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Corporate Compliance: Crime,

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Corporate Compliance
Crime, Convenience
and Control
Petter Gottschalk
Christopher Hamerton
Corporate Compliance
Petter Gottschalk · Christopher Hamerton

Corporate
Compliance
Crime, Convenience and Control
Petter Gottschalk Christopher Hamerton
Department of Leadership School of Economic,
and Organizational Behaviour Social and Political Sciences
BI Norwegian Business School University of Southampton
Oslo, Norway Southampton, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-16122-3 ISBN 978-3-031-16123-0 (eBook)


https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16123-0

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in
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Contents

1 Introduction 1
References 8
2 Corporation Conformity and Compliance 15
Research Perspectives on Compliance 16
Legalistic and Formalistic Approaches 21
Compliance Audits and Risk Assessment 23
Fraud Examinations of Compliance Failures 24
Maturity Model for Corporate Compliance 29
References 32
3 The Theory of Convenience and Compliance 37
Individual Convenience Orientations 38
Financial Motive for Executive Deviance 40
Organizational Opportunity for Deviance 43
Personal Willingness for Deviant Behavior 44
Disturbing Offender Crime Convenience 46
Traditional Criminological Perspectives 48
References 49

v
vi Contents

4 Lack of Compliance from Convenience 55


Astellas Cultural and Compliance Failings 56
Danske Bank Money Laundering in Estonia 57
Fuji Xerox Customer Fraud in New Zealand 61
Nordea Bank Tax Evasion in Luxembourg 64
Swedbank Money Laundering in Lithuania 68
Telenor in Vimpelcom Uzbekistan Corruption 71
References 72
5 Barriers to Corporate Compliance 75
The Complexity of Rules and Regulations 76
Deficiencies in Compliance Functions 77
Deterioration by Social Disorganization 80
Heroic Status of the Chief Executive 87
Inter-Bank Cooperation Challenges 89
References 96
6 Roles of Compliance Officers 103
Statements by Compliance Violators 104
Survey of Officers in the United States 107
The Yara Corruption Scandal in Libya 108
References 110
7 Restoration of Compliance and Control 113
The Trust Repair at Siemens in Germany 115
Financial Crime Specialists in Compliance 120
References 123
8 Crime Signal Detection Perspectives 127
White-Collar Crime Characteristics 129
Organizational Crime Detection Functions 131
Crime Detection by Whistleblowing 136
Empirical Crime Signal Detections 142
Characteristics of Crime Signal Detection 148
From Crime Convenience to Detection 155
Case Study of Betanien Foundation 157
References 163
Contents vii

9 Change Management for Corporate Recovery 171


Organizational Reconstruction Approaches 172
Recommendations by Fraud Examiners 173
Preventive Measures in the Literature 180
Detective Measures in the Literature 185
Corporate Case Study of Siemens 187
References 188
10 Change Measures for Corporate Control 195
Recommendations in the Literature 197
Investigations by Fraud Examiners 205
Four Change Management Themes 208
Reduction in Crime Convenience 212
References 215
11 Strategies for Wrongdoing Investigation 227
Investigative Fraud Examination 228
Investigation Knowledge Strategy 232
Information Sources Strategy 235
Value Shop Configuration Strategy 240
Computer Systems Strategy 245
Crime Investigation Principles 248
Investigation Maturity Levels 258
Case Study of Gartnerhallen 261
References 264
12 Profiling of Potential Offenders 269
Structural Model of Convenience 270
Profiling Offender Motive 271
Profiling Offender Opportunity 275
Profiling Personal Willingness 278
References 281

Conclusion 287
viii Contents

Appendices 291
Bibliography 325
Index 363
List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Structural model of convenience theory 41


Fig. 5.1 Convenience themes in the Norfund case with lack
of inter-bank cooperation 95
Fig. 8.1 Receiver knowledge after whistleblowing 157
Fig. 10.1 Illustration of the categorization process conducted
by Hals and Sandvik (2019) 210
Fig. 10.2 Recommended change management effects
on convenience 213
Fig. 11.1 Knowledge organization of investigation in the value
shop 241
Fig. 11.2 Stages of knowledge management systems
in white-collar crime investigations 246
Fig. 11.3 Maturity model for internal investigations by fraud
examiners 259
Fig. 12.1 Structural model of convenience themes 272

ix
List of Tables

Table 8.1 Detection of white-collar crime 142


Table 8.2 Comparison of journalist and non-journalist-detected
criminals 143
Table 8.3 Financial crime categories by detection sources 144
Table 8.4 Characteristics of stimulus in detection of white-collar
crime 152
Table A.1 Sample of reports of investigations by fraud examiners
(Investigation reports listed separately in the reference
section at the end of this chapter) 291
Table A.2 Investigated organizations and investigating firms 303
Table A.3 Change management recommendations
from investigating firms 313

xi
1
Introduction

Compliance has long been identified by scholars of white-collar crime


as a key strategic control device in the regulation of corporations and
other complex organizations. Nevertheless, this essential process is largely
ignored within criminology as a specific subject for close scrutiny.
The current book seeks to address the anomaly. This initiating book
applies the theory of convenience to provide criminological insight
into the enduring self-regulatory phenomenon of corporate compliance.
Convenience theory suggests that compliance is challenged when the
corporation has a strong financial motive for illegitimate profits, ample
organizational opportunities to commit and conceal wrongdoing, and
executive willingness for deviant behavior (Asting & Gottschalk, 2022;
Braaten & Vaughn, 2019; Dearden & Gottschalk, 2020; Desmond et al.,
2022; Gottschalk & Hamerton, 2022; Stadler & Gottschalk, 2021; Qu,
2021). Focusing on white-collar deviance and crime within corpora-
tions (Benson & Simpson, 2018; Sutherland, 1939, 1983), the book
argues that lack of compliance is recurrently a matter of deviant behavior
by senior executives within organizations who abuse their privileged
positions to commission, commit, and conceal financial crime.
Some deviant executives apply creative compliance (Nurse, 2022: 69):
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Switzerland AG 2022
P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton, Corporate Compliance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16123-0_1
2 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

Creative compliance involves the use of techniques which can be argued


to be ‘perfectly legal’ despite the purpose and impact of such techniques
being to undermine the whole purpose of reporting and regulation and
in practical terms using the letter of the law to defeat its spirit, arguably
‘with impunity’.

Rather than focusing on the regulatory formalities and staged proce-


dures of compliance and audits, we emphasize the organizational chal-
lenges involved in compliance work when trusted corporate officials
exhibit deviant behavior, refining and advancing knowledge in this
field by reference to contemporary international case studies and asso-
ciated original evaluative research. The themes and cases covered are
carefully selected to provide the reader with an insight into profes-
sional conduct and procedural practice—the organization of corporate
compliance success, failure, and corruption—with theoretical conve-
nience placed at the fore. Crucially, compliance is often executively
received as an inconvenience, a process capable of disturbing perceived
convenience by increasing the subjective detection risk for potential
offenders. Furthermore, with compliance officers habitually positioned
at the very tip of the corporate governance spear, they emerge as uniquely
able to communicate the terrible experience of executive fall from grace.
We contend that learning from cases of conflict and failure of corpo-
rate compliance helps to identify the authentic challenges inherent to
compliance functions within the contemporary workplace. As suggested
by Antonsen and Madsen (2021: 7), compliance functions are typically
established and strengthened in response to business scandals that expose
“weaknesses related to regulatory risk management and internal control”.
Consequently, the lacking substance of compliance is evident whenever
executives are caught in corporate wrongdoing—a fundamental premise
explored and illustrated throughout this book.
Corporate compliance is concerned with the ability and practice at
corporations to act without violating laws, the spirit of the laws, regula-
tions, ethics, corporate culture, and other forms of rules and guidelines
for the business. Corporate compliance is the ability to lead large groups
of people toward achieving certain standards of conduct. Compliance
refers to obeying the formal rules and regulations as well as the informal
1 Introduction 3

norms and attitudes in force at a given time and place (Desai, 2016;
Durand et al., 2019).
Compliance is a challenge in situations where wrongdoing and
misconduct have a potential of great benefits without significant
perceived costs. In such situations, compliance functions within corpora-
tions are tested. For example, a small bribe in a corrupt country can result
in a major profitable contract for a corporation. Refusing bribery might
cause a competitor to obtain the profitable contract instead (Berghoff,
2018; Cuervo-Cazurra, 2016). Blokland et al. (2021) argued that corpo-
rate noncompliance is widespread in terms of corporate rule breaking,
where drivers of corporate rule breaking include the extent of relative
convenience of noncompliance versus compliance.
While there is no shortage of standard recommendations regarding
formal compliance programs (e.g., Adreisova, 2016; Biegelman &
Bartow, 2012; Desai, 2016; Graham, 2015; Haines & Macdonald, 2021;
Kawasaki, 2020; Kurum, 2020; Lehman et al., 2020; Majluf & Navar-
rette, 2011; Marchetti, 2012; McKendall et al., 2002; Peterson, 2013;
Roberts, 2008; Thottoli, 2021), there is no abundance of literature on
why compliance functions fail and how to fix them (e.g., Chen & Soltes,
2018; Eberl et al., 2015; Rooij & Fine, 2020; Rorie, 2015). Some
published works are concerned with specific industries, such as Braun
(2019) who addressed compliance norms in financial institutions.
Rooij and Rorie (2022: 2) attempted to introduce some kind of
measurement of compliance where they emphasized two core challenges
in corporate compliance measurement:

The first is to assess to what extent the organizations being studied (or the
people in that organization) have been complying with or breaking the
law. This is a highly difficult and sensitive question to answer, and also
presents major ethical challenges. The second challenge is how to situate
the interaction between the compliance behavior in the organization and
potential influences on compliance in such a way that demonstrates a
clear causal relationship. Establishing causality in a way that is both valid,
yet also representative of a broader set of cases outside of those studied is
extremely challenging. Any approach to compliance measurement must
contend with both of these challenges.
4 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

