Physics and chemistry, it is said, are now the most flourishing sciences in Europe; the progress they are making every day promises humankind useful discoveries and precious secrets. But the corruption of morals that always increases in a proportion superior to the improvements of the arts, doubtless also produces some new seed of evil, which would be imported here along with that of good, and we do not want the remedy, since it would necessarily be inseparable from the malady.
In accordance with these considerations, the Council has decided that the Aerial Valley will have no more communication with the earth by any channel whatsoever.43
Military music has made the echoes of our mountains resound. Having climbed on to the rampart, we have heard songs united with that music, and those songs seem to be a hymn to liberty, for that word has often been repeated, always with the greatest respect. Sometimes, we have even seen the entire army fall to its knees on pronouncing the word “liberty.” How have people enslaved for so many centuries suddenly been able to break their chains? What spring has been powerful enough to impel them with such a movement? Is that great revolution the result of the philosophy that was beginning to agitate in the milieu of the eighteenth century? Or is it religion that has concluded its work?
We were seeking to determine which of those two explanations was the more plausible when we heard a eulogy to fraternity resounding with that to liberty. From then on our uncertainty was at an end; we no longer had any doubt that that beautiful union was the work of religion recalled to its primitive purity. That alone, of a people of slaves, could make a population of brothers.
Several battalions passed successively before our eyes, all singing the double triumph of liberty and fraternity. They were carrying at the tip of a pike the bonnet, the symbol of liberty, and their flag was dived into the three principal colors: a union that evidently announced that of the three great orders of the State, once so divided: the clergy, the nobility and the third estate. We were talking about those pleasant ideas, and we could already see the temples of Janus closed all over the world, and all the peoples embracing one another, at the invitation and the example of the French.
But what a horrible awakening has just dissipated that enchanting dream! The very next day, those brothers, so tender, transformed into ferocious tigers, were at grips with the Spaniards. After a battle of short duration, the French were victorious; the vanquished, on their knees, begged for their lives in imploring voices.
“Fraternity or death!” was the reply their received, furiously. The sign of acceptance was to display on the hat a cockade in the three colors. At the slightest delay, or the slightest hesitation, the cherished brother was slaughtered pitilessly.
What, then, is this new association, the amity of which can inspire the greatest tenderness and the most ferocious range? Instead of being ameliorated, has the human mind in France fallen back into barbarity? Is not this the delirium that took possession of the entire Roman Empire, on the eve of its fall, when its citizens murdered one another over theological quarrels while the Barbarians were at the gates, ready to consummate its ruination…?44
Turrault de Rochecorbon: The Year 2800, or, The Dream of Recluse
(1829)
The exercise of social virtues carries the
love of humanity to the depths of the heart.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile, Book 4.
I have slept for nine hundred and sixty years, and I awake on the first day of May. What an awakening! How astonished I am! All the cities are deserted; all their inhabitants are in the country; everywhere, the first of May is a public holiday.
Even the king has quit his throne and his court; he is in the country, accompanied by his ministers, surrounded by his guard. His hand is on the handle of a plow; he is laboring the earth. The people assembled around their king are applauding the encouragement that his is giving to agriculture. The four oldest laborers in his kingdom, each clad in a white simar and girdled with a red belt, surround the king, who is clad in his royal vestments; he traces four furrows.
That operation concluded, a banquet assembled under a tent receives the king and the four oldest laborers; two are placed to his right and two to his left. The ministers are facing him; the guard surrounds the tent. When the meal is over, everyone retires; the king returns, with his ministers and his guard, heaped with the applause and the blessings of the people.
The same ceremony takes place in all the towns of the prefecture and the sub-prefecture; the prefects and the sub-prefects furrow the earth with the plow, in the presence of the four oldest laborers in their district, the judges of the tribunal and the maire of the commune.
But what do I see? The ministers are dressed in a very particular manner. Like the four laborers, they each wear a white simar circled by a red belt; on the back and the front of the simar these words are written in golden letters:
Friend of the People and the King
I ask someone why the ministers are wearing such inscriptions.
“It is,” he replies, “in order that they never forget that they are depositaries of the confidence of the people and the king, who have chosen them.”
I ask them how they are chosen by the people and the king.
“For several years,” he replies, “the electors of our départements, before naming députés, are obliged to choose five candidates per département, to compose a list of candidates for the ministry; they have the orders of the sovereign to take the most honest and capable men from all the classes of the French, without distinction of birth, rank or fortune. All virtuous and capable men are eligible for that important position. The king does no longer wishes to name his ministers by himself, for fear of being mistaken; he prefers to choose them from the list of candidates that is printed and presented to him by the députés of the kingdom at the opening of their session.
