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Title: The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII.
Modern History
Author: Arthur Mee
Release Date: July 7, 2004 [EBook #12845]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREATEST BOOKS ***
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THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS
JOINT EDITORS
ARTHUR MEE Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge
J.A. HAMMERTON Editor of Harmsworth a Universal Encyclopaedia
VOL. XII MODERN HISTORY
* * * * *
_Table of Contents_
MODERN HISTORY
AMERICA
ELIOT, SAMUEL
History of the United Stales
PRESCOTT, W.H.
History of the Conquest of Mexico
History of the Conquest of Peru
ENGLAND
EDWARD HYDE, E. OF CLARENDON
History of the Rebellion
MACAULAY, LORD
History of England
BUCKLE, HENRY
History of Civilization in England
BAGEHOT, WALTER
English Constitution
FRANCE
VOLTAIRE
Age of Louis XIV
TOCQUEVILLE, DE
Old Régime
MIGNET, FRANCOIS
History of the French Revolution
CARLYLE, THOMAS
History of the French Revolution
LAMARTINE, A.M.L. DE
History of the Girondists
TAINE, H.A.
Modern Régime
GERMANY
CARLYLE, THOMAS
Frederick the Great
GREECE
FINLAY, GEORGE
History of Greece
HOLLAND
MOTLEY, J.L.
Rise of the Dutch Republic
History of the United Netherlands
INDIA
ELPHINSTONE, MOUNTSTUART
History of India
RUSSIA
VOLTAIRE
Russia under Peter the Great
SPAIN
PRESCOTT, W.H.
Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella
SWEDEN
VOLTAIRE
History of Charles XII
PAPACY
MILMAN, HENRY
History of Latin Christianity
VON RANKE, LEOPOLD
History of the Popes
A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
of Volume XX.
* * * * *
_Acknowledgment_
Acknowledgment and thanks for permitting the use of the
selection by H.A. Taine on "Modern Régime," appearing in this
volume, are hereby tendered to Madame Taine-Paul-Dubois, of
Menthon St. Bernard, France, and Henry Holt & Co., of New
York.
* * * * *
SAMUEL ELIOT
History of the United States
Samuel Eliot, a historian and educator, was born in Boston in
1821, graduated at Harvard in 1839, was engaged in business
for two years, and then travelled and studied abroad for four
years more. On his return, he took up tutoring and gave
gratuitous instruction to classes of young workingmen. He
became professor of history and political science in Trinity
College, Hartford, Conn., in 1856, and retained that chair
until 1864. During the last four years of that time, he was
president of the institution. From 1864 to 1874 he lectured on
constitutional law and political science. He lectured at
Harvard from 1870 to 1873. He was President of the Social
Science Association when it organised the movement for Civil
Service reform in 1869. His history of the United States
appeared in 1856 under the title of "Manual of United States
History between the Years 1792 and 1850." It was revised and
brought down to date in 1873, under the title of "History of
the United States." A third edition appeared in 1881. This
work gained distinction as the first adequate textbook of
United States history and still holds the place it deserves in
popular favor. The epitome is supplemented by a chronicle
compiled from several sources.
The first man to discover the shores of the United States, according to
Icelandic records, was an Icelander, Leif Erickson, who sailed in the
year 1000, and spent the winter somewhere on the New England coast.
Christopher Columbus, a Genoese in the Spanish service, discovered San
Salvador, one of the Bahama Islands, on October 12, 1492. He thought
that he had found the western route to the Indies, and, therefore,
called his discovery the West Indies. In 1507, the new continent
received its name from that of Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine who had
crossed the ocean under the Spanish and Portuguese flags. The middle
ages were Closing; the great nations of Europe were putting forth their
energies, material and immaterial; and the discovery of America came
just in season to help and be helped by the men of these stirring years.
Ponce de Leon, a companion of Columbus, was the first to reach the
territory of the present United States. On Easter Sunday, 1512, he
discovered the land to which he gave the name of Florida or Flower Land.
Numberless discoverers succeeded him. De Soto led a great expedition
northward and westward, in 1539-43, with no greater reward than the
discovery of the Mississippi. Among the French explorers to claim Canada
under the name of New France, were Verrazzano, 1524, and Cartier,
1534-42. Champlain began Quebec in 1608. The oldest town in the United
States, St. Augustine, Florida, was founded September 8, 1565, by
Menendez de Aviles, who brought a train of soldiers, priests and negro
slaves. The second oldest town, Santa Fe, was founded by the Spaniards
in 1581.
John Cabot, a Venetian residing in Bristol, was the first person sailing
under the English flag, to come to these shores. He sailed in 1497, with
his three sons, but no settlement was effected. Sir Humphrey Gilbert was
lost at sea in 1583, and Walter Raleigh, his cousin, took up claims that
had been made to him by Queen Elizabeth, and crossed to the shores of
the present North Carolina. Sir Richard Grenville left one hundred and
eighty persons at Roanoke Island, in 1585. They were glad to escape at
the earliest opportunity. Fifteen persons left there later were murdered
by the Indians. Still a third settlement, consisting of one hundred and
eighteen persons, disappeared, leaving no trace. Raleigh was discouraged
and made over his patent to others, who were still less successful.
The Plymouth Colony and London Colony were formed under King James I. as
business enterprises. The parties to the patents were capitalists, who
had the right to settle colonists and servants, impose duties and coin
money, and who were to pay a share of the profits in the enterprise to
the Crown.
The London company, under the name of Jamestown, established the
beginning of the first English town in America, May 13, 1607, with one
hundred colonists. Captain John Smith was the genius of the colony, and
it enjoyed a certain prosperity while he remained with it. A curious
incident of its history was the importation of a large number of young
women of good character, who were sold for one hundred and twenty, or
even one hundred and fifteen, pounds of tobacco (at thirteen shillings a
pound) to the lonely settlers. The Company failed, with all its
expenditures, some half-million dollars, in 1624, and at that time,
numbered only two thousand souls--the relics of nine thousand, who had
been sent out from England.
Though the Plymouth Company had obtained exclusive grants and
privileges, they never achieved any actual colony. A band of
independents, numbering one hundred and two, whose extreme principles
led to their exile, first from England and then from Holland, landed at
a place called New Plymouth, in 1620. Half died within a year.
Nevertheless, the Pilgrims, as they were called, extended their
settlement. The distinction of the Pilgrims at Plymouth is that they
relied upon themselves, and developed their own resources. Salem was
begun in 1625, and for three years was called Naumkeag. In 1628, John
Endicott came from England with one hundred settlers, as Governor for
the Massachusetts Colony, extending from the Charles to the Merrimac
river. A royal charter was procured for the Governor and Company of
Massachusetts Bay in New England, and one thousand colonists, led by
John Winthrop, settled Boston, 1630. These colonists were Puritans, who
wished to escape political and religious persecution. They brought over
their own charter and developed a form of popular government. The
freemen of the town elected the governor and board of assistants, but
suffrage was restricted to members of the church. Representative
government was granted in other colonies, but in the royal colonies of
Virginia and New York, the executive officers and members of the upper
branch of the legislature were appointed by the Crown. In Maryland,
appointments were made in the same way by the Proprietor. Maryland was
founded 1632, by royal grant to Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore.
The English colonies were divided in the middle by the Dutch at New
Amsterdam and the Swedes on the Delaware. The claim of the prior
discovery of Manhattan was raised by the English, who took New
Amsterdam, in 1664. Charles II. presented a charter to his brother,
James, Duke of York. East and west Jersey were formed out of part of the
grant.
The patent for the great territory included in the present state of
Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn in 1681. Penn laid the
foundations for a liberal constitution. Patents for the territory of
Carolina were given in 1663. Carolina reached the Spanish possessions in
the South.
The New England settlers spread westward and northward. Connecticut
adopted a written constitution in 1639. The charter of Rhode Island,
1663, confirmed the aim of its founder, Roger Williams, in the
separation of civil and religious affairs.
The English predominated in the colonies, though other nationalities
were represented on the Atlantic seaboard. The laws were based on
English custom, and loyalty to England prevailed. The colonists united
for mutual support during the early Indian wars. The United Colonies of
New England, comprised Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New
Haven. This union was formed in 1643, and lasted nearly forty years. The
"Lord of Trade" caused the colonies to unite later, at the time of the
French and Indian War, 1754.
The colonies, nevertheless, were too far apart to feel a common
interest. Communication between them was slow, and commerce was almost
entirely carried on with the English. The boundaries were frequently a
cause of conflict between them. The plan of a constitution was devised
by Franklin, but even the menace of war could not make the colonies
adopt it.
While the English were establishing themselves firmly on the coast, the
French were all the time quietly working in the interior. Their
explorers and merchants established posts to the Great Lakes, the
northwest and the valley of the Mississippi. The clash with the English
came in 1690. King William's War, Queen Anne's War and the French and
Indian War, were all waged before the difficulties were settled in the
rout of the French from the continent. The so-called French and Indian
War (1701-13) was the American counterpart of the Seven Years' War of
Europe. The chief events of this war were: the surrender of Washington
at Fort Necessity, 1754; removal of the Arcadian settlers, 1755;
Braddock's defeat, July 9, 1755; capture of Oswego by Montcalm, 1756;
the capture of Louisburg and Fort Duquesne, 1758; the capture of
Ticonderoga and Niagara in 1759; battle of Quebec, September 13, 1759;
surrender of Montreal, 1760.
At the Peace of Paris, 1763, the French claims to American territory
were formally relinquished. Spain, however, got control of the territory
west of the Mississippi, in 1762. This was known as Louisiana, and
extended from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains.
At this period the relations of the colonies with the home government
became seriously strained. The demands that goods should be transported
in English ships, that trade should be carried on only with England,
that the colonies should not manufacture anything in competition with
home products, were the chief causes of friction. The navigation laws
were evaded without public resistance, and smuggling became a common
practice.
The Stamp Act, in 1765, required stamps to be affixed to all public
documents, newspapers, almanacs and other printed matter. All of the
colonies were taxed at the same time by this scheme, which was contrary
to their belief that they should be taxed only by their legislatures;
although the proceeds of the taxes were to have been devoted to the
defence of the colonies. Delegates, protesting against the Act, were
sent to England by nine colonies. The Stamp Act Congress, October 7,
1765, passed measures of protest. The people never used the stamps, and
the Act was repealed the next year. As a substitute, the English
government established, in 1767, duties on paper, paint, glass and tea.
The colonies replied by renewing the agreement which they made in 1765,
not to import any English goods. The sending of troops to Boston
aggravated the trouble. All the duties but that on tea were then
withdrawn. Cargoes of tea were destroyed at Boston and Charleston, and a
bond of common sympathy was slowly forged between the colonies.
In 1774, the harbour of Boston was closed, and the Massachusetts charter
was revoked. Arbitrary power was placed in the hands of the governor.
The colonies mourned in sympathy. The assembly of Virginia was dismissed
by its governor, but merely reunited, and proceeded to call a
continental congress.
The first continental congress was held at Capitol Hall, Philadelphia,
September 5, 1774. All the colonies but Georgia were represented. The
congress appealed to George III. for redress. They drafted the
Declaration of Rights, and pledged the colonies not to use British
importations and to export no American goods to Great Britain or to its
colonies.
The battles of Lexington and Concord were precipitated by the attempt of
the British to seize the colonists' munitions of war. The immediate
result was the assembling of a second continental congress at
Philadelphia, May 10, 1775. The second congress was in a short time
organising armies and assuming all the powers of government.
On November 1, 1775, it was learned that King George would not receive
the petition asking for redress, and the idea of the Declaration of
Independence was conceived. On May 15, 1776, the congress voted that all
British authority ought to be suppressed. Thomas Jefferson, in December,
drafted the Constitution, and it was adopted on July 4, 1776.
The leading events of the Revolution were the battles of Lexington and
Concord, April 19, 1775; capture of Ticonderoga, May 10; Bunker Hill,
June 17; unsuccessful attack on Canada, 1775-1776; surrender of Boston,
March 17, 1776; battle of Long Island, August 27; White Plains, October
28; retreat through New Jersey, at the end of 1776; battle of Trenton,
December 26; battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777; Bennington, August
16; Brandywine, September 11; Germantown, October 4; Saratoga, October
7; Burgoyne's surrender, October 17; battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778;
storming of Stony Point, July 15, 1779; battle of Camden, August 16,
1780; battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781; surrender of Cornwallis,
October 19, 1781.
The surrender of Cornwallis terminated the struggle. The peace treaty
was signed in 1783. The financial situation was very deplorable. One of
the greatest difficulties that confronted the colonists, was the limited
power of Congress. The states could regulate commerce and exercise
nearly all authority. But disputes regarding their boundaries prevented
their development as a united nation.
Congress issued an ordinance in 1784 under which territories might
organise governments, send delegates to Congress, and obtain admission
as states. This was made use of in 1787 by the Northwest Territory, the
region lying between the Ohio and the Mississippi and the Great Lakes.
The states made a compact in which it was agreed that there should be no
slavery in this territory.
The critical period lasted until 1789. In the absence of strong
authority, economic and political troubles arose. Finally, a commission
appointed by Maryland and Virginia to settle questions relating to
navigation on the Potomac resulted in a convention to adjust the
navigation and commerce of the whole of the United States, called the
Annapolis Convention from the place where it met, May 1, 1787. Rhode
Island was the only state that failed to send delegates. Instead of
taking up the interstate commerce questions the convention formulated
the present Constitution. A President, with power to carry out the will
of the people, was provided, and also, a Supreme Court.
Washington was elected first President, his term beginning March 4,
1789. A census was taken in 1790. The largest city was Philadelphia,
with a population of 42,000--the others were New York, 33,000, and
Boston, 18,000. The total population of the United States was 4,000,000.
The slaves numbered 700,000; free negroes, 60,000, and the Indians,
80,000.
The Federalists, who believed in centralised government, were the most
influential men in Congress. Washington appointed Thomas Jefferson
Secretary of State, Knox Secretary of War, Hamilton Secretary of the
Treasury, Osgood Postmaster General, and Jay Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court.
The first tariff act was passed with a view of providing revenue and
protection, in 1789. The national debt amounted to $52,000,000.00--a
quarter of which was due abroad. The states had incurred an expense of
$25,000,000.00 more, in supporting the Revolution. The country suffered
from inflated currency. The genius of Hamilton saved the situation. He
persuaded Congress to assume the whole obligation of the national
government and of the states. Washington selected the site of the
capitol on the banks of the Potomac. But the government convened at
Philadelphia for ten years. Vermont and Kentucky were admitted as states
by the first Congress.
In Washington's administration, a number of American ships were captured
by British war vessels. England was at war with France and claimed the
right of stopping American vessels to look for possible deserters. War
was avoided by the Jay Treaty, November 19, 1794.
Washington retired, in 1796, at the end of two terms. John Adams, who
had been Ambassador to France, Holland and England, became second
President. The Democratic-Republican party, originated at this time,
stood for a strict construction of the constitution and favoured France
rather than England. Its leader was Thomas Jefferson. Adams proved but a
poor party leader, and the power of the Federalists failed after eight
years. He had gained some popularity in the early part of his first term
when France began to retaliate for the Jay Treaty by seizing American
ships, and would not receive the American minister. He appointed Charles
Coatesworth Pinckney, with John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry, as a
commission to treat with the French. The French commissioners who met
them demanded $24,000,000.00 as a bribe to draw up a treaty. The names
of the French commissioners were referred to in American newspapers as
X, Y and Z. Taking advantage of the popular favour gained in the conduct
of this affair, the Federalists succeeded in passing the Alien and
Sedition Laws.
Napoleon seized the power in France and made peace with the United
States. In the face of impending war between France and England,
Napoleon gave up his plans of an empire in America and sold Louisiana to
the United States for $15,000,000.00. The territory included 1,500,000
square miles. The Lewis and Clarke Expedition, sent out by Jefferson,
started from St. Louis May 14, 1804, crossed the Rocky Mountains and
discovered the Oregon country.
Aaron Burr was defeated for Governor of New York, and in his
Presidential ambitions, and in revenge killed Hamilton in a duel. He
fled the Ohio River country and made active preparations to carry out
some kind of a scheme. He probably intended to proceed against the
Spanish possessions in the Southwest and Mexico, and set himself up as a
ruler. He was betrayed by his confidante, Wilkinson, and was tried for
treason and acquitted in Richmond, Va., in 1807.
The momentous question of slavery in the territories came up in
Jefferson's administration. The institution was permitted in
Mississippi, but the ordinance of 1787 was maintained in Indiana. The
importation of slaves was prohibited after January 1, 1808.