Maybe the most challenging task for corporate compliance functions


in practice is to prevent and detect white-collar crime. White-collar crime
is financial crime committed by persons of respectability and high social
status in the course of their occupation to benefit themselves or the
organization (Sutherland, 1939, 1983). Corporate executives and board
members belong to the class of elite members who can abuse their posi-
tions for illegal gain (Davidson et al., 2019; Ferrell & Ferrell, 2011;
Gangloff et al., 2016; Schnatterly et al., 2018).
When there is suspicion of corporate white-collar crime, the gover-
nance branch typically involved should be the compliance function,
potentially cooperating with internal and external auditors as well as
various controllers. Internal or external fraud examiners have the task
of investigating suspicions by reconstructing past events and sequences
of events (Machen & Richards, 2004). If fraud examiners find suffi-
cient evidence of law violation, then the case stops, moves internally,
or moves externally to the national criminal justice system. If secrecy
to protect corporate reputation is the main concern, then the case typi-
cally stops and remains internal (Gottschalk & Tcherni-Buzzeo, 2017).
Corporations with inefficient or non-existing compliance functions or
governance branch generally contribute to disorganized institutional
deterioration (Crosina & Pratt, 2019; Rodriguez et al., 2005).
White-collar crime is a growing area of academic interest, partly due to
the ongoing increase in the importance of compliance and partly because
of the repeated, large-scale incidents of corporate misconduct that keep
happening. Examples include Danske Bank in Denmark (Milne &
Binham, 2018), Fuji Xerox in New Zealand (Deloitte, 2017), Siemens in
Germany (Berghoff, 2018), Swedbank in Sweden (Milne, 2020), Telia in
Sweden (Schoultz & Flyghed, 2021), Toshiba in Japan (Deloitte, 2015),
VimpelCom in the Netherlands (Hovland & Gauthier-Villars, 2015),
Wells Fargo in the United States (Shichor & Heeren, 2021), and Wire-
card in Germany (Storbeck, 2020). The research interest in executive
wrongdoing is growing given the high profile nature of white-collar crime
as well as the growth of private policing, internal fraud examinations, and
forensic accounting in recent years.
1 Introduction 5

Lack of compliance is frequently demonstrated in fraud investigation


reports. For example, Scandinavian banks Danske Bank and Swed-
bank were investigated by Bruun Hjejle (2018) and Clifford Chance
(2020), respectively, resulting in the dismissal of the chief executives for
lack of compliance related to anti-money laundering measures. Russian
oligarchs and organized criminals could transfer proceeds from illegit-
imate business operations through the banks’ East European branch
offices. The non-resident clients were extremely profitable for the banks.
Similarly, Scandinavian bank Nordea lacked compliance when helping
clients in their wealth management to potentially avoid taxes in tax
havens as revealed by the Panama Papers. In their internal investigation,
Mannheimer Swartling (2016) revealed that bank executives had illegally
backdated documents to benefit their rich clients.
Professional services firms such as law firms and audit firms can offer
so much more than the police: risk assessments, regulatory compli-
ance services, policy and program development, training, due dili-
gence, review of suspicious transactions, and asset tracking and recovery
(Schneider, 2006). Outside governments’ criminal justice systems,
private investigators can be found internally in organizations and exter-
nally (King, 2021; Meerts, 2020). An example of internal investigators
is fraud examiners in insurance companies who investigate insurance
customers’ claims. Another example is internal investigators in banks
who investigate suspicions of fraud and money laundering (Kurum,
2020). A final example is internal auditors and compliance officers who
investigate suspicions of financial crime (Friedrich, 2021).
Norway is a small country with five million inhabitants. Some global
companies have their headquarters in Norway. Examples include fertil-
izer company Yara and telecommunication company Telenor. Both
companies operate in a number of countries worldwide. They are
expected to respond to the globalization challenge by acknowledging a
new political role of business that goes beyond mere compliance with
legal standards and conformity with general ethics. As Dion (2019:
836) states, “ethics is not equivalent to laws”. However, both compa-
nies have been caught in corruption scandals. The Norwegian National
Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Envi-
ronmental Crime (“Økokrim”) was prosecuting executives from both
6 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

companies in Norwegian courts in 2015 and 2016. While Yara execu-


tives were prosecuted for corruption in Libya (Berglund, 2015; NTB,
2020), Telenor executives were investigated for corruption in Uzbek-
istan through the partly owned subsidiary Vimpelcom (Deloitte, 2016;
Hovland & Gauthier-Villars, 2015; Klevstrand, 2020). VimpelCom paid
$835 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and
to the public prosecution service of the Netherlands for corruption
in Uzbekistan to obtain mobile frequencies in that country (Ekeberg,
2016).
When a sales manager was sent to prison in Norway, he claimed that
his employer did not emphasize compliance or anti-corruption efforts
at the company. Even when such topics received more attention, he
claimed that his employer had no guidelines to help its sales force.
He also claimed that all the payments to consultants and agents origi-
nated at company headquarters in Norway. “I had nothing to do with
the payments”, he testified in court. He felt that responsible executives
attributed blame to him as a scapegoat. While the corruption amounted
to a few million US dollars, the contract achieved for his employer,
the Norwegian military communication systems provider Kongsberg,
amounted to several hundred millions US dollars in Rumania (Berglund,
2017).
At Telia in Sweden, compliance failed and three former executives
from the Swedish telecommunication company were brought to trial in
2018. The company had already paid $965 million to resolve charges
relating to the violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the
United States and of Dutch law. The three former executives were
charged with corruption when entering the Uzbekistan mobile phone
market. Both the district court and the court of appeals in Sweden
acquitted all three defendants in 2021 (Schoultz & Flyghed, 2021).
Both the sales manager at Kongsberg Defense in Norway, who was
convicted, and the three executives at Telia Telecom in Sweden, who were
acquitted, felt scapegoated by their former employers that were accused
of lacking corporate compliance (Schoultz & Flyghed, 2021: 12):
1 Introduction 7

Scapegoating involves the corporation transferring the responsibility for


an act or event from the corporation itself on one or a few symbolic
figures. It reduces complexity and allows a corporation to avoid security.

In the Swedish trial against three executives, the company distanced


itself from its former employees. Telia’s lawyer asked himself during the
court hearings: “Does it constitute a crime? The company Telia has no
opinion on this; we leave that to the court to determine” (Schoultz &
Flyghed, 2021: 12).
This book applies the theory of convenience to provide insights
into the phenomenon of corporate compliance. Convenience theory
suggests that compliance is challenged when the corporation has a strong
financial motive for illegitimate profits, ample organizational opportuni-
ties to commit and conceal wrongdoing, and executive willingness for
deviant behavior (Asting & Gottschalk, 2022; Braaten & Vaughn, 2019;
Dearden & Gottschalk, 2020; Stadler & Gottschalk, 2021). Focusing on
white-collar crime (Benson & Simpson, 2018; Sutherland, 1939, 1983),
the lack of compliance is a matter of deviant behavior by executives in the
organization who abuse their privileged positions to commit and conceal
financial crime.
Rather than focusing on the formalities and procedures of compliance
and audits, this book emphasizes the challenges involved in compliance
work when trusted corporate officials exhibit deviant behavior. Learning
from cases of failing corporate compliance helps identifying the real chal-
lenges for compliance functions. As suggested by Antonsen and Madsen
(2021: 7), compliance functions are typically established and strength-
ened in response to business scandals that expose “weaknesses related to
regulatory risk management and internal control”. The lacking substance
of compliance is evident whenever executives are caught in corporate
wrongdoing.
The book identifies the problem of noncompliance within the global
business practices as related to the matter of convenience. The book is
not another title referring to compliance through the prism of regula-
tory requirements (e.g., McBarnet, 2004; Rooij & Sokol, 2021; Sergi &
Teichmann, 2018). Rather, it refers to convenience in a number of case
8 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

studies that illustrates the deviances from appropriate behaviors due to


the negligence or even orchestrated actions that result in malpractices.
The book attempts to guide the reader in better comprehending
corporate white-collar crime by means of an analysis of the functioning
of corporate compliance. Convenience theory is used as the prin-
cipal theoretical framework for interpreting the enduring self-regulatory
phenomenon of corporate compliance. The book refers to contemporary
cases of corporate crime to exemplify the theoretical reasoning and to
support it with empirical evidence. Overall, the book provides a crimi-
nological perspective on the role of compliance in corporate white-collar
crime.
Chapter 2 provides a review of the research literature on corporate
compliance. Chapter 3 introduces the theory and concept of conve-
nience, applied throughout this book, to gain insight into compliance
challenges. Chapter 4 presents a number of international case studies
where corporate compliance can be seen to have failed. Chapter 5
discusses individual and organizational barriers to corporate compliance.
Chapter 6 describes and evaluates the pivotal role of corporate compli-
ance officers as a specialized bulwark against white-collar offending.
Chapter 7 discusses how corporate compliance, when lost, might be
restored. Chapter 8 introduces and explores crime signal detection
in terms of its relevance for compliance functions. Lack of compli-
ance requires change management and change measures as presented in
Chapters 9 and 10. Finally, Chapter 11 presents an approach to wrong-
doing investigation for compliance officers, while Chapter 12 provides
compliance officers with a structural model for profiling of potential
offenders.

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2
Corporation Conformity and Compliance

This chapter seeks to define the concept of compliance and examine


enduring models of corporate conformity. Research perspectives on
compliance are evaluated, highlighting the distinction between external
and internal compliance processes, allied to the social control goal
of organizational conformance (Abadinsky, 2007; Ahrne & Brunsson,
2011; Eberl et al., 2015; Kawasaki, 2020). Existing perspectives have
established a close connection between compliance and corporate social
responsibility, an adaption which confers dominant norms toward glob-
alization (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011; Zhang, 2021), and the pivotal
positioning of the chief executive officer (CEO) within such processes
(Davidson et al., 2019; Plesner, 2020; Sands, 2019). The chapter
develops to evaluate the efficacy of legalistic and formalistic approaches
in delivering perceptions of integrity and trust—a significant challenge
when set within a multilayered global landscape of differing individual
and cultural values (Alon et al., 2019; Chen & Soltes, 2018; Eberl
et al., 2015). Prevailing regulatory tools are then considered, in terms of
compliance audit, risk assessment, and fraud examinations of compliance
failures, to gauge organizational response to legislative and regulatory
measures (Boateng et al., 2021; Gottschalk, 2012; Shichor & Heeren,
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 15
Switzerland AG 2022
P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton, Corporate Compliance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16123-0_2
16 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

2021; Thottoli, 2021). Here, an analysis of fraud examination processes


is illustrated by a series of contemporary cases, to include the Commu-
nity Bank at Wells Fargo, British Petroleum and General Motors in the
United States, Wirecard in Germany, Samherji in Iceland, and Ocean-
team in the Netherlands. The chapter concludes with the provision
of a maturity model for corporate compliance, such modeling having
been previously used to assess and evaluate a variety of multifarious
phenomena in terms of 4 developmental staging within complex organi-
zations (Chen et al., 2021; Mondani & Rostami, 2021; Masood, 2020;
Röglinger et al., 2012; Solli-Sæther & Gottschalk, 2015).

