7 THE USURPATIONS OF ROYALTY AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES
It is sometimes said that history repeats itself, but this is false, for there cannot be in the universe two beings or two events strictly alike in all respects; if there were, they would no longer be two but, since they would coincide in everything, they would merge purely and simply in such a way that there would be but one and the same being or one and the same event.[1] Moreover, the repetition of identical possibilities implies the contradictory supposition of a limitation of universal and total possibility, and as we have explained in detail elsewhere with all the necessary elaborations, [2] it is this which allows us to refute such theories as those of 'reincarnation' and an 'eternal return'. But another no less false opinion, which is quite the opposite of this one, is the contention that historical facts are entirely dissimilar and that there is nothing common among them. The truth is that there are always dissimilarities in certain respects and similarities in others, and that, as there are different types of beings in nature, so there are also (in this domain as in all the others) different types of facts; in other words there are facts that are the manifestation or expression of one and the same law in
diverse circumstances. This is why one sometimes encounters similar situations which, if one neglects their differences and focuses only on their similarities, can give the illusion of a repetition. In reality, there is never identity between different periods of history, but there is correspondence and analogy, just as there is between the cosmic cycles or the multiple states of a being; and just as different beings can pass through similar phases-with the one reservation that there are modalities proper to the nature of each of them-so too can peoples and civilizations.
Despite very great differences, then, there is, as we have shown above, an incontestable analogy (perhaps never sufficiently remarked upon before) between the social organization of India and that of the Western Middle Ages; between the castes of the one and the classes of the other there is only a correspondence, not an identity, but this correspondence is nonetheless of the greatest importance because it serves to show with particular clarity that all institutions presenting a truly traditional character rest on the same natural foundations and in the final analysis differ from one another only by the adaptations required by varying circumstances of time and place. It should be clearly noted moreover that we do not in any way mean to suggest that Europe in this epoch borrowed this notion directly from India, for this seems quite unlikely; we say only that there are here two applications of one and the same principle and that fundamentally this is all that matters, at least from our present point of view. We shall therefore set aside the question of a common origin, which in any case could only be found by tracing it back to the most remote past, for this origin would go back to the filiation of the different traditional forms with the great primordial tradition and so, as should be readily apparent, would be complex indeed. If we nevertheless raise this possibility, it is because we do not in fact believe that such precise similarities can be satisfactorily explained outside of a regular and effective transmission, and also because we find in the Middle Ages many other concordant indications that show quite clearly that there still was in the West at that time a conscious link, at least for some, with the true 'center of the world', the unique source of all orthodox traditions, whereas in the modern epoch, on the contrary, we see no such thing.
We also find in Europe beginning with the Middle Ages an analogue to the revolt of the Kshatriyas, particularly in France where from the time of Philip the Fair, who must be considered one of the principal authors of the deviation characteristic of the modern epoch, royalty worked almost continually at becoming independent of the spiritual authority, while conserving however, by a singular illogicality, the outward sign of its original dependence since, as we have explained, the anointing of kings represented nothing else than this. Long before the 'humanists' of the Renaissance, the 'jurists' of Philip the Fair were already the real precursors of modern secularism; and it is to this period, that is, the beginning of the fourteenth century, that we must in reality trace the rupture of the Western world from its own tradition.
For reasons that would take too long to set forth here (and which we have in any case indicated in other studies), [3] we think that the starting-point of this rupture was marked very clearly by the destruction of the Order of the Temple. We shall only recall that this order was a kind of link between East and West and that in the West itself it was, because of its at once religious and martial character, such a link also between the spiritual and the temporal, even if this double character must not be interpreted as the sign of a more direct relation with the common source of the two powers. [4] One may be tempted to object that even if this destruction was deliberately desired by the king of France, it was at least implemented with the agreement of the papacy; but the truth is that it was imposed upon the papacy, which is something altogether different. By thus reversing the normal relationship, the temporal power henceforth began to use the spiritual authority for its own ends of political domination.
One might doubtless object further that the fact that the spiritual authority let itself be subjugated in this way proves that it was
no longer what it should have been, and that its representatives were no longer fully conscious of its transcendent character. This is true, and it even explains and justifies Dante's sometimes violent invectives against the clergy of his time; but the fact remains that in relation to the temporal power they still represented spiritual authority, and that it was from this authority that the temporal power derived its legitimacy. The representatives of the temporal power are not, as such, qualified to recognize whether or not the spiritual authority corresponding to the traditional form from which they derive possesses the plenitude of its effective reality; they are even incapable of doing so by definition, since their competence is limited to a lower domain; but whatever this authority might be, if they disregard their subordination to it, they thereby compromise their legitimacy.
