Now the great gift of a revolution (as in France)is that it makes men free in the past as well as free in the future.Those who have cleared away everything could,if they liked,put back everything.But we who have preserved everything--we cannot restore anything.Take,for the sake of argument,the complex and manycoloured ritual of the Coronation recently completed.That rite is stratified with the separate centuries;from the first rude need of discipline to the last fine shade of culture or corruption,there is nothing that cannot be detected or even dated.
The fierce and childish vow of the lords to serve their lord "against all manner of folk"obviously comes from the real Dark Ages;no longer confused,even by the ignorant,with the Middle Ages.It comes from some chaos of Europe,when there was one old Roman road across four of our counties;and when hostile"folk"might live in the next village.The sacramental separation of one man to be the friend of the fatherless and the nameless belongs to the true Middle Ages;with their great attempt to make a moral and invisible Roman Empire;or (as the Coronation Service says)to set the cross for ever above the ball.Elaborate local tomfooleries,such as that by which the Lord of the Manor of Work-sop is alone allowed to do something or other,these probably belong to the decay of the Middle Ages,when that great civilisation died out in grotesque literalism and entangled heraldry.Things like the presentation of the Bible bear witness to the intellectual outburst at the Reformation;things like the Declaration against the Mass bear witness to the great wars of the Puritans;and things like the allegiance of the Bishops bear witness to the wordy and parenthetical political compromises which (to my deep regret)ended the wars of religion.
But my purpose here is only to point out one particular thing.In all that long list of variations there must be,and there are,things which energetic modern minds would really wish,with the reasonable modification,to restore.Dr.Clifford would probably be glad to see again the great Puritan idealism that forced the Bible into an antique and almost frozen formality.Dr.Horton probably really regrets the old passion that excommunicated Rome.In the same way Mr.Belloc would really prefer the Middle Ages;as Lord Rosebery would prefer the Erastian oligarchy of the eighteenth century.The Dark Ages would probably be disputed (from widely different motives)by Mr.Rudyard Kipling and Mr.
Cunninghame Graham.But Mr.Cunninghame Graham would win.
But the black case against Conservative (or Evolutionary)politics is that none of these sincere men can win.Dr.Clifford cannot get back to the Puritans;Mr.Belloc cannot get back to the mediaevals;because (alas)there has been no Revolution to leave them a clear space for building or rebuilding.Frenchmen have all the ages behind them,and can wander back and pick and choose.But Englishmen have all the ages on top of them,and can only lie groaning under that imposing tower,without being able to take so much as a brick out of it.If the French decide that their Republic is bad they can get rid of it;but if we decide that a Republic was good,we should have much more difficulty.If the French democracy actually desired every detail of the mediaeval monarchy,they could have it.I do not think they will or should,but they could.If another Dauphin were actually crowned at Rheims;if another Joan of Arc actually bore a miraculous banner before him;if mediaeval swords shook and.blazed in every gauntlet;if the golden lilies glowed from every tapestry;if this were really proved to be the will of France and the purpose of Providence--such a scene would still be the lasting and final justification of the French Revolution.
For no such scene could conceivably have happened under Louis XVI.
