost free-trade principles of 
 Bodin, principles which however that writer proceeded 
 to modify by very numerous exceptions in favour of 
 limited protection. 
 
 "It is reasonable," writes Cruce, "that the Prince levies a 
 few honest pennies on the merchandise which is brought in and 
 taken out of his territory: but he must in so doing use moderation 
 as much as he possibly can, and especially about merchandise 
 necessary to life." 
 
 There is here an embodiment of the theory of excise 
 rather than of protection. Other passages in the book 
 confirm the theory that the conceptions that lie 
 behind the latter philosophy of trade did not appeal 
 as much to him as to most of his contemporaries. 
 
 His projects for the construction of canals and the 
 making navigable of rivers are certainly not lacking 
 in boldness; nor are they informed by any narrow 
 spirit of patriotism. 
 
 "One finds," he writes, "enough fine rivers in France, but they 
 serve only to drown the fields and the neighbouring inheritances, 
 as was demonstrated to the council of King Charles the ninth, who 
 had resolved to look into the matter if the troubles which subse- 
 quently arose had not broken up this plan. ...Money and trouble 
 would be well spent in that, but it would be more useful for general 
 traffic to join two seas.... The last plan to join the seas was more 
 successfully carried out by Charlemagne. For he coupled the 
 rivers Altmiihl and Rednitz in Franconia, one of which falls into 
 the Danube, and from there into the Mediterranean: the other 
 joins itself to the Main and the Rhine and falls finally into the 
 Ocean of Holland... but while they were at this work, the rains 
 were so great that they filled the ditch with mud. It would be easy 
 to finish this design if there were peace in Germany." 
 
 The two seas were joined in time, but they had to 
 wait two hundred and fifty years, and then the
 
 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 95 
 
 necessary work was not undertaken by a French 
 King but by the most relentless of French enemies, 
 after a peace disastrous to France and sown with the 
 seed of future European wars; but it is interesting 
 to find foreshadowed by Cruce a development of 
 German canalisation, which within thirty years of 
 the Peace of Frankfort was to give Germany, and 
 Prussia in particular, 8750 miles of canals, of which 
 5041 were main streams, 885 composed of channelled 
 rivers and the rest canals proper dug in the fashion 
 which Cruce had projected. 
 
 The views of Cruce upon piracy do not call for 
 particular attention save to say that he was in favour 
 of a combined effort on the part of all the European 
 powers for suppression, and that the pirates when 
 taken should be settled on the land and made to 
 work, thereby winning for themselves a permanent 
 habitation and centre of interest, which would with- 
 draw them, and retain them willingly withdrawn, from 
 their nefarious ways. This method, which Cruce is 
 careful to point out, was put into practice by Pompey 
 in his dealing with the pirates of his day, seems also 
 to accord with the best principles of modern reforma- 
 tory philanthropy! His devices for catching the 
 pirates before reforming them take their place in the 
 history of savage warfare and of naval history, but 
 need not be dwelt on here. 
 
 In his scheme of education Cruce assigns the first 
 place to medicine and mathematics, a practical view 
 which accords with his little concealed preference 
 for practical men. 
 
 Now what brings commodities to a monarchy is not the 
 multitude of priests, ministers, nor monks, although I think their 
 dignity is great and necessary to attract the favour of Heaven.
 
 96 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 
 
 Neither is it the practitioners and officers of justice, who should 
 not be in such great numbers as they are in some places. In 
 short there is no occupation to compare in utility with that of a 
 merchant — 
 
 After such an expression of opinion one is not 
 astonished to learn that 
 
 one cannot recommend the study of mathematics and medicine 
 too much, if one consider the breadth of their subject, and the 
 grandeur of their practice beside the certainty of their demon- 
 stration. . . .Theology surpasses our capacity. Dialectics is only sub- 
 servient and an aid to other sciences. Physics is a knowledge of 
 nature that depends on experience. Rhetoric is superfluous. Juris- 
 prudence is not necessary and a good natural judgment is sufficient 
 to finish law-suits. . . . Grammar, poetry and history are more specious 
 than profitable. 
 
 Here is something of the spirit of Cobbett's famous 
 utterance that he would rather see people eat bacon 
 than read Bacon. 
 
 If Cruce was a priest he was a latitudinarian. 
 Perhaps this is scarcely the right description, for 
 speaking of Luther and Calvin he exclaims, 
 
 What a mess they have made with their tongues and writings 
 under pretence of reforming the abuses of Christianity. Such men 
 must be anticipated, and forbidden to dogmatize in public or in 
 private under penalty of rigorous punishment. 
 
 Still he understands the position of the latitudinarian, 
 the "religion of all sensible men," as a cynic called 
 it, and is prepared to meet it in a practical spirit by 
 emphasising for such men the importance of good 
 conduct as a guide in life. It was indeed this motive 
 which prompted him to write his book. 
 
 We see an infinity of men who do not consider themselves 
 obliged to believe except what reason shews them, whereby indeed 
 they recognize a God, but cannot consent to other articles of the 
 creed. ...Such men conform outwardly to the belief and custom of
 
 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 97 
 
 their country for fear of being described as atheists; which in truth 
 they are not, and it would be more in point to call them incredu- 
 lous, since they only follow reason and spurn theological faith as 
 if it were only an imaginary virtue. The number of such people 
 augments every day. For this reason the most renowned preachers 
 concentrate on the recommendation, in their exhortations, of the 
 moral virtues 
 
 At any rate he will take up no other attitude less 
 consistent with the broad humanity of every nation. 
 
 Who am I a Frenchman to wish harm to an Englishman, a 
 Spaniard or a Hindoo? I cannot wish it when I consider that 
 they are men like me, that I am subject like them to error and to 
 sin. 
 
 But Cruce has no bitterness, like some latitudinarians, 
 in maintaining his opinions, and he proceeds to 
 demonstrate the futility of religious persecution with 
 a sweet reasonableness that could have provoked 
 not the most hardened defender of the faith. Indeed 
 throughout his writings he preserves his sense of 
 humour and there are touches from time to time 
 delightful in their quaintness. Of the religious policy 
 of Henry IV of France, he observes that that 
 monarch was the first to discover that it was easier 
 to maintain two religions in peace than to preserve 
 one by war. Preaching probity to Emperors, he holds 
 up the example of Alexander Severus, "who hated 
 thieves so much that he could not even look at them 
 without feeling sick"; while Basil the Macedonian 
 was so anxious to do justice that finding a clean 
 charge sheet one day in a court of justice he sent 
 a runner through the streets to enquire if there was 
 no one who felt himself aggrieved, and finding no one 
 "cried for joy and rendered thanks to God." 
 
 Such were the predilections with which Emerich 
 Cruce approached the problem of world organisation 
 b. 7
 
 9 8 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 
 
 for the sake of securing perpetual peace. The world 
 in which he lived was weary of war, gradually be- 
 coming convinced of a stalemate in France, so far 
 as the rivalry of the various extremists was concerned, 
 and finally experienced in the results of the appeal 
 of such extremists to outside succour, whether in the 
 direction of Spain or in the direction of the Protestant 
 Reiters of Germany. 
 
 O que c'est grand erreur, que c'est grande misere, 
 
 De vouloir s'aider aux Guerres d'aujourd'huy 
 
 De bras de l'Estranger, et des Armes d'autruy 
 
 Incognues a nous, qui sont ou trop gesnantes 
 
 Ou trop larges pour nous, ou pour nous trop pesantes. 
 
 • ••••••• 
 
 Mauditte guerre, helas ! n'estoit-ce assez que France 
 Eust souffert paravant si grand perte et despense, 
 Si tu ne venois or la ranger par dix ans, 
 Donner aux estrangeurs les biens deus aux enfans? 
 
 Thus movingly writes Jean de la Taille in 1562. To 
 set state against state, to profit by the evils that 
 afflicted neighbouring peoples seemed to Cruc£ not 
 only wrong but foolish policy. A lack of settled 
 government in a country might on the one hand 
 create a profitable vacuum, but disorder also was 
 infectious. 
 
 "It seems to me," he writes, "that when you see the house of 
 your neighbour burning or falling, that you have cause for fear... 
 since human society is one body of which all the members are in 
 sympathy in such a manner that it is impossible for the sickness 
 of the one not to be communicated to the other." 
 
 It would appear from this that he would have under- 
 stood the Bolshevistic menace to the world at the 
 present moment, and the international aspect of the 
 advantages of settled government.
 
 'THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 99 
 
 Tyranny is unfortunate, I confess, but popular fury and con- 
 fusion is still more to be feared. [In the republics of Ancient 
 History] the citizens were always quarrelling. Then followed 
 massacre, pillaging and confusion, so that the greatest tyranny in 
 the world would not have caused half these evils for which their 
 best remedy lay in the domination of a single man. 
 
 The problem must be, however, when once all 
 symptoms of internal combustion were allayed, to 
 prevent monarchs and governments to. "take their 
 exercise" in disputing with their neighbours. 
 
 Opinions are changeable, and the actions of men of the present 
 time do not bind their successors. To prevent the inconvenience 
 of this it would be necessary to choose a city where all sovereigns 
 should have perpetually their ambassadors, in order that the 
 differences that might arise should be settled by the judgment of 
 the whole assembly. The ambassadors of those who would be 
 interested would plead there the grievances of their masters and 
 the other deputies would judge them without prejudice. And to 
 give more authority to the judgment, one would take advice of the 
 big republics, who would have likewise their agents in the same 
 place. I say great Republics, like those of the Venetians and the 
 Swiss, and not those small Lordships that cannot maintain them- 
 selves and depend upon the protection of another. That if anyone 
 rebelled against the decree of so notable a company, he would 
 receive the disgrace of all other Princes, who would find means to 
 bring him to reason. Now the most commodious place for such 
 an assembly is Venice because it is practically neutral and in- 
 different to all Princes; added thereto that it is near the most 
 important monarchies of the earth, of those of the Pope, the two 
 Emperors, and the King of Spain. It is not far distant from France, 
 Tartary, Muscovy, Poland, England and Denmark. As for Persia, 
 China, Ethiopia and the East and West Indies, they are lands far 
 distant, but navigation remedies that inconvenience, and for such 
 a good object, a man must not refuse a long journey. 
 
 These remarkable sentences in which the core of his 
 proposal is contained, is followed by a long disserta- 
 tion upon the precedence to be observed by the 
 representatives in conclave. From disputes about 
 
 7—2
 
 ioo "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 
 
 this Cruce seems to have dreaded serious trouble. 
 He suggests, however, trying to speak from a 
 purely impartial point of view, that the Pope should 
 come first, followed by the Emperor of the Turks 
 ("especially as he also holds the city of Constantinople 
 which is the twin equal of Rome; also it bears the 
 name"), next the Christian Emperor, next "as a 
 Frenchman" he hopes he may be allowed to place the 
 King of France, then that of Spain. "The sixth 
 place can be contested between the Kings of Persia, 
 China, Prester John, the Precop of Tartary and the 
 Grand Duke of Muscovy." The kings of Great 
 Britain, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Japan, Morocco, 
 the Great Mogul and other monarchs from India and 
 Africa come next, "all brave princes who maintain 
 themselves and do not depend on anyone." Any 
 potentate displeased with this order will do well to 
 lay his case before the assembly. Such is Cruce's 
 solution of a problem to which he evidently attached 
 importance. It is a short matter to retail it, but in 
 the original the treatment is immense, all history is 
 ransacked for argument, the Bible, Justinian, French 
 provincial customs, Bodin's writings, all subjected to 
 a close analysis with a view to finding evidence that 
 bears upon the point. 
 
 Of more interest to the modern reader are his 
 views as to the machinery in motion. 
 
 The cities of Greece submitted to the decree of the Amphic- 
 tyons, and those who did not obey them, encountered resentment 
 not only of the country but also of strangers: as Philip of Macedon 
 demonstrated to the Phocians, and took occasion to wage a cruel 
 war against them, because they had been condemned by the 
 Amphictyons. And the ancient princes of Gaul, although they had 
 their lordships and sovereignty apart, handed over their differences 
 to the advice of Druids, upon penalty of being excommunicated
 
 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 101 
 
 and abominated by the whole people. Nevertheless never was a 
 council so august, nor assembly so honourable as that of which 
 we speak, which would be composed of ambassadors of all the 
 monarchs and sovereign republics who will be trustees and hostages 
 of public peace. And the better to authorize it, all the said Princes 
 will swear to hold as inviolable law whatever would be ordained 
 by the majority of votes in the said assembly, and to pursue with 
 arms those who would wish to oppose it. This company therefore 
 would judge then the disputes which would arise not only about 
 precedence, but about other things, would maintain the ones and 
 the others in good understanding; would meet discontents half-way 
 and would appease them by gentle means, if it could be done, or, 
 in case of necessity, by force. 
 