We must, then, take great care to distinguish between the question of what a spiritual authority may be in itself at a given time, and that of its relationship with the temporal power. The second question is independent of the first, which has to do solely with those who exercise the priestly functions, or who would normally be qualified to exercise them; and even if this authority had entirely lost the 'spirit' of its doctrine through the fault of its representatives, the mere conservation of the deposit of the 'letter' and of the outward forms in which this doctrine is in some way contained would still continue to ensure for it the necessary and sufficient power to validly exercise its supremacy over the temporal. [5] For this supremacy is attached to the very essence of spiritual authority and belongs to it so long as it exists regularly; and no matter how 'diminished' it may be, the least portion of spirituality is still incomparably superior to anything of the temporal order. It follows from this that the spiritual authority can and must always control the temporal power, and
that it cannot itself be controlled by anything else, at least outwardly. [6] However shocking such a statement may seem in the eyes of most of our contemporaries, we do not hesitate to declare that this is but the expression of an undeniable truth. [7]
But to return to Philip the Fair, who for our present purpose furnishes an especially characteristic example. It is instructive that Dante attributes his actions to 'cupidity', [8] which is a vice, not of a Kshatriya but of a Vaishya; we could say that when they enter a state of revolt the Kshatriyas as it were degrade themselves, losing their
own character and taking on that of a lower caste. It may even be added that this degradation must inevitably accompany the loss of legitimacy: if by their own fault the Kshatriyas are deprived of their normal right to the exercise of temporal power, it is because they are not truly Kshatriyas, by which we mean that they are not of a nature any longer to fulfill what was their proper function. If the king is no longer content to be the first of the Kshatriyas, that is to say the head of the nobility, and to play the 'regulating' role to which he is entitled as such, he loses what essentially constitutes his raison d'être, and at the same time opposes himself to the nobility of which he is but an emanation and as it were the most complete expression. Thus we see royalty, in order to 'centralize' and to absorb in itself the powers that belong collectively to all the nobility, enter into a struggle with the nobility and work relentlessly toward the destruction of the very feudal system from which it had itself issued. It can do so, moreover, only by relying on the support of the third-estate, which corresponds to the Vaishyas; and this is why we also see, precisely from the time of Philip the Fair, the kings of France beginning to surround themselves almost continually with the bourgeoisie, especially such kings as Louis XI and Louis XIV, who pushed the work of 'centralization' the furthest, the bourgeoisie moreover later reaping the benefits of this when it seized power during the Revolution.
Let us add that temporal 'centralization' is generally the sign of an opposition to the spiritual authority, the influence of which governments try to neutralize in order to substitute their own. This is why the feudal form, the one in which the Kshatriyas can most completely exercise their normal functions, is at the same time the one that best seems to suit the regular organization of traditional civilizations such as that of the Middle Ages.
The modern epoch, which is that of rupture from tradition, could be characterized from a political point of view as the substitution of the national system for the feudal system; and it was in fact during the fourteenth century that 'nations' began to form through the agency of that 'centralization' we just spoke of. It is right to say that the formation of the 'French nation' in particular was the work of its kings, but in doing this they unwittingly prepared their own
ruin; [9] and if France was the first European country where the monarchy was abolished, it is because 'nationalization' had started there. Besides, we scarcely need recall how fiercely 'nationalist' and 'centralist' the Revolution was and also what truly revolutionary use was made throughout the nineteenth century of the so-called 'principle of nations'; [10] there is therefore a rather singular contradiction in the 'nationalism' proclaimed today by certain avowed adversaries of the Revolution and its work. But the most interesting point for us at present is the following: the formation of 'nations' is essentially one episode in the struggle of the temporal against the spiritual; and if we want to get to the root of the matter, it may be said that this is precisely the reason why it proved fatal to the monarchy, which, even at the moment when it seemed to be realizing all its ambitions, was only rushing to ruin. [11]
There is a kind of political (and therefore entirely external) unity that implies a disregard, if not the denial, of the spiritual principles that alone can establish the true and profound unity of a civilization, and 'nations' are an example of this. During the Middle Ages there existed throughout the West a real unity, based on properly traditional foundations, which we call 'Christendom', but when these secondary unities of a purely political-that is to say temporal and no longer spiritual-order were formed, this great unity of the West was irremediably broken and the effective existence of Christendom came to an end. Nations, merely the dispersed fragments of what was formerly Christendom, false unities substituted for the true one by the temporal power's will to dominate can, given the very conditions of their origin, survive only by opposing each other
and ceaselessly contending among themselves in all fields. [12] Now spirit is unity, matter is multiplicity and division; and the more one removes oneself from spirituality, the more antagonisms are accentuated and amplified. No one can deny that the feudal wars, which were quite localized and subject moreover to restrictive regulation by the spiritual authority, were nothing compared to the national wars that have resulted, following the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, in 'armed nations, [13] and we have seen in our own day new developments hardly reassuring for the future.