Research Perspectives on Compliance


The word compliance can be defined as the act of adhering to or
conforming to a law, rule, guideline, code, demand, or request. In a busi-
ness environment, conforming is referred to as corporate compliance.
Corporate compliance involves keeping a watchful eye on an ever-
changing legal, regulatory, and moral climate, and making the changes
necessary for the business to continue operating in good standing within
its industry, community, and customer base to the satisfaction of all
stakeholders. Compliance can be defined as “the internal programs that
organizations adopt in order to educate employees, improve ethical
norms, and detect and prevent violations of law” (Baer, 2009: 949).
Corporate compliance is a matter of organizational ability to carry
out business activities without violating formal laws, the spirit of the
laws, regulations and rules, ethics within and outside the organization,
corporate culture in terms of norms and values, and other forms of
guiding principles for the business. Corporate compliance is the ability
to lead large groups of people toward achieving certain standards of
conduct when performing their activities. Compliance refers to obeying
the formal rules and regulations as well as the informal norms and
attitudes in force in a given situation (Desai, 2016; Durand et al., 2019).
Corporate compliance extends beyond mere legal and regulatory
conformity into the realm of promoting organizational ethics and corpo-
rate integrity (Dion, 2019). Corporate compliance programs require
2 Corporation Conformity and Compliance 17

monitoring, auditing, corrective actions, and system modifications


or redesign to prevent future problem behavior (Andreisova, 2016;
Majluf & Navarrete, 2011; Peterson, 2013; Remisova et al., 2019).
A company’s intolerance for wrongdoing is evidenced by corporate
action taken consistent with its corporate compliance effort. Corporate
compliance functions need internal and external intelligence to collect
information on a continuous basis to prevent and detect deviant behav-
iors. If a corporate compliance function never prevents or detects actual
incidents of wrongdoing, then it is likely that incidents escape under the
radar (Desai, 2016; Williams et al., 2019), rather than it is a situation
characterized by the absence of wrongdoing.
A distinction can be made between external and internal compliance
(Kawasaki, 2020). External compliance is concerned with the laws, rules,
and other regulations from a government that spell out how an organi-
zation should conduct itself. External compliance is also concerned with
the local norms and values in the organizational environment. Internal
compliance is concerned with internal policies and procedures that are
implemented in the organizational structure as well as the organiza-
tional culture, where structure refers to the division of labor to complete
tasks, while culture refers to the norms and values among organizational
members when completing tasks. It is a matter of external and internal
restraints from social control that influences organizational members
toward conformance (Abadinsky, 2007).
When reviewing the corruption scandal at Siemens in Germany,
Eberl et al. (2015) emphasized organizational rule adjustments such as
strengthening of internal guidelines in order to close potential gaps,
extension, and specification of compliance rules for all employees and
suppliers, general interdiction of consultancy contracts in sales and
distribution, and guidelines on presents and invitations.
Ahrne and Brunsson (2011) described the characteristics of an organi-
zation as membership, hierarchy, monitor, and sanctions. Organizations
decide about membership and thus who will be allowed to join the
organization as employees. Membership brings a certain identity with
it, where the identity differs from that of non-members. Organizations
include a hierarchy where there is a duty to oblige others to comply with
decisions. Hierarchy entails a form of organized power. Organizations
18 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

can issue commands, and they can decide upon rules that their members
are expected to follow in their actions. An organization has the right
to monitor compliance with its commands and rules (Kawasaki, 2020;
Rooij & Fine, 2020). Organizations have the right to decide about sanc-
tions, both positive and negative. They can decide to change a member’s
status by using promotions, grading systems, awards, diplomas, and
medals. In this hierarchical perspective, compliance at the top is far more
difficult to monitor than compliance further down in the organization.
Compliance is linked to corporate social responsibility. To take on
corporate social responsibility (CSR) means to pay back to society. Pay-
back is the opposite of causing costs to society. CSR is supposed to be
a self-regulatory mechanism whereby a business monitors and ensures
its active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and
national and international norms (Zhang, 2021). CSR is a concept
whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their
business operations and in the interaction with their stakeholders on a
voluntary basis (Ditlev-Simonsen, 2014).
While research perspectives on compliance are still very limited, CSR
is receiving increased attention, sometimes linked to the concept of
governance. Corporate social responsibility, governance, and compli-
ance with laws and regulations are three approaches often suggested
to combat fraud and corruption in organizations. CSR is defined as
discretionary corporate initiatives and activities intended to further social
welfare (Carnahan et al., 2017). Today, companies are expected to take
on responsibilities beyond regulatory compliance and posting profits
(Ditlev-Simonsen, 2014: 117):

How companies engage the environment, human rights, ethics, corrup-


tion, employee rights, donations, volunteer work, contributions to the
community and relationships with suppliers are typically viewed as
components of CSR.

Scherer and Palazzo (2011: 906) claimed that globalization is a given


and not something we can opt out from and that this makes a new
perspective on CSR necessary and unavoidable:
2 Corporation Conformity and Compliance 19

In order to respond to the globalization phenomenon and the emerging


post-national constellation, it is necessary to acknowledge a new political
role of business that goes beyond mere compliance with legal standards
and conformity with moral rules.

Corporate social responsibility is described as a leadership task. Board


members and chief executives in an organization have a particular
responsibility to make sure that the organization is in compliance with
laws and regulations, and that the organization makes contributions to
society wherever relevant. Chief executives should make the organiza-
tion accountable, compensate for negative impacts, contribute to societal
welfare, operate business ethically, take responsibility for society, and
manage in relation with society.
Engdahl (2013: 332) found that duality in terms of segregation of
duties might ensure regulatory compliance in banking and finance:

Today the segregation of duties is commonly used to ensure regulatory


compliance in various industries. (…) The argument is made that an
effective duality-based segregation-of-duties type control system presup-
poses social relations characterized by relative autonomy and third-party
dependence, along with work task interdependence.

The chief executive officer (CEO) is the only executive at level 1 in the
hierarchy of an organization (Davidson et al., 2019). All other executives
are at lower levels. Above the CEO, a number of board members who
have major positions elsewhere, show up from time to time. Hambrick
et al. (2015) found that boards often fail in their monitoring responsi-
bilities. One reason is that many board members are missing some of
the following attributes: independence, expertise in the domain, band-
width, and motivation. Hambrick et al. (2015: 324) expressed surprise
that investigative journalists succeed while board members fail:

On the face of it, this study applauds the role of the press as governance
watchdog, but it also raises deeper questions: If journalists could spot
these frauds using public sources, why couldn’t the companies’ boards
have detected them? For that matter, why couldn’t the boards have spotted
the frauds when they were first being perpetrated? And what kind of tone
20 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

did these boards set that would prompt their companies’ CEOs and other
executives to engage in such acts and think they could get away with it?

CEOs typically enjoy substantial individual freedom in their profes-


sions with little or no control (Khanna et al., 2004). Fraud examiners
recommend more control of CEOs because of failing compliance (e.g.,
Bruun Hjejle, 2018; Clifford Chance, 2020; KPMG, 2020a, 2020b;
Plesner, 2020; Sands, 2019). It starts already with travel expenses by
CEOs that typically find approval from a subordinate—the chief finan-
cial officer (CFO). Control of the CEO is less likely to succeed by a
group of people—the board. Rather, the chairperson of the board should
control and approve all financial activities of the CEO. Furthermore,
the CEO should never be able to act alone in major business activ-
ities. The chief compliance officer in the organization should have a
special assignment of monitoring CEO activities and reporting findings
to the chairperson. Cowen et al. (2016: 152) suggested that employ-
ment contracts for CEOs should have a clause related to misconduct
and crime:

For example, a claw back could be triggered by a financial restate-


ment that happens after an executive’s dismissal or by new evidence that
surfaces indicating he or she engaged in misconduct while serving as
CEO. Claw backs can also force terminated executives to repay benefits
if there is evidence their actions have violated restrictive covenants.

As suggested in agency theory, CEOs have a tendency to become


opportunistic agents (Shen, 2003). Based on their charisma, external
stakeholders and board members lose control over CEO activities
(Fanelli & Misangyi, 2006). Therefore, Cowen’s (2016) proposal of
employment contracts with repayment option may cause a decline in
white-collar crime by CEOs.
In the perspective of preventing and prosecuting corporate crime,
Haines and Macdonald (2021: 299) argued that addressing corporate
crime and harm is not simply an issue of enforcement and compliance:
2 Corporation Conformity and Compliance 21

Neither is it one of digging deeper to find the ultimate root of the


problem – the reproduction of power relations is nothing new to crim-
inology. Understanding the direction of prevailing winds that shape
business activity is important though in understanding where change is
possible. Grappling with injustice is just that – looking for sources of
influence ultimately requires going beyond blanket classifications of law –
in all its forms – as either helpful or unhelpful, and understanding which
law, from which place and used in which way within a field of struggle is
important.

Lehman et al. (2020) introduced rule complexity as a research perspec-


tive on compliance. The perspective claims that it sometimes is impos-
sible to understand what is right and what is wrong. Some laws, rules,
and regulations are so complex that compliance becomes random. Some
rules are more complex to the extent that they have more connections to
or functional dependencies upon other rules in the same system.

Legalistic and Formalistic Approaches


The popular choice of strengthening the formalistic compliance function
in organizations is no substantive action (Eberl et al., 2015: 1207):

Internal rule adjustments have the potential to signal a voluntary willing-


ness to change the moral standards of an organization, whereas simple
compliance with external legal requirements may prove less effective.

Legalistic remedies do generally have little effect on integrity when


they are inconsistent with individual and cultural values. Trust cannot
be re-established by formal, legalistic measures. Instead, the value incon-
sistencies have to be addressed directly. However, in a short-term perspec-
tive, the approach of window dressing by a strengthened compliance
function might temporarily contribute to trust repair. Window dressing
is the act or the instance of making something appear better than it actu-
ally is. Formal control mechanisms are a window dressing approach that
might reduce trust (Eberl et al., 2015: 1207):
22 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

For some scholars formal control replaces or even diminishes trust. It


is argued that extensive monitoring undermines trust. Formal control
may create stress and therefore negatively affect trust. Others, who claim
that trust and formal control complement each other, at least implic-
itly, emphasize the importance of formal organizational rules in ensuring
consistent behavior. It is argued that organizational rules define norma-
tive expectations, thereby providing a feeling of certainty and guidance
for interactions between organizational members. Following this thought,
commonly accepted rules are fundamental for trustworthiness since they
make behavior more predictable.