 There is a singularly modern note about the phrases 
 in italics, recalling alike the mandatory theory of the 
 recent Paris scheme and the idea, so often emphasised 
 by the supporters of that scheme, that the Secretariat- 
 General is not a mere machine of registration but is 
 also charged with the functions of a watchman, a 
 sentry, a vedette, as well as a pro-bouleutic body 
 acting for the larger conference ; that, in other words, 
 a way out of international problems is to be found only 
 in an organisation working with continuous activity 
 rather than with spasmodic efforts. Is it too far 
 fetched to put alongside the utterance of Cruc£ that 
 of a famous pamphlet composed by General Smuts ? 
 
 It is not enough for the League to be a sort of Deus ex 
 machina, called in on very grave emergencies when the spectre 
 of war appears; if it is to last it must be much more. It must 
 become part and parcel of the common international life of states, 
 it must be an ever invisible, living, working organ of the polity of 
 civilisation. It must function (sic) so strongly in the ordinary 
 peaceful intercourse of states that it becomes irresistible in their 
 disputes; its peace activity must be the foundation and guarantee 
 of its war power. 
 
 Mankind's idea of the nature of the corporation has 
 grown richer and more varied in the three hundred
 
 102 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 
 
 years that have passed since the publication of Le 
 Nouveau Cynde, and it does not go for nothing that 
 General Smuts is a trained lawyer of the Cambridge 
 school, but all the same the germ of the theory which 
 the General's pamphlet presses was familiar to Cruce. 
 He had a firm grasp of the principle that it must not 
 merely be the function of a League of Nations to 
 adjudicate upon disputes, but rather to foresee and 
 dissipate the causes of hostility. 
 
 In other ways as well the author shows that his 
 project was not a mere spontaneous expression of 
 vague aspirations. He had a grasp of fundamental 
 difficulties such as can be gained only by hard thinking. 
 One of the first considerations to be faced in treating 
 of world government is the fact that the geographical 
 phenomena with which one has to deal, are in a state 
 of flux, not fixed. It is not merely, as Lord Robert 
 Cecil has pointed out, that it is dangerous to attempt 
 to fix for ever by cast-iron treaties the limits of each 
 nation, a contingency avoided in the Paris scheme 
 by providing that when change is necessary it shall 
 be after discussion and debate rather than by means 
 of war or violence. More subtle than this, however, 
 is the apprehension that every man must feel lest the 
 very suggestion of the necessity for a League of 
 Nations has not always proceeded throughout history 
 from parties interested; that if Henry IV had formed 
 the project of a Grand Design it would have been 
 in reality an anti-Hapsburg measure of French 
 foreign policy; that British statesmen to-day are con- 
 cerned in general form to preserve the status quo. 
 This of course would not necessarily be harmful in 
 itself or disastrous to the world, if the power and 
 position of the interested party were eternal. Yet
 
 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 103 
 
 empires rise and fall, and as it is the turn of each to 
 start its way along the road of Nineveh and Tyre 
 perpetual agreements are provocative of strife, objects 
 of jealous resentment to the powers whose vigour is 
 not so impaired, instruments of contention rather than 
 sedatives. Modern statesmen in facing this difficulty 
 to-day trust in part to the educative influence of the 
 "New Order" upon all the nations, and in particular 
 upon the people of those nations, partly to the ex- 
 tension of the membership of the League to its widest 
 limits, including therein a repentant Germany, 
 Austria, Turkey and Bulgaria of which they have 
 satisfied themselves of the existence. The width of 
 the membership proposed by Cruce for his league 
 was remarkable at a time when for most men the 
 raison cTHre for its existence would have been, as 
 was the case of Sully for example, co-operative 
 European action against the Turk. At the same 
 time he approaches the difficulty from a different 
 point of view and harnesses it to drive his contention 
 further home. 
 
 We do not know yet all the countries of the habitable earth. 
 There is perhaps some people towards the Occident or South.... 
 Nothing can save an empire, except a general peace, of which the 
 principal means consists in the limitation of the monarchies, so 
 that each Prince remains within the limits of the lands which he 
 possesses at present, and that he does not pass beyond them for any 
 pretences. And if he finds himself offended by such a restriction, 
 let him consider that the limit of the kingdoms and lordships are 
 set by the hand of God, who takes them away and transfers them 
 when and where it seems good to Him... if he has some things to 
 complain of, let him address himself to this great assembly, as to 
 the most competent judge that can be imagined. This is the prin- 
 cipal way of establishing universal peace and upon which all others 
 depend. It is in this way that a beginning can be made. For so 
 long as sovereigns remain separated... they will try to aggrandise 
 themselves. But if they are content with their present fortunes, if
 
 io 4 "THE GRAND DESIGN" OF EMERICH CRUCE 
 
 they hand over to the people their claims as they should do, if 
 they unite with the body of this assembly, of which they are 
 members, there is nothing that can retard a good peace or break it. 
 
 This use of the argument that, to use Cruce s words 
 in another place, "God is not constrained to continue 
 his benediction in one place" is after all, on a last 
 analysis, the only answer to the dilemma presented 
 by the truism that geography is a dynamic not a 
 static science. 
 
 These are the main conceptions presented by L& 
 Nouveau Cyn^e, a work worthy of more general 
 study ; for the political philosopher he has interesting 
 reflections on the nature of sovereignty and the 
 effect upon it of participation in a world regime ; for 
 the economist he has some sound remarks on currency 
 which in the opinion of his learned editor allow him 
 to be classed with Nicholas Oresme, Copernicus and 
 Gresham; for the historian there are presented 
 problems as to the connection between his views and 
 the insertions made by Sully in his memoirs late in 
 life upon which the "Grand Design" is based. But 
 Cruce has a more general appeal. A campaign has 
 been inaugurated for the education of the country 
 upon the recent League of Nations scheme. Ideas 
 have been revived that have long been dormant. 
 The man in the street will be challenged to think in 
 unaccustomed ways. At such a time it is healthy to 
 realise that there are few ideas likely to be promul- 
 gated that men did not think about and write about 
 three hundred years ago. Emerich Cruce treated 
 some of these ideas and in a vivid and arresting style. 
 As a great French scholar, learned above most men 
 in the history of thought, once wrote, " II est bon de 
 s'apercevoir qu'on a des aieux."
 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 PASSAGES QUOTED IN CHAPTER I 
 
 i. Here is one extract from a letter to Paul II: "Excussit nobis 
 lacrymas, Beatissime Pater, adventus tuus ad sanctum Petrum, 
 excussit gemitus, quod beatitudinem tuam comitari et applausu 
 prosequi, quemadmodum solebamus, non licuerit. O nos miseros, 
 O nos infelices quibus tuo suavissimo ac sanctissimo conspectu 
 frui non licuit," etc., etc., in the same unctuous strain. Vairani, 
 Cremonensium monumenta, p. 31. 
 
 2. Sed unum tibi, Beatissime Pater, de me atque his polliceor; 
 Deum et sanctos super hac re testes facio, si nos libertati reddideris, 
 si tua sanctissima ac liberalissima manu paupertatem nostram ali- 
 quantulum levaveris (nolumus magnas divitias, paucis contenti 
 sumus), habiturum te fidelissimos servos (Pomponius Letus and 
 himself) et indefessos tuarum laudum praecones. Celebrabimus et 
 prosa et carmine Pauli nomen et auream hanc aetatem quam tuus 
 felicissimus pontificatus efficit. Vairani, Cremonensium monumenta, 
 p. 30. 
 
 3. In a passionate appeal for the abolition of warfare he exclaims : 
 "Partite sanguini vestro: ex eodem parente geniti sumus; ad 
 easdem sedes, si boni, erimus" which are words attributable to 
 Platina only after he had undergone an almost inconceivable 
 amount of chastening ! " Ego vero, ut de me ipso loquar, Virg. illud 
 non sine horrore et exanimatione lego: — 
 
 Haec finis Priami fatorum, hie exitus ilium 
 Sorte tulit Troiam incensam et prolapsa videntem 
 Pergama, tot quondam populis terrisque superbum 
 Regnatorem Asiae. iacet ingens litore truncus, 
 Avulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus." 
 
 {Aen. 11, 554). 
 has a speciousness which is suspicious. 
 
 4. O miseros, o infortunatos parentes, o derelictas et destitutas 
 conjuges, o genitore expectato orbatos filios! Quid quod majorum 
 sepulchris et solo patrio carentes, sine honore, sine pompa funeris, 
 nullis exequiis, nullis justis persolutis, tamquam brutorum cadavera 
 insepulti jacent, alitibus et feris expositi....etc, etc.
 
 106 PASSAGES QUOTED IN CHAPTER I 
 
 5. Factum est scriptorum culpa, maxime vero historicorum, qui, 
 quo plures quis in proelio interfecerit, eum triumphos, statuas, 
 trophea, honores turn divinos, turn humanos merito assecutum 
 ostendunt....Quaestultitia quaeso istaest, eum, quiunum hominem 
 occiderit, nefarium et scelestum putare; et eum qui centena millia 
 perdiderit...colere ac divinis honoribus prosequi. 
 
 6. Moti hanc ob rem majores illi, qui novae generationi propin- 
 quiores fuere, quasi mentis divinae magis participes, delinquentes 
 exilio mulctabant, eisdemque aqua atque igni interdicebatur, grave 
 nefas putantes quamvis malos, tamen homines et Dei similitudinem 
 prae se ferentes supplicio capitis afficere. 
 
 7. Quod si rustici satam arborem et prope adultam, ut jam 
 fructus inde sperari possint, excisam dolent et queruntur, quanto 
 magis lamentanda mors illius est, a quo non baccae, non nuces, 
 non acini, non poma, ut ab arbore, sed auxilium et consilium et 
 necessarii vitae humanae fructus expectantur. 
 
 8. Sed quis est, qui potentiam adeptus, illam teneat, quam 
 justitia ac virtutes omnes commendant? Facilius enim exuberans 
 flumen ob potentiam aquarum inter ripas continebitur quam 
 exultans et insolens victoria hostis. 
 
 9. Utinam tandem humanum genus oculos, pulsa erroris et 
 ignorantiae caligine, ad coelum tollat! Intelliget profecto, se ad id 
 natum esse, ut quoad fieri possit, Deum Optimum Maximum 
 imitetur, qui fugata ilia vetere omnium rerum confusione, quam 
 Graeci vocant Chaos, mundum hunc, cujus pulchritudinem et con- 
 venientiam ob aeternam pacem admiramur, creavit et composuit. 
 Novem enim Orbibus, vel potius globis hunc, quern una appella- 
 tione Mundum vocamus, sapientissime distinxit. Summo illi 
 circulo, qui omnes continet et cui perpetuo inhaerent stellae 
 subjiciuntur septem quos errones Latini, Graeci planetas vocant. 
 Hi contrario motu acti naturaferuntur. Illam conficiuntharmoniam, 
 qua nulla profecto major in terris audiri potest. Hanc coelestium 
 corporum pacem non immerito dicamus; cum pax nihil aliud sit, 
 quam convenientia et quasi conjunctio hominum inter se. 
 
 10. Sed quid ego haec exempla divina atque humana com- 
 memoro cum elementa inanimata quidem, unde haec nostra cor- 
 puscula originem trahunt, pacem expetere videantur. Agitatum 
 ventis mare, quam terribile sit visu, quam perniciosum accolis 
 et nautis, norunt, qui currentium undarum, tamquam ex manu
 
 PASSAGES QUOTED IN CHAPTER I 107 
 
 conserta, ictus et procellas cum naufragio nonnunquam per- 
 petiuntur. Idemvero, cessante vento, quiescentibus undis, quam 
 pacatum, quam portuosum, quam navigantibus utile, ut etiam 
 nolentes mercatores sua tranquillitate attrahere ad se et allicere 
 videtur. Vagantes turn pisces, pace ubique parta, littus et altum 
 pro libidine petunt, nee allidi in saxa aut rejici ad littus, quod 
 undis fieri solet, verentur. Amplius pascuntur in littore aves, 
 nidificant tuto halcyones, quibus non alibi, quam in maritimis 
 locis ova parere et incubare licet. Idem etiam nobis et animantibus 
 omnibus ex aere contingit...moerent aves, ingemiscunt animantia, 
 ut ait Hesiodus, et latebras, vitandi mali causa, quaeritant. At 
 ubi serenum effulsit et pax est reddita terris...gerriunt turn aves, 
 gestiunt quadrupedes, ac reliqua animantia et quasi securitatem 
 macti, sese ad id, quo natura feruntur, effundunt, praeteritorum 
 malorum parum recordantia: tanta est praesentis boni voluptas. 
 
 11. Nulli rei creatae quies data. Una species aliam exagitat, 
 leo lupum, lupus canem, canis leporem insequitur....Nosti ut in 
 animalibus Aristoteles voluit, basilicum reliquos sibilo terrere et 
 fugare et vicu perimere...volucres nunquam non vides bellantes. 
 Galli enim sese calcaribus impetunt, adeo ut mirandum sit, tantum 
 invidiae et superbiae in tarn parvo esse animali. Anseres vero, 
 cum armis careant, clamoribus et alis sese exagitant, ac rostris 
 verberant. 
 