On the other hand, the establishment of 'nations' made possible actual attempts to subjugate the spiritual to the temporal, implying a complete reversal of the hierarchical relations between the two powers. This subjugation found its most definitive expression in the notion of a 'national' church, that is, one subordinated to the State and confined within its limits. The very phrase 'state religion' is a deliberate equivocation signifying fundamentally nothing else than that religion is used by the temporal government to ensure its own domination; it is religion reduced to no more than a mere factor of the social order. [14]
This idea of a national church first appeared in Protestant countries; or, to be more exact, it was perhaps above all to realize this idea that Protestantism was instigated, for it seems clear that Luther was hardly anything more, at least politically, than an instrument of the ambitions of certain German princes; and it is moreover quite likely that if the revolt against Rome had taken place without such
support its consequences would have been quite as negligible as those of many other short-lived incidents of dissent.
The Reformation is the most visible symptom of the rupture of the spiritual unity of Christendom; but it is not what actually first began 'to rend the seamless robe,' as Joseph de Maistre puts it, for this rupture had long been a fait accompli, since, as we have already said, its beginnings can in fact be traced back two centuries earlier; and an analogous remark could be made about the Renaissance which, by a not altogether fortuitous coincidence, came about at almost the same time as the Reformation and only when the traditional knowledge of the Middle Ages had been almost entirely lost. Protestantism was in this respect rather more an outcome than a point of departure; but if in reality it was above all the work of princes and sovereigns, who first of all used it for political ends, its individualist tendencies were not long in turning back upon them, for they were directly preparing the way for the democratic and egalitarian conceptions characteristic of the present epoch. [15]
However, as regards the question of the subjugation of religion to the State in the way we have indicated, it would be wrong to believe that examples outside of Protestantism cannot be found: [16] if the Anglican schism of Henry VIII represents the most complete success in the creation of a 'national' church, Gallicanism itself [the spirit of nationalism within the Roman Catholic church in France], as conceived by Louis XIV, was in reality nothing else; if this latter movement had succeeded, the link with Rome would no doubt have continued at least in theory, but in practice its effects would have been annulled by the interposition of the political power, and the situation in France would not have been appreciably different from
what it would be in England if the tendencies of the 'ritualist' faction of the Church of England were to prevail definitively. [17]
Under its various forms Protestantism pushed things to extremes, but it was not only in countries where Protestantism established itself that royalty destroyed its own 'divine right'-that is, the sole foundation of its legitimacy and at the same time the only guarantee of its stability-for according to what we have shown, the French monarchy, without going so far as a clean break with the spiritual authority, acted in exactly the same way (though by more roundabout means); and it even seems quite clear that it was the first to take this path. Those of its partisans who consider this a kind of distinction scarcely realize the consequences that this attitude brought about, consequences that were inevitable. The truth is that by virtue of this attitude the monarchy unconsciously opened the way for the Revolution; and this, by destroying it in turn, only went further in the direction of disorder to which the monarchy had begun to commit itself. Throughout the Western world in fact the bourgeoisie succeeded in grasping the power which the monarchy had first improperly shared with them; nor does it much matter whether the bourgeoisie subsequently abolished the monarchy, as in France, or allowed it to exist nominally, as in England and elsewhere, for both result in the triumph of the 'economic' and its openly proclaimed supremacy.
But as one sinks deeper into materiality, instability grows and changes take place more rapidly; thus the reign of the bourgeoisie will be relatively short-lived in comparison with the regime that preceded it. Furthermore, as usurpation calls forth usurpation, it is now the Shūdras who follow the Vaishyas in aspiring for domination, such being precisely the significance of bolshevism. We do not wish to formulate any forecast here, but it would not be very difficult to predict from the preceding remarks certain consequences for the future. If the lowest social elements come to power in one way or another, their reign will probably be the briefest of all, and it will mark the last phase of a given historical cycle since it is not possible
to descend any lower; and even if such an event were not to have wider implications, one may suppose that this phase will be at the very least, for the West, the end of the modern period.
An historian conversant with the above-mentioned facts could no doubt develop these considerations almost indefinitely, searching out more particular details that would emphasize even more precisely what we principally wanted to show here: [18] the too little known responsibility of the royal power for the origin of the whole modern disorder, this first deviation in the relations between the spiritual and the temporal which leads inevitably to all the others. But this cannot be our role; we wished only to give some examples in order to shed light on a wider synthesis, and so we must be content to consider only the main trends of history, and limit ourselves to the essential indications that stand out in the course of events.