Actors in auditing and compliance functions in business and public


enterprises seem to have a preference toward formal rules and guide-
lines in the form of window dressing rather than detection of potential
offenders (Desai, 2016). Alon et al. (2019) argued that accounting and
auditing functions have undergone a legitimacy crisis in recent years
because of formal rather than substantial financial reviews.
Compliance emerged as an important management topic following
a stream of corporate scandals in the United States and many other
nations. Companies and industries adopted internal policies and proce-
dures for reporting and trying to prevent misconduct (Chen & Soltes,
2018: 119):

Those efforts helped assuage legislators who had sought to more heavily
regulate and penalize firms for dishonest practices. Self-policing appealed
to business leaders as a way to avoid the cost and disruption of additional
regulation. It also eased the investigative burden on regulators, and many
people believed it would successfully deter wrongdoing.

But it did not. Compliance programs did not deter wrongdoing.


Compliance programs served mainly as window dressing to indicate a
clean and professional front-end of the organization with all its prob-
lems hidden inside. Chen and Soltes (2018) argued that the solution to
this problem is to link compliance initiatives to business objectives.
Antitrust is yet another approach to compliance. Antitrust refers to
laws, regulations, guidelines, and other measures that encourage compe-
tition by limiting the power of any particular firm and by preventing
2 Corporation Conformity and Compliance 23

deviant executives from pursuing the route of crime networks such


as cartels with other businesses in the same industry. An example
mentioned by Edelman (2021) is the airline industry in the United
States where there is an oligopoly of four major airlines. Antitrust is
not only a matter of compliance at the organizational level but also at
the national and global level as “a global consensus has emerged recog-
nizing the central role that competition law plays in promoting a nation’s
prosperity” (Yoo et al., 2021: 843).

Compliance Audits and Risk Assessment


Compliance audits gauge how well organizations ensure adherence to
various applicable laws and other regulatory compliances (Thottoli,
2021: 137):

It helps avoid risk of fines, penalties and closure of business. Compliance


audit gives specific attention to assessing compliance by criteria derived
from responsible authorities.

Compliance risk assessment is about introduction of a systematic


approach to “the entity’s identification of relevant risks to achievement
of its objectives, forming a basis for determining how risks should be
managed” (Marchetti, 2012: 74). Risk assessment is a process that has to
include potential deviant behaviors among board members and corporate
executives to make more informed business decisions. As Koller (2005:
28) noted, “fostering a risk assessment process upon an organization will
not only change how opportunities or liabilities are assessed but will
significantly alter the way an organization makes critical decisions”.
Some organizations are characterized by rotten apples, while others
are characterized by rotten barrels (Boateng et al., 2021; Gottschalk,
2012). While it might be comforting to assume that there is only one
bad apple when a corporate crisis occurs, compliance functions have
to look for rotten barrels involving larger parts of the business. While
occupational crime is associated with bad apples, corporate crime is
24 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

associated with systems failure. Bad apples theory represents an individ-


ualistic approach in criminology, while systems failure theory represents
a business approach in criminology (Heath, 2008: 601):

If the individualistic approach were correct, then one would expect to


find a fairly random distribution of white collar crime throughout various
sectors of the economy, depending upon where individuals suffering
from poor character or excess greed wound up working. Yet, what one
finds instead are very high concentrations of criminal activity in partic-
ular sectors of the economy. Furthermore, these pockets of crime often
persist quite stubbornly over time, despite a complete changeover in the
personnel involved.

It is certainly an interesting issue whether to view white-collar miscon-


duct and crime as acts of individuals perceived as “rotten apples” or as
an indication of systems failure in the company, the industry, or the
society as a whole. The perspective of occupational crime is favoring the
individualistic model of deviance, which is a human failure model of
misconduct and crime. This rotten apple view of white-collar crime is a
comfortable perspective to adopt for business organizations as it allows
them to look no further than suspect individuals. It is only when other
forms of group and/or systemic corruption and other kinds of crime
erupt upon a business enterprise that a more critical look is taken at
white-collar criminality. Furthermore, when serious misconduct occurs
and is repeated, there seems to be a tendency to consider crime as a result
of bad practice, lack of resources, or mismanagement, rather than acts of
criminals.

Fraud Examinations of Compliance Failures


At Wells Fargo in the United States, corporate control functions were
constrained by the decentralized organizational structure (Shearman
Sterling, 2017; Shichor & Heeren, 2021). Fraud examiners excused
2 Corporation Conformity and Compliance 25

corporate control functions since they suffered from harm by the decen-
tralized organizational structure and a culture of substantial indepen-
dence for business units. “That’s how they taught us to do it”. This is
a phrase illustrating learned deviance and inadequate deterrence. Leasure
and Zhang (2018) studied reports of Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley
being engaged in widespread fraudulent sales practices in the retail
banking industry. They found that the underlying deviance had been
taught by senior management, and that new employees were taught these
fraudulent practices. Furthermore, they found that ethics and compli-
ance practices and policies were largely ineffective in curtailing such
conduct. Wells Fargo was fined $185 million for fraudulently opening
accounts at its Community Bank. Community Bank opened as many
as two million fake accounts in an effort to meet wildly unrealistic
sales goals. The CEO at Community Bank resigned before the fraud
examination report by Shearman Sterling (2017) was published. The
Community Bank at Wells Fargo was held responsible based on two laws,
the Sarbanes–Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Act (Shichor & Heeren,
2021: 105):

Both laws have provisions for claw backs of compensation, which is a


notable feature of the penalties imposed on Wells. In addition, both
laws require corporations to be concerned about internal governance,
including the operation of the Board, corporate risk and compliance, and
improved shareholder input. Sarbanes-Oxley reinforces these concerns by
criminally penalizing any interference by a corporation which obstructs
a governmental investigation of the corporation. This kind of provision
seems to have played an important role in the ongoing revelations about
the misdeeds of Wells Fargo.

At Samherji in Iceland, it was detected by investigative journal-


ists that the fishing company was involved in corruption in Africa to
obtain fishing rights along the coast of Namibia (Kleinfeld, 2019, 2020).
Samherji (2020) then published the following press release on July 29,
2020, using the company website (https://www.samherji.is/en/moya/
news/samherjis-namibia-investigation-finalized) to emphasize corporate
commitment to compliance after a fraud examination by law firm
Wikborg Rein:
26 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

Long before Wikborg Rein’s conclusions emerged, Samherji put in


place a number of measures to safeguard against further exposure to
wrongdoing committed by individuals. All operations in Namibia were
stopped already in 2019. On 17 January 2020 Samherji announced that
it was in process of launching a modern state-of-the art compliance
program which is being implemented throughout our global organization
this year: https://www.samherji.is/en/moya/news/samherji-to-implement-
corporate-governance-and-compliance-system.
That work is already well underway. Samherji’s ambition is to be a
pioneer in compliance, governance and internal control within the global
fisheries industries.
Samherji will also proactively keep reaching out to relevant authori-
ties that show dedication to mutual cooperation, offering assistance and
cooperation during ongoing investigations into the Namibia-related alle-
gations. An agreement is now made for Wikborg Rein to meet with the
Icelandic District Prosecutor in the fall. Several meetings have further
been held with Namibian authorities in an effort to explore the basis for
similar cooperation there.

At General Motors in the United States, sufficient resources for exec-


utives comprehensively to address safety and compliance issues were
not ensured. The internal investigation report by Valukas (2014) was
concerned with the safety defects in the Cobalt at GM. The fraud
examiners found that departments, divisions, and groups did not have
substantial responsibilities concerning the identification, investigation, or
remediation of safety issues. No regular communication with employees
about safety took place at GM. There was no awareness of safety issues.
Employees were not encouraged to raise any concerns they had about
safety or compliance. There was a culture of fear of retaliation when
employees reported concerns regarding actual or potential safety-related
defects or potential noncompliance with the federal standards. Owners
of safety and compliance issues could not be identified at GM. There-
fore, accountability could not be addressed. Internal roles did not define
responsibilities and accountability for those involved in processes related
to the evaluation and resolution of safety issues, including responsibili-
ties for feeding items into the relevant work process. Roles of committees
were not clarified. A person on each such committee was not designated
2 Corporation Conformity and Compliance 27

as a safety liaison with responsibility for elevating safety issues. Appro-


priate identification, elevation, and resolution of safety and compliance
issues were not included as a factor in employee performance evaluations.
Employees were not required to certify that they had reported any safety
issues, which they were aware of, and to identify, as part of that certifi-
cation, any safety issues they were aware of that had not been resolved.
Coordination between groups was never formalized, and no coordination
occurred between engineering teams with accountability for safety and
compliance issues. The CEO, who had hired Valukas (2014), was blamed
in the fraud examination report. Others further down the GM hierarchy
were attributed blame and had to leave the corporation as organizational
scapegoats.
At Wirecard in Germany, fraud examiners from KPMG (2020a,
2020b) did not provide a clean bill of health since they in their report
criticize Wirecard’s internal controls and compliance functions. In their
final report, examiners detailed shortcomings in Wirecard’s internal
controls and compliance functions and outlined severe doubts about the
company’s accounting practices. However, fraud examiners did neither
confirm nor reject accounting manipulation and other kinds of finan-
cial wrongdoing. Therefore, Wirecard management quickly stated that
“no evidence was found for the publicly raised allegations of balance
sheet manipulation” (Storbeck, 2020). Nevertheless, the financial enter-
prise collapsed half a year later. While some ignored violations of laws
in achieving goals, others wanted to watch compliance, which created
an ethical climate conflict. The CEO was arrested in June 2020. The
second-in-command who oversaw operations in Asia escaped arrest and
was on the run. A key Wirecard business partner suddenly died. Consul-
tants had helped Wirecard prepare a plan of Project Panther to take
over Deutsche Bank. To do so, the value of Wirecard needed to exceed
the value of Deutsche Bank. The scheme was detected by investigative
journalists at Financial Times (Storbeck, 2020).
At the Office of the Sheriff in Philadelphia in the United States,
contracts did not find compliance with the terms of the home rule
charter, but they were not readily accessible for public review, and were
not internally circulated and made known within the Office of the Sheriff
(Deloitte, 2011: 14):
28 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

The deficiencies in the contracting process weakened the Sheriff ’s Office


ability to determine the accuracy and legitimacy of vendor invoices,
particularly those of the Office’s largest vendor.