 Ut tandem ad homines veniamus; quis non cernit inter conjuges 
 repugnantias, querelas, suspiciones, in ipsos filios indignationem?... 
 Quid igitur de bellis inter jam natos quereris cum nascituris nosti 
 bella ipsa non defuisse, dum in matrum uteris bellasse fratres, 
 scriptura testante, cognoscis? Cur ne ergo bellis jam nati carebunt, 
 quibus antequam essent, minimi caruerunt? 
 
 12. In primis igitur dicturus de pace, illud, puto, fore suppo- 
 nendum, quod, ut sacri interpretes describunt, pax dicta est de 
 pacto, quasi pactum faciens, vel a pactione mentis; quo sit, ut ubi 
 unanimis ac conformis desit mentis tranquillitas, ibi pax ipsa vera 
 desinat necesse...etc. Also the good effect of military discipline is 
 suggested by the derivation castra — casta. Bella "wars" are bella 
 "beautiful things" and peace is feminine and shrinks from war — 
 these are other contentions of Rodericus.
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RODERICUS SANCIUS, 
 BISHOP OF CALAHORRA 
 
 A list of the works of Rodericus Sancius is given by Antonio in 
 his Bibliotheca Hispana Vet us, Book x, Chapter xi (vol. II, 
 p. 193 of the Roman edition of 1690). Although I have been able 
 to make but few additions to his list in comparison with the whole, 
 I think it worth while that this list should be printed, partly because 
 Antonio's work is not very accessible, partly because I can claim 
 to guide enquirers a little further on their way, and partly because 
 no piece of evidence so illuminates the character of this genial 
 bishop as a list of treatises from his pen, embracing in their 
 scope such different subjects as religious mendicancy, education, 
 sovereignty, Islam, the function of a castellan, the capture of 
 Gibraltar, not to mention any of the numerous questions of con- 
 temporary politics, with which his speeches and his sermons freely 
 deal. My researches in continental libraries have had to be con- 
 ducted from this country. This makes me the more grateful to 
 those in foreign lands who have helped me from the abundance of 
 their knowledge, or by conducting enquiries on my behalf. I have 
 given dates only when these seem beyond doubt. 
 
 1. 1467. Defensorium status Ecclesiastici contra querulos, 
 aemulos, et detractores praelatorum et clericorum, divisum in 
 decern tractatus. Antonio 591. Vat. MS. 4106. 
 
 2. De paupertate Christi et Apostolorum; et an Christus et 
 Apostoli mendicarunt, et quo sensu dici potest eos mendicasse. 
 Ibi denique deducitur praelatos et clericos modernos non deviare 
 a vita Apostolica; licet obtineant propria, possessiones et 
 praebendas distinctas, et quamquam segregatim in domibus 
 propriis habitent, nihilominus eos vitam communem a Sanctis 
 patribus institutam ducere censendos fore. 
 
 Antonio 592. Vat. MS. 969. 
 Dedicated to Pope Paul II. 
 
 3. Liber, ubi agitur: an sine peccato fideles licite fugiant a 
 locis ubi saevit pestis. 
 
 Antonio 593. Vat. MS. 4881. Milan, Ambr. Library.
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RODERICUS SANCIUS 109 
 
 4. De monarchia orbis; in quo ostenditur apud Romanam 
 pontificem residere veram orbis monarchiam. 
 
 Antonio 594. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 The treatise discusses the origin and distinctions between different kinds of 
 
 authority. It touches upon imperial claims and those of modern kingdoms and 
 
 principalities, especially Spain and France. It asserts the responsibility of 
 
 monarchs not to the Emperor or their subjects, but to the Pope. 
 
 5. Defensorium hujus libri de monarchia orbis contra quosdam 
 detractores. Antonio 595. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 A defence of the Papal authority against Imperial attacks. 
 
 6. Apparatus, sive commend super bullam Cruciatae indictae 
 per Papam Pium contra perfidos Turcos. Antonio 596. 
 
 7. ? 1466/7. Super commento bullae depositionis Regis Bohe- 
 miae per sanctissimum dominum Paul II publicatae. 
 
 Antonio 597. Venice, St Mark Z. L. CXCIV. 
 See Odericus Regnaldus, Ann. Eccl. vol. XVIII ad annum MCDLXVI, 
 num. 25 and 26. Creighton, Hist, of the Papacy. 
 
 8. De remediis afflictae Ecclesiae militantis. In quo adhibentur 
 remedia contra omnes persecutiones quas Ecclesia a domesticis 
 et persecutoribus patitur. Antonio 598. 
 
 9. De remediis afflictae Ecclesiae militantis adversus extrinsecas 
 Turcorum persecutiones pressuras et angustias: et an generalis 
 Synodus hoc tempore sit expediens et sufficiens remedium ad eas 
 extirpandas. Demum ostenditur, quando et quomodo et ex quibus 
 caussis generalia Concilia congregari debent. Rursus deducitur 
 Romanum Pontificem habere in terris supremam authoritatem, 
 foreque summum ordinarium tribunae ad levanda quaevis mala et 
 incommoda ab ecclesia Dei. 
 
 Antonio 599. Padua. Library of the canons of St John. 
 Venice, St Mark Z. L. XC 
 Dedicated to Cardinal Bessarion. 
 
 10. 1468. Speculum vitae humanae, de prosperis et adversis, 
 dulcibus et amaris omnium statuum vitae mortalis, tarn in statu 
 spirituali quam temporali. Antonio 600. 
 
 Jottings as to the responsibilities, duties, etc. of various highly placed 
 officials. This book was often printed and proved most popular. See 
 Proctor, An index to the Early Printed Books in the British Museum, passim. 
 Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, Vol. 11, Part 2, p. 223. 
 
 11. De regno dividendo et quando primogenitura sit licita. 
 
 Antonio 604. Vat. MS. 4881.
 
 no A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RODERICUS SANCIUS, 
 
 12. De pace et de bello et de necessitate et utilitate bellorum. 
 Antonio 605. Vat. MS. 4881. Venice, St Mark C C. C. C. 166. 
 
 The dialogue is fully referred to above, Chap. 1. 
 
 13. De eruditione puerorum. 
 
 Antonio 606. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 14. Liber confutatorius sectae et superstitionis Machometi et 
 quorundam errorum in ea contentorum in quibusdam epistolis per 
 quendam eloquentem oratorem missis perfido Turco. 
 
 Antonio 607. 
 
 15. 1467. Liber dialogi De auctoritate Rom. Pontificis et 
 Generalium Conciliorum et de poena subtrahentium obedientiam 
 a sede Apostolica et de remediis schismatum. 
 
 Antonio 608. Vat. MS. 4881. Padua. Lib. of St Benedict. 
 Dedicated to Pope Paul II. 
 
 16. Liber de castellanis et custodibus arcium et castrorum et 
 de ducibus exercitus bellorum, et de eorum officio, et quales 
 debeant esse. Antonio 609. 
 
 17. Liber de questionibus ortholanis, introductus inter reve- 
 rendum patrem Alphonsum Episcopum Burgensem ex una, et 
 eundem Rodericum episcopum ex altera: quis sensus corporaliter 
 altero sit utilior et praestantior et praesertim an visus sit excel- 
 lentior et utilior auditu. Antonio 610. 
 
 Hortolanis is a word constructed from hortus, "a garden," e.g., "garden 
 talks," or from opdpwos "early," e.g., "conversations of a morning." 
 
 18. Tractatus ad quendam religiosum Carthusiensem quando 
 liceat religiosis curias principum sequi aut frequentare. Et quod 
 aliquando expedit eos apud principes manere. Antonio 61 r. 
 
 19. Tractatus de mysterio S. S. Trinitatis et an possit probari 
 naturalibus rationibus. Antonio 612. 
 
 Dedicated to Pius II. 
 
 20. Libellum ad beatissimum et clementissimum D.D. Paullum 
 P.M. in quo testimoniis juris divini, naturalis et humani damnetur 
 appellatio a sententia Romani Pontificis non bene, ut aiunt, 
 informati ad eundem bene informatum. Adducuntur pro utraque 
 parte rationes juris et auctoritates, tandem Veritas multis testimoniis 
 comprobatur, declaraturque quotuplex et qualis sit superioritas 
 quae in appellatione requiritur. 
 
 Antonio 614. Vat. MS. 4167. Padua. Library of the Canons 
 
 of St John.
 
 BISHOP OF CALAHORRA in 
 
 21. Uialogus De remediis Schismatis. 
 
 Antonio 615. Vat. MS. 4002. 
 Dedicated to Garsias Henriquez, Bishop of Seville, member of the Privy 
 Council of King John of Castille and Leon. 
 
 In the introduction the following light is thrown upon the origin of the book : 
 
 Nuper itaque, cum apud serenissimum principem Romanorum 
 
 Imperatorem, aliquandiu demorarer, ad coenam me traxit invitum 
 
 quidam Theodoricus juris professor insignis, vir arbitratu meo 
 
 doctissimus, ac multarum rerum experientissimus. Ad mensam 
 
 itaque nobis inter epulas confidentibus, ecce, ut puto, illius 
 
 industria verbum prodiit de hac flebili Ecclesiae scissura, in qua 
 
 re paullo ante egeram ipse verbum coram Caesarea majestate. 
 
 Tangebat vir ille plurima in rebus ipsis sciscitans, quidnam caussae 
 
 tantorum esset malorum, quidne remedium futurum videtur. 
 
 The conversation was then reduced to writing. The occasion of Roderic's 
 visit was probably his mission from King John II to the Emperor. 
 
 22. Epistola ad doctissimum et religiosissimum virum Fr. 
 Alphonsum de Palenguela, in qua agitur de multiplici onere et 
 periculo Pontificalis dignitatis, et de ambitionis vitio, ac modernis 
 abusibus praelatorum. Agitur etiam de modo pascendi gregem et 
 de pluribus ad curam praesulatus spectantibus. 
 
 Antonio 616. Vat. MS. 3899. 
 
 23. Epistola lugubris et moesta, simul et consolatoria, de 
 infelici expugnatione insulae Eubozae dictae Necropontis a perfido 
 crucis Christi hosteTurcarum impiissimo principe et tyranno nuper 
 inflicta, ad rever. P. ac sapientiss. dom. Bessarionem Cardinalem 
 Sabinum et Patriarcham Constantinopolitanum. 
 
 Antonio 617. Vat. MS. 5869. 
 
 24. Historia Hispana. Antonio 619. 
 
 25. Oratio ad sanctissimum Papam Eugenium exparte serenis 
 simi Regis Hispaniae (John II) contra factiones Basileensium. 
 Ubi multa de devotione Regum Hispaniae ad Romanam ecclesiam. 
 
 Antonio 621. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 26. Oratio alia ad sacrum collegium Cardinalium super eadem 
 materia. Antonio 622. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 27. Oratio ex parte ejusdem Regis Hispaniae ad Philippum 
 Mariam Ducem Mediolani exhortatoria ad pacem Italiae et ut 
 pure et simpliciter adhaeret dom. Eugenio et Basileensem 
 factionem respueret. Antonio 623. Vat. MS. 4881.
 
 112 
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RODERICUS SANCIUS, 
 
 28. Oratio ex parte ejusdem ad sereniss. Fredericum Impera- 
 torem exhortatoria ad unitatem et pacem Ecclesiae et quod 
 deceat Imperatores agere pro unione ac defensione Ecclesiae, 
 inducens eundem Imperatorem ad puram adhaesionem dom. 
 Eugenii et ad detestationem Basileensium. 
 
 Antonio 624. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 29. Oratio ad sereniss. Carolum Regem Franciae exparte ejus- 
 dem de laudibus ejusdem Caroli et gloriosae domus Franciae et 
 Hispaniae, exhortatoria ad tollendas omnes occasiones dissidii 
 inter utramque regiam domum. Antonio 625. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 30. Oratio ex parte sanctiss. dom. Nicolai Papae ad illustris- 
 simum Ducem Burgundiae, ubi multa de devotione et favore 
 ejusdem principis ad incrementa fidei. 
 
 Antonio 626. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 This is Duke Philip of Burgundy. 
 
 31. Oratio ad sanctiss. Papam Pium II nomine regis Hispaniae 
 in praestatione obedientiae, ubi congratulatur de assumptione. 
 Exhortatur ad exsterpationem Turcorum et multa de devotione 
 Regum Hispaniae ad ecclesiam Romanam. 
 
 Antonio 627. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 Rex Hispaniae = Henry IV. 
 
 32. Oratio lugubris de obitu sereniss. Regis Joannis Hispaniae 
 ad sereniss. Regem Carolum Franciae et de laudibus ejus Regis 
 Johannis. Antonio 628. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 33. Oratio habita ad sanctissimum dominum Callistum, Papam 
 secundum, in praestationem obedientiae et congratulatoria de 
 assumptione: et multa pia opera adducit et singularem devotionem 
 Regum Hispaniae ad sedem Apostolicam. 
 