James Madison, a Republican, became President, in 1809. The Indians,
under Tecumseh, attacked the Western settlers, but were defeated at
Tippecanoe by William Henry Harrison in 1811. In the same year, Congress
determined to break with England. Clay and Calhoun led the agitation.
Madison acceded, and war was declared June 18, 1812. The Treaty of Ghent
was signed on December 24, 1814. British commerce had been devastated. A
voyage even from England to Ireland was made unsafe.
The leading events of the War of 1812 were the unsuccessful invasion of
Canada and surrender at Detroit, August 12, 1812; sea fight in which the
"Constitution" took the "Guerriere," August 19th; sea fight in which the
"United States" took the "Macedonian," October 25, 1813; defeat at
Frenchtown, January 22nd; victory on Lake Erie, September 10th; loss of
the "Chesapeake" to the "Shannon," June 1st; victory at Chippewa, July
5, 1814; victory at Lundy's Lane, July 15th; Lake Champlain, September
11th; British burned public buildings in Washington, August 25th;
American defeated British at Baltimore, September 13th; American under
Jackson defeated the British at New Orleans, December 23rd and 28th.
Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio, were admitted as states, in 1792, 1796,
and 1803, respectively. In 1806, the federal government began a wagon
road, from the Potomac River to the West through the Cumberland Gap. New
York State finished the Erie Canal, in 1825. The population increased so
rapidly, that six new states, west and south of the Allegheny Mountains,
were admitted between 1812 and 1821. A serious conflict arose in 1820
over the admission of Missouri. The Missouri Compromise resulted in the
prohibition of slavery in the Louisiana Purchase, north of 36° and 30'
north latitude. Missouri was admitted in 1831, and Maine, as a free
state, in 1820.
With the passing of protective tariff measures in 1816 a readjustment of
party lines took place. Protection brought over New England from
Federalism to Republicanism. Henry Clay of Kentucky was the leading
advocate of protection. Everybody was agreed upon this point in
believing that tariff was to benefit all classes. This time was known as
"The Era of Good Feeling."
Spain ceded Florida to the United States for $5,000,000.00, throwing in
claims in the Northwest, and the United States gave up her claim to
Texas. The treaty was signed in 1819.
The Monroe Doctrine was contained in the message that President Monroe
sent to Congress December 2, 1823. The colonies of South America had
revolted from Spain and had set up republics. The United States
recognised them in 1821. Spain called on Europe for assistance. In his
message to Congress, Monroe declared, "We could not view any
interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any
other manner their destiny by any European power, in any other light
than as a manifestation of an unfriendly feeling toward the United
States....The American Continents are henceforth not to be considered as
subjects for future colonisation by any European power." Great Britain
had previously suggested to Monroe that she would not support the
designs of Spain.
Protective measures were passed in 1824 and 1828. Around Adams and Clay
were formed the National-Republican Party, which was joined by the
Anti-Masons and other elements to form the Whig Party. Andrew Jackson
was the centre of the other faction, which came to be known as the
Democratic Party and has had a continuous existence ever since. South
Carolina checked the rising tariff for a while by declaring the tariff
acts of 1828 and 1832 null and void.
The region which now forms the state of Texas had been gradually filling
up with settlers. Many had brought slaves with them, although Mexico
abolished slavery in 1829. The United States tried to purchase the
country. Mexican forces under Santa Anna tried to enforce their
jurisdiction in 1836. Texas declared her independence and drew up a
constitution, establishing slavery. Opposition in the United States to
the increase of slave territory defeated a plan for the annexation of
this territory.
The New England Anti-Slavery Society was formed 1832, and the American
Anti-Slavery Society was founded in Philadelphia in 1833. William Lloyd
Garrison was the leader of abolition as a great moral agitation.
John C. Calhoun, Tyler's Secretary of State, proposed the annexation of
Texas in 1844, but the scheme was rejected by the Senate. The election
of Polk changed the complexion of affairs and Congress admitted Texas,
which became a state in December, 1845.
The boundaries had never been settled and war with Mexico followed.
Taylor defeated the Mexican forces at Palo Alto, May 8, 1846, at Resaca
de la Palma, May 9th, and later at Monterey and Buena Vista. Scott was
sent to Vera Cruz with an expedition, which fought its way to the City
of Mexico by September 14, 1846. The United States troops also seized
New Mexico. California revolted and joined the United States. The
Gadsden Purchase of 1853 secured a further small strip of territory from
Mexico.
The Boundary Treaty with Great Britain, in June, 1846, established the
northern limits of Oregon at 49th parallel north latitude.
The plans for converting California into a slave state were frustrated
by the discovery of gold. Fifty thousand emigrants poured in. The men
worked with their own hands, and would not permit slaves to be brought
in by their owners. Five bills, known as the Compromise of 1850,
provided that New Mexico should be organised as a territory out of
Texas; admitted California as a free state; established Utah as a
territory; provided a more rigid fugitive slave law; and abolished
slavery in the District of Columbia.
Cuba was regarded as a promising field for the extension of the slave
territory when the Democratic Party returned to power in 1853 with the
administration of Franklin Pierce. The ministers to Spain, France and
Great Britain met in Belgium, at the President's direction, and issued
the Ostend Manifesto, which declared that the United States would be
justified in annexing Cuba, if Spain refused to sell the island. This
Manifesto followed the popular agitation over the Virginius affair. The
Spaniards had seized a ship of that name, which was smuggling arms to
the Cubans, and put to death some Americans. War was averted, and Cuba
remained in the control of the Spaniards.
The Supreme Court in 1857, in the Dred Scott decision, held that a slave
was not a citizen and had no standing in the law, that Congress had no
right to prohibit slavery in the territories, and that the constitution
guaranteed slave property.
The Presidential campaign in 1858, which was signalised by the debates
between Douglass and Lincoln, resulted in raising the Republican power
in the House of Representatives, to equal that of the Democrats.
A fanatic Abolitionist, John Brown, with a few followers, seized the
Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry in 1859, defended it heroically
against overpowering numbers, but was finally taken, tried and condemned
for treason. This incident served as an argument in the South for the
necessity of secession to protect the institution of slavery.
In the Presidential election of 1860, the Republican convention
nominated Lincoln. Douglass and John C. Breckenridge split the
Democratic vote, and Lincoln was elected President. This was the
immediate cause of the Civil War. The first state to secede was South
Carolina. A state convention, called by the Legislature, met on December
20, 1860, and declared that the union of that state and the other states
was dissolved. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana,
followed in the first month of 1861, and Texas seceded February 1st.
They formed a Confederacy with a constitution and government at a
convention at Montgomery, Alabama, February, 1861. Jefferson Davis was
chosen President, and Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President.
Sumter fell on April 14th, and the following day Lincoln called for
75,000 volunteers. The demand was more than filled. The Confederacy,
also, issued a call for volunteers which was enthusiastically received.
Four border states went over to the Confederacy, Arkansas, North
Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. Three went over, in May, and the last,
June 18.
The leading events of the Civil War were, the battle of Bull Run, July
21, 1861; Wilson's Creek, August 2; Trent Affair, November 8, 1862;
Battle of Mill Spring, January 19; Ft. Henry, February 6; Ft. Donelson,
February 13-16: fight between the "Monitor" and "Merrimac," March 9;
Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7; capture of New Orleans, April 25; battle of
Williamsburgh, May 5; Fair Oaks, May 31-June 1; "Seven Days'
Battle"--Mechanicsville, Gaines's Mill, Frazier's Farm, Malvern Hill,
June 25-July 1; Cedar Mountain, August 9; second battle of Bull Run,
August 30; Chantilly, September 1; South Mountain, September 14;
Antietam, September 17; Iuka, September 19; Corinth, October 4;
Fredericksburg, December 13; Murfreesboro, December 31-January 2, 1863.
Emancipation Proclamation, January 1; battle of Chancellorsville, May
1-4; Gettysburg, July 1-3; fall of Vicksburg, July 4; battle of
Chickamauga, September 19-20; Chattanooga, November 23-25; 1864--battles
of Wilderness and Spottsylvania, May 5-7; Sherman's advance through
northern Georgia, in May and June; battle of Cold Harbor, June 1-3; the
"Kearsarge" sank the "Alabama," June 19; battles of Atlanta, July 20-28;
naval battle of Mobile, August 5; battle of Winchester, September 19;
Cedar Creek, October 19; Sherman's march through Georgia to the sea,
November and December; battle of Nashville, December 15-16;
1865--surrender of Fort Fisher, January 15; battle of Five Forks, April
1; surrender of Richmond, April 3; surrender of Lee's army at
Appomattox, April 9; surrender of Johnston's army, April 26; surrender
of Kirby Smith, May 26.
Lincoln, who had been elected for a second term, was assassinated on
April 14, 1865, in Ford's Theatre, Washington.
The United States expended $800,000,000 in revenue, and incurred a debt
of three times that amount during the war.
The Reconstruction Period lasted from 1865 to 1870. The South was left
industrially prostrate, and it required a long period to adjust the
change from the ownership to the employment of the negro.
Alaska was purchased from Russia, in 1867, for $7,200,000.00.
An arbitration commission was called for by Congress to settle the
damage claims of the United States against Great Britain, on account of
Great Britain's failure to observe duties of a neutral during the war.
The conference was held at Geneva, at the end of 1871, and announced its
award six months later. This was $15,000,000.00 damages, to be paid to
the United States for depredations committed by vessels fitted out by
the Confederates in British ports. The chief of these privateers was the
"Alabama."
One of the first acts of President Hayes, in 1877, was the withdrawal of
the Federal troops of the South. The new era of prosperity dates from
the resumption of home rule.
The Bland Bill of 1878 stipulated that at least $2,000,000, and not more
than $4,000,000, should be coined in silver dollars each month, at the
fixed ratio of 16-1.
Garfield, the twentieth President of the United States, was elected
1880, and was assassinated on July 2, 1881, in Washington, by an insane
office-seeker, and died September 19th.
The Civil Service Act of 1833 provided examinations for classified
service, and prohibited removal for political reasons. It also forbade
political assessments by a government official, or in the government
buildings.
The Interstate Commerce Commission was established in 1877 with very
limited powers, based on the clause in the constitution, drawn up in
1787, giving Congress the power to regulate domestic commerce.
Harrison was elected 1888. Both Houses were Republican, and the tariff
was increased. In 1890, the McKinley Bill raised the duties to an
average of 50 per cent, but reciprocity was provided for.
The Sherman Bill superseded the Bland Bill, and provided that 4,500,000
ounces of silver bullion must be bought and stored in the Treasury each
month. This measure failed to sustain the price of silver, and there was
a great demand, in the South and West, for the free coinage of that
metal.
The tariff was made the issue of the next Presidential election, in
1892, when Cleveland defeated Harrison by a large majority of electoral
votes. Each received a popular vote of 5,000,400. The Populist Party,
which espoused the silver cause, polled 1,000,000 votes.
Congress was called in special session, and repealed the Silver Purchase
Bill, and devised means of protection for the gold reserve which was
approaching the vanishing point.
Cleveland forced Great Britain to arbitrate the boundary dispute with
Venezuela in 1895, by a defiant enunciation of the Monroe doctrine.
Congress supported him and voted unanimously for a commission to settle
the dispute.
Free coinage of silver was the chief issue of the Presidential election,
in 1896. McKinley defeated Bryan by a great majority. The Dingley Tariff
Bill maintained the protective theory.
The blowing up of the "Maine," in the Havana Harbor, in 1898, hastened
the forcible intervention of the United States, in Cuba, where Spain had
been carrying on a war for three years.
On May 1st, Dewey entered Manila Bay and destroyed a Spanish fleet. The
more powerful and stronger Spanish fleet was destroyed while trying to
escape from the Harbour of Santiago de Cuba, on July 3.
By the Treaty of Paris, December 10, Porto Rico was ceded, and the
Philippine Islands were made over on a payment of $20,000,000, and a
republic was established in Cuba, under the United States protectory.
Hawaii had been annexed, and was made a territory, in 1900.
A revolt against the United States in the Philippine Islands was put
down, in 1901, after two years.
McKinley was elected to a second term, with a still more overwhelming
majority over Bryan.
McKinley was assassinated on September 6, 1901, at the Pan-American
Exposition at Buffalo, by an Anarchist. Theodore Roosevelt, the
Vice-President, succeeded him, and was re-elected, in 1904, defeating
Alton B. Parker.
Roosevelt intervened in the Anthracite Coal Strike, in 1902, recognised
the revolutionary Republic of Panama, and in his administration, the
United States acquired the Panama Canal Zone, and began work on the
inter-oceanic canal. Great efforts were made, during his administration,
to repress the big corporations by prosecutions, under the Sherman
Anti-Trust Law. The conservation of natural resources was also taken up
as a fixed policy.
* * * * *
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
History of the Conquest of Mexico
The "Conquest of Mexico" is a spirited and graphic narrative
of a stirring episode in history. To use his own words, the
author (see p. 271) has "endeavoured to surround the reader
with the spirit of the times, and, in a word, to make him a
contemporary of the 16th century."
_I. The Mexican Empire_
Of all that extensive empire which once acknowledged the authority of
Spain in the New World, no portion, for interest and importance, can be
compared with Mexico--and this equally, whether we consider the variety
of its soil and climate; the inexhaustible stores of its mineral wealth;
its scenery, grand and picturesque beyond example; the character of its
ancient inhabitants, not only far surpassing in intelligence that of the
other North American races, but reminding us, by their monuments, of the
primitive civilisation of Egypt and Hindostan; and lastly, the peculiar
circumstances of its conquest, adventurous and romantic as any legend
devised by any Norman or Italian bard of chivalry. It is the purpose of
the present narrative to exhibit the history of this conquest, and that
of the remarkable man by whom it was achieved.
The country of the ancient Mexicans, or Aztecs as they were called,
formed but a very small part of the extensive territories comprehended
in the modern Republic of Mexico. The Aztecs first entered it from the
north towards the beginning of the thirteenth century, but it was not
until the year 1325 that, led by an auspicious omen, they laid the
foundations of their future city by sinking piles into the shallows of
the principal lake in the Mexican valley. Thus grew the capital known
afterwards to Europeans as Mexico. The omen which led to the choice of
this site--an eagle perched upon a cactus--is commemorated in the arms
of the modern Mexican Republic.
In the fifteenth century there was formed a remarkable league,
unparallelled in history, according to which it was agreed between the
states of Mexico, Tezcuco, and the neighbouring little kingdom of
Tlacopan, that they should mutually support each other in their wars,
and divide the spoil on a fixed scale. During a century of warfare this
alliance was faithfully adhered to and the confederates met with great
success. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, just before the
arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztec dominion reached across the
continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There was thus included in
it territory thickly peopled by various races, themselves warlike, and
little inferior to the Aztecs in social organisation. What this
organisation was may be briefly indicated.
The government of the Aztecs, or Mexicans, was an elective monarchy, the
sovereign being, however, always chosen from the same family. His power
was almost absolute, the legislative power residing wholly with him,
though justice was administered through an administrative system which
differentiated the government from the despotisms of the East. Human
life was protected, except in the sense that human sacrifices were
common, the victims being often prisoners of war. Slavery was practised,
but strictly regulated. The Aztec code was, on the whole, stamped with
the severity of a rude people, relying on physical instead of moral
means for the correction of evil. Still, it evinces a profound respect
for the great principles of morality, and as clear a perception of those
principles as is to be found in the most cultivated nations. One
instance of their advanced position is striking; hospitals were
established in the principal cities, for the cure of the sick, and the
permanent refuge of the disabled soldier; and surgeons were placed over
them, "who were so far better than those in Europe," says an old
chronicler, "that they did not protract the cure, in order to increase
the pay."
In their religion, the Aztecs recognised a Supreme Creator and Lord of
the universe, "without whom man is as nothing," "invisible, incorporeal,
one God, of perfect perfection and purity," "under whose wings we find
repose and a sure defence." But beside Him they recognised numerous
gods, who presided over the changes of the seasons, and the various
occupations of man, and in whose honour they practised bloody rites.
