Such an attitude may not
flatter the sovereign's pride, and is in fact merely a higher form of
expediency; but it is one which the proudest monarchs of Europe are
finding themselves constrained to take if they would preserve their
power and use it effectually."
Soon afterward de Crucis left Pianura; but before leaving he imparted to
Odo the result of his observations while in the late Duke's service. De
Crucis's view was that of the more thoughtful men of his day who had not
broken with the Church, yet were conscious that the whole social system
of Europe was in need of renovation. The movement of ideas in France,
and their rapid transformation into legislative measures of unforeseen
importance, had as yet made little impression in Italy; and the clergy
in particular lived in serene unconsciousness of any impending change.
De Crucis, however, had been much in France, and had frequented the
French churchmen, who (save in the highest ranks of the hierarchy) were
keenly alive to the need of reform, and ready, in many instances, to
sacrifice their own privileges in the public cause. These men, living in
their provincial cures or abbeys, were necessarily in closer contact
with the people, better acquainted with their needs and more competent
to relieve them, than the city demagogues theorising in Parisian
coffee-houses on the Rights of Man and the Code of Nature. But the voice
of the demagogues carried farther than that of the clergy; and such
revolutionary notions as crossed the Alps had more to do with the
founding of future Utopias than with the remedy of present evils.
Pages:
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448