 Antonio 629. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 Callistus II = Callistus III commonly so called. 
 
 34. Oratio habita Romae in nativitate primogenitae serenissimi 
 Regis Hispaniarum et de causis gaudendi ob eundem natalem. 
 
 Antonio 630. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 35. Oratio ad sanctiss. Pium II de felici victoria et acquisitione 
 civitatis de Gibraltar in stricto Oceani maris sitae, per capitaneos 
 Regis Hispaniae et ibi multa de situ illius urbis et de utilitate 
 fidei. Antonio 631. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 The capture took place 1462.
 
 BISHOP OF CALAHORRA 113 
 
 36. Oratio ad eundem Pontificem in conventione Mantuana ex 
 parte Regis Hispaniae. Commendat dictum conventum pro 
 expeditione contra Turcos. Exhortatur ad eundem expeditionem 
 et pollicetur omnia auxilia ex parte ejusdem Regis. Exhortatur et 
 ad pacem principum Christianorum. 
 
 Antonio 632. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 37. Sermo coram sanctissimo Nicholas Papa V in Dominica 
 Passionis in Quadragesima. Antonio 633. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 38. Sermo coram sacro collegio Cardinalium in die St Thomae 
 de Aquino. Antonio 634. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 39. Sermo coram sanctissimo domino Callisto in die ascensionis 
 domini. Antonio 635. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 40. Sermo coram eodem in die Annunciationis B. Mariae 
 Virginis. Antonio 636. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 41. Sermo coram sanctissimo domino Pio in die Sanctae 
 Trinitatis. Antonio 637. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 42. Sermo coram sanctissimo domino Nicholas in die 
 Apostolorum Petri et Pauli. Antonio 638. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 43. Sermo coram sanctiss. dom. Pio in die Pentecostis. 
 
 Antonio 639. Vat. MS. 4881. 
 
 44. Opuscula Roderici Episcopi Calagurritani, Castellani 
 S. Angeli de Urbe et epistolae ejusdem ad quosdam doctissimos 
 viros et illorum ad eum. 
 
 Antonio 639. Vat. MS. 4881. C. C. C. C. 166. 
 
 45. 1449. Sermo in passione domini factus Romae coram 
 sanctissimo domino nostro Nicholas papa quinto ... anno 
 MCCCCXLIX. 
 
 Not in Antonio. Koblenz Staatsarchiv. Abt 701 Nr 230. 
 
 8
 
 APPENDIX C 
 
 ENGLISH VERSION OF PASSAGES QUOTED 
 IN CHAPTER II 
 
 i. Nobility is conferred by the tenure of a Princedom. But it 
 is often by patent, and often unexpressed. When by patent, as in 
 the case of its being held in writing, or by the method of a personal 
 concession, it is called "chartered" nobility, but when unexpressed, 
 nobility is conferred indirectly, or without outward manifestation 
 as in the case of anything conferred, which draws with it nobility, 
 such as the rule of a Duchy or a County. For these enoble their 
 possessors. 
 
 2. For always in the case of certain nations supreme sovereignty 
 was in the people, and this is manifested as a provision of Divine 
 Law. For when God created man, He gave to him sovereignty and 
 dominion over other living beings; but He did not provide that 
 one man should ever serve another. So, in the beginning, kings 
 were not adopted by Divine Order, but from popular consent, and 
 this, even after the fall of the Roman Empire, was preserved when 
 Charles the Great was elected Augustus, by the Roman people, 
 and anointed with Holy Oil by the Pope Leo. This popular 
 sovereignty now-a-days has been transferred by the Gregorian 
 Law to the 7 "Electors" of Germany. Similarly, when Chilperic 
 was dethroned, because he was not capable of governing, the 
 Franks substituted Pippin in a Pan-Celtic Conference; and when 
 the descendants of Pippin had degenerated from their ancestors, they 
 again elevated Odo, and shortly after his brother Robert, and then 
 Hugh, the nephew of Robert, to the highest position. This is the 
 Hugh who is commonly called Capet, from whom have sprung all 
 those who, even now, govern the Frankish Dominions. And what 
 has been said about these very great kings, to wit, the Roman and 
 the Frankish, the same has been the practice in the case of their 
 inferiors.... So that I may be allowed to say that, according to 
 Divine Law, he is a lawful Prince, who bases his rule on popular 
 consent, which is just what Aristotle says. But he who rules over 
 unwilling subjects is a tyrant, even though he is Caesar, elected by 
 the Septemviri, or holds his position by any other provision of civil 
 law. For this reason, when great kingdoms are in the first place
 
 ENGLISH VERSIONS 115 
 
 formed, not from the consent of the subjects, but by violence, 
 St Augustine, in the 4th book of The City of God y rightly declared 
 that a great crime has been committed. 
 
 3. It is necessary that a Monarchy should be elected and con- 
 firmed in the world, and should take its origin in Gaul, from the 
 support and election of the Gallic people.... It is necessary, accord- 
 ing to my chief idea, to lay down in word and writing, that the 
 most Christian Monarch, elected, approved, sustained and upheld 
 by the Gallic people, should have, for ever, such authority 
 throughout the world in temporal matters as St Peter has had, 
 up to now, in spiritual. 
 
 4. For Law made by the Prince has the force of law, even if there 
 has been no question of popular consent, but it is merely a matter 
 of the Prince's will. For, in this connection, we must accept what 
 is said on this point by Ulpian, in his first book: "Whatever 
 pleases the Prince has the force of law," provided that, from this 
 assumption, no absurdity follows, for who would think that Claudius' 
 Edict should be regarded as a law, in which he warned the populace 
 that nothing was such a specific for snakebite as the juice of a yew tree 
 an incident which you will find in Suetonius on Claudius. Caesar is 
 said, indeed, somewhere, to have declared that men should take 
 for positive law whatever he might say, but this is an absurd 
 utterance, and unworthy of the Prince, and undoubtedly brought 
 upon him evil consequences. We ought to understand the above 
 words concerning a prince who has a conscious purpose in declaring 
 law, which conscious purpose has the force of law, and is called a 
 constitution. 
 
 5. Kingdoms were founded with the purpose of preserving the 
 existence of cities, for men understood that there was more pro- 
 tection and convenience in the ordering their affairs through the 
 government of one wise man and monarch, than in the government of 
 the whole people or a majority; because a wise man, relying on 
 himself, or on the counsel of wise men, easily and quickly is able 
 to take counsel for the common good, and follow up what he has 
 rightly decided, since all obey him. But, in government by the 
 many, on account of the diversity of men's opinions, and their 
 natural tendency to differences, it may easily happen that their 
 minds may be perverted into a diversity of opinion, and, in this 
 way, either, in the end, nothing definite is determined, or if some- 
 thing is fixed too late, in the meantime the occasion and the chance 
 of adequate performance will be slipping away. 
 
 8—2
 
 u6 ENGLISH VERSIONS 
 
 6. There is no doubt that the King, who is chief founder, 
 instructor, guardian, and defender of ecclesiastical interests, in his 
 kingdom, not only by law should be able, but ought to take pre- 
 caution and pains that the decrees and constitutions should be 
 diligently observed, and with good faith, such as indubitably 
 protect us from those things which we have declared undesirable. 
 
 7. Sometimes it is the people whom we ought to fear. Some- 
 times, if it is the practice of the State that most things are 
 transacted by a senate, we should maintain ourselves as respectful 
 citizens towards that. Sometimes it is individuals to whom the 
 people's power, and power over the people is given. 
 
 8. For law, made by a Prince, necessity makes also. Thus, for 
 no other reason do we create a Prince than that he should execute 
 judgment, and declare law, as is clearly written.... And it is very 
 justly remarked by Accursius that the Centre of Gravity shifted 
 from the people to the Senate, from the Senate to the Prince, 
 by decentralization, progressively, slowly and step by step. What 
 meaning does he attribute to the phrase " by decentralization"? In 
 order that, he says, the state should be saved from the influence of 
 one man. For the Senate was not a body sufficient to rule all the 
 provinces. For this reason the Prince was set up, who should be 
 lord of all, and should be the driving force behind all others by 
 his authority. 
 
 9. Thus, according to Accursius, the powers of the people have 
 been given to the Prince and committed to the Prince.... Nor is 
 there any other difference between the people and the Prince, 
 except in that the people are bound by their own laws, but the 
 Prince is exempt from his laws. But, just as the people are bound 
 by their own laws, so they are also bound by the Prince's laws. 
 Thus the people have bound, not only the Prince whom they 
 have created to take their own place, but also themselves, by the 
 laws of the Prince. 
 
 10. After those to whom, in this fashion, had been given 
 supreme authority, had begun to act irrationally, and to issue pre- 
 scriptions in the heat of their minds' passion, and after it appeared 
 dangerous that the fortunes and life of the general public should be 
 subordinated to the arbitrariness of one, in some cases, having 
 turned out the kings, they drew up a Constitution. In others, 
 keeping their kings, they submitted them to the control as it were 
 of a constitution, in order to prevent the wild application of un- 
 limited power by the control of law.
 
 APPENDIX D 
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 To provide a new bibliography of the printed works of Postel 
 is to undertake a task which those interested in French learning 
 of the XVI century will not regard as profitless. That there are 
 several earlier lists one is well aware 1 , but for practical purposes 
 a start is best made with that contained in Niceron, Memoires 
 pour servir a Phistoire des hommes illustres dans la republique des 
 lettres, torn, vin, Paris 1729. This list was in turn most carefully 
 edited by the Jesuit, Des Billons, for the treatise 2 which he pub- 
 lished on Postel at Liege in 1773. Des Billons traced the existence 
 in his day of many volumes. He also added about a dozen works 
 to the list of Niceron. G. Weil, the most recent writer on the 
 subject 3 , is content to accept the list of Des Billons as one to work 
 from, and only makes one or two additions to it. I have here 
 followed his example, and the numerical order adopted is that of 
 Des Billons. Books added by Weil or myself are distinguished by 
 the addition of a letter to the numeral (e.g. 24a, 25a, 26a, etc.). 
 Where possible I have inserted them in their right position chrono- 
 logically. Work done carefully by scholars of a former generation 
 imposes certain duties of piety upon successors, and I have copied 
 another practice of Des Billons. It is a pleasant feature of his 
 publication that the reader is enabled by it to trace the fate of 
 actual copies of works which at the date of their publication played 
 so important a part in their author's life. Rarely as the books of 
 Postel figured in the auction rooms of the XVIII century, it is 
 still more rarely that they do so now. I have, however, been 
 
 1 For instance J. Simler, in his work on the Library of Gesner, gives a list 
 of over thirty different books by Postel (Bibliotheca instituta et collecta primum 
 a Conrado Gesnero : deinde in Epitomen redacta et novorum librorum acces- 
 sione locupleta, tertio recognita et in duplum post priores editiones accreta per 
 Josiam Simlarum, Tiguri, Christopherus Froschoverus, mdlxxxiii). There is 
 a list of the French writings in La Bibliotheque d' ' Antoine du Verdier Seigneur 
 de Vaupuvas, Lyons, mdlxxxv. 
 
 2 Nouveaux eclaircissements sur la vie et les ouvrages de Guillaume Postel. 
 
 3 De Guilielmi Postelli vita et indole ; Thesim proponebat Facultati Parisi- 
 ensi G. Weil, Scholae Normalis olim alumnus. Lutetiae Parisiorum, apud 
 Hachette Bibliopolam, mdcccxcii.
 
 n8 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 able to chronicle the possession of some of them by certain famous 
 British Libraries. British Libraries are not those in which they 
 might be expected to abound. There has been no opportunity of 
 consulting others in recent years, nor does the subject justify the 
 labour which would be involved by doing so. What I have seen 
 in British Libraries has helped me towards greater accuracy in re- 
 publishing the list, and I shall be more than contented if some 
 future worker on the subject outside these islands finds it of help 
 to know what we possess within them. Twenty-six out of the sixty 
 odd volumes I have not been able to trace. Perhaps it is merely 
 a question of extending the search to other collections than those 
 here dealt with before they are discovered. At the time of going 
 to press I had not completed my examination of the Cambridge 
 College Libraries. Those I had visited, with the exception of 
 Trinity, proved disappointing. 
 
 Abbreviations. 
 
 i Acton Acton Library (in University Library, Cambridge). 
 
 2 Advoc Advocates Library, Edinburgh. 
 
 3 Bod Bodleian Library, Oxford. 
 
 4 B M British Museum. 
 
 5 Dub Library of Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 6 U L C University Library, Cambridge. 
 
 1. 1538. Linguarum duodecim characteribus differentium 
 Alphabetum, Introductio, ac legendi modus longe facillimus. Lin- 
 guarum nomina sequens proxime pagella offeret. Guilielmi Postel, 
 Barentonii, diligentia. 
 
 Prostant Parisiis, apud Dionysium Lescuier. 
 