Such were the people dwelling in the lovely Mexican valley, and wielding
a power that stretched far beyond it, when the Spanish expedition led by
Hernando Cortes landed on the coast. The expedition was the fruit of an
age and a people eager for adventure, for gain, for glory, and for the
conversion of barbaric peoples to the Christian faith. The Spaniards
were established in the West Indian Islands, and sought further
extension of their dominions in the West, whence rumours of great
treasure had reached them. Thus it happened that Velasquez, the Spanish
Governor of Cuba, designed to send a fleet to explore the mainland, to
gain what treasure he could by peaceful barter with the natives, and by
any means he could to secure their conversion. It was commanded by
Cortes, a man of extraordinary courage and ability, and extraordinary
gifts for leadership, to whose power both of control and inspiration
must be ascribed, in a very great degree, the success of his amazing
enterprise.
_II.--The Invasion of the Empire_
It was on the eighteenth of February, 1519, that the little squadron
finally set sail from Cuba for the coast of Yucatan. Before starting,
Cortes addressed his soldiers in a manner both very characteristic of
the man, and typical of the tone which he took towards them on several
occasions of great difficulty and danger, when but for his courageous
spirit and great power of personal influence, the expedition could only
have found a disastrous end. Part of his speech was to this effect: "I
hold out to you a glorious prize, but it is to be won by incessant toil.
Great things are achieved only by great exertions, and glory was never
the reward of sloth. If I have laboured hard and staked my all on this
undertaking, it is for the love of that renown, which is the noblest
recompense of man. But, if any among you covet riches more, be but true
to me, as I will be true to you and to the occasion, and I will make you
masters of such as our countrymen have never dreamed of! You are few in
number, but strong in resolution; and, if this does not falter, doubt
not but that the Almighty, who has never deserted the Spaniard in his
contest with the infidel, will shield you, though encompassed by a cloud
of enemies; for your cause is a _just cause_, and you are to fight under
the banner of the Cross. Go forward then, with alacrity and confidence,
and carry to a glorious issue the work so auspiciously begun."
The first landing was made on the island of Cozumel, where the natives
were forcibly converted to Christianity. Then, reaching the mainland,
they were attacked by the natives of Tabasco, whom they soon reduced to
submission. These made presents to the Spanish commander, including some
female slaves. One of these, named by the Spaniards Marina, became of
great use to the conquerors in the capacity of interpreter, and by her
loyalty, her intelligence, and, not least, by her distinguished courage
became a powerful influence in the fortunes of the Spaniards.
The next event of consequence in the career of the Conquerors was the
foundation of the first colony in New Spain, the town of Villa Rica de
Vera Cruz, on the sea-shore. Following this, came the reduction of the
warlike Republic of Tlascala, and the conclusion of an alliance with its
inhabitants which proved of priceless value to the Spaniards in their
long warfare with the. Mexicans.
More than one embassy had reached the Spanish camp from Montezuma, the
Emperor of Mexico, bearing presents and conciliatory messages, but
declining to receive the strangers in his capital. The basis of his
conduct and of that of the bulk of his subjects towards the Spaniards
was an ancient tradition concerning a beneficent deity named
Quetzalcoatl who had sailed away to the East, promising to return and
reign once more over his people. He had a white skin, and long, dark
hair; and the likeness of the Spaniards to him in this respect gave rise
to the idea that they were his representatives, and won them honour
accordingly; while even to those tribes who were entirely hostile a
supernatural terror clung around their name. Montezuma, therefore,
desired to conciliate them while seeking to prevent their approach to
his capital. But this was the goal of their expedition, and Cortes, with
his little army, never exceeding a few hundred in all, reinforced by
some Tlascalan auxiliaries, marched towards the capital. Montezuma, on
hearing of their approach, was plunged into despondency. "Of what avail
is resistance," he is said to have exclaimed, "when the gods have
declared themselves against us! Yet I mourn most for the old and infirm,
the women and children, too feeble to fight or to fly. For myself and
the brave men round me, we must bare our breasts to the storm, and meet
it as we may!"
Meanwhile the Spaniards marched on, enchanted as they came by the beauty
and the wealth of the city and its neighbourhood. It was built on piles
in a great lake, and as they descended into the valley it seemed to them
to be a reality embodying in the fairest dreams of all those who had
spoken of the New World and its dazzling glories. They passed along one
of the causeways which constituted the only method of approach to the
city, and as they entered, they were met by Montezuma himself, in all
his royal state. Bowing to what seemed the inevitable, he admitted them
to the capital, gave them a royal palace for their quarters, and
entertained them well. After a week, however, the Spaniards began to be
doubtful of the security of their position, and to strengthen it Cortes
conceived and carried out the daring plan of gaining possession of
Montezuma's person. With his usual audacity he went to the palace,
accompanied by some of his cavaliers, and compelled Montezuma to consent
to transfer himself and his household to the Spanish quarters. After
this, Cortes demanded that he should recognise formally the supremacy of
the Spanish emperor. Montezuma agreed, and a large treasure, amounting
in value to about one and a half million pounds sterling, was despatched
to Spain in token of his fealty. The ship conveying it to Spain touched
at the coast of Cuba, and the news of Cortes's success inflamed afresh
the jealousy of Velasquez, its governor, who had long repented of his
choice of a commander. Therefore, in March, 1520, he sent Narvaez at the
head of a rival expedition, to overcome Cortes and appropriate the
spoils. But he had reckoned without the character of Cortes. Leaving a
garrison in Mexico, the latter advanced by forced marches to meet
Narvaez, and took him unawares, entirely defeating his much superior
force. More than this, he induced most of these troops to join him, and
thus, reinforced also from Tlascala, marched back to Mexico. There his
presence was greatly needed, for news had reached him that the Mexicans
had risen, and that the garrison was already in straits.
_III.--The Retreat from Mexico_
It was indeed in a serious position that Cortes found his troops,
threatened by famine, and surrounded by a hostile population. But he was
so confident of his ability to overawe the insurgents that he wrote to
that effect to the garrison of Vera Cruz, by the same dispatches in
which he informed them of his safe arrival in the capital. But scarcely
had his messenger been gone half an hour, when he returned breathless
with terror, and covered with wounds. "The city," he said, "was all in
arms! The drawbridges were raised, and the enemy would soon be upon
them!" He spoke truth. It was not long before a hoarse, sullen sound
became audible, like that of the roaring of distant waters. It grew
louder and louder; till, from the parapet surrounding the enclosure, the
great avenues which led to it might be seen dark with the masses of
warriors, who came rolling on in a confused tide towards the fortress.
At the same time, the terraces and flat roofs in the neighbourhood were
thronged with combatants brandishing their missiles, who seemed to have
risen up as if by magic. It was a spectacle to appall the stoutest.
But this was only the prelude to the disasters that were to befall the
Spaniards. The Mexicans made desperate assaults upon the Spanish
quarters, in which both sides suffered severely. At last Montezuma, at
the request of Cortes, tried to interpose. But his subjects, in fury at
what they considered his desertion of them, gave him a wound of which he
died. The position became untenable, and Cortes decided on retreat. This
was carried out at night, and owing to the failure of a plan for laying
a portable bridge across those gaps in the causeway left by the
drawbridges, the Spaniards were exposed to a fierce attack from the
natives which proved most disastrous. Caught on the narrow space of the
causeway, and forced to make their way as best they could across the
gaps, they were almost overwhelmed by the throngs of their enemies.
Cortes who, with some of the vanguard, had reached comparative safety,
dashed back into the thickest of the fight where some of his comrades
were making a last stand, and brought them out with him, so that at last
all the survivors, a sadly stricken company, reached the mainland.
The story of the reconstruction by Cortes of his shattered and
discouraged army is one of the most astonishing chapters in the whole
history of the Conquest. Wounded, impoverished, greatly reduced in
numbers and broken in spirit by the terrible experience through which
they had passed, they demanded that the expedition should be abandoned
and themselves conveyed back to Cuba. Before long, the practical wisdom
and personal influence of Cortes had recovered them, reanimated their
spirits, and inspired them with fresh zeal for conquest, and now for
revenge. He added to their numbers the very men sent against him by
Velasquez at this juncture, whom he persuaded to join him; and had the
same success with the members of another rival expedition from Jamaica.
Eventually he set out once more for Mexico, with a force of nearly six
hundred Spaniards, and a number of allies from Tlascala.
_IV.--The Siege and Capture of Mexico_
The siege of Mexico is one of the most memorable and most disastrous
sieges of history. Cortes disposed his troops so as to occupy the three
great causeways leading from the shore of the lake to the city, and thus
cut off the enemy from their sources of supply. He was strong in the
possession of twelve brigantines, built by his orders, which swept the
lake with their guns and frequently defeated the manoeuvres of the
enemy, to whom a sailing ship was as new and as terrible a phenomenon as
were firearms and cavalry. But the Aztecs were strong in numbers, and in
their deadly hatred of the invader, the young emperor, Guatemozin,
opposed to the Spaniards a spirit as dauntless as that of Cortes
himself. Again and again, by fierce attack, by stratagem, and by their
indefatigable labours, the Aztecs inflicted checks, and sometimes even
disaster, upon the Spaniards. Many of these, and of their Indian allies,
fell, or were carried off to suffer the worse fate of the sacrificial
victim. The priests promised the vengeance of the gods upon the
strangers, and at one point Cortes saw his allies melting away from him,
under the power of this superstitious fear. But the threats were
unfulfilled, the allies returned, and doom settled down upon the city.
Famine and pestilence raged with it, and all the worst horrors of a
siege were suffered by the inhabitants.
But still they remained implacable, fighting to their last breath, and
refusing to listen to the repeated and urgent offers of Cortes to spare
them and their property if they would capitulate. It was not until the
15th of August, 1521, that the siege, which began in the latter part of
May, was brought to an end. After a final offer of terms, which
Guatemozin still refused, Cortes made the final assault, and carried the
city in face of a resistance now sorely enfeebled but still heroic.
Guatemozin, attempting to escape with his wife and some followers to the
shore of the lake, was intercepted by one of the brigantines and carried
to Cortes. He bore himself with all the dignity that belonged to his
courage, and was met by Cortes in a manner worthy of it. He and his
train was courteously treated and well entertained.
Meanwhile, at Guatemozin's request, the population of Mexico were
allowed to leave the city for the surrounding country; and after this
the Spaniards set themselves to the much-needed work of cleansing the
city. They were greatly disappointed in their hope of treasure, which
the Aztecs had so effectively hidden that only a small part of the
expected riches was ever discovered. It is a blot upon the history of
the war that Cortes, yielding to the importunity of his soldiers,
permitted Guatemozin to be tortured, in order to gain information
regarding the treasure. But no information of value could be wrung from
him, and the treasure remained hidden.
At the very time of his distinguished successes in Mexico, the fortunes
of Cortes hung in the balance in Spain. His enemy Velasquez, governor of
Cuba, and the latter's friends at home, made such complaint of his
conduct that a commissioner was sent to Vera Cruz to apprehend Cortes
and bring him to trial. But, as usual, the hostile effort failed, and
the commissioner sailed for Cuba, having accomplished nothing. The
friends of Cortes, on the other hand, made counter-charges, in which
they showed that his enemies had done all in their power to hinder him
in what was a magnificent effort on behalf of the Spanish dominion, and
asked if the council were prepared to dishonour the man who, in the face
of such obstacles, and with scarcely other resources than what he found
in himself, had won an empire for Castile, such as was possessed by no
European potentate. This appeal was irresistible. However irregular had
been the manner of proceeding, no one could deny the grandeur of the
results. The acts of Cortes were confirmed in their full extent. He was
constituted Governor, Captain General, and Chief Justice of New Spain,
as the province was called, and his army was complimented by the
emperor, fully acknowledging its services.
The news of this was received in New Spain with general acclamation. The
mind of Cortes was set at ease as to the past, and he saw opening before
him a noble theatre for future enterprise. His career, ever one of
adventure and of arms, was still brilliant and still chequered. He fell
once more under suspicion in Spain, and at last determined to present
himself in person before his sovereign, to assert his innocence and
claim redress. Favourably received by Charles V., he subsequently
returned to Mexico, pursued difficult and dangerous voyages of
discovery, and ultimately returned to Spain, where he died in 1547.
The history of the Conquest of Mexico is the history of Cortes, who was
its very soul. He was a typical knight-errant; more than this, he was a
great commander. There is probably no instance in history where so vast
an enterprise has been achieved by means apparently so inadequate. He
may be truly said to have effected the conquest by his own resources. It
was the force of his genius that obtained command of the co-operation of
the Indian tribes. He arrested the arm that was lifted to smite him, he
did not desert himself. He brought together the most miscellaneous
collection of mercenaries who ever fought under one standard,--men with
hardly a common tie, and burning with the spirit of jealousy and
faction; wild tribes of the natives also, who had been sworn enemies
from their cradles. Yet this motley congregation was assembled in one
camp, to breathe one spirit, and to move on a common principle of
action.
As regards the whole character of his enterprise, which seems to modern
eyes a bloody and at first quite unmerited war waged against the Indian
nations, it must be remembered that Cortes and his soldiers fought in
the belief that their victories were the victories of the Cross, and
that any war resulting in the conversion of the enemy to Christianity,
even as by force, was a righteous and meritorious war. This
consideration dwelt in their minds, mingling indeed with the desire for
glory and for gain, but without doubt influencing them powerfully. This
is at any rate one of the clues to this extraordinary chapter of
history, so full of suffering and bloodshed, and at the same time of
unsurpassed courage and heroism on every side.
* * * * *
History of the Conquest of Peru
The "History of the Conquest of Peru," which appeared in 1847,
followed Prescott's "History of the Conquest of Mexico." It is
a vivid and picturesque narrative of one of the most romantic,
if also in some ways one of the darkest, episodes in history.
It is impossible in a small compass to convey a tithe of the
astonishing series of hairbreadth escapes, of conquest over
tremendous odds, and of rapid eventualities which make up this
kaleidoscopic story.
_I.--The Realm of the Incas_
Among the rumours which circulated among the ambitious adventurers of
the New World, one of the most dazzling was that of a rich empire far to
the south, a very El Dorado, where gold was as abundant as were the
common metals in the Old World, and where precious stones were to be
had, almost for the picking up. These rumours fired the hopes of three
men in the Spanish colony at Panama, namely, Francisco Pizarro and Diego
de Almagro, both soldiers of fortune, and Hernando de Luque, a Spanish
priest. As it was primarily from the efforts of these three that that
astonishing episode, the Spanish conquest of Peru, came to pass.
The character of that empire which the Spaniards discovered and
undertook to conquer may be briefly sketched.
According to the traditions of Peru, there had come to that country,
then lying in barbarism and darkness, two "Children of the Sun." These
had taught them wise customs and the arts of civilisation, and from them
had sprung by direct descent the Incas, who thus ruled over them by a
divine right. Besides the ruling Inca, whose person and decrees received
an honour that was almost worship, there were numerous nobles, also of
the royal blood, who formed a ruling caste. These were held in great
honour, and were evidently of a race superior to the common people, a
fact to which the very shape of their skulls testifies.
The government was developed to an extraordinary pitch of control over
even the private lives of the people. The whole land and produce of the
country were divided into three parts, one for the Sun, the supreme
national deity; one for the Inca, and the third for the people. This
last was divided among them according to their needs, especially
according to the size of their families, and the distribution of land
was made afresh each year. On this principle, no one could suffer from
poverty, and no one could rise by his efforts to a higher position than
that which birth and circumstances allotted to him. The government
prescribed to every man his local habitation, his sphere of action, nay,
the very nature and quality of that action. He ceased to be a free
agent; it might almost be said, that it relieved him of personal
responsibility. Even his marriage was determined for him; from time to
time all the men and women who had attained marriageable age were
summoned to the great squares of their respective towns, and the hands
of the couples joined by the presiding magistrate. The consent of
parents was required, and the preference of the parties was supposed to
be consulted, but owing to the barriers imposed by the prescribed age of
the parties, this must have been within rather narrow limits. A dwelling
was prepared for each couple at the charge of the district, and the
prescribed portion of land assigned for their maintenance.
The country as a whole was divided into four great provinces, each ruled
by a viceroy. Below him, there was a minute subdivision of supervision
and authority, down to the division into decades, by which every tenth
man was responsible for his nine countrymen.
The tribunals of justice were simple and swift in their procedure, and
all responsible to the Crown, to whom regular reports were forwarded,
and who was thus in a position to review and rectify any abuses in the
administration of the law.