The sheriff and his office did not exercise oversight of the invoices
and did not minimize advertising costs and other expenses. Under the
sheriff ’s tenure, there were few internal controls relating to vendor
invoices, and their fees. The director of compliance in the office did not
notice any deviance.
At the International Biathlon Union in Austria, there were no restric-
tions on being the union president and how many periods he could be
in such a central position without being replaced. The IBU president
had been a central figure in shaping the business, culture, ethics, struc-
ture, and compliance of right and wrong at IBU as an organization.
The suspected fraud was concerned with the president receiving favors
and bribes from Russian biathlon union officials in terms of expensive
adventure trips and access to Russian prostitutes. When the report by the
Commission (2021) was published, the president resigned and became
subject to criminal investigation.
At British Petroleum in the United States, Freeh (2013) had a mandate
of examining and evaluating the internal compliance program in their
claims office. In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on
April 20, 2010, and in an effort to begin to fulfill its obligations under
the Oil Pollution Act, British Petroleum established a facility to receive
and to process claims. They paid compensation to individuals and busi-
nesses affected by the spill. The BP facility paid claims for losses resulting
from lost earnings or lost profits, removal and cleanup costs, damage
to real or personal property, loss of subsistence use of natural resources,
and physical injury or death. The total compensation was $11 billion.
Freeh (2013) concluded that attorneys in the claims office might have
violated the federal criminal statutes regarding fraud, money laundering,
conspiracy, or perjury. The investigator recommended that law enforce-
ment should take over the case and conduct a criminal investigation
in this matter. Attorneys had both been presenting claims on behalf of
victims as well as approving claims on behalf of petroleum company BP.
It was a profitable assignment for attorneys, and some attorneys made it
2 Corporation Conformity and Compliance 29

allegedly even more profitable for themselves by kickbacks and by both


applying for and approving compensations.
At Oceanteam in the Netherlands, a consequence of the fraud exami-
nation by Sands (2019) was that both the chairman and the chief execu-
tive had to leave their positions at the corporation. Another consequence
was the complete restructuring of compliance functions. However, the
new management did not appreciate the investigation report by Sands
(2019). They distanced themselves from the whole investigation affair,
and they expressed dissatisfaction with the costs that the company had
to carry for the examination that was initiated by a shareholder.
At the social security agency in Norway, they were reluctant to comply
with European EEA rules. The reluctance of an agency to comply with
EEA rules becomes stronger when the rules are both complicated and
in conflict with political priorities. Over the course of many years,
the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration (NAV) has applied
the requirement of stay in Norway under the Norwegian National
Insurance Act for recipients of social security benefits such as sickness
compensation, attendance allowance, and work assessment allowance
in a manner contrary to and in conflict with European commitments.
However, within Europe, Norwegians are allowed to move freely inde-
pendent of their status. Employees at NAV as well as ministry officials,
police investigators, state prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges at criminal
courts, officers at correctional institutions, academic researchers, and law
professors have all ignored or misunderstood European social security
regulations. While not a member of the European Union, Norway has
signed a number of treaties requiring the country to align with most
EU regulations. Many innocent Norwegian welfare recipients have been
incarcerated wrongfully because NAV claimed it was illegal for them
to stay in other European countries while receiving the generous social
benefits from their home country Norway (NOU, 2020).

Maturity Model for Corporate Compliance


Stages-of-growth models for maturity levels help to assess and evaluate
a variety of phenomena (e.g., Chen et al., 2021; Mondani & Rostami,
30 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

2021; Röglinger et al., 2012; Solli-Sæther & Gottschalk, 2015). Stage


models predict the development or evolution of investigative maturity
from basic performance to superior results (Iannacci et al., 2019: 310):

They also suggest that this development is progressive (i.e., each successive
stage is better than the previous one), stepwise (i.e., each step is a neces-
sary prerequisite for the following step in the sequence), and prescriptive
(i.e., each step must occur in a prescribed order in accordance with a pre-
existing plan or vision), thus emphasizing the chain of successful events
rather than the mechanisms by which subsequent stages come about.

Antonsen and Madsen (2021) suggested a maturity model for the


compliance function of investment firms. Their assessment model for
compliance maturity suggests a path of evolution wherein the compli-
ance function matures from being reactive and inconsistent to becoming
a proactive and integrated part of an investment firm’s business prac-
tice. They defined a number of key enablers of a compliance function in
the areas of technology, coordination, policies and processes, resources,
and business integrity. Technology is applied to increase effectiveness,
efficiency, and transparency. Coordination is a matter of improved coop-
eration and communication. Policies and processes work better when
they are clearly defined and implemented. Appropriate resources must
be allocated to the compliance function. Business integrity is the quality
of acting in accordance with the moral values, norms, and rules that are
considered valid and relevant within the context in which the actor oper-
ates (Loyens et al., 2021). Integrity refers to taking responsibility for the
representation of the self and one’s commitments (Gardiner et al., 2017).
The maturity model suggested by Antonsen and Madsen (2021) has
four levels:

● Level 1: Reactive and inconsistent. All processes are manual, no


systems in place; no functional access and communication with other
business lines; policies and processes not documented, ad hoc response
to incidents; insufficient resources allocated; and compliancy viewed as
a necessary evil.
2 Corporation Conformity and Compliance 31

● Level 2: Organized but reactive. Some processes are automated while


others are manual; defined lines of communication with other busi-
ness lines and mutual functional access; defined and documented
compliance function but not integrated into the workflow; appro-
priate resources necessary to achieve compliance; and business ethics
and values are defined centrally.
● Level 3: Actively managed and understood. All processes are supported
by automated systems; all business lines work toward shared goals and
initiatives; compliance function understood by employees and inte-
grated into the workflow; scalable risk-adjusted resource deployment
assessment of resources done periodically; and time is spent consulting
and involving employees in business ethics and values.
● Level 4: Proactive and implemented. All processes are supported by
and integrated in one and the same automated system; alignment of
strategy, processes, and technology to shared goals to improve effec-
tiveness; compliance function integrated into the workflow, continu-
ously measured and improved; resources continuously monitored and
effectively adapted to changes in compliance requirements; a healthy
compliance culture is fostered, and employees naturally promote it.

Antonsen and Madsen (2021) tested their compliance model based


on an interview with the head of compliance and risk at a Norwe-
gian investment firm. The interviewee was concerned with an effective
compliance function described as working among management and
employees preventively by explaining why the regulations are formed as
they are. The interviewee emphasized that compliance principles serve
as a sales argument to the firm’s clients. In terms of the compliance
model, the researchers found that the firm was at level 4 regarding busi-
ness integrity since the board and management focused on building a
compliance culture. When and where in doubt, control systems were in
place to ensure that optimal priorities applied. Policies and processes as
well as resources were also assessed at level 4. Coordination was assessed
at level 3 since communication gaps could still be found. Technology was
assessed at level 2 since some processes were automated while others were
performed manually.
32 P. Gottschalk and C. Hamerton

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Title: Egalité des hommes et des femmes


A la Reyne

Author: Marie Le Jars de Gournay

Contributor: Horace

Release date: November 28, 2023 [eBook #72251]

Language: French

Original publication: none: none, 1622

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EGALITÉ DES HOMMES ET


DES FEMMES ***
Au lecteur
Version modernisée
EGALITÉ
DES

HOMMES ET DES FEMMES.

A LA REYNE.

M. D C . XX II .
A LA REYNE.

adame,

Ceux qui s’aduiſerent de donner vn Soleil pour deuiſe au Roy voſtre


Pere, auec ce mot, Il n’a point d’Occident pour moy, firent plus qu’ils ne
penſoient: parce qu’en repreſentans ſa grandeur qui voit preſque touſiours ce Prince
des Aſtres ſur quelqu’vne de ſes terres, ſans interuale de nuict; ils rendirent la deuiſe
hereditaire en voſtre Majeſté, preſageans vos vertus, & de plus, la beatitude des
François ſous voſtre Auguſte preſence. C’eſt diſie chez voſtre Majeſté, Madame, que la
lumiere des vertus n’aura point d’Occident, ny cõſequemment l’heur & la felicité de
nos Peuples qu’elles eſclairerõt. Or comme vous eſtes en l’Orient de voſtre aage & de
vos vertus enſemble, Madame, daignez prendre courage d’arriuer en meſme point au
midy de luy & d’elles, ie dis de celles qui ne peuuent meurir que par temps & culture:
car il en eſt quelques vnes des plus recommendables, entre autres la Religion, la
charité vers les pauures, la chaſteté & l’amour coniugale, dont vous auez touché le
midy dés le matin. Mais certes il faut le courage requis à cet effort auſsi grand &
puiſſant que voſtre Royauté, pour grande & puiſſante qu’elle ſoit: les Roys eſtãt battus
de ce malheur, que la peſte infernale des flatteurs qui ſe gliſſent dans les Palais, leur
rend la vertu & la clair voyance ſa guide & ſa nourrice, d’vn accez infiniment plus
difficile qu’aux inferieurs. Ie ne ſcay qu’vn ſeur moyen à vous faire eſperer, d’atteindre
ces deux midys en meſme inſtant: c’eſt qu’il plaiſe à V. M. ſe ietter viuement ſur les
bons liures de prudence & de mœurs: car außi toſt qu’vn Prince s’eſt releué l’eſprit par
cet exercice, les flatteurs ſe trouuans les moins fins ne s’oſent plus iouër à luy. Et ne
peuuent communemẽt les Puiſſans & les Roys receuoir inſtruction opportune que des
mors: parce que les viuans eſtans partis en deux bandes, les foux & meſchans, c’eſt à
dire ces flateurs dont eſt question, ne ſçauent ny veulent bien dire pres d’eux; les
ſages & gens de bien peuuent & veulent, mais ils n’oſent. C’eſt en la vertu certes,
Madame, qu’il faut que les perſonnes de voſtre rang cherchent la vraye hauteſſe & la
Couronne des Couronnes: d’autant qu’ils ont puiſſance & non droit de violer les loix &
l’equité, & qu’ils trouuent autant de peril & plus de honte que les autres hommes à
faire ce coup. Außi nous apprend vn grand Roy luy meſme, que toute la gloire de la
fille du Roy eſt par dedans. Quelle eſt cependant ma ruſticité, tous autres abordent
leurs Princes & Roys en adorant & loüant, i’oſe aborder ma Reyne en preſchant?
Pardonnez neantmoins à mon zele, Madame, qui meurt d’enuie d’ouyr la France crier
ce mot, auec applaudiſſement, La lumiere n’a point d’Occident pour moy, par tout où
paſſera voſtre Majesté nouueau Soleil des vertus: & d’enuie encore de tirer d’elle, ainſi
que i’espere de ſes dignes commencemens, vne des plus fortes preuues du Traicté
que i’offre à ſes pieds, pour maintenir l’egalité des hommes & des femmes. Et non
ſeulement veu la grandeur vnique qui vous eſt acquiſe par naiſſance & par mariage,
vous ſeruirez de miroir au ſexe & de ſuiet d’emulation aux hommes encore, en
l’eſtẽduë de l’Vniuers, ſi vous vous esleuez au prix & merite que ie vo9 propoſe: mais
außi toſt, Madame, que vous aurez pris reſolution de vouloir luyre de ce bel & precieux
eſclat, on croira que tout le meſme ſexe eſclaire en la ſplendeur de vos rayons. Ie ſuis
de voſtre Maieſté

MADAME,
Tres-humble & Tres-obeiſſante
ſeruante & ſubjecte.