 Excudebat P. Vidovaeus Vernoliensis, Mense Martio, 1538. 
 
 B M 622 g 16, 684g 21, 66 b 19, G 171 24; 
 
 ULCAa25i6i; Bod; Dubq>KKi5. 
 
 4to. 75 pp. 
 
 2. 1538. Guilielmi Postelli, Baren. Doleriensis, de Originibus, 
 seu de Hebraicae Linguae et Gentis Antiquitate; deque variarum 
 Linguarum Afhnitate, Liber. In quo ab Hebraeorum, Chaldae- 
 orumve Gente traductas in toto Orbe Colonias, vocabuli Hebraici 
 argumento, humanitatisque Authorum testimonio, videbis : Literas,
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 119 
 
 Leges, Disciplinasque omnes inde ortas cognosces: communita- 
 temque notiorum Idiomatum aliquam cum Hebraismo esse. 
 
 BM622gi6 2 , 684 g2i 2 , 66 big 3 ; ULCAa25 16 2 ; Bod. 
 Prostant Parisiis, apud Dionysium Lescuyer. Excudebat Petrus 
 Vidovaeus, Vernoliensis, vigesima septima Martii. Anno a partu 
 virginis 1538. 
 
 4to. 57 pp. 
 
 3. 1538. Grammatica Arabica. Guilielmus Postellus lectori: 
 Nequid nostri consilii ignores, candide lector, quum characterum 
 difificultate in sculptis Tabulis multos esse perterritos viderem, quod 
 essent difficiles et male formati, volui loco illorum Quaternionum 
 hie inserere Grammaticam typis excussam ut, quos difificultate 
 abegerat, facilitate et pulchritudine revocet. Vale. 
 
 Veneunt Parisiis apud Petrum Gramorsum. 
 
 BM 622 g 16, 66 b 19; ULCAa25i6 3 - DubEec2'. 
 4to. 44 pp. 
 
 This treatise was considered by its author as a supplement to be bound up 
 with No. 1 after the first four gatherings (quaterniones) of that treatise. 
 
 4. 1540. Descriptio Syriae. B M 793 c 7. 
 
 Parisiis apud Hieronymum Gormontium. 
 
 Bod; Dub. 
 
 8vo. 1 1 pp. 
 
 Later edition. 
 
 1737. In Tempe Helvetica, torn. 11, p. 349. Tiguri 1737. 29pp. 
 
 BM95C2; Bod; DubDDhli47 4 . 
 
 5. 1 541. De Magistratibus Atheniensium Liber singularis. 
 Parisiis, ex ofneina Michaelis Vascosani. 
 
 BM8o2f8'; ULCzn 9 ; Bod; Advoc; Dub 55 n 81. 
 4to. 64 leaves. 
 
 Later editions. 
 
 n.d. ? 1543/155 1 Basle. 
 
 BM878g6 2 , 244 a 25, 584 b 28; Dub pp Mm 36 s . 
 151 + 14pp. 
 
 1635. Leyden 8vo. 
 
 Leyden 241110. John Balesdens, Ex officina Johannis 
 
 Maire. 
 
 BM 802 a 30; ULCl+ 13 9(G); 
 
 Acton e 24 6 ; Bod ; Dub v bb 3. 
 
 1645. Leyden 24mo. 
 
 BM 9025 a 14; Dub Frag, b 12 38.
 
 120 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 1691. Leyden 8vo. 2 parts. B M 9039 aaa 24. 
 
 Leyden, in Graec. antiq. torn. v. folio pp. 27. 
 
 BM 1709 b 4; U LCZ7 31. pp + 1 143; 
 Bod; Dub Frag e 2 5 ; Advoc. 
 
 6. 1543. Alcorani, seu Legis Mahometi, & Evangelistarum 
 Concordiae Liber, in quo de calamitatibus Orbi Christiano im- 
 minentibus tractatur: additus est libellus de universalis Conver- 
 sionis, judiciive tempore ; et, intra quot annos sit expectandum, con- 
 jectatio, ex divinis ducta Authoribus, veroque proxima. Parisiis, 
 apud Petrum Gramorsum. B M 696 b 17 2 ; Advoc. 
 
 8vo. 123 pp. 
 
 7. 1543. De Rationibus Spiritus Sancti; Libri duo. Guilielmo 
 
 Postello Barentonio authore. Parisiis, apud Petrum Gramorsum. 
 
 BM 4374 a 2; ULC; C1242 1 ; Acton e 46 1 1 2 . 
 8vo. 53 leaves. 
 
 8. 1543. Sacrarum Apodixeon, seu Euclidis Christiani Lib. duo. 
 
 Parisiis. Excudebat ipsi Authori Petrus Gramorsus. 1543. 
 
 BM696bi7 x ; ULCai2 42 2 ; Acton e 46 n 1 . 
 8vo. 56 leaves. 
 
 9. n.d. 1543? Quatuor Librorum, de Orbis Terrae Concordia, 
 
 primus. Guilielmo Postello Barentonio, Math. prof, regio authore, 
 
 Parisiis. Excudebat Petrus Gramorsus. 
 
 B M 847 d 5 ; ULCC1242 3 ; Bod ; Advoc. 
 8vo. 144 leaves. 
 
 10. n.d. 1544. De Orbis Terrae Concordia Libri IV. Noplace. 
 No date. ? Basileae, ex officina Johannis Oporini. 1544. Folio. 
 456 pp. (Niceron and Vogt). 4.4.7 pp. (Des Billons). 
 
 It is 447 pp. in all copies I have seen, though the last page is 
 numbered by mistake 427. 
 
 BMc76di2, nb 4, ULC; f + 9 24, 
 G 9 14 ; Acton b 47 41, b 46 87 ; Bod. 
 Dub. cc b 26 ; Advoc. 
 
 11. n.d. 1547. Absconditorum a constitutione Mundi Clavis, 
 qua mens humana, tarn in divinis, quam in humanis, pertinget ad 
 interiora velaminis aeternae Veritatis. 
 
 Later editions. 
 
 ? 1552. Paris. ? Basileae, ex off. Oporini. i6mo. 
 
 ? 1555. i2mo. BM Paris. ? 1555. 8vo. Bod. Paris.
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 121 
 
 1646. i6mo. Amsterdam, Janssen. Editore A. Frank de Monte S. 
 (Frankeberg) Una cum appendice Pro Pace Religionis Christianae. 
 BM847a 16, ULC; KKK381; Acton 64612; 
 Dub cc p. 33. 
 
 12. n.d. 1547. IIAN©ENft2IA, sive Compositio omnium Dis- 
 sidiorum, circa aeternam Veritatem aut Verisimilitudinem versan- 
 tium, quae non solum inter eos, qui hodie Infidelium, Judaeorum, 
 Haereticorum,etCatholicorum nomine vocantur,orta sunt et vigent, 
 sed jam ab admissis per peccatum, circa nostrum intellectum, tene- 
 bris fuere inter Ecclesiae peculiaris et communis Membra. Scriptore 
 Elia Pandocheo. Tubae penultimae stridor. 
 
 No place or date mentioned but author's word for 1547 and 
 Operinus at Basle. 
 
 ULCBb 4 " 15 24 2 A + 8 a 49(F); Dub pp mm 36. 
 8vo. 143 pp. 
 
 13. n.d. 1547. De Nativitate Mediatoris ultima, nunc futura, & 
 toti Orbi Terrarum, in singulis ratione praeditus, manifestanda, 
 opus : in quo totius Naturae obscuritas, origo, creatio, ita cum sua 
 causa illustratur, exponiturque, ut vel pueris sint manifesta, quae 
 in Theosophiae et Filosophiae Arcanis hactenus fuere. Autore 
 Spiritu Christi : Exscriptore Gulielmo Postello, Apostolica pro- 
 fessione Sacerdote. 
 
 Basiliae, ex officina Johannis Oporini (but no place nor date 
 mentioned). 
 
 BM 479 a 18, 225 c 33; ULC; Acton d 46 309; Bod; 
 
 Dub bb hh 30 ; Advoc. 
 4to. 187 pp. 
 
 14. 1548. Candelabri Typici, in Mosis Tabernaculo, jussu 
 divino, expressi, brevis ac dilucida interpretatio. Venetiis. 
 
 8vo. 
 
 15. 15 5 1. De Etruriae Regionis, quae prima in Orbe Europaeo 
 habitata est, Originibus, Institutis, Religione & Moribus, & imprimis 
 de Aurei Saeculi Doctrina & Vita praestantissima, quae in Divi- 
 nationis sacrae usu posita est, Commentatio. Florentiae. 
 
 BM663b4, io57h3i, i75dig; ULC; Actond24i25; 
 Bod ; Dub n 7 36 ; Advoc. 
 4to. 251 pp. 
 
 Later edition. 
 
 1725. Graeve and Burman. Thesaurus antiq. Italiae., torn, vm 
 
 pars 1. 
 
 B M Circ 18b ; U L C Bb 7 26 ; Dub qq b 10 ; Advoc.
 
 122 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 1 6. 155 1. Les Raisons de la Monarchic, et quelz moyens sont 
 necessaires pour y parvenir ; la ou sont compris en brief les tres 
 admirables, et de nul jusques aujourd'huy tout ensemble considerez 
 Privileges et Droicts, tant divins, celestes, comme humains, de la 
 Gent Gallicque et des Princes par icelle esleuz et approuvez. Par 
 Guillaume Postel. Moriar ut suscip. Avec Privilege pour dix ans. 
 
 [At the end of volume] Imprime a Paris, le quinziesme jour de 
 May, mil cinq cens cinquante et ung. 
 8vo. 48 pp. Reprinted Tours the same year. 
 
 17. 1552. Abraham! Patriarchae Liber Jezirah, sive formationis 
 
 Mundi, Patribus quidem, Abrahami tempora praecedentibus,revela- 
 
 tus, sed ab ipso etiam Abrahamo expositus Isaaco, et per Prophe- 
 
 tarum manus posteritati conservatus; ipsis autem 72 Mosis Audi- 
 
 toribus, in secundo divinae Veritatis loco, hoc est, in Ratione, quae 
 
 est posterior Authoritati, habitus. Vertebat ex Hebraeis, & Com- 
 
 mentariis illustrabat 155 1, ad Babylonis ruinam & corrupti Mundi 
 
 finem, Guil. Postellus Restitutus. Parisiis. 
 
 ULCc+1328; DubEo 12. 
 i6mo. 40 pp. 
 
 18. 1552. Restitutio rerum omnium conditarum, per manum 
 Eliae Prophetae terrabilis, ut fiat in toto mundo conversio perfecta, 
 & maxime inter Judaeos. Interprete ex Hebraeis Guil. Postello. 
 Parisiis. ULCc + i3 28. 
 
 i6mo. 31 pp. Often, but not always, bound with 17. 
 
 19. 1552. Liber deCausis,seudePrincipiis etoriginibus Naturae 
 utriusque: in quo ita de aeterna rerum veritate agitur ut & Authori- 
 tate & Ratione, Non tantum ubivis particularis Dei Providentia, sed 
 & animorum et corporum immortalitas ex ipsius Aristotelis verbis 
 recte intellectis et non detortis demonstretur clarissime. Parisiis. 
 
 BM 101766; Bod. 
 
 i6mo. 36 sheets. 
 
 20. 1552. Liber de ultimo Judicio & de Causis Naturae utrius- 
 que. 
 
 No place, no date given. 
 i6mo. 
 
 21. 1552. Vinculum Mundi, compendio expositum, in quo 
 basis earum rationum exponitur, quibus Veritas Articulorum Fidei 
 Christianae aut probatur, aut defenditur. Parisiis, in Quadragesima, 
 dictabat Auditorum suorum humanitati, in Babylonis ruinam
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 123 
 
 Guilielmus Postellus, 1552, ad corrupti Mundi finem. Prostant 
 Exemplaria sub Ciconiis (apud Sebastianum Nivelium) in via 
 Jacobaea. 
 4to. 8 pp. 
 
 22. 1552. Eversio falsorum Aristotelis Dogmatum, Auctore D. 
 Justino Martyre: Guilielmo Postello, in tenebrarum Babylonicarum 
 dispulsionem, interprete. Parisiis. 
 
 i6mo. 168 pp. 
 
 23. 1552. L'Histoire memorable des Expeditions depuys le 
 Deluge, faictes par les Gauloys ou Francoys depuys la France 
 jusques en Asie, ou en Thrace, & en l'orientale partie de L'Europe : 
 & des commodites ou incommodites des divers chemins pour y 
 parvenir & retourner ; le tout en brief ou Epitome, pour monstrer 
 avec quelz moyens L'Empire des Infideles peult et doibt par eulx 
 estre deffaict. 
 
 [At the end] L'Apologie de la Gaule contre les malevoles Escrip- 
 
 vains, qui d'icelle ont mal ou negligement escript ; & en apres les 
 
 tres anciens droicts du Peuple Gallicque & de ses princes. Par 
 
 Guillaume Postel. Paris. Sebastien Nivelle. 
 