“Those ministers can be reelected for three years in succession. The ministers who unite for three consecutive years the wishes of the king and his people have honored the fatherland; they are awarded a cross of merit and a retirement pension. It is the same for all financial positions, the levying of taxes, administrative and judiciary positions; as all these positions are salaried, the king wants them to be filled by honest and capable men. The fear of being mistaken has determined His Majesty to charge the electors of the départements of his kingdom to form lists of candidates in each category, in sufficient quality and quantity for the service to be done well and not interrupted. These lists are also printed and presented to the sovereign, who appoints those who fill the vacant places. All the lists last until they are exhausted; then they are renewed in the same fashion.
“The lists of candidates for the administrative posts can only be selected, for prefects and sub-prefects, from among the number of maires of each département, and for maires from among the members of the council of each mairie.”
“That is change!” I exclaimed.
“You have seen nothing yet,” my man told me. “Come with me to the temple; you shall see something new. There is only one religion in Europe now. The kings, weary of making war over differences in religion and the limits of their kingdoms, have finally adopted the project of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre;45 they had created a European Diet composed of a delegate from each kingdom; that Diet holds its sessions alternately in each capital of a kingdom or empire. All the differences between nations are brought before it; the nation condemned by the Diet is obliged to execute the judgment it has rendered, or all the other powers would unite against it and execute by means of arms what it refuses to do of its own free will—but that never happens; all the verdicts of the Diet are respected and immediately executed by the powers.
“Those same powers have charged the delegates to the European Diet of agreeing between themselves a single religion, to be adopted generally, in order to avoid disastrous was that offend the divinity by destroying the human species, which is his work. They were also charged with proposing the abolition of all customs and r
ights of entry and exit between kingdoms; all the proposals have been adopted, and commerce is now free throughout Europe.
“Before going into the temple it is as well that I inform you about the religion that has been adopted by all the powers. In Europe, only one God is recognized, the protector of human beings and everything that exists. Every church or mosque is a temple consecrated to the divinity; that temple is only open on the first of the month; it is served by an old man over fifty years of age, chosen by the electors of the department, from among the most capable and renowned men in the département.
“That minister gives a moral reading in the temple; afterwards, he thanks the Supreme Being for the conservation of everything that exists. Two young men and two young women carry offerings of flowers and fruits to the steps of the altar every month; the baskets are taken by the minister and distributed on the altar. The minister, surrounded by the bearer of the offerings, intones in the vernacular language a hymn to the Most High, to offer him the presents of the earth; the hymn is repeated enthusiastically by the people.”
My guide had not finished speaking when I saw a group surrounding two young men and two young women in the temple; I followed them and was delighted by the god order that reigned in the assembly. The minister edified me with a discourse as simple as it was sublime, which dealt uniquely with the love of God and one’s neighbor. Here are the words, which I have remembered:
“Messieurs, brothers and friends.
“The task that I have to fulfill in your regard is very important, since it is intended to help you understand your duties toward God, toward your sovereign and your neighbor. If I only had to remind you of your duty toward God, I would content myself with saying to you: open your eyes; contemplate everything that surrounds you; elevate your actions of grace toward the great Being who conserves everything; who makes all the globes move to which he imparts a regular rotation that has never been deranged for an infinity of centuries; who makes spring succeeds winter, summer succeed spring, and autumn succeed summer, and assigns to each seasons its functions; who conserves the seed of vegetation in all the seeds during the winter; who develops it and brings it into flower in spring, fructifies it in summer and ripens it in autumn to nourish everything that exists.
“Do we not have enough in that talking picture to elevate our adorations and actions of grace to the great Being? We owe them to him every morning when we open our eyes, since every day we see again the dazzling spectacle of nature, which does not vary and is always the beautiful par excellence. Oh, my friends, let us therefore dedicate all our actions and offer all our endeavors to that Supreme Being, as the principle that conserves everything and from whom all the good flows that is spread over this globe.
“Let us love our sovereign and our neighbor as ourselves, and let us do to our neighbor all the good that we would wish him to do to us. The sovereign is a chief devoted to his people, he is born to conserve them, to protect them, to defend them, to provide for their needs, to have wise laws execute that can render them happy; one cannot, therefore, be too attached to one who devotes himself to the happiness of others; one cannot respect him too much, since he sacrifices all the moments of his life to conserve the people confided to him; after God, let us render our sovereign al the homage that is due to him; let us respect him as the nation’s chief. The happier and wealthier the nation is, the more respectable is its chief, the more the glory of his government reflects on him.
“Our neighbor comprises our fellows, men like us; we ought to return to others the good that they do to us. We would not want anyone to speak ill of us; let us not speak ill of others. We would not want anyone to do us harm; let us do no harm to others. We would not want anyone to steal what is ours; let us not steal from others. Finally, if we are in need, we would be very glad of aid and assistance; let us aid and assist others. Those, my friends, are all the duties of society; those are all the obligations of human beings toward their peers; fulfill them with exactitude; obey the laws, love your sovereign and your neighbor as yourselves; you will find in the accomplishment of these precepts your interior contentment, and you will be happy.”