Gournay.
EGALITÉ DES HOMMES ET
DES FEMMES.

a pluſpart de ceux qui prennẽt la cauſe, des femmes, contre cette


orgueilleuſe preferance que les hommes s’attribuent, leur rendent le
change entier: r’enuoyans la preferance vers elles. Moy qui fuys toutes
extremitez, ie me contente de les eſgaler aux hommes: la nature
s’oppoſant pour ce regard autant à la ſuperiorité qu’à l’inferiorité. Que diſ-
je, il ne ſuffit pas à quelques gens de leur preferer le ſexe maſculin, s’ils ne les
confinoient encores d’vn arreſt irrefragable & neceſſaire à la quenoüille, ouy meſme à
la quenouille ſeule. Mais ce qui les peut conſoler contre ce meſpris, c’eſt qu’il ne ſe
faict que par ceux d’entre les hommes auſquels elles voudroient moins reſſembler:
perſonnes à donner vray ſemblance aux reproches qu’on pourroit voſmir ſur le ſexe
feminin, s’ils en eſtoient, & qui ſentent en leur cœur ne ſe pouuoir recommãder que
par le credit de l’autre. D’autant qu’ils ont ouy trompetter par les ruës, que les femmes
manquent de dignité, manquent auſſi de ſuffiſance, voire du temperament & des
organes pour arriuer à cette-cy, leur eloquence triomphe à preſcher ces maximes: &
tant plus opulemment, de ce que, dignité, ſuffiſance, organes & temperament ſont
beaux mots: n’ayans pas appris d’autre part, que la premiere qualité d’vn mal
habill’homme, c’eſt de cautionner les choſes ſoubs la foy populaire & par ouyr dire.
Voyez tels eſprits comparer ces deux ſexes: la plus haute ſuffiſance à leur aduis où les
femmes puiſſent arriuer, c’eſt de reſſembler le commun des hommes: autant eſlongnez
d’imaginer, qu’vne grande femme ſe peuſt dire grand homme, le ſexe chãgé, que de
conſentir qu’vn homme ſe peuſt eſleuer à l’eſtage d’vn Dieu. Gens plus braues
qu’Hercules vrayement, qui ne desfit que douze monſtres en douze combats; tandis
que d’vne ſeule parolle ils desfont la moitié du Monde. Qui croira cependant, que ceux
qui ſe ueulent eſleuer & fortifier de la foibleſſe d’autruy, ſe puiſſent eſleuer ou fortifier de
leur propre force? Et le bon eſt, qu’ils penſent eſtre quittes de leur effronterie à
vilipender ce ſexe, vſants d’vne effronterie pareille à ſe loüer & ſe dorer eux meſmes, ie
dis par fois en particulier comme en general, voire à quelque tort que ce ſoit: comme ſi
la verité de leur vãterie receuoit meſure & qualité de ſon impudence. Et Dieu ſçait ſi ie
congnois de ces ioyeux vanteurs, & dont les vanteries ſont tantoſt paſſées en
prouerbe, entre les plus eſchauffez au meſpris des femmes. Mais quoy, s’ils prennent
droict d’eſtre galans & ſuffiſans hommes, de ce qu’ils ſe declarent tels cõme par Edict;
pourquoy n’abeſtiront ils les femmes par le contrepied d’vn autre Edict? Et ſi ie iuge
bien, ſoit de la dignité, ſoit de la capacité des dames, ie ne pretends pas à cette heure
de le prouuer par raiſons, puiſque les opiniaſtres les pouroient debattre, ny par
exemples, d’autant qu’ils ſont trop cõmuns; ains ſeulement par l’aucthorité de Dieu
meſme, des arcſboutans de ſon Egliſe & de ces grands hommes qui ont ſeruy de
lumiere à l’Vniuers. Rangeons ces glorieux teſmoins en teſte, & reſeruons Dieu, puis
les Saincts Peres de ſon Egliſe, au fonds, comme le treſor.
Platon à qui nul n’a debattu le tiltre de diuin, & conſequemment Socrates ſon
interprete & Protecole en ſes Eſcripts; (s’il n’eſt là meſme celuy de Socrates, ſon plus
diuin Precepteur) leur aſſignent meſmes droicts, facultez & functions, en leurs
Republiques & par tout ailleurs. Les maintiennent, en outre, auoir ſurpaſſé maintefois
tous les hommes de leur Patrie: comme en effect elles ont inuenté partie des plus
beaux arts, ont excellé, voire enſeigné cathedralement & ſouuerainement ſur tous les
hommes en toutes ſortes de perfections & vertus, dans les plus fameuſes villes
antiques entre autres Alexandrie, premiere de l’Empire apres Rome. Dont il Hypathia.
eſt arriué que ces deux Philoſophes, miracles de Nature, ont creu dõner plus
de luſtre à des diſcours de grand poix, s’ils les prononçoient en leurs liures par la
bouche de Diotime & d’Aſpaſie: Diotime que ce dernier ne craint point d’appeller ſa
maiſtreſſe & Preceptrice, en quelques vnes des plus hautes ſciences, luy Precepteur &
maiſtre du genre humain. Ce que Theodoret releue ſi volontiers en l’Oraiſon de la Foy,
ce me ſemble; qu’il paroiſt bien que l’opinion fauorable au ſexe luy eſtoit fort plauſible.
Apres tous ces teſmoignages de Socrates, ſur le faict des dames; on void aſſez que s’il
lache quelque mot au Sympoſe de Xenophon contre leur prudence, à comparaiſon de
celle des hommes, il les regarde ſelon l’ignorance & l’inexperience où elles ſont
nourries, ou bien au pis aller en general, laiſſant lieu frequent & ſpatieux aux
exceptions: à quoy les deuiſeurs dont eſt queſtion ne s’entendent point.
Que ſi les dames arriuẽt moins ſouuẽt que les hõmes, aux degrez d’excellence,
c’eſt merueille que le deffaut de bonne inſtructiõ, voire l’affluẽce de la mauuaiſe
expreſſe & profeſſoire ne face pis, les gardant d’y pouuoir arriuer du tout. Se trouue til
plus de difference des hommes à elles que d’elles à elles meſmes, ſelon l’inſtitution
qu’elles ont prinſe, ſelon qu’elles ſont eſleuées en ville ou village, ou ſelon les Nations?
Et pourquoy leur inſtitution ou nourriture aux affaires & Lettres à l’egal des hommes,
ne rempliroit elle ce vuide, qui paroiſt ordinairement entre les teſtes des meſmes
hommes & les leurs: puis que la nourriture eſt de telle importance qu’vn de ſes
membres ſeulement, c’eſt à dire le commerce du monde, abondant aux Françoiſes &
aux Angloiſes, & manquant aux Italiennes, celles cy ſont de gros en gros de ſi loing
ſurpaſſées par celles là? Ie dis de gros en gros, car en detail les dames d’Italie
triumphent par fois: & nous en auons tiré deux Reynes à la prudence deſquelles la
France a trop d’obligation. Pourquoy vrayment la nourriture ne frapperoit elle ce coup,
de remplir la diſtance qui ſe void entre les entendemens des hommes & des femmes;
veu qu’en cet exemple icy le moins ſurmonte le plus, par l’aſſiſtance d’vne ſeule de ſes
parcelles, ie dis ce cõmerce & conuerſatiõ: l’air des Italiẽnes eſtant plus ſubtil & propre
à ſubtilizer les eſprits, comme il paroiſt en ceux de leurs hommes, confrontez
communement contre ceux là des François & des Anglois? Plutarque au Traicté des
vertueux faicts des femmes maintient; que la vertu de l’homme & de la femme eſt
meſme choſe. Seneque d’autre part publie aux Conſolations; qu’il faut croire que la
Nature n’a point traicté les dames ingratement, ou reſtrainct & racourcy leurs vertus &
leurs eſprits, plus que les vertus & les eſprits des hõmes: mais qu’elle les a doüées de
pareille vigueur & de pareille faculté à toute choſe honeſte & loüable. Voyons ce qu’en
iuge apres ces deux, le tiers chef du Triũuirat de la ſageſſe humaine & morale en ſes
Eſſais. Il luy ſemble, dit il, & ſi ne ſçait pourquoy, qu’il ſe trouue rarement des femmes
dignes de commander aux hommes. N’eſt ce pas les mettre en particulier à l’egale
contrebalance des hommes, & confeſſer, que s’il ne les y met en general il craint
d’auoir tort: bien qu’il peuſt excuſer ſa reſtrinction, ſur la pauure & diſgraciée nourriture
de ce ſexe. N’oubliant pas au reſte d’alleguer & releuer en autre lieu de ſon meſme
liure, cette authorité que Platon leur depart en ſa Republique: & qu’Anthiſtenes nioit
toute difference au talent & en la vertu des deux ſexes. Quant au Philoſophe Ariſtote,
puiſque remuant Ciel & terre, il n’a point contredit en gros, que ie ſcache, l’opinion qui
fauoriſe les dames, il l’a confirmée: s’en rapportant, sans doubte, aux ſentences de
ſon pere & grand pere ſpirituels, Socrates & Platõ, comme à choſe conſtante & fixe
ſoubs le credit de tels perſonnages: par la bouche deſquels il faut aduoüer que le
genre humain tout entier, & la raiſon meſme, ont prononcé leur arreſt. Eſt il beſoing
Eraſme Epiſt: & Colloq. d’alleguer infinis autres anciens & modernes de nom illuſtre, ou
Politia: Epiſt. Agripa parmy ces derniers, Eraſme, Politien, Agripa, ny cet honneſte &
Precel: du ſexe pertinent Precepteur des courtizans: outre tant de fameux
feminin Courtizan. Poëtes ſi contrepoinctez tous enſemble aux meſpriſeurs du ſexe
feminin, & ſi partiſans de ſes aduantages aptitude & diſpoſition à
tout office & tout exercice louable & digne? Les dames en verité ſe conſolent, que ces
deſcrieurs de leur merite ne ſe peuuent prouuer habiles gens, ſi tous ces eſprits le ſont:
& qu’vn homme fin ne dira pas, encores qu’il le creuſt, que le merite & paſſedroit du
ſexe feminin tire court, pres celuy du maſculin; iuſques à ce que par arreſt il ait faict
declarer tous ceux là buffles, affin d’infirmer leur teſmoignage ſi contraire à tel decry.
Et buffles faudroit il encores declarer des Peuples entiers & des plus ſublins, entre
autres ceux de Smyrne en Tacitus: qui pour obtenir iadis à Rome preſſeãce de
nobleſſe ſur leurs voiſins, allegoient eſtre deſcendus, ou de Tantalus fils de Iupiter ou
de Theſeus petit fils de Neptune ou d’vne Amazone, laquelle par ce moyen ils
contrepeſoient à ces Dieux. Pour le regard de la loy Salique, qui priue les femmes de
la couronne, elle n’a lieu qu’en France. Et fut inuẽtée au temps de Pharamond, pour
la ſeulle conſideration des guerres contre l’Empire duquel nos Peres ſecoüoient le
ioug: le ſexe feminin eſtant vray ſemblablement d’vn corps moins propre aux armes,
Hotman pour par la neceſſité du port & nourriture des enfans. Il faut rémarquer
l’etymologie des Pairs: encores neantmoins, que les Pairs de France ayans eſté créez
du Tillet & Math. en premiere intention comme vne eſpece de perſonniers des
Hiſtoire du Roy pour Roys, ainſi que leur nom le declare: les dames Pairaiſſes de leur
les Dames Pairreſſes. chef ont ſeance, priuilege & voix deliberatiue par tout où les pairs
en ont & de meſme eſtendue. Comme auſſi les Lacedemoniens
ce braue & genereux Peuple, conſultoit de toutes affaires priuées & publiques auec
Plut. ſes femmes. Bien a ſeruy cependant aux François, de trouuer l’inuention des
Regentes, pour vn equiualent des Roys; car ſans cela combien y a il que leur
Eſtat fuſt par terre? Nous ſçaurions bien dire auiourd’huy par eſpreuue, quelle neceſſité
les minoritez des Roys ont de cette recepte. Les Germains ces belliqueux Peuples,
dit Tacitus, qui apres plus de deux cens ans de guerre, furent pluſtoſt triumphéz que
vaincus; portoient dot à leurs femmes, non au rebours. Ils auoient au ſurplus des
Nations, qui n’eſtoient iamais regies que par ce ſexe. Et quand Ænee preſente à Didon
le ſceptre d’Ilione, les ſcoliaſtes diſent, que cela prouient, de ce que les dames filles
aiſnées, telle qu’eſtoit cette Princeſſe, regnoient anciennement aux maiſons Royalles.
Veult on deux plus beaux enuers à la loy Salique, ſi deux enuers elle peut ſouffrir? Si
ne meſpriſoient pas les femmes nos anciens Gaulois, ny les Carthaginois auſſi; lors
qu’eſtans vnis en l’armée d’Hanibal pour paſſer les Alpes, ils eſtablirent les dames
Gauloiſes arbitres de leurs differends. Et quand les hommes deſroberoient à ce ſexe
en pluſieurs lieux, part aux meilleurs aduantages; l’inegalité des forces corporelles
plus que des ſpirituelles, ou du merite, peut facilement eſtre cauſe du larrecin & de ſa
ſouffrance: forces corporelles, qui ſont vertus ſi baſſes, que la beſte en tient plus par
deſſus l’homme, que l’homme par deſſus la femme. Et ſi ce meſme Hiſtoriographe Latin
nous apprend, qu’où la force regne, l’equité, la probité, la modeſtie meſme, ſont les
attributs du vainqueur; s’eſtonnera-on, que la ſuffiſance & les merites en general,
ſoient ceux de nos hommes, priuatiuement aux femmes.
Au ſurplus l’animal humain n’eſt homme ny femme, à le bien prendre, les ſexes
eſtants faicts non ſimplement, mais ſecundum quid, comme parle l’Eſchole: c’eſt à dire
pour la ſeule propagation. L’vnique forme & difference de cet animal, ne conſiſte qu’en
l’ame humaine. Et s’il eſt permis de rire en paſſãt, le quolibet ne ſera pas hors de ſaisõ,
nous apprenant; qu’il n’eſt rien plus ſemblable au chat ſur vne feneſtre, que la chatte.
L’homme & la femme ſont tellement vns, que ſi l’homme eſt plus que la femme, la
femme eſt plus que l’homme. L’homme fut creé maſle & femelle, dit l’Eſcriture, ne
comptant ces deux que pour vn. Dont Ieſus-Chriſt eſt appellé fils de l’homme, bien qu’il
ne le ſoit que de la femme. Ainſi parle apres le grãd Sainct Baſile: La vertu de Homil. I.
l’homme & de la femme eſt meſme choſe, puis que Dieu leur a decerné
meſme creation & meſme honneur: maſculum & fœminam fecit eos. Or en ceux de qui
la Nature eſt vne & meſme, il faut que les actions auſſi le ſoient, & que l’eſtime & loyer
en ſuitte ſoient pareils, où les œuures ſont pareilles. Voila donc la depoſition de ce
puiſſant pilier, & venerable teſmoing de l’Egliſe. Il n’eſt pas mauuais de ſe ſouuenir ſur
ce poinct, que certains ergotiſtes anciens, ont paſſé iuſques à cette niaiſe arrogance,
de debattre au ſexe feminin l’image de Dieu à difference de l’homme: laquelle image
ils deuoient, ſelon ce calcul attacher à la barbe. Il failloit de plus & par conſequent,
deſnier aux femmes l’image de l’homme, ne pouuant luy reſſembler, ſans qu’elles
reſſemblaſſent à celuy auquel il reſſemble. Dieu meſme leur a departy les Olda Debora.
dons de Prophetie indifferamment auec les hommes, les ayant eſtablies
auſſi pour Iuges, inſtructrices & conductrices de ſon Peuple fidelle en paix & en guerre:
& qui plus eſt, rendu triumphantes auec luy des hautes victoires, qu’elles ont auſſi
maintefois emportées & arborées en diuers lieux du Monde: mais ſur quelles gens, à
voſtre aduis? Cyrus & Theſeus: à ces deux on adiouſte Hercules, lequel elles ont ſinon
vaincu, du moins bien battu. Auſſi fut la cheute de Pentaſilée, couronnemẽt de la gloire
d’Achilles: oyez Seneque & Ronſard parlans de luy.

