Chapter 2

Let us add a detail. Diatribe is, on certain occasions, a useful means of government.

Thus the hand of the police was in the print of Diderot Flogged, and the engraver of the Franciscan friar must have been kindred to the turnkey of Vincennes. Governments, more passionate than necessary, neglect to remain strangers to the animosities of the lower orders. Political persecution of former days—it is of former days that we are speaking—willingly availed itself of a dash of literary persecution. Certainly, hatred hates without being paid for it. Envy, to do its work, does not need a minister of State to encourage it and to give it a pension; and there is such a thing as unofficial calumny. But a money-bag does no harm. When Roy, the court-poet, rhymed against Voltaire, “Tell me, daring stoic,” etc., the position of treasurer of the chamber of Clermont, and the cross of St. Michael, were not likely to damp his enthusiasm for the Court, and his spirit against Voltaire. A gratuity is pleasant to receive after a service rendered; the masters upstairs smile; you receive the agreeable order to insult some one you detest; you obey richly; you are free to bite like a glutton; you take your fill; it is all profit; you hate and you give satisfaction. Formerly authority had its scribes. It was a pack of hounds as good as any other. Against the free rebel spirit, the despot would let loose the scribbler. To torture was not sufficient; teasing was resorted to likewise. Trissotin held a confabulation with Vidocq, and from their tête-à-tête would burst a complex inspiration. Pedagogism, thus supported by the police, felt itself an integral part of authority, and strengthened its æsthetics with legal means. It was arrogant. The pedant raised to the dignity of policeman, —nothing can be so arrogant as that vileness. See, after the struggle between the Arminians and the Gomarists, with what a superb air Sparanus Buyter, his pocket full of Maurice of Nassau’s florins, denounces Josse Vondel, and proves, Aristotle in hand, that the Palamède of Vondel’s tragedy is no other than Barneveldt, —useful rhetoric, by which Buyter obtains against Vondel a fine of three hundred crowns, and for himself a fat prebend at Dordrecht.