Nevertheless, it is possible to trace through the apparent chaos an uninterrupted movement from absolutism to representative institutions.
The draft bill of 1901 had left the autocratic power of the sovereign unchanged; the colonial bill as passed by the commission completely reversed the situation, replacing the absolutism of the king by thorough parliamentary control.
The theory and practice of papal absolutism was successfully promulgated by Gratian in his Decretum, completed at Bologna about 1142.
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The principle contended for and established by this reaction was absolutism as opposed to freedom - monarchical absolutism, papal absolutism, the suppression of energies liberated by the Renaissance and the Reformation.
The theoretical absolutism of the sultan had, indeed, always been tempered not only by traditional usage, local privilege, the juridical and spiritual precepts of the Koran and the Sunnet, and their 'Ulema interpreters, and the privy council, but for nearly a century by the direct or indirect pressure of the European powers, and during the reigns of Abd-ul-Aziz and of Abd-ul-Hamid by the growing force of public opinion.
The king, with the checks upon his absolutism removed, reverted to the worst traditions of his dynasty, and the control and arrangements of finance were upset by Russia.
His passion for absolutism made him consider himself master of souls as well as bodies, and Bossuet did nothing to contravene an opinion which was, indeed, common to every and the sovereign of his day.
Of the two contrary currents which have continually mingled and conflicted throughout the course of French history, that of monarchic absolutism and that of aristocratic and democratic liberty, the former was now to carry all before it.
When his forecast was fulfilled, and the system of absolutism broke down, he became minister in January 1862.
And the conjoined Estates in the mysterious conspiracy which established absolutism in Denmark.