Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

42FRENCH POLICY

" You are right," I replied, " but the world is led by routine; and during centuries the strongest minds have so exclaimed against the intolerance and rapacity of Home, that people have not yet accustomed themselves to shift their point of view, and to look at the Pope in his quality of spiritual head of the church, of unchangeable supporter of religious liberty, as well as in his capacity of temporal sovereign; to view him as a venerable power, embarrassed in his double duties ■— a complication perhaps unavoidable, л if he would maintain his independence. How is it that people cannot see that a nation, when sincerely Catholic, must inevitably become the adversary of England, whose political power is based entirely upon heresy ? Let France succour and defend with the energy of conviction the banner of the Catholic church, and by such act alone she will, from one end of the world to the other, be carrying on a powerful war against England. These are truths which ought to strike all minds, and which yet have hitherto only occurred to interested parties, and are consequently without weight: for it is another of the singularities of our age, that in France a man is considered wrong whenever it is suspected that he has any interest in being right. Such is the disorder of ideas produced by fifty years of revolutions, and more than a hundred of philosophical and literary cynicism. Have I not, then, good reason to envy your faith?"

" But the results of your religious policy would be to place the nation at the feet of the priests."

" Exaggerations as regards religion are the worst signs in the features of our age: but were the piety of the faithful as menacing as it appears to me harmless,