 BM 688 a 21, 285 a 44. 
 i6mo. 95 leaves. 
 
 24. 1552. De Phoenicum (Foenicum) Literis, seu de prisco 
 Latinae & Graecae Linguae Charactere, ejusque antiquissima 
 Origine etUsu, ad Carolum Cardinalem & Principem Lotharingium, 
 Primarium Galliae Antistatem, Commentatiuncula. Guilielmo 
 Postello, Barentonio, Authore. Parisiis, apud Martinum Juvenem. 
 
 BM 622 a 7 (2), 672 a 29 (4), 236g34, 016733(1); 
 ULCn + i3 2og; Bod; Dub ss 034; Advoc. 
 8vo. 51 leaves. Two charts of oriental characters should be included. 
 
 Later edition. 
 
 1740. Havercampus. B M 673 e 20 ; Bod ; Advoc. 
 
 24a. 1552. De Universitate liber, in quo astronomiae doctri- 
 naeve coelestis compendium terrae aptatum, & secundum coelestis 
 influxus ordinem praecipuarumque Originum rationem totus orbis 
 Terrae quatenus innotuit, cum Regnorum temporibus exponitur. 
 Sed ante omneis alias orbis parteis terra sancta summo, hoc est 
 amplissimo, compendio describitur cui Gallia ob primarium orbis 
 nomen et jus substituitur, eo quod ambae toti orbi legem sunt 
 daturae.
 
 i2 4 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 Guilielmo Postello Restituto in Regni Evangelici assertionem 
 authore. 
 
 E typographia Ioannes Gueullartii. U L C Bb + 3 36 ; Bod. 
 
 1522. 60 leaves. 
 
 Later editions. 
 
 1553. Dub. LEe9; Advoc. 
 
 1563. Parisiis, apud Martinum Juvenem. B M 568 d 29. 
 
 4to. See below No. 46. 
 
 1635. Ley den ex officina Johanni Maire. 
 
 ULC; Acton e 24 612; Bod; DubQQpps; 
 1685. Leyden. B M 569a 5, 793 a 3, 224 a 40. 
 
 See however below No. 44. 
 
 25. 1552. Tabulae in Astronomiam, in Arithmeticam, & in 
 Musicam Theoreticam. Parisiis. Guil. Cavillat. BMi7hi(2). 
 
 25a. Tabulae variae. B M 1 7 h 1 (3). 
 
 (Imagines coeli — one undated, one 1553-) 
 In Arati Solensis phaenomena. 
 Tabula aeternae ordinationis. 
 
 26. 1552. La Loy Salique, Livret de la premiere humaine 
 verite : la ou sont en brief les origines et authoritez de la Loy 
 Gallique, nominee communement Salique, pour monstrer a quel 
 poinct fauldra necessairement en la Gallique Republique venir, & 
 que de ladicte Republique sortira ung Monarche temporel. 
 Par Guil. Postel. B M 688 a 20, 882 a 3, 229 a 36. 
 
 Paris. i6mo. 47 leaves. 
 
 Later editions. 
 
 1559- Lyons. 
 
 1780. Paris. 92 pp. BM 705 a 17, c 2 2a 5 1 (on vellum). 
 
 26a. 1552. A Broadsheet. 
 
 Resolution Eternelle destinee au Roy et peuple tres-chrestien 
 pour obtenir la vraye et finale victoire. 
 
 27. 1552. Protevangelion, sive de Natalibus Jesu-Christi et 
 ipsius Matris Virginis Mariae Sermo Historicus.divi Jacobi Minoris, 
 consobrini et fratris Domini Jesu, Apostoli primarii, & Episcopi 
 Christianorum primi Hierosolymis. Accedit Evangelica Historia, 
 quam scripsit Beatus Marcus, Petri Apostolorum Principis Dis- 
 cipulus & Filius, & primus Alexandriae Episcopus ; una cum vita
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 125 
 
 ejusdem Marci Evangelistae. Haec omnia in lucem edita studio 
 Theodori Bibliandri. Basileae, ex officina Johannis Oporini. 
 8vo. This is the famous pseudo-gospel of St James the Less. 
 
 Later editions. 
 
 1564. Basle. M. Neander. See: U LC f + 12 26 (Bibliander). 
 
 1570. Strassburg. 
 
 28. 1553. De Originibus, seu de varia, & potissimum Orbi 
 Latino ad hanc diem incognita, aut inconsiderata Historia, quum 
 totius Orientis, turn maxime Tartarorum, Persarum, Turcarum, & 
 omnium Abrahami et Noachi alumnorum origines, & mysteria 
 Brachmanum retegente : quod ad gentium, literarumque, quibus 
 utuntur, rationes attinet : ex Libris Noachi & Hanochi, totiusque 
 avitae traditionis, a Mosis alumnis ad nostra tempora servatae, & 
 Chaldaicis Uteris conscriptae, Guilielmus Postellus posteritati eruit, 
 exposuit, & proposuit. 
 
 Basileae, per Joannem Oporinum. 
 
 [At the end of the Volume] 1553 mense septimo a Januario 
 
 primo. 
 
 BM58oai 2 , 224313; ULCP621; 
 
 Acton d 24 344 ; Bod ; Dub pp mm 36 1 . 
 
 8vo. 135 pp. 
 
 2 9- I 553- Sibyllinorum Versuum, Virgilio in quarta Bucoli- 
 corum Versuum Ecloga transcriptorum, Ecfrasis, Commentarii 
 instar, Guilielmo Postello Authore. 
 
 Parisiis, e Typographia Joannis Gueullartii, 1553. 
 
 4to. 6 pp. 
 
 3°- 1553* Descriptions des Gaules, autrement la Carte Galli- 
 cane par G. Postel. 
 Paris. 1553. Folio. 
 
 31. 1553. Signorum Coelestium vera Configuratio, aut Asteris- 
 mus, stellarumve per suas imagines aut configurationes dispositio, 
 & in eum ordinem, quam illis Deus praefixerat, restitutio, & signi- 
 ficationum expositio ; sive Coelum repurgatum & apotelesmate 
 summo determinatum. Nam per significationem stellarum videbitur 
 quid sit in totius mundi imperiis futurum. 
 
 Parisiis. Hier. Gourmontius. 1553. 
 
 BM8561C47, 13 a 10; Bod; Dub Lee 9 s . 
 
 4to. 20 leaves.
 
 i 2 6 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 Later editions. 
 
 1636. Leyden. John Balesdens ex officina Johannis Maire. 
 As sequel to his Cosmographica disciplina. ULC; Acton 6246. 
 i6mo. 
 1661. Leyden. i6mo. 
 
 32. 1553. Les tres-merveilleuses Victoires des Femmes du 
 
 nouveau Monde, et comme elles doibvent a tout le Monde par 
 
 Raison commander et meme a ceulx qui auront la Monarchic du 
 
 Monde vieil. Par Guillaume Postel. A ma Dame Margarite de 
 
 France. Paris. Jean Gueullart. B M 688 a 29 1 . 
 
 i6mo. 56 leaves. Also counterfeit edition in 8vo. 92 pp. 
 
 BM 16522. 
 Often bound up with the following. 
 
 BM 224 D3 1 . 
 
 33. 1553. La Doctrine du Siecle dore, ou de l'evangelike Regne 
 
 de Jesus Roy des Roys. Paris. Jean Ruelle. 1553. 
 
 BMg 16522. 
 i6mo. 27 pp. 
 
 Later edition. 
 
 1869. Turin. Gay et fils. Ed. Brunet. BM4379dd2i. 
 
 34- 1553- Des Merveilles des Indes & du nouveau Monde, ou 
 est monstre le lieu du Paradis Terrestre. Par Guil. Postel. Paris. 
 Jean Ruelle. 
 
 i6mo. 96 pp. 
 
 34a. 1553. Apologia pro Serveto Villanovamo, etc. 
 i6mo. 
 
 Later edition. 
 
 1748. Mosheim, in Ketzergeschichte. ULC 7 1 54. 
 
 pp. 466. 
 
 35- 1553- Description & Charte de la Terre-Saincte, qui est 
 la proprie'te de Jesus Christ, pour y voir sa peregrination, & pour 
 inciter ses tres Chrestiens Ministres a la recouvrer, pour y re- 
 planter son Empire. 
 
 A tres Chrestienne princesse Catharine de Medicis de sang 
 
 Etrusque, Royne de la Gaule. Paris. Jean Ruelle. 
 
 BMioi6a8; ULCu + d7(o), 7 154. 
 i6mo. 108 pp. See below No. 44 and above No. 240. 
 
 36. Vraye et brieve Description de la Guerre et Ruyne de 
 Troyes, anciennement descripte par Dares Phrygius, & commentee 
 par Guillaume Postel.
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 127 
 
 37- !553- Des Merveilles du Monde, & principalement des 
 admirables choses des Indes & du nouveau Monde ; Histoire ex- 
 traicte des escripts tres dignes de foy, tant de ceulx qui encore sont 
 a present au diet pays, comme de ceulx qui, encore vivants, peu 
 paravent en sont retournez ; & y est aussi monstre le lieu du Paradis 
 terrestre. Paris. Ruelle. 1553. 
 
 i6mo. 
 
 38. 1554. Guilielmi Postelli, Regii in Academia Viennensi 
 Linguarum peregrinarum et Mathematum Professoris, de Linguae 
 Phoenicis, sive Hebraicae, excellentia, & de necessario illius & 
 Arabicae penes Latinos usu, Praefatio, aut potius Loquutionis, 
 humanaeve Perfectionis Panegyris. Viennae Austriae opera 
 Michaelis Cummermanni. A°. 1554. 
 
 4to. 
 
 39- 1555- Le prime nove del altro Mondo, cioe, l'admirable 
 historia & non meno necessaria & utile da esser letta & intesa da 
 ogniuno, che stupenda, intitulata, la Vergine Venetiana, parte vista, 
 parte provata & fidelissimamente scritta per Guilielmo Postello, 
 primogenito della Restitutione & spirituale Padre di esse vergine. 
 
 Jeremiae 31. Creavit Dominus Jhovah novum super terram. 
 
 Appresso del Autore. 1555. 
 
 Venice (so said by Flaccus Illyricus). B M 107 1 K 18. 
 
 8vo. 80 pp. 
 
 40. 1556. II libro della Divina Ordinatione, dove si tratta delle 
 cose miraculose, lequali sono state, & sino al fine Hanno da essere 
 in Venetia, & principalmente la causa, per laquele Iddio fin qui 
 habbi havuto piu cura di Venetia, che di tutto quanto il Mondo 
 insieme : per Guilielmo Postello. 
 
 In Padova, per Gratioso Perchacino, 1556. 
 8vo. 28 pp. 
 
 41. 1556. Epistola Guilielmi Postelli ad C. Schwenckfeldium, 
 cum praefatione M. Mathiae Flaccii Illyrici. 1 Timoth. 4. Obtestor 
 ego coram Deo & Domino Jesu Christo, etc. Praedica sermonem, 
 insta tempestive, intempestive argue, increpa, hortare cum omni 
 lenitate & doctrina. Nam erit tempus, cum sanam doctrinam non 
 sustinebunt. (End of volume.) 
 
 Jenae. Excudebat Christianus Rhodius, anno 1556. 
 8vo. 7 pp. 
 
 Later edition. 
 
 1700. Halae Magdeburgicae. 8vo. (In Observationes selectae 
 ad rem Litterariam spectantes, pp. 358, 368. T.I.)
 
 128 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 41a. 1557. Appendix ad Johannis Carionis mathematici chroni- 
 corum Libros tres. Parisiis. 
 i6mo. 
 
 42. 1560. (a) De la Republic des Turcs, et la 011 l'occasion 
 s'offrera, des Meurs & Loy de tous Muhamadistes. Par Guillaume 
 Postel Cosmopolite. 
 
 A Poitiers, par Enguilbert de Marnes. Avec privilege du Roy. 
 1560. (On verso of frontispiece : Acheve d'imprimer le 9 Decembre 
 1559, in 4to.) 
 
 4to. 127 pp. 
 
 1560. (ft) Histoire et consideration de l'Origine, Loy et Cous- 
 tume des Tartares, Persiens, Arabes, Turcs, et tous autres 
 Ismaelites ou Muhamediques dits par nous Mahometains ou 
 Sarrazins. 
 
 A Poitiers, de l'lmprimerie d'Enguilbert de Marnes. 1560. Avec 
 privilege du Roy. 
 
 B M 281 g 9 10, 1436 hi; ULC; Acton d 42 74 ; 
 
 Bod; Dub ppf 19. 
 
 4 to. 57 pp. 
 