The organisation of the country was altogether on a much higher level
than that encountered by the Spaniards in any other part of the American
continent. There was, for example, a complete census of the people
periodically taken. There was a system of posts, carried by runners,
more efficient and complete than any such system in Europe. There was,
lastly, a method of embodying in the empire any conquered country which
can only be compared to the Roman method. Local customs were interfered
with as little as possible, local gods were carried to Cuzco and
honoured in the pantheon there, and the chiefs of the country were also
brought to the capital, where they were honoured and by every possible
means attached to the new _régime_. The language of the capital was
diffused everywhere, and every inducement to learn it offered, so that
the difficulty presented by the variety of dialects was overcome. Thus
the Empire of the Incas achieved a solidarity very different from the
loose and often unwilling cohesion of the various parts of the Mexican
empire, which was ready to fall to pieces as soon as opportunity
offered. The Peruvian empire arose as one great fabric, composed of
numerous and even hostile tribes, yet, under the influence of a common
religion, common language, and common government, knit together as one
nation, animated by a spirit of love for its institutions and devoted
loyalty to its sovereign. They all learned thus to bow in unquestioning
obedience to the decrees of the divine Inca. For the government of the
Incas, while it was the mildest, was the most searching of despotisms.
_II.--First Steps Towards Conquest_
It was early in the sixteenth century that tidings of the golden empire
in the south reached the Spaniards, and more than one effort was made to
discover it. But these proved abortive, and it was not until after the
brilliant conquest of Mexico by Cortes that the enterprise destined for
success was set on foot. Then, in 1524, Francisco Pizarro, Almagro, and
Father Luque united their efforts to pursue the design of discovering
and conquering this rich realm of the south. The first expedition,
sailing under Pizarro in 1524, was unable to proceed more than a certain
distance owing to their inadequate numbers and scanty outfit, and
returned to Panama to seek reinforcements. Then, in 1526, the three
coadjutors signed a contract which has become famous. The two captains
solemnly engaged to devote themselves to the undertaking until it should
be accomplished, and to share equally with Father Luque all gains, both
of land and treasure, which should accrue from the expedition. This last
provision was in recognition of the fact that the priest had supplied by
far the greater part of the funds required, or apparently did so, for
from another document it appears that he was only the representative of
the Licentiate Gaspar de Espinosa, then at Panama, who really furnished
the money.
The next expedition met with great vicissitudes, and it was only the
invincible spirit of Pizarro which carried them as far as the Gulf of
Guayaquil and the rich city of Tumbez. Hence they returned once more to
Panama, carrying this time better tidings, and again seeking
reinforcements. But the governor of the colony gave them no
encouragement, and at last it was decided that Pizarro should go to
Spain and apply for help from the Crown. He did so, and in 1529 was
executed the memorable "Capitulation" which defined the powers and
privileges of Pizarro. It granted to Pizarro the right of discovery and
conquest in the province of Peru, (or New Castile as it was then
called,) the title of Governor, and a salary, with inferior honours for
his associates; all these to be enjoyed on the conquest of the country,
and the salaries to be derived from its revenues. Pizarro was to provide
for the good government and protection of the natives, and to carry with
him a specified number of ecclesiastics to care for their spiritual
welfare.
On Pizarro's return to America, he had to contend with the discontent of
Almagro at the unequal distribution of authority and honours, but after
he had been somewhat appeased by the efforts of Pizarro the third
expedition set sail in January, 1531. It comprised three ships, carrying
180 men and 27 horses--a slender enough force for the conquest of an
empire.
After various adventures, the Spaniards landed at Tumbez, and in May,
1532, set out from there to march along the coast. After founding a town
some thirty leagues south of Tumbez, which he named San Miguel, he
marched into the interior with the bold design of meeting the Inca
himself. He came at a moment when Peru was but just emerging from a
civil conflict, in which Atahuallpa had routed the rival and more
legitimate claimant to the throne of the Incas, Huascar. On his march,
Pizarro was met by an envoy from the Inca, inviting him to visit him in
his camp, with, as Pizarro guessed, no friendly intent. This coincided,
however, with the purpose of Pizarro, and he pressed forward. When his
soldiers showed signs of discouragement in face of the great dangers
before them, Pizarro addressed them thus:
"Let every one of you take heart and go forward like a good soldier,
nothing daunted by the smallness of your numbers. For in the greatest
extremity God ever fights for His own; and doubt not He will humble the
pride of the heathen, and bring him to the knowledge of the true faith,
the great end and object of the Conquest." The enthusiasm of the troops
was at once rekindled. "Lead on!" they shouted as he finished his
address. "Lead on wherever you think best! We will follow with goodwill;
and you shall see that we can do our duty in the cause of God and the
king!"
They had need of all their daring. For when they had penetrated to
Caxamalca they found the Inca encamped there at the head of a great host
of his subjects, and knew that if his uncertain friendliness towards
them should evaporate, they would be in a desperate case. Pizarro then
determined to follow the example of Cortes, and gain possession of the
sovereign's person. He achieved this by what can only be called an act
of treachery; he invited the Inca to visit his quarters, and then,
taking them unawares, killed a large number of his followers and took
him prisoner. The effect was precisely what Pizarro had hoped for. The
"Child of the Sun" once captured, the Indians, who had no law but his
command, no confidence but in his leadership, fled in all directions,
and the Spaniards remained masters of the situation.
They treated the Inca at first with respect, and while keeping him a
prisoner, allowed him a measure of freedom, and free intercourse with
his subjects. He soon saw a door of hope in the Spaniards' eagerness for
gold, and offered an enormous ransom. The offer was accepted, and
messengers were sent throughout the empire to collect it. At last it
reached an amount, in gold, of the value of nearly three and a half
million pounds sterling, besides a quantity of silver. But even this
ransom did not suffice to free the Inca. Owing partly to the malevolence
of an Indian interpreter, who bore the Inca ill-will, and partly to
rumours of a general rising of the natives instigated by the Inca, the
army began to demand his life as necessary to their safety. Pizarro
appeared to be opposed to this demand, but to yield to his soldiers, and
after a form of trial the Inca was executed. But Pizarro cannot be
acquitted of responsibility for a deed which formed the climax of one of
the darkest chapters in Spanish colonial history, and it is probable
that the design coincided only too well with his aims.
_III.--Triumph of Pisarro; his Assassination_
There was nothing now to hinder the victorious march of the Spaniards to
Cuzco, the Peruvian capital. They now numbered nearly five hundred,
having been reinforced by the arrival of Almagro from Panama.
In Cuzco they found great quantities of treasure, with the natural
result that the prices of ordinary commodities rose enormously as the
value of gold and silver declined, so that it was only those few who
returned with their present gains to their native country who could be
called wealthy.
All power was now in the hands of the Spaniards. Pizarro indeed placed
upon the throne of the Incas the legitimate heir, Manco, but it was only
in order that he might be the puppet of his own purposes. His next step
was to found a new capital, which should be near enough to the sea-coast
to meet the need of a commercial people. He determined upon the site of
Lima on the festival of Epiphany, 1535, and named it "Ciudad de los
Reyes," or City of the Kings, in honour of the day. But this name was
before long superseded by that of Lima, which arose from the corruption
of a Peruvian name.
Meanwhile Hernando Pizarro, the brother of Francisco, had sailed to
Spain to report their success. He returned with royal letters confirming
the previous grants to Francisco and his associates, and bestowing upon
Almagro a jurisdiction over a given tract of country, beginning from the
southern limit of Pizarro's government. This grant became a fruitful
source of dissension between Almagro and the Pizarros, each claiming as
within his jurisdiction the rich city of Cuzco, a question which the
uncertain knowledge of distances in the newly-explored country made it
difficult to decide.
But the Spaniards had now for a time other occupation than the pursuit
of their own quarrels. The Inca Manco, escaping from the captivity in
which he had lain for a time, put himself at the head of a host of
Indians, said to number two hundred thousand, and laid siege to Cuzco
early in February, 1536. The siege was memorable as calling out the most
heroic displays of Indian and European valour, and bringing the two
races into deadlier conflict with each other than had yet occurred in
the conquest of Peru. The Spaniards were hard pressed, for by means of
burning arrows the Indians set the city on fire, and only their
encampment in the midst of an open space enabled the Spaniards to endure
the conflagration around. They suffered severely, too, from famine. The
relief from Lima for which they looked did not come, as Pizarro was in
no position to send help, and from this they feared the worst as to the
fate of their companions. Only the firm resolution of the Pizarro,
brothers and the other leaders within the city kept the army from
attempting to force a way out, which would have meant the abandoning of
the city. At last they were rewarded by the sight of the great host
around them melting away. Seedtime had come, and the Inca knew it would
be fatal for his people to neglect their fields, and thus prepare
starvation for themselves in the following year. Thus, though bodies of
the enemy remained to watch the city, the siege was virtually raised,
and the most pressing danger past.
While these events were passing, Almagro was engaged upon a memorable
expedition to Chili. His troops suffered great privations, and hearing
no good tidings of the country further south, he was prevailed upon to
return to Cuzco. Here, claiming the governorship, he captured Hernando
and Gonzalo Pizarro, though refusing the counsel of his lieutenant that
they should be put to death. Then, proceeding to the coast, he met
Francisco Pizarro, and a treaty was concluded between them by which
Almagro, pending instructions from Spain, was to retain Cuzco, and
Hernando Pizarro was to be set free, on condition of sailing for Spain.
But Francisco broke the treaty as soon as made, and sent Hernando with
an army against Almagro, warning the latter that unless he gave up Cuzco
the responsibility of the consequences would be on his own head. The two
armies met at Las Salinas, and Almagro was defeated and imprisoned in
Cuzco. Before long Hernando brought him to trial and to death, thus ill
requiting Almagro's treatment of him personally. Hernando, on his return
to Spain, suffered twenty years' imprisonment for this deed, which
outraged both public sentiment and sense of justice.
Francisco Pizarro, though affecting to be shocked at the death of
Almagro, cannot be acquitted of all share in it. So, indeed, the
followers of Almagro thought, and they were goaded to still further
hatred of the Pizarros by the poverty and contempt in which they now
lived, as the survivors of a discredited party. The house of Almagro's
son in Lima formed a centre of disaffection, to whose menace Pizarro
showed remarkable blindness. He paid dearly for this excessive
confidence, for on Sunday, the 26th of June, 1541, he was attacked while
sitting in his own house among his friends, and killed.
_IV.--Later Fortunes of the Conquerors_
The death of Pizarro did not prove in any sense a guarantee of peace
among the Spaniards in Peru. At the time of his death, indeed, an envoy
from the Spanish court was on his way to Peru, who from his integrity
and wisdom might indeed have given rise to a hope that a happier day was
about to dawn. He was endowed with powers to assume the governorship in
the event of Pizarro's death, as well as instructions to bring about a
more peaceful settlement of affairs. He arrived to find himself indeed
the lawful governor, but had before him the task of enforcing his
authority. This brought him into collision with the son of Almagro, at
the head of a strong party of his father's followers. A bloody battle
took place on the plains of Chupas, in which Vaca de Castro was
victorious. Almagro was arrested at Cuzco and executed.
The history of the Spanish dominion now resolves itself into the history
of warring factions, the chief hero of which was Gonzalo Pizzaro, one of
the brothers of the great Pizarro. The Spaniards in Peru felt themselves
deeply injured by the publication of regulations from Spain, by which a
sudden check was put upon their spoliation and oppression of the
natives, which had reached an extreme pitch of cruelty and
destructiveness. They called upon Gonzalo to lead them in vindication of
what they regarded as their privileges by right of conquest and of their
service to the Spanish crown. His hands were strengthened by the rash
and high-handed behaviour of, Blasco Nuñez Vela, yet another official
sent out from Spain to deal with this turbulent province. Pizarro
himself was an able and daring leader, and, at least in his earlier
years, of a chivalrous spirit which made him beloved of his soldiers. He
had great personal courage, and, as says one who had often seen him,
"when mounted on his favourite charger, made no more account of a
squadron of Indians than of a swarm of flies." He was soon acclaimed as
governor by the Spaniards, and was actually supreme in Peru. But in the
following year, 1545, the Spanish government selected an envoy who was
to bring the now ascendant star of Pizarro to eclipse. This was an
ecclesiastic named Pedro de la Gasea, a man of great resolution,
penetration, and knowledge of affairs. After varying fortunes, in which
Pizarro for some time held his own, he was routed by the troops of
Gasea, largely through the defection of a number of his own soldiers,
who marched over to the enemy. Pizarro surrendered to an officer, and
was carried before Gasea. Addressing him with severity, Gasea abruptly
inquired, "Why had he thrown the country into such confusion; raising
the banner of revolt; usurping the government; and obstinately refusing
the offer of grace that had been repeatedly made to him?" Gonzalo
defended himself as having been elected by the people. "It was my
family," he said, "who conquered the country, and as their
representative here, I felt I had a right to the government." To this
Gasea replied, in a still severer tone, "Your brother did, indeed,
conquer the land; and for this the emperor was pleased to raise both him
and you from the dust. He lived and died a true and loyal subject; and
it only makes your ingratitude to your sovereign the more heinous." A
sentence of death followed, and thus passed the last of Pizarro's name
to rule in Peru.
Under the wise reforms instituted by Gasea, Peru was somewhat relieved
of the disastrous effects of the Spanish occupation, and under the mild
yet determined policy inaugurated by him, the ancient distractions of
the country were permanently healed. With peace, prosperity returned
within the borders of Peru, and this much-tried land settled down at
last to a considerable measure of tranquillity and content.
* * * * *
EDWARD HYDE
The History of the Rebellion
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, who was born February 18,
1608; at Dinton, Wilts, and who died at Rouen, 1674, was son
of a private gentleman and was educated at Oxford, afterwards
studying law under Chief Justice Nicholas Hyde, his uncle.
Early in his career he became distinguished in political life
in a stormy period, for, as a prominent member of the Long
Parliament, he espoused the popular cause. The outbreak of the
Civil War, however, threw his sympathies over to the other
side, and in 1642 King Charles knighted him and appointed him
Chancellor of the Exchequer. When Charles, Prince of Wales,
afterwards King Charles II., fled to Jersey after the great
defeat of his father at Naseby, he was accompanied by Hyde,
who, in the island, commenced his great work, "The History of
the Rebellion," and also issued a series of eloquently worded
papers which appeared in the king's name as replies to the
manifestoes of Parliament. After the Restoration he was
appointed High Chancellor of England and ennobled with the
title of Earl of Clarendon. But the ill success of the war
with Holland brought the earl into popular disfavour, and his
unpopularity was increased by the sale of Dunkirk to the
French. Court intrigues led to the loss of his offices and he
retreated to Calais. An apology which he sent to the Lords was
ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. For six years, till
his death in Rouen, he lived in exile, but he was honoured by
burial in Westminster Abbey. His private character in a
dissolute age was unimpeachable. Anne Hyde, daughter of the
earl, became Queen of England, as wife of James II., and was
mother of two queens, Anne and Mary. The "History of the
Rebellion" is a noble and monumental work, invaluable as
written by a contemporary.
King James, in the end of March, 1625, died, leaving his majesty that
now is, engaged in a war with Spain, but unprovided with money to manage
it, though it was undertaken by the consent and advice of Parliament;
the people being naturally enough inclined to the war (having surfeited
with the uninterrupted pleasures and plenty of 22 years of peace) and
sufficiently inflamed against the Spaniard, but quickly weary of the
charge of it. Therefore, after an unprosperous attempt by sea on Cadiz,
and a still more unsuccessful one on France, at the Isle of Rhé (for
some difference had also begotten a war with that country), a general
peace was shortly concluded with both kingdoms.
The exchequer was exhausted by the debts of King James and the war, so
that the known revenue was anticipated and the king was driven into
straits for his own support. Many ways were resorted to for supply, such
as selling the crown lands, creating peers for money, and other
particulars which no access of power or plenty could since repair.
Parliaments were summoned, and again dissolved: and that in the fourth
year after the dissolution of the two former was determined with a
declaration that no more assemblies of that nature should be expected,
and all men should be inhibited on the penalty of censure so much as to
speak of a parliament. And here I cannot but let myself loose to say,
that no man can show me a source from whence these waters of bitterness
we now taste have probably flowed, than from these unseasonable,
unskilful, and precipitate dissolutions of parliaments. And whoever
considers the acts of power and injustice in the intervals between
parliaments will not be much scandalised at the warmth and vivacity
displayed in their meetings.
In the second parliament it was proposed to grant five subsidies, a
proportion (how contemptible soever in respect of the pressures now
every day imposed) never before heard of in Parliament. And that meeting
being, upon very unpopular and implausible reasons immediately
dissolved, those five subsidies were exacted throughout the whole
kingdom with the same rigour as if in truth an act had passed to that
purpose. And very many gentlemen of prime quality, in all the counties,
were for refusing to pay the same committed to prison.
