MARGARET OF NAVARRE.

Reflection on her religious liberality.

The generosity wherewith queen Margaret protected several persons of merit, persecuted for the sake of religion, is highly to her honour. I do not examine whether Florimond de Remond ’has it from good authority, that she protested at her death, that what she had done for the followers of the new opinions, proceeded rather from compassion than from any ill will to the ancient religion of her fathers; but granting her protestation to be sincere, I maintain, there was something more heroical in her compassion and generosity, than there would have been, had she been persuaded that the fugitives she protected were orthodox. For a princess, or any other woman, to do good to those whom she takes to be the household of faith,

is no extraordinary thing, but the common effect of a moderate piety. But for a queen to grant her protection to people persecuted for opinions which she believes to be false; to open a sanctuary to them, to preserve them from the flames prepared for them, to furnish them with a subsistence, liberally to relieve the troubles and inconveniences of their exile, is an heroical magnanimity, which has hardly any precedent. It is the effect of a superiority of reason and genius, which very few can reach to: it is the knowing how to pity the misfortune of those who err, and admire at the same time their constancy to the dictates of their conscience: it is the knowing how to do justice to their good intentions, and to the zeal they express for the truth in general: it is the knowing that they are mistaken in the hypothesis, but that in the thesis they conform to the immutable and eternal laws of order, which require us to love the truth, and to sacrifice to that love the temporal conveniences and pleasures of life: it is, in a word, the knowing how to distinguish, in one and the same person, his opposition to particular truths which he does not know, and his love for truth in general; a love which he evidences by his great zeal for the doctrines that he believes to be true.

Such was the judicious distinction the queen of Navarre was able to make. It is difficult for all sorts of persons to arrive at this science; but more especially difficult for a princess like her, who had been educated in the communion of Rome, where nothing has been talked of for many ages but faggots and gibbets for those who err. Family prejudices strongly fortified all the obstacles which education had laid in the way of this princess; for she entirely loved the king her brother, an implacable persecutor of those they called Heretics, a people whom he caused to be burnt without mercy, wherever the indefatigable

vigilance of informers discovered them. I cannot conceive by what method the queen of Navarre raised herself to so high a pitch of equity, reason, and good sense; it was not through an indifference as to religion, since it is certain she had a great degree of piety, and studied the scriptures with a singular application. It must therefore be the excellency of her genius, and the greatness of her soul, that discovered a path to her, which scarcely any one else knew. It will be said, perhaps, that she needed only consult the primitive and general ideas of order, which most clearly show that involuntary errors hinder not a man who entirely loves God, as he has been able to discover him after all possible enquiries, from being reckoned a servant of the true God, and that we ought to respect in him the rights of the true God, I might immediately answer, that this maxim is of itself subject to great disputes. So far is it from being clear and evident, that these primitive ideas hardly ever appear to our understanding without limitations and modifications, which obscure them a hundred ways, according to the different prejudices contracted by education. The spirit of party, the attachment to a sect, and even zeal for orthodoxy, produce a kind of ferment in the humours of our body; and hence the medium through which reason ought to behold those primitive ideas, is clouded and obscured. These are infirmities which will attend our reason, as long as it shall depend on the ministry of organs. It is the same thing to it, as the low and middle region of the air, the seat of vapours and meteors. There are but very few persons who can elevate themselves above these clouds, and place themselves in a true serenity. If any one could do it, we must say of him what Virgil did of Daphnis:

Candidas insuetum miratur lumen Olympi,
Sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera Daphnis.
Virgil, Eclog. V, ver. 56.

Daphnia, the guest of heaven, with wondering eyes,
Views, in the milky way, the starry skies:
And far beneath him, from the shining sphere,
Beholds the moving clouds and rolling year.
Dryden.

And he would not have so much the appearance of a man, as of an immortal being, placed upon a mountain above the regions of winds and clouds, &c. There is almost as much necessity for being above the passions, to come to the knowledge of some kind of truths, as to act virtuously. This mountain is the emblem of a good man, whom no passion can withdraw from the paths of justice:

. ..... Sed ut altus Olympi
Vertex, qui spatio ventos hiemesque relinquit,
Perpetuum nulla temeratus nube serenum,
Celsior exsurgit pluviis, auditque ruentes
Sub pedibus nimbos, et rauca tonitrua calcat:
Sic patiens animus per tanta negotia liber
Emergit, similisque sui; justique tenorem
Flectere non odium cogit, non gratia suadet.
Claudian, de Mallii Theod. Consulatu, pag. m. 6, col. 2.

But as Olympus’ tow’ring summit knows,
Nor discomposing storms, nor hoary snows,
And in superior region is seen
Far above clouds, eternally serene; While at its steady foot the rushing rain,
And rattling thunder spend their force in vain:
So, the just man, disclaiming all controul,
In perfect peace preserves his constant soul;
Always himself, enjoys his seat above,
Nor chill'd by hatred, nor inflam'd by love.

I think I have given a fine view of the queen of Navarre’s heroism.—Art. Navarre.