Monarchisms in the Age of Enlightenment (2 - Absolute, not Arbitrary Power: Monarchism in the Thought of the Huguenots and Pierre Bayle)

'Absolute, Not Arbitrary, Power': Monarchism and Politics in the Thought of the Huguenots and Pierre Bayle - Luisa Simonutti

This second chapter focuses on some of the historical controversies that develop in Enlightenment France under the reign of Louis XIV between the Protestants and the Catholics. "In the writings of the Catholic controversialists, and by certain voices on the Huguenot side, the French Protestants were defined as...Idolators of royal authority" (Monarchisms, 45). It is within the context and history of these disputes as well as the ongoing religious wars, that the Huguenots would eventually adopt a more absolutist stance on the Divine right of kings.

The Huguenots were actually quick and vociferous to defend the authority of the French monarchy as they continued to seek pacification with the Crown. One such text, read out "[t]hey are persaded that after that which they owe to God, they are obliged to render obedience without limits to Your Majesty." (45) They believed that giving the king his proper obedience would guarantee them the "freedom to serve God according to their consciences" (45). But the anti-Huguenot literature was printed out in an effort to form the Huguenots into obedience and compliance with the state religion. These authors believed that in the promulgation of edicts, there would be a path created "that would quiet the Huguenots and allow [the king] to retake control little by little, instead of having the country in constant revolt." (46) But the Hguenots persisted in their diligent obedience to the king, and in a text known as Advertissement aux Protestantes des Provinces, a distinguishment was drawn between the Huguenots, the Muslims, the Pagans, and the Arians.

"But  one has never seen them armed  against their princes and they have never wanted to defend their worship by force of arms: they have left that maxim to the pagans, the Muslims, and the false church of the Arians. And why have they acted like that? Because they have made it a point of inviolable conscience to never defend themselves against their Sovereigns, no matter how unjust and cruel they were." (46)

It was Antoine Arnauld who became the author in charge of responding to the polemics of the Huguenot Pierre Jurieu, "claiming that that the latter's sole purpose was to render Catholics suspect in the eyes of all the princes of Europe" (47). Jurieu maintains that Huguenot rulers could not exert tolerance toward Catholics in the same way Catholic rulers could exert tolerance toward Huguenots because Catholic rulers swore allegiance to one who was king of kings. This meant heresy could effectively despoil a king of all his rights to authority. In conclusion, the king should trust the Huguenots only because "they are the only party of whose loyalty he can be perfectly sure." (48)

Arnauld rebukes this polemicist severely, arguing "from the very origins of the sect the Reformed had always at the tips of their tongues a very significant proviso to their loyalty, that is, that the kings should not command them to act counter to their conscience and religion" (48). He looks at definitions provided in De Jure Magistuum by Theodore Bézè and Vindiciae contra Tyrannos in which the term is used "to describe only worthy kings who were entirely lacking of the characteristics of the tyrant" (48). The Protestants' sole reason for their loyalty to the Crown is the perseverance of their religion while Catholics were loyal to the Crown even before the king's conversion to Catholicism and in the events leading to the Edict of Nantes. The French Reformed "recognized in royal power the form of government which was better adapted to to protect the existence of the Huguenot subjects and the legality of the Protestant religion" (49). The main criticism from the Protestants was generally directed at Papism. Arnauld would take to the defense of his own religion as he writes Le véritable portrait de Guillaume Henry de Nassau, nouvel Absalon, nouvel Hérode, nouveau Cromwel, nouveau Néron, "a violent reprimand directed at William III who, according to Arnauld, in his inhumane ambition had, like Absalom, taken up arms against King David, his father; ...like Herod, had attempted to kill the infant futre King of the Jews." (50) William of Orange was comparable to Oliver Cromwell in that he overthrew the legitimate king. "William of Orange was another Nero who cruelly attacked Catholics" (50). Arnauld saw such fierce attacks hurled by the Huguenot Jurieu against Catholics and took it upon himself in his Apologie to defend the king and to propose laws which would further the authority of the Crown (50-51).

It was here that Pierre Bayle emerges to defend the Huguenot position in the Dictionaire and the Commentaire philosophique. Bayle was aware of the difficulties when it came to "a concept of universal tolerance which, beyond the confessional connotations, was still unable to base itself on either reason or morals" (51). The case for the rights of the people "has been upheld not only by the seditious and by dissidents, but also by 'many people of great judgment and exemplary virture' (52). Because not even religion can guarantee the possession of truth, "the rights of conscience are to be found in the awareness that the human soul is pervaded by an 'invincible ignorance' which urges it to choose what appears to be true, but the nucleus pf which is beyond its knowledge." (52) Bayle argues that the right of the sword to does not extend to potentially fallible errors of conscience and that this right does not extend to persecute religions (53). In Lettre d'un refugié françois à un nouveau converti, he writes:

"Concerning subjects who are oppressed for their religion taking up arms, with no intention to do violence to anybody but only to procure an honest liberty to follow the light of their conscience, disposed to be loyal to their sovereign in all other matters, I have known very able and very pious people in this country who have said it is licit, and that we should be ashamed of what our Fathers have said in this regard." (53)

In his Avis aux refugiez, Bayle argues that two diseases that could infect France are a the seditious and defamatory books and a spirit of republicanism "that wants no less than to introduce anarchy into the world" (53). Venice and Holland may have had republican elements to their societies but they were by no means encouraging of disobedience and every man had the duty to be obedient to the state in which he served. The main distinction being the power residing in a single individual in a monarchy.

Elie Merlat's response in Traité du pauvoir absolu des souverains pour servir d'instruction, de consolation et d'apologie aux Eglises Reformées de France qui sont affligées was to defend the full absolute authority of kings and to condemn any such hints at sedition as indefensible by true religion. "It is only God, the sole magistrate of kings and princes, who may eventually punish their crimes or oust tyrants from power" (55). Merlat makes his case from the Scriptures. Merlat further defends the authority and right of Louis XIV to persecute the Huguenots as "a personal choice...in relation to the Papacy and the Gallican clergy" (55). The restoration of the Edict of Nantes is only about restoring a fundamental law to French society.

And so in the Huguenots is a philosophy of obedience to the Crown similar and possibly distinct from the Catholics. Perhaps Arnauld's criticisms are correct of his opponents or perhaps they are slander. There's no way for us to read into the minds and thought processes of these Huguenot thinkers.