The abrupt and ungracious breaking of the first two parliaments was
wholly imputed to the Duke of Buckingham; and of the third, principally
to the Lord Weston, then high treasurer of England. And therefore the
envy and hatred that attended them thereupon was insupportable, and was
visibly the cause of the murder of the first (stabbed to the heart by
the hand of an obscure villain).
The duke was a very extraordinary person. Never any man in any age, nor,
I believe, in any nation, rose in so short a time to such greatness of
honour, fame, and fortune, upon no other advantage or recommendation,
than that of the beauty and gracefulness of his person. He was the
younger son of George Villiers, of Brookesby, Leicestershire. After the
death of his father he was sent by his mother to France, where he spent
three years in attaining the language and in learning the exercises of
riding and dancing; in the last of which he excelled most men, and
returned to England at the age of twenty-one.
King James reigned at that time. He began to be weary of his favourite,
the Earl of Somerset, who, by the instigation and wickedness of his
wife, became at least privy to the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury. For
this crime both he and his wife, after trial by their peers, were
condemned to die, and many persons of quality were executed for the
same.
While this was in agitation, Mr. Villiers appeared in court and drew the
king's eyes upon him. In a few days he was made cupbearer to the king
and so pleased him by his conversation that he mounted higher and was
successively and speedily knighted, made a baron, a viscount, an earl, a
marquis, lord high admiral, lord warden of the cinque ports, master of
the horse, and entirely disposed of all the graces of the king, in
conferring all the honours and all the offices of the kingdom, without a
rival. He was created Duke of Buckingham during his absence in Spain as
extraordinary ambassador.
On the death of King James, Charles, Prince of Wales, succeeded to the
crown, with the universal joy of the people. The duke continued in the
same degree of favour with the son which he had enjoyed with the father.
But a parliament was necessary to be called, as at the entrance of all
kings to the crown, for the continuance of supplies, and when it met
votes and remonstrances passed against the duke as an enemy to the
public, greatly to his indignation.
New projects were every day set on foot for money, which served only to
offend and incense the people, and brought little supply to the king's
occasions. Many persons of the best quality were committed to prison for
refusing to pay. In this fatal conjuncture the duke went on an embassy
to France and brought triumphantly home with him the queen, to the joy
of the nation, but his course was soon finished by the wicked means
mentioned before. In the fourth year of the king, and the thirty-sixth
of his own age, he was assassinated at Portsmouth by Felton, who had
been a lieutenant in the army, to whom he had refused promotion.
Shortly after Buckingham's death the king promoted Dr. Laud, Bishop of
Bath and Wells, to the archibishopric of Canterbury. Unjust modes of
raising money were instituted, which caused increasing discontent,
especially the tax denominated ship-money. A writ was directed to the
sheriff of every county to provide a ship for the king's service, but
with the writ were sent instructions that, instead of a ship, he should
levy upon his county a sum of money and send it to the treasurer of the
navy for his majesty's use.
After the continued receipt of the ship-money for four years, upon the
refusal of Mr. Hampden, a private gentleman, to pay thirty shillings as
his share, the case was solemnly argued before all the judges of England
in the exchequer-chamber and the tax was adjudged lawful; which judgment
proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned than to
the king's service.
For the better support of these extraordinary ways the council-table and
star-chamber enlarged their jurisdictions to a vast extent, inflicting
fines and imprisonment, whereby the crown and state sustained deserved
reproach and infamy, and suffered damage and mischief that cannot be
expressed.
The king now resolved to make a progress into the north, and to be
solemnly crowned in his kingdom of Scotland, which he had never seen
from the time he first left it at the age of two years. The journey was
a progress of great splendour, with an excess of feasting never known
before. But the king had deeply imbibed his father's notions that an
Episcopal church was the most consistent with royal authority, and he
committed to a select number of the bishops in Scotland the framing of a
suitable liturgy for use there. But these prelates had little influence
with the people, and had not even power to reform their own cathedrals.
In 1638 Scotland assumed an attitude of determined resistance to the
imposition of the liturgy and of Episcopal church government. All the
kingdom flocked to Edinburgh, as in a general cause that concerned their
salvation. A general assembly was called and a National Covenant was
subscribed. Men were listed towards the raising of an army, Colonel
Leslie being chosen general. The king thought it time to chastise the
seditious by force, and in the end of the year 1638 declared his
resolution to raise an army to suppress their rebellion.
This was the first alarm England received towards any trouble, after it
had enjoyed for so many years the most uninterrupted prosperity, in a
full and plentiful peace, that any nation could be blessed with. The
army was soon mustered and the king went to the borders. But
negotiations for peace took place, and civil war was averted by
concessions on the part of the king, so that a treaty of pacification
was entered upon. This event happened in the year 1639.
After for eleven years governing without a parliament, with Archbishop
Laud and the Earl of Strafford as his advisers, King Charles was
constrained, in 1640, to summon an English parliament, which, however,
instead of at once complying with his demands, commenced by drawing up a
list of grievances. Mr. Pym, a man of good reputation, but better known
afterwards, led the remonstrances, observing that by the long
intermission of parliaments many unwarrantable things had been
practiced, notwithstanding the great virtue of his majesty. Disputes
took place between the Lords and Commons, the latter claiming that the
right of supply belonged solely to them.
The king speedily dissolved Parliament, and, the Scots having again
invaded England, proceeded to raise an army to resist them. The Scots
entered Newcastle, and the Earl of Strafford, weak after a sickness, was
defeated and retreated to Durham. The king, with his army weakened and
the treasury depleted, was in great straits. He was again constrained to
call a parliament, which met on November 3, 1640. It had a sad and
melancholic aspect. The king himself did not ride with his accustomed
equipage to Westminster, but went privately in his barge to the
parliament stairs. The king being informed that Sir Thomas Gardiner, not
having been returned a member, could not be chosen to be Speaker, his
majesty appointed Mr. Lenthall, a bencher of Lincoln's Inn. In this
parliament also Mr. Pym began the recital of grievances, and other
members followed with invectives against the Earl of Strafford, accusing
him of high and imperious and tyrannical actions, and of abusing his
power and credit with the king.
After many hours of bitter inveighing it was moved that the earl might
be forthwith impeached of high treason; which was no sooner mentioned
than it found a universal approbation and consent from the whole House.
With very little debate the peers in their turn, when the impeachment
was sent up to them, resolved that he should be committed to the custody
of the gentleman usher of the black-rod, and next by an accusation of
high treason against him also the Archbishop of Canterbury was removed
from the king's council.
The trial of the earl in Westminster Hall began on March 22, 1641, and
lasted eighteen days. Both Houses passed a bill of attainder. The king
resolved never to give his consent to this measure, but a rabble of many
thousands of people besieged Whitehall, crying out, "Justice, justice;
we will have justice!" The privy council being called together pressed
the king to pass the bill of attainder, saying there was no other way to
preserve himself and his posterity than by so doing; and therefore he
ought to be more tender of the safety of the kingdom than of any one
person how innocent soever. No one counsellor interposed his opinion, to
support his master's magnanimity and innocence.
The Archbishop of York, acting his part with prodigious boldness and
impiety, told the king that there was a private and a public conscience;
that his public conscience as a king might not only dispense with, but
oblige him to do that which was against his private conscience as a man;
and that the question was not whether he should save the earl, but
whether he should perish with him. Thus in the end was extorted from the
king a commission from some lords to sign the bill. This was as valid as
if he had signed it himself, though they comforted him even with that
circumstance, "that his own hand was not in it."
The earl was beheaded on May 12, on Tower Hill. Together with that of
the attainder of this nobleman, another bill was passed by the king, of
almost as fatal consequences to him and the kingdom as that was to the
earl, "the act for perpetual parliament," as it is since called. Thus
Parliament could not be adjourned, prorogued, or dissolved, without its
consent.
Great offence was given to the Commons by the action of the king in
appointing new bishops to certain vacant sees at the very time when they
were debating an act for taking away bishops' votes. And here I cannot
but with grief and wonder remember the virulence and animosity expressed
on all occasions from many of good knowledge in the excellent and wise
profession of the common law, towards the church and churchmen. All
opportunities were taken uncharitably to improve mistakes into crimes.
Unfortunately the king sent to the House of Lords a remonstrance from
the bishops against their constrained absence from the legislature. This
led to violent scenes in the House of Commons, which might have been
beneficial to him, had he not been misadvised by Lord Digby. At this
time many of his own Council were adverse to him. Injudiciously, the
king caused Lord Kimbolton and five members of the Commons to be accused
of high treason, advised thereto by Lord Digby. The king's attorney,
Herbert, delivered to Parliament a paper, whereby, besides Lord
Kimbolton, Denzil Hollis, Sir Arthur Haslerig, Mr. Pym, Mr. Hampden, and
Mr. Strode, stood accused of conspiring against the king and Parliament.
The sergeant at arms demanded the persons of the accused members to be
delivered to him in his majesty's name, but the Commons refused to
comply, sending a message to the king that the members should be
forthcoming as soon as a legal charge should be preferred against them.
The next day the king, attended by his own guard and a few gentlemen,
went into the House to the great amazement of all; and the Speaker
leaving the chair, the king went into it. Asking the Speaker whether the
accused members were in the House, and he making no answer, the king
said he perceived that the birds had flown, but expected that they
should be sent to him as soon as they returned; and assured them in the
word of a king that no force was intended, but that he would proceed
against them in a fair and legal way; and so he returned to Whitehall.
The next day the king went to the City, where the accused had taken
refuge. He dined with the sheriffs, but many of the rude people during
his passage through the City flocked together, pressed very near his
coach, and cried out, "Privilege of Parliament; privilege of Parliament;
to your tents, O Israel!" The king returned to Whitehall and next day
published a proclamation for the apprehension of the members, forbidding
any person to harbour them.
Both Houses of Parliament speedily manifested sympathy with the accused
persons, and a committee of citizens was formed in the City for their
defence. The proceedings of the king and his advisers were declared to
be a high breach of the privileges of Parliament. Such was the temper of
the populace that the king thought it convenient to remove from London
and went with the queen and royal children to Hampton Court. The next
day the members were brought in triumph to Parliament by the trained
bands of London. The sheriffs were called into the House of Commons and
thanked for their extraordinary care and love shown to the Parliament.
Though the king had removed himself out of the noise of Westminster, yet
the effects of it followed him very close, for printed petitions were
pressed on him every day. In a few days he removed from Hampton Court to
Windsor, where he could be more secure from any sudden popular attempt,
of which he had reason to be very apprehensive.
After many disagreements with Parliament the king in 1642 published a
declaration, that had been long ready, in which he recapitulated all the
insolent and rebellious actions which Parliament had committed against
him: and declared them "to be guilty; and forbade all his subjects to
yield any obedience to them": and at the same time published his
proclamation; by which he "required all men who could bear arms to
repair to him at Nottingham by August 25, on which day he would set up
his royal standard there, which all good subjects were obliged to
attend."
According to the proclamation, on August 25 the standard was erected,
about six in the evening of a very stormy day. But there was not yet a
single regiment levied and brought there, so that the trained bands
drawn thither by the sheriff was all the strength the king had for his
person, and the guard of the standard. There appeared no conflux of men
in obedience to the proclamation. The arms and ammunition had not yet
come from York, and a general sadness covered the whole town, and the
king himself appeared more melancholy than he used to be. The standard
was blown down the same night it had been set up.
Intelligence was received the next day that the rebel army, for such the
king had declared it, was horse, foot, and cannon at Northampton,
whereas his few cannon and ammunition were still at York. It was evident
that all the strength he had to depend upon was his horse, which were
under the command of Prince Rupert at Leicester, not more than 800 in
number, whilst the enemy had, within less than twenty miles of that
place, double the number of horse excellently well armed and appointed,
and a body of 5,000 foot well trained and disciplined.
Very speedily intelligence came that Portsmouth was besieged by land and
sea by the Parliamentary forces, and soon came word that it was lost to
the king through the neglect of Colonel Goring. The king removed to
Derby and then to Shrewsbury. Prince Rupert was successful in a skirmish
at Worcester. The two universities presented their money and plate to
King Charles, but one cause of his misfortunes was the backwardness of
some of his friends in lending him money.
Banbury Castle surrendered to Charles, and, marching to Oxford, he there
experienced a favourable reception and recruited his army. At the battle
of Edghill neither side gained the advantage, though altogether about
_5,000_ men fell on the field. Negotiations were entered into between
the king and the Parliament, and these were renewed again and again, but
never with felicitous issues.
On June 13, 1645, the king heard that General Fairfax was advanced to
Northampton with a strong army, much superior to the numbers he had
formerly been advised of. The battle began at ten the next morning on a
high ground about Naseby. The first charge was given by Prince Rupert,
with his usual vigour, so that he bore down all before him, and was soon
master of six pieces of cannon. But though the king's troops prevailed
in the charge they never rallied again in order, nor could they be
brought to make a second charge. But the enemy, disciplined under such
generals as Fairfax and Cromwell, though routed at first, always formed
again. This was why the king's forces failed to win a decisive victory
at Edghill, and now at Naseby, after Prince Rupert's charge, Cromwell
brought up his troops with such effect that in the end the king was
compelled to quit the field, leaving Fairfax, who was commander-in-chief
of the Parliamentary army, master of his foot, cannon, and baggage.
It will not be seasonable in this place to mention the names of those
noble persons who were lost in this battle, when the king and the
kingdom were lost in it; though there were above one hundred and fifty
officers, and gentlemen of prime quality, whose memories ought to be
preserved, who were dead on the spot. The enemy left no manner of
barbarous cruelty unexercised that day; and in the pursuit thereof
killed above one hundred women, whereof some were officers' wives of
quality. The king and Prince Rupert with the broken troops marched by
stages to Hereford, where Prince Rupert left the king to hasten to
Bristol, that he might put that place in a state of defence.
Nothing can here be more wondered at than that the king should amuse
himself about forming a new army in counties that had been vexed and
worn out with the oppressions of his own troops, and not have
immediately repaired into the west, where he had an army already formed.
Cromwell having taken Winchester and Basing, the king sent some messages
to Parliament for peace, which were not regarded. A treaty between the
king and the Scots was set on foot by the interposition of the French,
but the parties disagreed about church government. To his son Charles,
Prince of Wales, who had retired to Scilly, the king wrote enjoining him
never to surrender on dishonourable terms.
Having now no other resource, the king placed himself under the
protection of the Scots army at Newark. But at the desire of the Scots
he ordered the surrender of Oxford and all his other garrisons. Also the
Parliament, at the Scots' request, sent propositions of peace to him,
and these proposals were promptly enforced by the Scots. The Chancellor
of Scotland told him that the Parliament, after the battles that had
been fought, had got the strongholds and forts of the kingdom into their
hands, that they had gained a victory over all, and had a strong army to
maintain it, so that they might do what they would with church and
state, that they desired neither him nor any of his race to reign any
longer over them, and that if he declined to yield to the propositions
made to him, all England would join against him to depose him.
With great magnanimity and resolution the king replied that they must
proceed their own way; and that though they had all forsaken him, God
had not. The Scots began to talk sturdily in answer to a demand that
they should deliver up the king's person to Parliament. They denied that
the Parliament had power absolutely to dispose of the king's person
without their approbation; and the Parliament as loudly replied that
they had nothing to do in England but to observe orders. But these
discourses were only kept up till they could adjust accounts between
them, and agree what price should be paid for the delivery of his
person, whom one side was resolved to have, and the other as resolved
not to keep. So they quickly agreed that, upon payment of £200,000 in
hand, and security for as much more upon days agreed upon, they would
deliver up the king into such hands as Parliament should appoint to
receive him.
And upon this infamous contract that excellent prince was in the end of
January, 1647, wickedly given up by his Scottish subjects to those of
the English who were trusted by the Parliament to receive him. He was
brought to his own house at Holmby, in Northants, a place he had taken
much delight in. Removed before long to Hampton Court, he escaped to the
Isle of Wight, where he confided himself to Colonel Hammond and was
lodged in Carisbrooke Castle. To prevent his further escape his old
servants were removed from him.
In a speech in Parliament Cromwell declared that the king was a man of
great parts and a great understanding (faculties they had hitherto
endeavoured to have thought him to be without), but that he was so great
a dissembler and so false a man, that he was not to be trusted. He
concluded therefore that no more messages should be sent to the king,
but that they might enter on those counsels which were necessary without
having further recourse to him, especially as at that very moment he was
secretly treating with the Scottish commissioners, how he might embroil
the nation in a new war, and destroy the Parliament. The king was
removed to Hurst Castle after a vain attempt by Captain Burley to rescue
him.