L’Amazone il vainquit dernier effroy des Grecs.


Pentaſilée il rua ſur la poudre.

Ont elles au ſurplus, (ce mot par occaſion) moins excellé de foy, qui comprend toutes
les vertus principales, que de ſuffiſance & de force magnanime & guerriere?
Paterculus nous apprend, qu’aux proſcriptions Romaines, la fidelité des enfãs fut
nulle, des affranchis legere, des femmes treſgrande. Que ſi Sainct Paul, ſuyuãt ma
route des teſmoignages ſaincts, leur deffend le miniſtere & leur commande le ſilence
en l’Egliſe: il eſt euident que ce n’eſt point par aucun meſpris: ouy bien ſeulement, de
crainte qu’elles n’eſmeuuent les tentations, par cette montre ſi claire & publique qu’il
faudroit faire en miniſtrant & preſchant, de ce qu’elles ont de grace & de beauté plus
que les hommes. Ie dis que l’exemption de meſpris eſt euidente, puiſque cet Apoſtre
parle de Theſbé comme de ſa coadiutrice en l’œuure de noſtre Seigneur, ſans toucher
le grand credit de Saincte Petronille vers ſainct Pierre: & puis auſſi que la Magdeleine
eſt nommée en l’Egliſe egale aux Apoſtres, par Apoſtolis. Voire Entre autres au
que l’Egliſe & eux-meſmes ont permis vne exception de ceſte Calendrier des Grecs,
reigle de ſilence pour elle, qui preſcha trente ans en la Baume de publié par Genebrard.
Marſeille au rapport de toute la Prouence. Et ſi quelqu’vn
impugne ce teſmoignage de predications, on luy demandera que faiſoient les Sibyles,
ſinon preſcher l’Vniuers par diuine inſpiration, ſur l’euenement futur de Ieſus-Chriſt?
Toutes les anciennes Nations cõcedoient la Preſtriſe aux fẽmes, indifferemment auec
les hommes. Et les Chreſtiens ſont au moins forcez de conſentir, qu’elles ſoyent
capables d’appliquer le Sacrement de Bapteſme: mais quelle faculté de diſtribuer les
autres, leur peut eſtre iuſtement deniée; ſi celle de diſtribuer ceſtuy-là, leur eſt iuſtement
accordé? De dire que la neceſſité des petits enfãs mourãs, ait forcé les Peres anciens
d’eſtablir cet vſage en deſpit d’eux: il eſt certain qu’ils n’auroient iamais creu que la
neceſſité les peuſt diſpenſer de mal faire, iuſques aux termes de permettre violer &
diffamer l’application d’vn Sacrement. Et partant concedans ceſte faculté de
diſtribution aux femmes, on void à clair qu’ils ne les ont interdites de diſtribuer les
autres Sacremẽs, que pour maintenir touſiours plus entiere l’auctorité des hommes;
ſoit pour eſtre de leur ſexe, ſoit afin qu’à droit ou à tort, la paix fuſt plus aſſeurée entre
Epiſt. les deux ſexes, par la foibleſſe & rauallement de l’vn. Certes ſainct Ieroſme eſcrit
ſagement à noſtre propos; qu’en matiere du ſeruice de Dieu, l’eſprit & la doctrine
doiuent eſtre conſiderez, non le ſexe. Sentence qu’on doit generaliſer, pour permettre
aux Dames à plus forte raiſon, toute action & ſciẽce honneſte: & cela ſuyuant auſſi les
intentions du meſme ſainct, qui de ſa part honnore & auctoriſe bien fort leur ſexe.
Dauantage ſainct Iean l’Aigle & le plus chery des Euangeliſtes, ne meſpriſoit pas les
fẽmes, non plus que ſainct Pierre, ſainct Paul & ces deux Peres, i’entends ſaint Baſile
& ſainct Ieroſme; puis qu’il leur addreſſe ſes Epiſtres particulieremẽt: ſans Electra.
parler d’infinis autres Ss: ou Peres, qui font pareille addreſſe de leurs Eſcrits.
Quand au faict de Iudith ie n’en daignerois faire mention s’il eſtoit particulier, cela
s’appelle dependant du mouuement & volonté de ſon auctrice: non plus que ie ne
parle des autres de ce qualibre; bien qu’ils ſoient immenſes en quantité, comme ils
ſont autant heroiques en qualité de toutes ſortes, que ceux qui couronnent les plus
illuſtres hommes. Ie n’enregiſtre point les faicts priuez, de crainte qu’ils ſemblent, non
aduantages & dons du ſexe, ains boüillons d’vne vigueur priuée & ſpecialle. Mais
celuy de Iudith merite place en ce lieu, parce qu’il eſt bien vray, que ſon deſſein
tombant au cœur d’vne ieune dame, entre tant d’hommes laſches & faillis de cœur, à
tel beſoing, en ſi haulte & ſi difficile entrepriſe, & pour tel fruict, que le ſalut d’vn Peuple
& d’vne Cité fidelle à Dieu: ſemble pluſtoſt eſtre vne inſpiration & prerogatiue diuine
vers les femmes, qu’vn traict purement voluntaire. Comme auſſi le ſemble eſtre celuy
de la Pucelle d’Orleans, accompagné de meſmes circonſtances enuiron, mais de plus
ample & large vtilité, s’eſtendant iuſques au ſalut d’vn grand Royaume & de ſon Prince.