“Every month it’s the same sermon,” the man accompanying me told me. “By dint of repeating the same thing, the people understand easily; they become better.”
“But what has become of the sovereign of Rome?” I said.
“He still exists,” was the reply. “He is no longer called the pope, but bears the title of great patriarch; he is married, as are all the ministers of the temples; in order to be a minister of altars or the king, it is necessary to be or to have been married. Bachelors are excluded from all functions; it is thought that they are more borne to egotism than other men, and in consequence less apt to fulfill public functions.”
As he finished speaking, the maire of the commune arrived in the temple; he joined the four young people who had carried the baskets; there, in the presence of all the people, he married them and gave each of them a dowry of three thousand francs.
I asked the reason for that ceremony, and from where the money came.
“You are about to learn,” he told me. “The human race, in growing old, has recognized by experience that humans are naturally borne to ambition, cupidity, avarice and egotism; that they seek to enrich themselves at the expense of their peers per fas et nefas. Sensible people have imagined ways to make use of human vices to give birth to social virtues; thus, a maximum has been established for fortunes. Each father of a family, on dying, can only leave to his children a hundred and fifty thousand francs each; the surplus belongs to the state, which is obliged to distribute that surplus to young men and young women in the commune to which the deceased father belonged, and who have distinguished themselves by some evidence of virtue, either toward the fatherland, the sovereign, their parents or their fellows.
“Every year, lots of three thousand francs are composed, in goods or in cash, from that excess of fortunes; those lots are destined to endow young men and young women who have distinguished themselves by some evidence of virtue or benevolence; they are married with great pomp in the temple, before the altar of the divinity. On the first of every month, other marriages also take place in the temple, in the same manner, but the state does not endow them.
“Since the promulgation of the law of the maximum of fortunes and the sage employment of the excess of those same fortunes, bankruptcies are no longer seen; the fathers of families augment their fortune by labor, by economy and by commercial industry, and compete with one another to leave the largest amount to recompense social virtues.
“Only the royal family is exempt from the maximum, because it is considered that the throne and the persons attached by blood ties to the chief of the nation can never be too rich, in order to exercise benevolence and represent the nation worthily.
“The sovereign also nominates those French people of both sexes who have a right to public benevolence, and who ought to be endowed by the state, from a list of candidates drawn up by the council of each commune where there are sufficient successions and legitimate levies to provide for that legal disposition. That list is also presented to the sovereign by the députés of each département. Since that order has been established, France has flourished, and the French adore their king, whom they regard as their father; for his part, the king loves his people as his children.
“When, in a commune, the father of a family leaves a greater fortune, after the removal of the children’s legitimate entitlement, than is necessary to endow marriages, the state applies that excess to the hospitals of the principal towns of the prefecture and sub-prefecture that are most in need, in order to liberate people from the excessive duties they were paid at the customs-posts of towns for comestibles, which once had to be established for the hospitals whose property had been inappropriately sold. People only pay half now of what they used to pay, and soon, if the same order subsists, they will no longer pay anything; there will be no more customs-posts, no more shackles
on the internal commerce of the kingdom; the people will be happy, and the excess of the fortunes of the rich will then be turned entirely to the profit of social virtues by the augmentation of the marriages of those who have been their authors.”
“But how are the successions of those who die as bachelors divided?” I asked my informant.
“If they are nephews and nieces who inherit,” he told me, “the legitimate entitlements in those cases are reduced to sixty thousand francs; if the bachelor’s heirs are cousins, the entitlements are reduced by a further fifth, and a further fifth for every degree of distance from the direct line. Just as fathers of a family can divide their inheritance between their children, however, bachelors, while alive, can divide their fortune between collateral heirs, while leaving the state the portion affected by the law to the recompense of virtues. The government usually approves these dispositions, although they will not always be equal in value; it is only in cases of excessive differences of rewards that the government permits itself to level the shares of children, collateral heirs and those destined to the recompense of social virtues—but that rarely happens, so jealous are fathers and bachelors of endowing their children and heirs equally, and satisfying the law remunerative of virtues.”
“Tell me, you who are instructing me, what have you conserved of the ancient institutions?”
“Finance,” he replied. “I mean land tax and property tax, stamp duty, auditing, mortgages, and waters and forests. These taxes were deemed necessary for the conservation of the realm, in order that the king can make indispensable expenditures every year, for the maintenance of his troops, the payment of functionaries, the encouragement of the arts, the maintenance of granaries of abundance and highways. Every year, the government buys wheat to garnish the granaries of abundance; that wheat, if it is not consumed in the year by famine, is resold at the end of the year and replaced by new wheat, because it has been recognized by experience that there are years of sterility caused by bad weather, and that it is wise government to ensure the lives of the people by means of provisions.
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