A committee being appointed to prepare a charge of high treason against
the king, of which Bradshaw was made President, his majesty was brought
from Hurst Castle to St. James's, and it was concluded to have him
publicly tried. From the time of the king's arrival at St. James's, when
he was delivered into the custody of Colonel Tomlinson, he was treated
with much more rudeness and barbarity than ever before. No man was
suffered to see or speak to him but the soldiers who were his guard.
When he was first brought to Westminster Hall, on January 20, 1649,
before their high court of justice, he looked upon them and sat down
without any manifestation of trouble, never stirring his hat; all the
impudent judges sitting covered and fixing their eyes on him, without
the least show of respect. To the charges read out against him the king
replied that for his actions he was accountable to none but God, though
they had always been such as he need not be ashamed of before all the
world.
Several unheard-of insolences which this excellent prince was forced to
submit to before that odious judicatory, his majestic behaviour, the
pronouncing that horrible sentence upon the most innocent person in the
world, the execution of that sentence by the most execrable murder ever
committed since that of our blessed Saviour, and the circumstances
thereof, are all so well-known that the farther mentioning it would but
afflict and grieve the reader, and make the relation itself odious; and
therefore no more shall be said here of that lamentable tragedy, so much
to the dishonour of the nation and the religion professed by it.
* * * * *
LORD MACAULAY
History of England
Thomas Babington Macaulay was born October 25, 1800, and died
December 28, 1859. He was the son of Zachary Macaulay, a West
Indian merchant and noted philanthropist. He brilliantly
distinguished himself as a prizeman at Cambridge, and on
leaving the University devoted himself enthusiastically to
literary pursuits. Fame was speedily won by his contributions
to the "Edinburgh Review," especially by his article on
Milton. Though called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, in 1826,
Macaulay never practised, but through his strong Whig
sympathies he was drawn into politics, and in 1830 entered
Parliament for the pocket-borough of Calne. He afterwards was
elected M.P. for Edinburgh. Appointed Secretary of the Board
of Control for India, he resided for six years in that
country, returning home in 1838. In 1840 he was made War
Secretary. It was during his official career that he wrote his
magnificent "Lays of Ancient Rome." An immense sensation was
produced by his remarkable "Essays," issued in three volumes;
but even greater was the popularity achieved by his "History
of England." Macaulay was one of the most versatile men of his
time. His easy and graceful style was the vehicle of
extraordinary acquisitions, his learning being prodigious and
his memory phenomenal.
_England in Earlier Times_
I purpose to write the History of England from the accession of King
James II. down to a time within the memory of men still living. I shall
recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal gentry and
priesthood from the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that
revolution which terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and
their parliaments, and bound up together the rights of the people and
the title of the reigning dynasty.
Unless I greatly deceive myself, the general effect of this chequered
narrative, faithfully recording disasters mingled with triumphs, will be
to excite thankfulness in all religious minds, and hope in the breasts
of all patriots. For the history of our country during the period
concerned is eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of
intellectual improvement.
Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness she
was destined to attain. Of the western provinces which obeyed the
Caesars, she was the last conquered, and the first flung away. Though
she had been subjugated by the Roman arms, she received only a faint
tincture of Roman arts and letters. No magnificent remains of Roman
porches and aqueducts are to be found in Britain, and the scanty and
superficial civilisation which the islanders acquired from their
southern masters was effaced by the calamities of the 5th century.
From the darkness that followed the ruin of the Western Empire Britain
emerges as England. The conversion of the Saxon colonists to
Christianity was the first of a long series of salutary revolutions. The
Church has many times been compared to the ark of which we read in the
Book of Genesis; but never was the resemblance more perfect than during
that evil time when she rode alone, amidst darkness and tempest, on the
deluge beneath which all the great works of ancient power and wisdom lay
entombed, bearing within her that feeble germ from which a second and
more glorious civilisation was to spring.
Even the spiritual supremacy of the Pope was, in the dark ages,
productive of far more good than evil. Its effect was to unite the
nations of Western Europe in one great commonwealth. Into this
federation our Saxon ancestors were now admitted. Learning followed in
the train of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age
was assiduously studied in the Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries. The
names of Bede and Alcuin were justly celebrated throughout Europe. Such
was the state of our country when, in the 9th century, began the last
great migration of the northern barbarians.
Large colonies of Danish adventurers established themselves in our
island, and for many years the struggle continued between the two fierce
Teutonic breeds, each being alternately paramount. At length the North
ceased to send forth fresh streams of piratical emigrants, and from that
time the mutual aversion of Danes and Saxons began to subside.
Intermarriage became frequent. The Danes learned the religion of the
Saxons, and the two dialects of one widespread language were blended.
But the distinction between the two nations was by no means effaced,
when an event took place which prostrated both at the feet of a third
people.
The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Originally
rovers from Scandinavia, conspicuous for their valour and ferocity, they
had, after long being the terror of the Channel, founded a mighty state
which gradually extended its influence from its own Norman territory
over the neighbouring districts of Brittany and Maine. They embraced
Christianity and adopted the French tongue. They renounced the brutal
intemperance of northern races and became refined, polite and
chivalrous, their nobles being distinguished by their graceful bearing
and insinuating address.
The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it, not only
placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne, but gave up the whole
population of England to the tyranny of the Norman race. The subjugation
of a nation has seldom, even in Asia, been more complete. During the
century and a half which followed the Conquest, there is, to speak
strictly, no English history. Had the Plantagenets, as at one time
seemed likely, succeeded in uniting all France under their government,
it is probable that England would never have had an independent
existence. England owes her escape from dependence on French thought and
customs to separation from Normandy, an event which her historians have
generally represented as disastrous. The talents and even the virtues of
her first six French kings were a curse to her. The follies and vices of
the seventh, King John, were her salvation. He was driven from Normandy,
and in England the two races were drawn together, both being alike
aggrieved by the tyranny of a bad king. From that moment the prospects
brightened, and here commences the history of the English nation.
In no country has the enmity of race been carried further than in
England. In no country has that enmity been more completely effaced.
Early in the fourteenth century the amalgamation of the races was all
but complete: and it was soon made manifest that a people inferior to
none existing in the world has been formed by the mixture of three
branches of the great Teutonic family with each other, and with the
aboriginal Britons. A period of more than a hundred years followed,
during which the chief object of the English was, by force of arms, to
establish a great empire on the Continent. The effect of the successes
of Edward III. and Henry V. was to make France for a time a province of
England. A French king was brought prisoner to London; an English king
was crowned at Paris.
The arts of peace were not neglected by our fathers during that period.
English thinkers aspired to know, or dared to doubt, where bigots had
been content to wonder and to believe. The same age which produced the
Black Prince and Derby, Chandos and Hawkwood, produced also Geoffrey
Chaucer and John Wycliffe. In so splendid and imperial a manner did the
English people, properly so called, first take place among the nations
of the world. But the spirit of the French people was at last aroused,
and after many desperate struggles and with many bitter regrets, our
ancestors gave up the contest.
_The First Civil War_
Cooped up once more within the limits of the island, the warlike people
employed in civil strife those arms which had been the terror of Europe.
Two aristocratic factions, headed by two branches of the royal family,
engaged in the long and fierce struggle known as the Wars of the White
and Red Roses. It was at length universally acknowledged that the claims
of all the contending Plantagenets were united in the House of Tudor.
It is now very long since the English people have by force subverted a
government. During the 160 years which preceded the union of the Roses,
nine kings reigned in England. Six of those kings were deposed. Five
lost their lives as well as their crowns. Yet it is certain that all
through that period the English people were far better governed than
were the Belgians under Philip the Good, or the French under that Louis
who was styled the Father of his people. The people, skilled in the use
of arms, had in reserve that check of physical force which brought the
proudest king to reason.
One wise policy was during the Middle Ages pursued by England alone.
Though to the monarch belonged the power of the sword, the nation
retained the power of the purse. The Continental nations ought to have
acted likewise; as they failed to conserve this safeguard of
representation with taxation, the consequence was that everywhere
excepting in England parliamentary institutions ceased to exist. England
owed this singular felicity to her insular situation.
The great events of the reigns of the Tudors and the Stuarts were
followed by a crisis when the crown passed from Charles II. to his
brother, James II. The new king commenced his administration with a
large measure of public good will. He was a prince who had been driven
into exile by a faction which had tried to rob him of his birthright, on
the ground that he was a deadly enemy to the religion and laws of
England. He had triumphed, he was on the throne, and his first act was
to declare that he would defend the Church and respect the rights of the
people.
But James had not been many hours king when violent disputes arose. The
first was between the two heads of the law, concerning customs and the
levying of taxes. Moreover, the time drew near for summoning Parliament,
and the king's mind was haunted by an apprehension, not to be mentioned,
even at this distance of time, without shame and indignation. He was
afraid that by summoning his Parliament he might incur the displeasure
of the King of France. Rochester, Godolphin, and Sunderland, who formed
the interior Cabinet, were perfectly aware that their late master,
Charles II., had been in the habit of receiving money from the court of
Versailles. They understood the expediency of keeping Louis in good
humour, but knew that the summoning of the legislature was not a matter
of choice.
As soon as the French king heard of the death of Charles and of the
accession of James, he hastened to send to the latter a munificent
donation of £35,000. James was not ashamed to shed tears of delight and
gratitude. Young Lord Churchill was sent as extraordinary ambassador to
Versailles to assure Louis of the gratitude and affection of the King of
England. This brilliant young soldier had in his 23rd year distinguished
himself amongst thousands of brave men by his serene intrepidity when
engaged with his regiment in operations, together with French forces
against Holland. Unhappily, the splendid qualities of John Churchill
were mingled with alloy of the most sordid kind.
_Subservience to France_
The accession of James in 1685 had excited hopes and fears in every
Continental court. One government alone, that of Spain, wished that the
trouble that had distracted England for three generations, might be
eternal. All other governments, whether republican or monarchical,
Protestant or Romanist, wished to see those troubles happily terminated.
Under the kings of the House of Stuart, she had been a blank in the map
of Europe. That species of force which, in the 14th century, had enabled
her to humble France and Spain, had ceased to exist. The Government was
no longer a limited monarchy after the fashion of the Middle Ages; it
had not yet become one after the modern fashion. The chief business of
the sovereign was to infringe the privileges of the legislature; that of
the legislature was to encroach on the prerogatives of the sovereign.
The king readily received foreign aid, which relieved him from the
misery of being dependent on a mutinous Parliament. The Parliament
refused to the king the means of supporting the national honour abroad,
from an apprehension, too well founded, that those means might be
employed in order to establish despotism at home. The effect of these
jealousies was that our country, with all her vast resources, was of as
little weight in Christendom as the duchy of Savoy or the duchy of
Lorraine, and certainly of far less weight than the small province of
Holland. France was deeply interested in prolonging this state of
things. All other powers were deeply interested in bringing it to a
close. The general wish of Europe was that James should govern in
conformity with law and with public opinion. From the Escurial itself
came letters expressing an earnest hope that the new King of England
would be on good terms with his Parliament and his people. From the
Vatican itself came cautions against immoderate zeal for the Catholic
faith.
The king early put the loyalty of his Protestant friends to the proof.
While he was a subject he had been in the habit of hearing mass with
closed doors in a small oratory which had been fitted up for his wife.
He now ordered the doors to be thrown open, in order that all who came
to pay him their duty might see the ceremony. Soon a new pulpit was
erected in the palace, and during Lent sermons were preached there by
Popish divines, to the great displeasure of zealous churchmen.
A more serious innovation followed. Passion week came, and the king
determined to hear mass with the same pomp with which his predecessors
had been surrounded. The rites of the Church of Rome were once more,
after an interval of 127 years, performed at Westminster on Easter
Sunday with regal splendour.
_Monmouth and his Fate_
The English exiles in Holland induced the Duke of Monmouth, a natural
son of Charles II., to attempt an invasion of England, and on June 11,
1685, he landed with about 80 men at Lyme, where he knelt on the shore,
thanked God for having preserved the friends of liberty and pure
religion from the perils of the sea, and implored the divine blessing on
what was yet to be done by land. The little town was soon in an uproar
with men running to and fro, and shouting "A Monmouth! a Monmouth! the
Protestant religion!" An insurrection was inaugurated and recruits came
in rapidly. But Parliament was loyal, and the Commons ordered a bill of
attainder against Monmouth for high treason. The rebel army was defeated
in a fight at Sedgmore, and Monmouth in his misery complained bitterly
of the evil counsellors who had induced him to quit his happy retreat in
Brabant. Fleeing from the field of battle the unfortunate duke was found
hidden in a ditch, was taken to London, lodged in the Tower, and
beheaded, with the declaration on his lips, "I die a Protestant of the
Church of England."
After the execution of Monmouth the counties that had risen against the
Government endured all the cruelties that a ferocious soldiery let loose
on them could inflict. The number of victims butchered cannot now be
ascertained, the vengeance being left to the dissolute Colonel Percy
Kirke. But, a still more cruel massacre was schemed. Early in September
Judge Jeffreys set out on that circuit of which the memory will last as
long as our race or language. Opening his commission at Winchester, he
ordered Alice Lisle to be burnt alive simply because she had given a
meal and a hiding place to wretched fugitives entreating her protection.
The clergy of Winchester remonstrated with the brutal judge, but the
utmost that could be obtained was that the sentence should be commuted
from burning to beheading.
_The Brutal Judge_
Then began the judicial massacre known as the Bloody Assizes. Within a
few weeks Jeffreys boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his
predecessors together since the Conquest. Nearly a thousand prisoners
were also transported into slavery in the West Indian islands. No
English sovereign has ever given stronger proofs of a cruel nature than
James II. At his court Jeffreys, when he had done his work, leaving
carnage, mourning, and terror behind him, was cordially welcomed, for he
was a judge after his master's own heart. James had watched the circuit
with interest and delight. At a later period, when all men of all
parties spoke with horror of the Bloody Assizes, the wicked judge and
the wicked king attempted to vindicate themselves by throwing the blame
on each other.
The king soon went further. He made no secret of his intention to exert
vigorously and systematically for the destruction of the Established
Church all the powers he possessed as her head. He plainly declared that
by a wise dispensation of Providence, the Act of Supremacy would be the
means of healing the fatal breach which it had caused. Henry and
Elizabeth had usurped a dominion which rightfully belonged to the Holy
See. That dominion had, in the course of succession, descended to an
orthodox prince, and would by him be held in trust for the Holy See. He
was authorised by law to suppress spiritual abuses; and the first
spiritual abuse which he would suppress would be the liberty which the
Anglican clergy assumed of defending their own religion, and of
attacking the doctrines of Rome.
No course was too bold for James. To confer a high office in the
Established Church on an avowed enemy of that Church was indeed a bold
violation of the laws and of the royal word. The Deanery of Christchurch
became vacant. It was the head of a Cathedral. John Massey, notoriously
a member of the Church of Rome, and destitute of any other
recommendation, was appointed. Soon an altar was decked at which mass
was daily celebrated. To the Pope's Nuncio the king said that what had
thus been done at Oxford should very soon be done at Cambridge.
The temper of the nation was such as might well make James hesitate.
During some months discontent steadily and rapidly rose. The celebration
of Roman Catholic worship had long been prohibited by Act of Parliament.
During several generations no Roman Catholic clergyman had dared to
exhibit himself in any public place with the badges of his office. Every
Jesuit who set foot in this country was liable to be hanged, drawn, and
quartered.
But all disguise was now thrown off. Roman Catholic chapels arose all
over the land. A society of Benedictine monks was lodged in St. James's
Palace. Quarrels broke out between Protestant and Romanist soldiers.
Samuel Johnson, a clergyman of the Church of England, who had issued a
tract entitled "A humble and hearty Appeal to all English Protestants in
the Army," was flung into gaol. He was then flogged and degraded from
the priesthood. But the zeal of the Anglican clergy displayed. They were
Jed by a united Phalanx, in the van of which appeared a rank of steady
and skillful veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Prideaux, Patrick,
Tenison, Wake. Great numbers of controversial tracts against Popery were
issued by these divines.
Scotland also rose in anger against the designs of the king, and if he
had not been proof against all warning the excitement in that country
would have sufficed to admonish him. On March 18, 1687, he took a
momentous step. He informed the Privy Council that he had determined to
prorogue Parliament till the end of November, and to grant, by his own
authority, entire liberty of conscience to all his subjects. On April
4th appeared the memorable Declaration of Indulgence. In this document
the king avowed that it was his earnest wish to see his people members
of that Church to which he himself belonged. But since that could not
be, he announced his intention to protect them in the free exercise of
their religion. He authorised both Roman Catholics and Protestant
Dissenters to perform their worship publicly.
