The world-historic significance of the Reformation lies in the effort of the European mind to pierce, at least in the sphere of Religion, nearer to the truth. The successive phases of this struggle may be compared to a vast tetralogy, with a Prelude of which the actors and setting are Huss and Jerome, the Council of Constance and Sigismund, the traitor of traitors, who gave John Huss "the word of a king," and Huss, solitary at the stake, when the flames wrapped him around, learned the value of the word of a king. Martin Luther is the protagonist of the first of the four great dramas that follow. Its theme is the consecration of man to sincerity in his relations to God. There, even at the hazard of death, the tongue shall utter what the heart thinks.
The second drama is named _Ignatius Loyola_; the theme is not less absorbing--"Art thou then so sure of the truth and of thy sincerity, O my brother?" Whatever his followers may have become, Don Inigo remains one of the most baffling enigmas that historical psychology offers. From his grave he rules the Council, and the Tridentine Decrees are the acknowledgment of his unseen sovereignty.
What tragic shapes arise and crowd the stage of the third drama--Thurn, Ferdinand, Tilly, Wallenstein, Richelieu, Gustavus, Condé, Oxenstiern! And when the last actors of the fourth drama, the conflict between moribund Jesuitism and Protestantism grown arrogant and prosperous, lay aside their masks in the world's great tiring-room of death, a new Age in world-history has begun.
As religious freedom is the _Wahn_ of the Reformation drama, so it is in political freedom that the Eternal Illusion now incarnates itself. Let man be free, let man throughout the earth attain the unfettered use of all his faculties, and heaven's light will once more fill all the dark places of the world! This is the new avatar, this the glad tidings which announce the French Revolution and the Third Age. Of this ideal, the faith in which the French Girondins die is the most perfect expression. What is this faith for which Condorcet and his party perish, some by poison, some by the sword, some by the guillotine, some in battle, but all by violent deaths--Vergniaud, Roland, Barbaroux, Brissot, Barnave, Gensonné, Pétion, Buzot, Isnard? "Oh Liberty, what crimes are done in thy name!" was not a reproach, but, in the gladness of the martyr's death which consecrated all the life, it was the wonder, the disquiet of a moment yet sure of its peace in some deeper reconcilement. Behold how strong is their faith! Marie Antoinette has her faith, the injunction of her priest, "When in doubt or in affliction, think of Calvary." Yet the hair of the Queen whitens, her spirit despairs. The Girondinist queen climbing the scaffold, not less a lover of love and of life than Marie Antoinette--what nerves her? It is the star of the future and the memory of Vergniaud's phrase, "Posterity? What have we to do with posterity? Perish our memory, but let France be free!"