 1560. (y) La tierce partie des Orientales Histoires, ou est ex- 
 posee la condition, puissance, et revenu de l'Empire Turquesque: 
 avec toutes les Provinces et Pays, generalement depuis 950 ans ca 
 par tous Ismaelites conquis. Pour donner, avec telle connoissance, 
 vouloir & moyens de tels pays & richesses conquerir aux Princes 
 et Peuples Tres-Chrestiens & aisne's au Droict du Monde. Par 
 Guillaume Postel Cosmopolite. A Poitiers, par Enguilbert de 
 Marnes 1560. Avec privilege du Roy. 
 
 4to. 90 pp. 
 
 These three are separate treatises, but are generally bound up together. 
 Fifteen years later a new edition appeared under the title : 
 
 (1575) Histoires Orientales & principalement des Turkes, ou 
 Turchikes, & Schitiques ou Tartaresques & autres, qui en sont 
 descendues, Oeuvre pour la tierce fois augmente et divisee en trois 
 parties, par Guillaume Postel Cosmopolite, deux fois de la retourne 
 et veritablement informe ; avec une nomenclature de la langue 
 Turque et avec l'lndice des choses les plus memorables y contenus. 
 
 Paris, de Marnes et Cavellat. 1575. 
 
 B M 1 31 3 a 4, 688 a 23, 780 b 40. 
 
 In i6mo, also in 8vo. 374 + 84 pp. 
 
 There is also another edition. 
 
 1565. Poitiers. BMG4216.
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 129 
 
 43. 1 561. Cosmographicae Disciplinae Compendium, in suum 
 finem, hoc est, ad Divinae Providentiae certissimam demonstra- 
 tionem conductum. Addita est rerum toto Orbe gestarum Synopsis. 
 Item, quot quantaeque Christianarum Gentium Nationes, nobis 
 hactenus incognitae in universo sint, quae a nostro Orbe lumen 
 Evangelii restitutum iri credunt. Gulielmo Postello Authore. Cum 
 locuplete rerum & verborum memorabilium Indice. 
 
 Basileae, per Johannem Oporinum 1561. 
 
 BM568e3i; DubEEg22i; Bod. 
 4to. 79 pp. With charts. 
 
 Later editions. 
 
 1635 Leyden. Ed. John Maire. 2 vols. 
 
 16 3 6 >. ., » „ 
 
 ULC; Acton e 24 6; Bod; DubFaBi2 25. 
 
 44. 1562. La Concordance des quatres Evangiles, ou Discours 
 de la Vie de notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ, avec l'ordre des Evangiles 
 et Epitres, qui se disent dans l'Eglise au long de l'anne'e: ensemble 
 le Calendrier, ou ordre des temps, depuis la creation du Monde, 
 pour tout jamais restitue & corrige, comme il appert en la raison 
 d'iceluy Calendrier. Plus une brieve Description de la Terre-Sainte, 
 avec sa Carte. B M 1016 a 8. 
 
 Paris. W. Guillard & Amaury Warencove. 1562. 
 
 i6mo. 440 + 333 + 108 pp. 
 
 See above No. 24a and 35, and below, No. 46. 
 
 45- I 5^3- L'unique Moyen de l'accord des Protestants, appellez 
 en France Huguenots, & des Catholiques ou Romains & Papistes, 
 propose avec raison. Lyons 1563. 
 
 46. 1563. Guil. Postelli de Universitate Liber, in quo Astrono- 
 miae, Doctrinaeve coelestis Compendium, Terrae aptatum ; & 
 secundum coelestis influxus ordinem, praecipuarumque Originum 
 rationem, totus Orbis Terrae, quatenus innotuit, cum Regnorum 
 temporibus, exponitur, etc. Secunda aeditio. Parisiis. Martinus 
 Juvenis. 1563. BMs68d29. 
 
 4to. 43 pp. and charts. 
 
 Des Billons had not apparently seen No. 24a. 
 
 47- J 563. De raris & Posteritati notandis Historiis, & de ad- 
 mirandis rebus, quae a quinquaginta annis contiguerunt usque ad 
 annum Salutis 1553; & quae inde ad annum 1583 contingent. 
 
 9
 
 130 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 
 
 48. 1 57 1. Divinationis, sive divinae summaeque Veritatis Dis- 
 cussio, qua constat, quid sit de clarissima inter Christianos & 
 Ismaelitas Victoria futurum, atque ubinam Gentium & locorum 
 contingere debeat, & quamobrem. Paris 1571. 
 
 BM 1407 a 25, 1407 a 24; Bod. 
 i2mo. 66 pp. and chart. 
 
 49. 1572. De Stella Peregrina, quae anno 1572 apparere coepit, 
 
 Clariss. Virorum Corn. Gemmae Louvaniensis. 4to. Germani et 
 
 Guliel. Postelli Barentani Galli, ex Philosophiae naturalis, mysticae- 
 
 que Theologiae penetralibus deprompta judicia. 
 
 BM 8560c 47, K953 5 , 7 1326 s . 
 i 4 pp. 
 
 49a. Des histoires orientales. See above No. 42. 
 
 ULCSyn. 857 137; Bod. 
 
 50. 1576. Vers Francois, au nombre de cinquante, fort mauvais 
 de Guillaume Postel Cosmopolite en faveur des Recherches des 
 monnoyes, poix & nombres anciens & modernes du Sieur Garrault, 
 imprimes a la tete du Livre de cet Auteur. Paris. 1576. 
 
 8vo. 
 
 51. Quaedam ex pietate insignis & eruditione viri D. G. Postelli 
 Literis ad Corbinellum. 
 
 See pp. 65-75. Dantis Aligerii, praecellentiss. Poetae de vulgari 
 eloquentia Libri duo, nunc primum, ad vetusti et unici scripti 
 Codicis exemplar, editi, ex libris Corbinelli, ejusdemque adnota- 
 tionibus illustrati. Parisiis 1577. 
 
 8vo. 
 
 52. 1579. Les premiers Elements d'Euclide Chrestien, pour 
 raison de la Divine & eternelle verite demonstrer; escrits en vers par 
 Guillaume Postel, dit Rorisperge, Doyen des lectures du Roy. Paris. 
 
 8vo. Cf. No. 8. 
 
 53. n.d. Axiochus, a Platonic translation. 
 No place mentioned. 
 
 54. Chavae, seu Evae Prophetiae, e Raziele, ex libro Bahir, cum 
 Apologia de ratione tanti Mysterii. 
 
 This only known through the list of works published in Frankeberg's La Cle 
 des choses cachees. Very doubtful if it was ever printed. 
 
 55. Receuils des Propheties de tous les plus celebres Peuples 
 du Monde, par lequel il se voit comment le Roy des Francois, ou
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM POSTEL 131 
 
 bien celui qui entre tous les Princes d'Occident est le plus renomme, 
 doit tenir la Monarchic de tout le Monde. 
 Probably not printed. 
 
 56. Les Proprieties, par Rustician recolligees & imprimees en 
 Italien a Venize. 
 
 Doubtful if printed. 
 
 57. L'Arbre,dict Ham, des secrets Mystires,imprime en Hebrieu. 
 
 58. Tabula Restitutionis omnium. BMi7hi(5). 
 
 59. Petition directed to 'Nosseigneurs de Parlement' asking that 
 the Faculty of Paris should be instructed to examine Postel's books 
 and pass what they considered suitable. B M 17 h 1 (4).
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 It may prove useful to set down a few important dates of the period 
 covered by the Essays in this book. 
 
 1404 Birth of Rodericus Sancius 
 1409 Council of Pisa 
 1414 Council of Constance 
 1431-49 Council of Basle 
 1438 Council of Florence 
 
 Gemistos Plethon at Flo- 
 rence 
 1453 Capture of Constantinople by 
 
 Mohammed II 
 1458 Election of Pius II 
 
 1460 (about) Foundation of the 
 Roman Academy 
 
 1461 Louis XI ascends the throne 
 of France 
 
 1464 Paul II elected Pope 
 
 1466 Colet born 
 
 1467 Erasmus born 
 
 1 47 1 Rodericus Sancius dies 
 1480 Sir Thomas More born 
 1483 Death 01 Louis XL Acces- 
 sion of Charles VIII 
 1485-98 Italian visits of Sellinge, 
 Linacre,Grocyn, Latimer and 
 Colet 
 1485 Accession of Henry VII 
 1492 Birth of Alciat 
 
 1509 Accession of Henry VIII 
 Birth of D uar en 
 
 1 5 10 Birth of William Postel 
 
 1513 Machiavelli's "Prince" writ- 
 ten 
 
 1 5 14 "Epistolae Obscurorum Vi- 
 rorum," Vol. I published 
 
 151 5 Accession of Francis I 
 
 1516 More's " Utopia" published 
 
 1 5 17 Luther's Theses published at 
 Wittenberg 
 
 "Epistolae Obscurorum Vi- 
 
 rorum," Vol. II 
 1522 Birth of Cujas 
 1527 Birth of Done au 
 
 Sack of Rome 
 
 1529 Fall of Wolsey 
 
 1531 Henry VIII declared Su- 
 preme Head of the Church 
 Birth of Brisson 
 
 1533 Birth of Connan 
 
 1534 Foundation of the Society 
 of Jesus 
 
 1535 More beheaded 
 
 1536 Calvin at Geneva 
 
 1545 Opening of the Council of 
 
 Trent 
 1547 Accession of Edward VI 
 
 Accession of Henry II 
 
 1549 Birth of Deny s Godfrey 
 
 1550 Death of Alciat 
 
 1553 Accession of Queen Mary 
 1555 Abdication of the Emperor 
 Charles V 
 
 1558 Accession of Elizabeth 
 Accession of Francis II 
 
 1559 Death of Duaren 
 
 1560 Accession of Charles IX 
 Birth of Sully 
 
 1563 The Thirty-Nine Articles 
 Council of Trent closes 
 finally 
 
 1 57 1 Battle of Lepanto 
 
 1572 The Massacre of St Bar- 
 tholomew 
 
 1574 Accession of Henry III 
 
 Death of Archbishop Parker 
 
 1576 Bodin publishes "Six Livres 
 de la Republique" 
 
 1577 Drake's voyage round the 
 world 
 
 1 581 Death of William Postel 
 
 1587 The Execution of Mary 
 Queen of Scots 
 
 1588 The Spanish Armada 
 Marlowe's "Tamburlaine" 
 
 1589 Death of Catharine de Me- 
 dici 
 
 9—3
 
 134 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 1590 Death of Cujas 
 Battle of Ivry 
 Birth of Emerich Crucd 
 Death of Doneau 
 Death of Brisson 
 Foundation of Trinity Col- 
 lege, Dublin 
 Death of Parma 
 "La Satire Me'nipee" 
 Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Po- 
 lity" 
 
 1598 Treaty of Vervins 
 
 1591 
 
 1592 
 1594 
 
 1598 Edict of Nantes 
 1603 Accession of James I 
 1607 Incident at Donauworth 
 
 1609 Catholic Union formed 
 
 1610 Murder of Henry IV 
 
 161 8 Outbreak of Thirty Years' 
 
 War 
 1622 Death of Deny s Godfrey 
 1641 Death of Sully 
 1648 Treaty of Westphalia 
 
 Death of Emerich Cruce 
 

 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbreviators, papal 6, n 
 
 Abelard 7 
 
 Academy, Roman 9, 10, n, 24 
 
 Acton, Lord 16, 51, 65 
 
 Alciat, events in life of 28, 35, 36 
 
 ,, tract on duelling 28 
 
 ,, views of 29-30 
 Alencon, Due d', death of 33 
 Amalfi, Duke of 3 
 Amphictyonic Councils 100 
 Ancona 3, 4 
 
 An'gelo, St, Castle of 3, 11 
 Angers 43, 71 
 Animus and anima 46, 53 
 Ansel m 43 
 
 Antiquarianism, revived at Rome 9 
 Antonio 1 , 108 
 Arabic type 62 
 Arguments from nature 17-19 
 Aristotle ,7, 8, 19, 29, 40 
 Armstrong, Mr E. 26 
 
 Bacon, Francis 61 
 
 Balch 92 
 
 Barbo, Cardinal Marco 2 
 
 Barbo, Pietro, Pope Paul II 2 
 
 Bartholus 27 
 
 Basil the Macedonian, the Emperor 97 
 
 Basle 55, 57, 59 
 
 Baudrillart 89, 104 
 
 Bayle 9 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher 87, 93 
 
 Berkeley, Sir Robert 32 
 
 Berosus 49 
 
 Besancon 30, 57 
 
 Bessarion, Cardinal 8, 24 
 
 Beza 40, 66 
 
 Bibliotheque Nationale, Sully's Manu- 
 script in 84 
 
 Biragues, Rene de 93 
 
 Bismarck, Otto von 20, 69 
 
 Bobadilla 58 
 
 Bodin 46, 85, 100 
 
 Bois-rose 72 
 
 Bom berg, Daniel 42 
 
 Bressiaeus 61 
 
 Brisson, views on Kingship 32 
 
 Bucer 41 
 
 Buonacursi, Filippo, see Callimachus 
 Experiens 
 
 Burleigh 87 
 
 Cabbala, The 42, 46 
 
 Callimachus Experiens( Filippo Buona- 
 cursi) 10 
 
 Calvin, John 39, 67, 96 
 
 Cambridge, Regius Professorship of 
 Civil Law 35 
 
 Cambridge Modern History 65 
 
 Canalisation 94 
 
 Canisius 58 
 
 Canterbury, Christ Church Priory 1 
 
 Capet, House of 29 
 
 Cecil, Lord Robert 65, 102 
 
 Cecil, William, ste Burleigh 
 
 Chamberland, Albert 65 
 
 Charlemagne 29, 94 
 
 Charles (I), king of Sweden 79 
 
 Charles (VII), king of France 27 
 
 Charles (IX), king of France 93, 94 
 
 "Civilians," French, see Chapter II 
 ,, lack of uniformity among 26 
 ,, lack of subservience 28 
 