That the Declaration was unconstitutional is universally agreed, for a
monarch competent to issue such a document is nothing less than an
absolute ruler. This was, in point of fact, the most audacious of all
attacks of the Stuarts on public freedom. The Anglican party was in
amazement and terror, for it would now be exposed to the free attacks of
its enemies on every side. And though Dissenters appeared to be allowed
relief, what guarantee was there for the sincerity of the Court? It was
notorious that James had been completely subjugated by the Jesuits, for
only a few days before the publication of the Indulgence, that Order had
been honoured with a new mark of his confidence, by appointing as his
confessor an Englishman named Warner, a Jesuit renegade from the
Anglican Church.
_Petition of the Seven Bishops and their Trial_
A meeting of bishops and other eminent divines was held at Lambeth
Palace. The general feeling was that the king's Declaration ought not to
be read in the churches. After long deliberation, preceded by solemn
prayer, a petition embodying the general sense, was written by the
Archbishop with his own hand. The king was assured that the Church still
was, as she had ever been, faithful to the throne. But the Declaration
was illegal, for Parliament had pronounced that the sovereign was not
constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes in matters
ecclesiastical. The Archbishop and six of his suffragans signed the
petition. The six bishops crossed the river to Whitehall, but the
Archbishop, who had long been forbidden the Court, did not accompany
them. James directed that the bishops should be admitted to the royal
presence, and they found him in very good humour, for he had heard from
his tool Cartwright that they were disposed to obey the mandate, but
wished to secure some little modifications in form.
After reading the petition the king's countenance grew dark and he
exclaimed, "This is the standard of rebellion." In vain did the prelates
emphasise their protests of loyalty. The king persisted in
characterising their action as being rebellious. The bishops
respectfully retired, and that evening the petition appeared in print,
was laid out in the coffeehouses and was cried about the streets.
Everywhere people rose from their beds, and came out to stop the
hawkers, and the sale was so enormous that it was said the printer
cleared a thousand pounds in a few hours by this penny broadside.
The London clergy disobeyed the royal order, for the Declaration was
read in only four churches in the city, where there were about a
hundred. For a short time the king stood aghast at the violence of the
tempest he had raised, but Jeffreys maintained that the government would
be disgraced if such transgressors as the seven bishops were suffered to
escape with a mere reprimand. They were notified that they must appear
before the king in Council. On June 8 they were examined by the Privy
Council, the result being their committal to the Tower. From all parts
of the country came the report that other prelates had signed similar
petitions and that very few of the clergy throughout the land had obeyed
the king. The public excitement in London was intense. While the bishops
were before the Council a great multitude filled the region all round
Whitehall, and when the Seven came forth under a guard, thousands fell
on their knees and prayed aloud for the men who had confronted a tyrant
inflamed with the bigotry of Mary.
The king learned with indignation that the soldiers were drinking the
health of the prelates, and his officers told him that this could not be
prevented. Before the day of trial the agitation spread to the furthest
corners of the island. Scotland sent letters assuring the bishops of the
sympathy of the Presbyterians, hostile though they were to prelacy. The
people of Cornwall were greatly moved by the danger of Bishop Trelawney,
and the peasants chanted a ballad of which the burden is still
remembered:
"And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die?
Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why."
The miners from their caverns re-echoed the song with a variation:
"Then twenty thousand underground will know the reason why."
The bishops were charged with having published a false, malicious, and
seditious libel. But the case for the prosecution speedily broke down in
the hands of the crown lawyers. They were vehemently hissed by the
audience. The jury gave the verdict of "Not Guilty." As the news spread
all London broke out into acclamation. The bishops were greeted with
cries of "God bless you; you have saved us all to-day." The king was
greatly disturbed at the news of the acquittal, and exclaimed in French,
"So much the worse for them." He was at that moment in the camp at
Hounslow, where he had been reviewing the troops. Hearing a great shout
behind him, he asked what the uproar meant. "Nothing," was the answer;
"the soldiers are glad that the bishops are acquitted." "Do you call
that nothing?" exclaimed the king. And then he repeated, "So much the
worse for them." He might well be out of temper. His defeat had been
complete and most humiliating.
_The Prince of Orange_
In May, 1688, while it was still uncertain whether the Declaration would
or would not be read in the churches, Edward Russell had repaired to the
Hague, where he strongly represented to the Prince of Orange, husband of
Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I., the state of the public mind, and
had advised His Highness to appear in England with a strong body of
troops, and to call the people to arms. William had seen at a glance the
whole importance of the crisis. "Now or never," he exclaimed in Latin.
He quickly received numerous assurances of support from England.
Preparations were rapidly made, and on November I, 1688, he set sail
with his fleet, and landed at Torbay on November 4. Resistance was
impossible. The troops of James's army quietly deserted wholesale, many
joining the Dutch camp at Honiton. First the West of England, and then
the North, revolted against James. Evil news poured in upon him. When he
heard that Churchill and Grafton had forsaken him, he exclaimed, "Est-il
possible?" On December 8 the king fled from London secretly. His home in
exile was at Saint Germains.
William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of the United Kingdom,
and thus was consummated the English Revolution. It was of all
revolutions the least violent and yet the most beneficent.
_After the Great Revolution_
The Revolution had been accomplished. The rejoicings throughout the land
were enthusiastic. Still more cordial was the rejoicing among the Dutch
when they learned that the first minister of their Commonwealth had been
raised to a throne. James had, during the last year of his reign, been
even more hated in England by the Tories than by the Whigs; and not
without cause; for to the Whigs he was only an enemy; and to the Tories
he had been a faithless and thankless friend.
One misfortune of the new king, which some reactionaries imputed to him
as a crime, was his bad English. He spoke our language, but not well.
Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or understanding. He never
once appeared in the theatre. The poets who wrote Pindaric verse in his
praise complained that their flights of sublimity were beyond his
comprehension. But his wife did her best to supply what was wanting. She
was excellently qualified to be the head of the Court. She was English
by birth and also in her tastes and feelings. The stainless purity of
her private life and the attention she paid to her religious duties
discourages scandal as well as vice.
The year 1689 is not less important in the ecclesiastical than in the
civil history of England, for in that year was granted the first legal
indulgence to Dissenters. And then also the two chief sections within
the Anglican communion began to be called the High Church and Low Church
parties. The Low Churchmen stood between the nonconformists and the
rigid conformists. The famous Toleration Bill passed both Houses with
little debate. It approaches very near the ideal of a great English law,
the sound principle of which undoubtedly is that mere theological error
ought not to be punished by the civil magistrate.
_The War in Ireland_
The discontent of the Roman Catholic Irishry with the Revolution was
intense. It grew so manifestly, that James, assured that his cause was
prospering in Ireland, landed on March 12, 1689, at Kinsale. On March 24
he entered Dublin. This event created sorrow and alarm in England. An
Irish army, raised by the Catholics, entered Ulster and laid siege to
Londonderry, into which city two English regiments had been thrown by
sea. The heroic defence of Londonderry is one of the most thrilling
episodes in the history of Ireland. The siege was turned into a blockade
by the construction of a boom across the harbour by the besiegers. The
citizens endured frightful hunger, for famine was extreme within the
walls, but they never quailed. The garrison was reduced from 7,000 to
3,000. The siege, which lasted 105 days, and was the most memorable in
the annals of the British Isles, was ended by the breaking of the boom
by a squadron of three ships from England which brought reinforcements
and provisions.
The Irish army retreated and the next event, a very decisive one, was
the defeat at the Battle of the Boyne, where William and James commanded
their respective forces. The war ended with the capitulation of
Limerick, and the French soldiers, who had formed a great part of
James's army, left for France.
_The Battle of La Hogue_
The year 1692 was marked by momentous events issuing from a scheme, in
some respects well concerted, for the invasion of England by a French
force, with the object of the restoration of James. A noble fleet of
about 80 ships of the line was to convey this force to the shores of
England, and in the French dockyards immense preparations were made.
James had persuaded himself that, even if the English fleet should fall
in with him, it would not oppose him. Indeed, he was too ready to
believe anything written to him by his English correspondents.
No mightier armament had ever appeared in the English Channel than the
fleet of allied British and Dutch ships, under the command of Admiral
Russell. On May 19 it encountered the French fleet under the Count of
Tourville, and a running fight took place which lasted during five
fearful days, ending in the complete destruction of the French force off
La Hogue. The news of this great victory was received in England with
boundless joy. One of its happiest effects was the effectual calming of
the public mind.
_Creation of the Bank of England_
In this reign, in 1694, was established the Bank of England. It was the
result of a great change that had developed in a few years, for old men
in William's reign could remember the days when there was not a single
banking house in London. Goldsmiths had strong vaults in which masses of
bullion could lie secure from fire and robbers, and at their shops in
Lombard Street all payments in coin were made. William Paterson, an
ingenious speculator, submitted to the government a plan for a national
bank, which after long debate passed both Houses of Parliament.
In 1694 the king and the nation mourned the death from small-pox, a
disease always working havoc, of Queen Mary. During her illness William
remained day and night at her bedside. The Dutch Envoy wrote that the
sight of his misery was enough to melt the hardest heart. When all hope
was over, he said to Bishop Burnet, "There is no hope. I was the
happiest man on earth; and I am the most miserable. She had no faults;
none; you knew her well; but you could not know, none but myself could
know, her goodness." The funeral was remembered as the saddest and most
august that Westminister had ever seen. While the queen's remains lay in
state at Whitehall, the neighbouring streets were filled every day, from
sunrise to sunset, by crowds that made all traffic impossible. The two
Houses with their maces followed the hearse, the Lords robed in scarlet
and ermine, the Commons in long black mantles. No preceding sovereign
had ever been attended to the grave by a Parliament: for till then the
Parliament had always expired with the sovereign. The gentle queen
sleeps among her illustrious kindred in the southern aisle of the Chapel
of Henry the Seventh.
The affection of her husband was soon attested by a monument the most
superb that was ever erected to any sovereign. No scheme had been so
much her own, and none so dear to her heart, as that of converting the
palace at Greenwich into a retreat for seamen. As soon as he had lost
her, her husband began to reproach himself for neglecting her wishes. No
time was lost. A plan was furnished by Wren; and soon an edifice,
surpassing that asylum which the magnificent Louis had provided for his
soldiers, rose on the margin of the Thames. The inscription on the
frieze ascribes praise to Mary alone. Few who now gaze on the noble
double edifice, crowned by twin domes, are aware that it is a memorial
of the virtues of the good Queen Mary, of the love and sorrow of
William, and of the greater victory of La Hogue.
On the Continent the death of Mary excited various emotions. The
Huguenots, in every part of Europe to which they had wandered, bewailed
the Elect Lady, who had retrenched her own royal state in order to
furnish bread and shelter to the persecuted people of God. But the hopes
of James and his companions in exile were now higher than they had been
since the day of La Hogue. Indeed, the general opinion of politicians,
both here and on the Continent, was that William would find it
impossible to sustain himself much longer on the throne. He would not,
it was said, have sustained himself so long but for the help of his
wife, whose affability had conciliated many that were disgusted by his
Dutch accent and habits. But all the statesmen of Europe were deceived:
and, strange to say, his reign was decidedly more prosperous after the
decease of Mary than during her life.
During the month which followed her death the king was incapable of
exertion. His first letter was that of a brokenhearted man. Even his
martial ardour had been tamed by misery. "I tell you in confidence," he
wrote to Heincius, "that I feel myself to be no longer fit for military
command. Yet I will try to do my duty: and I hope that God will
strengthen me." So despondingly did he look forward to the most
brilliant and successful of his many campaigns.
All Europe was looking anxiously towards the Low Countries. A great
French army, commanded by Villeroy, was collected in Flanders. William
crossed to the Continent to take command of the Dutch and British
troops, who mustered at Ghent. The Elector of Bavaria, at the head of a
great force, lay near Brussels. William had set his heart on capturing
Namur. After a siege hard pressed, that fortress, esteemed the strongest
in Europe, splendidly fortified by Vauban, surrendered to the allies on
August 26, 1695.
_The Treaty of Ryswick_
The war was ended by the signing of the treaty of Ryswick by the
ambassadors of France, England, Spain, and the United Provinces on
September 10, 1697. King William was received in London with great
popular rejoicing. The second of December was appointed a day of
thanksgiving for peace, and the Chapter of St. Paul's resolved that on
that day their new Cathedral, which had long been slowly rising on the
ruins of a succession of pagan and Christian temples, should be opened
for public worship. There was indeed reason for joy and thankfulness.
England had passed through severe trials, and had come forth renewed in
health and vigour.
Ten years before it had seemed that both her liberty and her
independence were no more. Her liberty she had vindicated by a just and
necessary revolution. Her independence she had reconquered by a not less
just and necessary war. All dangers were over. There was peace abroad
and at home. The kingdom, after many years of ignominious vassalage, had
resumed its ancient place in the first rank of European powers. Many
signs justified the hope that the Revolution of 1688 would be our last
Revolution. Public credit had been re-established; trade had revived;
the Exchequer was overflowing; and there was a sense of relief
everywhere, from the Royal Exchange to the most secluded hamlets among
the mountains of Wales and the fens of Lincolnshire.
Early in 1702 alarming reports were rife concerning William's state of
health. Headaches and shivering fits returned on him almost daily, and
it soon became evident that the great king's days were numbered. On
February 20 William was ambling on a favourite horse, named Sorrel,
through the park of Hampton Court. The horse stumbling on a mole-hill
went down on his knees. The king fell off and broke his collar-bone. The
bone was set, and to a young and vigorous man such an accident would
have been a trifle. But the frame of William was not in a condition to
bear even the slightest shock. He felt that his time was short, and
grieved, with such a grief as only noble spirits feel, to think that he
must leave his work but half finished. On March 4 he was attacked by
fever, and he was soon sinking fast. He was under no delusion as to his
danger. "I am fast drawing to my end," said he. His end was worthy of
his life. His intellect was not for a moment clouded. His fortitude was
the more admirable because he was not willing to die. From the words
which escaped him he seemed to be frequently engaged in mental prayer.
The end came between seven and eight in the morning. When his remains
were laid out, it was found that he wore next to his skin a small piece
of black silk riband. The lords in waiting ordered it to be taken off.
It contained a gold ring and a lock of the hair of Mary.
* * * * *
HENRY BUCKLE
History of Civilisation in England
Henry Thomas Buckle was born at Lee, in Kent, England, Nov.
24, 1821. Delicate health prevented him from following the
ordinary school course. His father's death in 1840 left him
independent, and the boy who was brought up in Toryism and
Calvinism, became a philosophic radical and free-thinker. He
travelled, he read, he acquired facility in nineteen languages
and fluency in seven. Gradually he conceived the idea of a
great work which should place history on an entirely new
footing; it should concern itself not with the unimportant and
the personal, but with the advance of civilisation, the
intellectual progress of man. As the idea developed, he
perceived that the task was greater than could be accomplished
in the lifetime of one man. What he actually accomplished--the
volumes which bear the title "The History of Civilisation in
England"--was intended to be no more than an introduction to
the subject; and even that introduction, which was meant to
cover, on a corresponding scale, the civilisation of several
other countries, was never finished. The first volume was
published in 1857, the second in 1861; only the studies of
England, France, Spain, and Scotland were completed. Buckle
died at Damascus, on May 29, 1862.
_I.---General Principles_
The believer in the possibility of a science of history is not called
upon to hold either the doctrine of predestination or that of freedom of
the will. The only positions which at the outset need to be conceded are
that when we perform an action we perform it in consequence of some
motive or motives; that those motives are the result of some
antecedents; and that, therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole
of the precedents and with all the laws of their movements we could with
unerring certainty predict the whole of their immediate results.
History is the modification of man by nature and of nature by man. We
shall find a regularity in the variations of virtuous and vicious
actions that proves them to be the result of large and general causes
which, working upon the aggregate of society, must produce certain
consequences without regard to the decision of particular individuals.
Man is affected by purely physical agents--climate, food, soil,
geographical conditions, and active physical phenomena. In the earliest
civilisations nature is more prominent than man, and the imagination is
more stimulated than the understanding. In the European civilisations
man is the more prominent, and the understanding is more stimulated than
the imagination. Hence the advance of European civilisation is
characterised by a diminishing influence of physical laws and an
increasing influence of mental laws. Clearly, then, of the two classes
of laws which regulate the progress of mankind the mental class is more
important than the physical. The laws of the human mind will prove to be
the ultimate basis of the history of Europe. These are not to be
ascertained by the metaphysical method of studying the inquirer's own
mind alone, but by the historical method of studying many minds. And
this whether the metaphysician belongs to the school which starts by
examining the sensations, or to that which starts with the examination
of ideas.