Æneid. I.
alluſion. Cette illuſtre Amazone inſtruicte aux ſoins de Mars,
Fauche les eſcadrons & braue les hazars:
Veſtant le dur plaſtron ſur ſa ronde mammelle,
Dont le bouton pourpré de graces eſtincelle:
Pour couronner ſon chef de gloire & de lauriers,
Vierge elle oſe affronter les plus fameux guerriers.

Adjouſtons que la Magdelene eſt la ſeule ame, à qui le Redempteur ait iamais
prononcé ce mot, & promis cette auguſte grace: En tous lieux où ſe preſchera
l’Euangile il ſera parlé de toy. Ieſus-Chriſt d’autrepart, declara ſa tres heureuſe & tres
glorieuſe reſurrection aux dames les premieres, affin de les rẽdre, dit vn venerable
Pere ancien, Apoſtreſſes aux propres Apoſtres: cela, cõme lon ſçait, auec miſſion
expreſſe: Va, dit il, à cette cy meſme, & recite aux Apoſtres & à Pierre ce que tu as
veu. Surquoy il faut notter, qu’il manifeſta ſa nouuelle naiſſance eſgalement aux
femmes qu’aux hommes, en la perſonne d’Anne fille de Phannel, qui le recongneut en
meſme inſtant, que le bon vieillard Sainct Simeon. Laquelle naiſſance, d’abondant, les
Sybilles nommées, ont predite ſeules entre les Gentils, excellent priuilege du ſexe
feminin. Quel honneur faict aux femmes auſſi, ce ſonge ſuruenu chez Pilate;
s’addreſſant à l’vne d’elles priuatiuement à tous les hommes, & en telle & ſi haulte
occaſion. Et ſi les hommes ſe vantent, que Ieſus-Chriſt ſoit nay de leur ſexe, on reſpond,
qu’il le failloit par neceſſaire bien ſceance, ne ſe pouuant pas ſans ſcandale, meſler
ieune & à toutes les heures du iour & de la nuict parmy les preſſes, aux fins de
conuertir, ſecourir & ſauuer le genre humain, s’il euſt eſté du ſexe des femmes:
notamment en face de la malignité des Iuifs. Que ſi quelqu’vn au reſte eſt ſi fade;
d’imaginer maſculin ou feminin en Dieu, bien que ſon nom ſemble ſonner le maſculin,
ny conſequemment beſoin d’acception d’vn ſexe pluſtoſt que de l’autre, pour honnorer
l’incarnation de ſon fils; cettuy cy monſtre à plein iour, qu’il eſt auſſi mauuais Philoſophe
que Theologien. D’ailleurs, l’aduantage qu’ont les hommes par ſon incarnation en leur
ſexe; (s’ils en peuuent tirer vn aduantage, veu cette neceſſité remarquée) eſt cõpenſé
par ſa conception tres precieuſe au corps d’vne femme, par l’entiere perfection de
cette femme, vnique à porter nom de parfaicte entre toutes les creatures purement
humaines, depuis la cheute de nos premiers parens, & par ſon aſſumption vnique en
ſuiect humain auſſi.
Finalement ſi l’Eſcripture a declaré le mary, chef de la femme, la plus grande ſottiſe
que l’homme peuſt faire, c’eſt de prendre cela pour paſſedroict de dignité. Car veu les
exemples, aucthoritez & raiſons nottées en ce diſcours, par où l’egalité des graces &
faueurs de Dieu vers les deux eſpeces ou ſexes eſt prouuée, voire leur vnité meſme, &
veu que Dieu prononce: Les deux ne ſeront qu’vn: & prononce encores: L’hõme
quittera pere & mere pour ſuiure ſa femme; il paroiſt que cette declaration n’eſt faicte
que par le beſoin expres de nourrir paix en mariage. Lequel beſoin requeroit, ſans
doubte, qu’vne des parties cédaſt à l’autre, & la preſtance des forces du maſle ne
pouuoit pas ſouffrir que la ſoubmiſſiõ vĩt de ſa part. Et quand bien il ſeroit veritable,
ſelon que quelques vns maintiennent, que cette ſoubmiſſion fut imposée à la femme
pour chaſtiement du peché de la pomme: cela encores eſt bien eſloigné de conclure à
la pretendue preferance de dignité en l’homme. Si lon croioit que l’Eſcripture luy
commendaſt de ceder à l’homme, comme indigne de le contrecarrer, voyez l’abſurdité
qui ſuiuroit: la femme ſe treuueroit digne d’eſtre faicte à l’image du Createur, de iouyr
de la treſſaincte Eucariſtie, des myſteres de la Redemptiõ, du Paradis & de la viſion
voire poſſeſſion de Dieu, non pas des aduantages et priuileges de l’homme: ſeroit ce
pas declarer l’homme plus precieux & releué que telles choſes, & partant commettre
le plus grief des blaſphemes?
FIN.
L’ I M P R I M E V R A R A N G É
ces vers icy pour emplir le reſte

de la feuille.

AVTHEVR INCERTAIN.

Lvmine Acron dextro captus, Leonilla ſiniſtro,


Et potis eſt forma vincere vterque Deos.
Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede ſorori:
Sic tu cæcus Amor, ſic erit illa Venus.

VERSION.

Lys & ſa ieune mere außy beaux que les Dieux:


De deux coſtez diuers ont perdu l’vn des yeux.
Lys, donne ton bon œil à ta mere Argentine;
Tu ſeras Cupidon, elle ſera Cyprine.

AVTREMENT

Lyſe & ſon petit Lys außy beaux que les Dieux,
De deux coſtez diuers ont perdu l’vn des yeux.
Si Lys donne l’autre œil à ſa mere admirée;
Il eſt l’aueugle Amour, & Lyſe Cytherée.
EX HORATIO.
Dial.

Donec gratus eram tibi,


Nec quiſquam potior brachia candidæ
Ceruici iuuenis dabat,
Perſarum vigüi Rege beatior.
Donec non alia magis
Arſiſti, neque erat Lydia poſt Chloen,
Lydia multi nominis,
Romana vigui clarior Ilia.
Me nunc Thraſſa Chloe regit,
Dulces docta modos & Cytharæ ſciens:
Pro qua non metuam mori,
Si parcent animæ fata ſuperſtiti.
Me torret face mutua
Thurini Calais filius Orinthi:
Pro quo bis patiar mori,
Si parcent puero fata ſuperſtiti.
Quid ſi priſca redit Venus,
Diductosque iugo cogit aheneo?
Si flaua excutitur Chloe
Reiectæque patet ianua Lydiæ?
Quanquam ſidere pulchrior
Ille eſt, tu leuior cortice & improbo
Iracundior Adria;
Tecum viuere amem, tecum obeam libens.
DIALOGVE D’HORACE
ET DE LYDIE.

Tandis que mon Amour t’enflãmoit conſtãmẽt,


Tandis qu’vn ieune amy, brauãt ma ialouſie,
Ne preſſoit ton beau col d’vn mol embraſſement,
I’ay flory plus heureux qu’vn Monarque d’Aſie.
Deuant que ton eſprit briſaſt ſa loyauté,
Deuant qu’il euſt chery d’vne aueugle folie
Cloé plus que Lydie, illuſtre de beauté,
I’ay ſurmonté l’eſclat de la Romaine Ilie.
Cloé Greque ſans pair me poſſede à ſon tour
Par sõ luth & ſa voix qui ſcait charmer l’oreille:
Et mourrois volontiers, victime de l’Amour,
Pour conſeruer mourant cette ieune merueille.
Calaïs Thurien épris de mes appas,
Par vn reuers gentil de ſes attraits me bleſſe:
Et ſouffrirois deux fois la rigueur du trespas,
Pour ſauuer du tombeau cette belle ieuneße.
Quoy ſi l’amour premier reſſuſcitant ſon feu
Ramenoit ſoubs ton ioug mon ame reuoltée?
Quoy ſi mon cœur ſolide éterniſant ſon vœu,
Ma Lydie eſt reçeue & Cloé rejettée?
Encor qu’il ſoit pl9 beau qu’vn aſtre au frõt des cieux,
Toy plus leger qu’vn liege & plus mutin que l’õde;
Ie veux rouler mes iours aux priſons de tes yeux,
Ie veux que mon cercueuil tes obſeques ſeconde.
I N C E R TA I N S V R L’ H O R L O G E
DE SABLE.

Exiguus vitro puluis qui diuidit horas,


Et leuis anguſtum ſæpe recurrit iter,
Olim Alcipus erat: qui Marthæ vt vidit ocellos
Arſit, & eſt ſubito factus ab igne cinis.
Irrequiete cinis, miſeros teſtabere amantes,
More tuo, nulla poſſe quiete frui.

VERSION

Ce peu de poudre, helas qui fîle en ces deux verres,


Courant & recourant ſur ſes eſtroictes erres,
Affin de marquer l’heure & meſurer le iour,
Eſtoit iadis Alcipe eſclaue de l’Amour.
Bruſlé des yeux de Marthe il coula tout en cẽdre:
Et faut, cendre inquiete, en ton aſpect cõprendre:
Qu’vn miſerable eſprit bleſſé par vn bel œil
N’a iamais de repos s’il te manque au cercueil.
VERSION MODERNISÉE

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