 ,, detachment of 28, 29, 36 
 ,, estimate of their influence 
 
 36-37 
 Clark, J. W. 12 
 
 Conciliar movement 6 
 
 Connan, education of 34 
 
 ,, views on the theory of govern- 
 ment 34-36 
 Copernicus 104 
 Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 
 
 iv, 1 
 Creighton, Mandell, History of the 
 
 Papacy 1, 8, 9 
 Crichton, The Admirable 46 
 Cruce, Emerich, see Chapter V passim 
 86 
 
 ,, life 92 
 
 „ views on protection 93 
 
 „ on canalisation 94 
 
 ,, on piracy 95 
 
 ,, on education 96 
 
 ,, on religion 96 
 
 ,, on toleration 97 
 
 ,, on a World Congress 99, 100 
 
 ,, on precedence 100 
 
 Cujas, see Chapter II passim 39 
 
 ,, detachment of 28/32 
 
 ,, views on the theory of govern- 
 ment 32-34, 36 
 Cyneas 93
 
 136 
 
 INDEX 
 
 D'Annunzio 9 
 
 D'Aramont, see de Luetz 
 
 d'Aubigne 86 
 
 de Forest, Seigneur 42 
 
 de la Taille, Jean 98 
 
 de Luetz, Gabriel, Seigneur d'Ara- 
 
 mont 55 
 Dennington 1 
 De pace et bello, occasion of dialogue 
 
 „ „ authorship of 14-16 
 
 ,, ,, significance of 20- 
 
 24 
 ,, „ contents see Chap- 
 
 ter I passim 
 de Roquelaure 72 
 De Serres 40 
 Design, Grand 91 
 
 ,, ,, see Chapters IV and V 
 
 passim 
 „ „ alleged nature of Sully's 
 
 74. 75 
 Dijon 56 
 
 Divine Right of Kings 31 
 
 Doneau, education of 32, 39 
 
 ,, views on the theory of 
 
 government 32, 36 
 
 Duaren, on simplicity of Roman Law 
 
 2 7> 3i 
 
 ,, views of, on theory of govern- 
 ment 31 
 
 „ Gallicanism of 31 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen of England 77-78, 
 
 81783,91 
 English Common Law 28 
 Erasmus 46 
 
 Estienne, Henri (1531-1598) 39, 40 
 Eugenius (IV), Gabriel Condulmero, 
 
 Pope 3 
 
 Feminine sex, mystical appeal of 54, 
 
 56 
 tiggis, Dr J. N. (the late) 26, 31 
 France, Postel's views on 49-51 
 Francis (I), king of France 39, 41-42 
 Francis (11), king of France 37, 39, 66 
 Franco-British Agreement (1603) 80 
 Franco-Gallia 30, 35, 37, 86 
 Francowitz Mathias (Flaccus lllyricus) 
 
 4°. 53 
 
 Franks, the 29 
 
 Germany 63, 81, 88, 95, 103 
 
 Giles, Peter 42, 55 
 
 Godfrey, Denys, Consnetudines Pari- 
 
 sienses etc. 27 
 ,, definitions of ieudal terms 
 
 27 
 
 Godsalve, Thomas (of Norwich and 
 
 Lichfield) 1 
 Gomer, Gomerites 49 
 Gospels, their teaching the application 
 
 of principles tospecificcircumstances 
 
 21-22 
 Gothein 62 
 Gresham 104 
 Gronovius 92 
 Grotius, Hugo 48, 91, 92 
 Guise, the House of 37, 66 
 Gwynn 80 
 
 Halle, Treaty of 89 
 
 Hapsburg, House of 78-89, 102 
 
 Hatfield Papers 83 
 
 Henry (IV), king of France 28, 65, 
 66,68, 73,91,97, 102, Chap- 
 ter IV passim 
 „ right to the throne 33 
 
 Herbst, see Operinus 
 
 Hesse, Landgrave of 73 
 
 Hotman, Antitribonian 26 
 
 ,, constitutionalism of 30 
 ,, Franco-Gallia of 30,35, 37, 
 86 
 
 House, Colonel 93 
 
 Hubbard, Peter i 
 
 Huguenot political theory 37, 86 
 
 Ignatius, Patriarch 57 
 
 lllyricus, Flaccus, see Francowitz, 
 
 Mathias 
 Inge, Dr W. R. 54 
 Ingolstadt, Otto Henry's Library 59 
 Italian theories of government 30 
 
 James (I), (VI), king of England and 
 
 Scotland 79-85 
 James, Montagu Rhodes (Provost of 
 
 Eton) 1 
 Japheth 49 
 J eannin 68 
 
 Jesuits, the 39, 44-45, 51, 58, 80 
 Joanna, the JNew Eve 53-54- 5 6 » 59 
 John of Salisbury 20 
 John (II), king of Castille 3 
 
 La Satire Mhiippie 87 
 
 League of Nations 38, 65, 91, 1 01- 103 
 
 L'Ecluse des Loges, Abbe de 72 
 
 Lejay 58 
 
 Le Laboureur 71 
 
 Le Nonveau Cynee 86, Chap. V passim 
 
 Letus, Pomponius 10-11 
 
 Linacre, Thomas 1 
 
 Louis (XI), king of France 28 
 
 Louis (XIV), king of France 28 
 
 Luther, Martin 40, 96
 
 INDEX 
 
 i37 
 
 Machiavelli 30, 69, 91 
 Maes 47, 52, 59 
 Maitland, F. W. 26 
 Marlowe, Christopher 93 
 Mathias, King of Hungary 5 
 Medici, Catharine de 30, 60 
 Melanchthon 40 
 Meredinaeus, Moses 57 
 Mirandola, Pico della 46 
 Montils-les-Jours, ordinance of 27 
 
 Neo-Platonism 7, 9 
 
 Non-resistance, Bishop Roderick's 
 
 views on 23 
 ,, the duty personal 
 
 not corporate 22, 
 
 23 
 
 Oechonomies Royales 66, 69-72, 104 
 Operinus (Herbst) 57 
 Orange, Prince of 73 
 Oresme, Nicholas 104 
 Ostend, defence of 82 
 Oxford, Regius Professorship of Civil 
 Law at 35 
 
 Papacy, policy of, in Europe and the 
 Near East in XV century, 
 see under Popes Pius II 
 and Paul II 
 ,, utilisation of "publicity" 
 methods 6 
 Paris, printers at 30 
 
 ,, School of Law 35 
 Parker, Matthew, Archbishop 1 
 Pastor, defence of Pope Paul II 4 
 Paternoster, the 47 
 Paul (II), Pope Pietro Barbo 1, 2, 25 
 ,, accession 3 
 ,, policy contrasted with that of 
 
 Pius II 4-6 
 ,, attitude towards contemporary 
 movements 9 
 Paul (IV), Pope (Caraffa) 59 
 Petrarch, MS. of Plato 8 
 
 ,, antiquarianism of 9 
 Pfister, Charles 84 
 Philaster 87 
 
 Philosophy, mediaeval 7-9 
 Piadena, Bartolomeo Sacchi da (Pla- 
 tina) 9-1 1, and Chapter I 
 passim 
 ,, behaviour in prison 11-13 
 ,, lives of the Popes 12 
 ,, librarianship at the Vatican 
 
 12 
 ,, views of 16-18 
 Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius, see Pope 
 Pius II 
 
 Piracy 95 
 
 Pius (II), Pope, Aeneas Sylvius Picco- 
 lomini, lawlessness after his 
 death 3 
 „ policy contrasted with that of 
 Paul II 4-6 
 Platina, see under Piadena, Bartolomeo 
 
 Sacchi da 
 Plato 7, 8, 23 
 Plethon, Gemistos 8, 9 
 Podiebrad, George, King of Bohemia 5 
 Pole, Cardinal 58 
 Politiques, the 37 
 Pollard, Professor 26 
 Postel, William, see Chapter II \passim, 
 86 
 ,, constitutionalism of 30 
 ,, scholarship of 39 
 ,, appreciations of his life work 
 
 39-40, 61-64 
 ,, views on Protestantism 43 
 ,, views on Christian unity 44, 
 
 .47. 
 ,, dismissal from Society of Jesus 
 
 .45 
 ,, his obsession as to the duality 
 
 of nature 46 
 ,, views on World Unity and 
 
 France 48 
 ,, views on the position of France 
 
 49. 
 
 ,, imprisoned 52, 59 
 
 ,, works placed on the Index 58 
 ,, epitaph on 61 
 Poyet, the Chancellor 42 
 Prerogative, see Chapter II passim 
 ,, Ship Money Case 32 
 
 ,, teaching of the French 
 
 "civilians" on 37 
 Pyrrhus, King 93 
 
 Rabelais 39 
 Rame 61 
 
 Reformation, excesses of 54 
 Renaissance, effect of, on Europe 2 
 ,, contrasted with conciliar 
 
 movement 6 
 ,, Christian and pagan 7-9 
 
 ,, typical reasoning of 20 
 
 „ French 65 
 
 Responsibility of kingship 30, 35 
 Reuchlin 46 
 Richelieu, Cardinal 69 
 Right of defence against aggression 
 
 argued by Platina 17 
 Rodericus Sancius of Arevalo, see 
 Chapter I passim 
 ,, career of 3 
 
 ,, argument of 18-25
 
 i38 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Rodericus Sancius, Speculum humanae 
 vitae of 20, 30 
 ,, views on monarchy 30 
 Roman Law, see Chapter II passim 
 ,, revived study of, effects 
 
 on Europe 26 
 ,, simplicity of 27 
 
 ,, and monarchical theory 
 
 27 
 ,, and the theory of num- 
 
 bers 46 
 Ronsard 39, 66 
 Rousseau 65 
 
 St Barbe, College of 41, 44 
 
 St Bartholomew, massacre of 67 
 
 Sainte-Beuve 71 
 
 St James, Pseudo-Gospel of, 55 
 
 St Martin, Paris, Monastery of 59-60 
 
 Saint Simonism 54 
 
 Salic Law 30, 33, 37 
 
 Sanctity of human life argued by 
 
 Platina 16, 17 
 Sanseverini family and Piero (Pom- 
 
 ponius Letus) 10 
 Scaliger, Joseph 60, 62 
 Scandinavian Powers 77 
 Seize, the 35, 37, 68 
 Sellinge, Prior of Christ Church, 
 
 Canterbury 1 
 Seneca, quoted 31 
 Severus, Alexander, the Emperor 97 
 Ship Money Case 32 
 Silver, effect on European exchange of 
 
 2 
 Sixtus IV, Pope (Francesco della 
 
 Rovere) 1 2 
 Smuts, General 101 
 Soleyman the Magnificent 55 
 Sorbonne, College of the 41 
 Southcott, Joanna 54 
 Spens, Will 23 
 
 Studio. Sinai tica 55 
 
 Sully, see Chapter IV passim, 103 
 
 ,, life 66 
 
 ,, character 67 
 
 ,, marriage 71 
 
 ,, visit to Queen Elizabeth 77, 
 . 82-83 
 
 ,, visit to King James I and VI 
 
 79. 83 
 
 ,, motives in writing 87-90 
 Suso, Henry 54 
 Sutcliffe 40 
 Syriac studies 57 
 
 Tilley, Mr A. A. 71 
 
 Treitschke, Heinrich von, his Poll- 
 
 tik 20 
 Trent, Council of 9, 47 
 Tribonian 33 
 Turkish factor in Europe 4-6, 151 48 
 
 55. 103 
 
 Ulpian 32, 33, 35 
 
 United States of America 63, 102 
 
 Utraquism 5 
 
 Vairani 1 
 
 Vatican, Library of 1,12 
 
 Venice, Republic of and Cujas 33 
 
 „ City of 42, 52, 57, 58, 99 
 Vervins, Treaty of 88 
 Vienna, Congress of 38 
 
 ,, City of 58-59 
 Vienne, Council of 48 
 Villebon, Chateau de 69-72 
 Vindiciae contra tyrannos 37, 86 
 
 War, educative force of 19 
 
 ,, capable of right usage 21 
 " Weltmacht oder Niedergang " 20 
 Wheaton v 
 Widmanstadt 57-58 
 
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