Dismissing the metaphysical method, therefore, we must turn to the
historical, and study mental phenomena as they appear in the actions of
mankind at large. Mental progress is twofold, moral and intellectual,
the first having relation to our duties, the second to our knowledge. It
is a progress not of capacity, but in the circumstances under which
capacity comes into play; not of internal power, but of external
advantage. Now, whereas moral truths do not change, intellectual truths
are constantly changing, from which we may infer that the progress of
society is due, not to the moral knowledge, which is stationary, but to
the intellectual knowledge, which is constantly advancing.
The history of any people will become more valuable for ascertaining the
laws by which past events were governed in proportion as their movements
have been least disturbed by external agencies. During the last three
centuries these conditions have applied to England more than to any
other country; since the action of the people has there been the least
restricted by government, and has been allowed the greatest freedom of
play. Government intervention is habitually restrictive, and the best
legislation has been that which abrogated former restrictive
legislation.
Government, religion, and literature are not the causes of civilisation,
but its effects. The higher religion enters only where the mind is
intellectually prepared for its acceptance; elsewhere the forms may be
adopted, but not the essence, as mediæval Christianity was merely an
adapted paganism. Similarly, a religion imposed by authority is accepted
in its form, but not necessarily in its essence.
In the same way literature is valuable to a country in proportion as the
population is capable of criticising and discriminating; that is, as it
is intellectually prepared to select and sift the good from the bad.
_II.---Civilisation in England_
It was the revival of the critical or sceptical spirit which remedied
the three fundamental errors of the olden time. Where the spirit of
doubt was quenched civilisation continued to be stationary. Where it was
allowed comparatively free play, as in England and France, there has
arisen that constantly progressive knowledge to which these two great
nations owe their prosperity.
In England its primary and most important consequence is the growth of
religious toleration. From the time of Elizabeth it became impossible to
profess religion as the avowed warrant for persecution. Hooker, at the
end of her reign, rests the argument of his "Ecclesiastical Polit" on
reason; and this is still more decisively the case with Chillingworth's
"Religion of Protestants" not fifty years later. The double movement of
scepticism had overthrown its controlling authority.
In precisely the same way Boyle--perhaps the greatest of our men of
science between Bacon and Newton--perpetually insists on the importance
of individual experiments and the comparative unimportance of what we
have received from antiquity.
The clergy had lost ground; their temporary alliance with James II. was
ended by the Declaration of Indulgence. But they were half-hearted in
their support of the Revolution, and scepticism received a fresh
encouragement from the hostility between them and the new government;
and the brief rally under Queen Anne was overwhelmed by the rise of
Wesleyanism. Theology was finally severed from the department both of
ethics and of government.
The eighteenth century is characterised by a craving after knowledge on
the part of those classes from whom knowledge had hitherto been shut
out. With the demand for knowledge came an increased simplicity in the
literary form under which it was diffused. With the spirit of inquiry
the desire for reform constantly increased, but the movement was checked
by a series of political combinations which demand some attention.
The accession of George III. changed the conditions which had persisted
since the accession of George I. The new king was able to head reaction.
The only minister of ability he admitted to his counsels was Pitt, and
Pitt retained power only by abandoning his principles. Nevertheless, a
counter-reaction was created, to which England owes her great reforms of
the nineteenth century.
_III.--Development of France_
In France at the time of the Reformation the clergy were far more
powerful than in England, and the theological contest was much more
severe. Toleration began with Henry IV. at the moment when Montaigne
appeared as the prophet of scepticism. The death of King Henry was not
followed by the reaction which might have been expected, and the rule of
Richelieu was emphatically political in its motives and secular in its
effects. It is curious to see that the Protestants were the illiberal
party, while the cardinal remained resolutely liberal.
The difference between the development in France and England is due
primarily to the recognition in England of the fact that no country can
long remain prosperous or safe in which the people are not gradually
extending their power, enlarging their privileges, and, so to say,
incorporating themselves with the functions of the state. France, on the
other hand, suffered far more from the spirit of protection, which is so
dangerous, and yet so plausible, that it forms the most serious obstacle
with which advancing civilisation has to contend.
The great rebellion in England was a war of classes as well as of
factions; on the one side the yeomanry and traders, on the other the
nobles and the clergy. The corresponding war of the Fronde in France was
not a class war at all; it was purely political, and in no way social.
At bottom the English rebellion was democratic; the leaders of the
Fronde were aristocrats, without any democratic leanings.
Thus in France the protective spirit maintained its ascendancy
intensified. Literature and science, allied to and patronised by
government, suffered demoralisation, and the age of Louis XIV. was one
of intellectual decay. After the death of Louis XIV. the French
discovered England and English literature. Our island, regarded hitherto
as barbarous, was visited by nearly every Frenchman of note for the two
succeeding generations. Voltaire, in particular, assimilated and
disseminated English doctrines.
The consequent development of the liberal spirit brought literature into
collision with the government. Inquiry was opposed to the interests of
both nobles and clergy. Nearly every great man of letters in France was
a victim of persecution. It might be said that the government
deliberately made a personal enemy of every man of intellect in the
country. We can only wonder, not that the revolution came, but that it
was still so long delayed; but ingrained prejudices prevented the crown
from being the first object of attack. The hostility of the men of
letters was directed first against the Church and Christianity.
Religious scepticism and political emancipation did not advance hand in
hand; much that was worst in the actual revolution was due to the fact
that the latter lagged behind.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries some progress had been made
in the principles of writing history. Like everything else, history
suffered from the rule of Louis XIV. Again the advance was inaugurated
by Voltaire. His principle is to concentrate on important movements, not
on idle details. This was not characteristic of the individual author
only, but of the spirit of the age. It is equally present in the works
of Montesquieu and Turgot. The defects of Montesquieu are chiefly due to
the fact that his materials were intractable, because science had not
yet reduced them to order by generalising the laws of their phenomena.
In the second half of the eighteenth century the intellectual movement
began to be turned directly against the state. Economical and financial
inquiries began to absorb popular attention. Rousseau headed the
political movement, whereas the government in its financial straits
turned against the clergy, whose position was already undermined, and
against whom Voltaire continued to direct his batteries.
The suppression of the Jesuits meant a revival of Jansenism. Jansenism
is Calvinistic, and Calvinism is democratic; but the real concentration
of French minds was on material questions. The foundations of religious
beliefs had been undermined, and hence arose the painful prevalence of
atheism. The period was one of progress in the study of material laws in
every field. The national intellect had taken a new bent, and it was one
which tended to violent social revolt. The hall of science is the temple
of democracy. It was in these conditions that the eyes of Frenchmen were
turned to the glorious revolt in the cause of liberty of the American
people. The spark was set to an inflammatory mass, and ignited a flame
which never ceased its ravages until it had destroyed all that Frenchmen
once held dear.
_IV.---Reaction in Spain_
I have laid down four propositions which I have endeavoured to
establish--that progress depends on a successful investigation of the
laws of phenomena; that a spirit of scepticism is a condition of such
investigation; that the influence of intellectual truths increases
thereby relatively to that of moral truths; and that the great enemy of
his progress is the protective spirit. We shall find these propositions
verified in the history of Spain.
Physically, Spain most closely resembles those non-European countries
where the influence of nature is more prominent than that of man, and
whose civilisations are consequently influenced more by the imagination
than by the understanding. In Spain, superstition is encouraged by the
violent energies of nature. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Spain
was first engaged in a long struggle on behalf of the Arianism of the
Goths against the orthodoxy of the Franks. This was followed by centuries
of struggle between the Christian Spaniard and the Mohammedan
Moors. After the conquest of Granada, the King of Spain and Emperor,
Charles V., posed primarily as the champion of religion and the enemy of
heresy. His son Philip summarised his policy in the phrase that "it is
better not to reign at all than to reign over heretics."
Loyalty was supported by superstition; each strengthened the other.
Great foreign conquests were made, and a great military reputation was
developed. But the people counted for nothing. The crown, the
aristocracy, and the clergy were supreme--the last more so than ever in
the seventeenth century. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the
Bourbon replaced the Hapsburg dynasty. The Bourbons sought to improve
the country by weakening the Church, but failed to raise the people, who
had become intellectually paralysed. The greatest efforts at improvement
were made by Charles III.; but Charles IV., unlike his predecessors, who
had been practically foreigners, was a true Spaniard. The inevitable
reaction set in.
In the nineteenth century individuals have striven for political reform,
but they have been unable to make head against those general causes
which have predetermined the country to superstition. Great as are the
virtues for which the Spaniards have long been celebrated, those noble
qualities are useless while ignorance is so gross and so general.
_V.--The Paradox of Scottish History_
In most respects Scotland affords a complete contrast to Spain, but in
regard to superstition, there is a striking similarity. Both nations
have allowed their clergy to exercise immense sway; in both intolerance
has been, and still is, a crying evil; and a bigotry is habitually
displayed which is still more discreditable to Scotland than to Spain.
It is the paradox of Scotch history that the people are liberal in
politics and illiberal in religion.
The early history of Scotland is one of perpetual invasions down to the
end of the fourteenth century. This had the double effect of
strengthening the nobles while it weakened the citizens, and increasing
the influence of the clergy while weakening that of the intellectual
classes. The crown, completely overshadowed by the nobility, was forced
to alliance with the Church. The fifteenth century is a record of the
struggles of the crown supported by the clergy against the nobility,
whose power, however, they failed to break. At last, in the reign of
James V., the crown and Church gained the ascendancy. The antagonism of
the nobles to the Church was intensified, and consequently the nobles
identified themselves with the Reformation.
The struggle continued during the regency which followed the death of
James; but within twenty years the nobles had triumphed and the Church
was destroyed. There was an immediate rupture between the nobility and
the new clergy, who united themselves with the people and became the
advocates of democracy. The crown and the nobles were now united in
maintaining episcopacy, which became the special object of attack from
the new clergy, who, despite the extravagance of their behaviour, became
the great instruments in keeping alive and fostering the spirit of
liberty.
When James VI. became also James I. of England, he used his new power to
enforce episcopacy. Charles I. continued his policy; but the reaction
was gathering strength, and became open revolt in 1637. The democratic
movement became directly political. When the great civil war followed,
the Scots sold the king, who had surrendered to them, to the English,
who executed him. They acknowledged his son, Charles II., but not till
he had accepted the Covenant on ignominious terms.
At the restoration Charles II. was able to renew the oppressive policy
of his father and grandfather. The restored bishops supported the crown;
the people and the popular clergy were mercilessly persecuted. Matters
became even worse under James II., but the revolution of 1688 ended the
oppression. The exiled house found support in the Highlands not out of
loyalty, but from the Highland preference for anarchy; and after 1745
the Highlanders themselves were powerless. The trading spirit rose and
flourished, and the barbaric hereditary jurisdictions were abolished.
This last measure marked but did not cause the decadence of the power of
the nobility. This had been brought about primarily by the union with
England in 1707. In the legislature of Great Britain the Scotch peers
were a negligible and despised factor. The _coup de grace_ was given by
the rebellion of 1745. The law referred to expressed an already
accomplished fact.
The union also encouraged the development of the mercantile and
manufacturing classes, which, in turn, strengthened the democratic
movement. Meanwhile, a great literature was also arising, bold and
inquiring. Nevertheless, it failed to diminish the national
superstition.
This illiberality in religion was caused in the first place by the power
of the clergy. Religion was the essential feature of the Scotch war
against Charles I. Theological interests dominated the secular because
the clergy were the champions of the political movement. Hence, in the
seventeenth century, the clergy were enabled to extend and consolidate
their own authority, partly by means of that great engine of tyranny,
the kirk sessions, partly through the credulity which accepted their
claims to miraculous interpositions in their favour. To increase their
own ascendancy, the clergy advanced monstrous doctrines concerning evil
spirits and punishments in the next life; painted the Deity as cruel and
jealous; discovered sinfulness hateful to God in the most harmless acts;
punished the same with arbitrary and savage penalties; and so crushed
out of Scotland all mirth and nearly all physical enjoyment.
Scottish literature of the eighteenth century failed to destroy this
illiberality owing to the method of the Scotch philosophers. The school
which arose was in reaction against the dominant theological spirit; but
its method was deductive not inductive. Now, the inductive method, which
ascends from experience to theory is anti-theological. The deductive
reasons down from theories whose validity is assumed; it is the method
of theology itself. In Scotland the theological spirit had taken such
firm hold that the inductive method could not have obtained a hearing;
whereas in England and France the inductive method has been generally
followed.
The great secular philosophy of Scotland was initiated by Hutchinson.
His system of morals was based not on revealed principles, but on laws
ascertainable by human intelligence; his positions were in fiat
contradiction to those of the clergy. But his method assumes intuitive
faculties and intuitive knowledge.
The next and the greatest name is that of Adam Smith, whose works, "The
Theory of Moral Sentiments" and "Wealth of Nations," must be taken in
conjunction. In the first he works on the assumption that sympathy is
the mainspring of human conduct. In the "Wealth of Nations" the
mainspring is selfishness. The two are not contradictory, but
complementary. Of the second book it may be said that it is probably the
most important which has ever been written, whether we consider the
amount of original thought which it contains or its practical influence.
Beside Adam Smith stands David Hume. An accomplished reasoner and a
profound thinker, he lacked the invaluable quality of imagination. This
is the underlying defect of his history. Important and novel as are
Hume's doctrines, his method was also deductive, and, like Adam Smith,
he rests little on experience. After these two, Reid was the most
eminent among the purely speculative thinkers of Scotland, but he stands
far below them both. To Hume the spirit of inquiry and scepticism is
essential; to Reid it is a danger.
The deductive method was no less prevalent in physical philosophy. Now,
induction is more accessible to the average understanding than
deduction. The deductive character of this Scottish literature prevented
it from having popular effect, and therefore from weakening the national
superstition, from which Scotland, even to-day, has been unable to shake
herself free.
* * * * *
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Walter Bagehot was born at Langport in Somerset, England, Feb.
3, 1826, and died on March 24, 1877. He was educated at
Bristol and at University College, London. Subsequently he
joined his father's banking and ship-owning business. From
1860 till his death, he was editor of the "Economist." He was
a keen student not only of economic and political science
subjects, which he handled with a rare lightness of touch, but
also of letters and of life at large. It is difficult to say
in which field his penetration, his humour, and his charm of
style are most conspicuously displayed. The papers collected
in the volume called "The English Constitution" appeared
originally in the "Fortnightly Review" during 1865 and 1866.
The Reform Bill, which transferred the political centre of
gravity from the middle class to the artisan class had not yet
arrived; and the propositions laid down by Bagehot have
necessarily been in some degree modified in the works of more
recent authorities, such as Professor Dicey and Mr. Sidney
Low. But as a human interpretation of that exceedingly human
monument, the British Constitution, Bagehot's work is likely
to remain unchallenged for all time.
_I.---The Cabinet_
No one can approach to an understanding of English institutions unless
he divides them into two classes. In such constitutions there are two
parts. First, those which excite and preserve the reverence of the
population, the dignified parts, if I may so call them; and, next, the
efficient parts, those by which it, in fact, works and rules. Every
constitution must first win the loyalty and confidence of mankind, and
then employ that homage in the work of government.
The dignified parts of government are those which bring it force, which
attracts its motive power. The efficient parts only employ that power.
If all subjects of the same government only thought of what was useful
to them, the efficient members of the constitution would suffice, and no
impressive adjuncts would be needed. But it is not true that even the
lower classes will be absorbed in the useful. The ruder sort of men will
sacrifice all they hope for, all they have, themselves, for what is
called an idea. The elements which excite the most easy reverence will
be not the most useful, but the theatrical. It is the characteristic
merit of the English constitution that its dignified parts are imposing
and venerable, while its efficient part is simple and rather modern.
The efficient secret of the English constitution is the nearly complete
fusion of the executive and legislative powers. The connecting link is
the cabinet. This is a committee of the legislative body, in choosing
which indirectly but not directly the legislature is nearly omnipotent.
The prime minister is chosen by the House of Commons, and is the head of
the efficient part of the constitution. The queen is only at the head of
its dignified part. The Prime Minister himself has to choose his
associates, but can only do so out of a charmed circle.
The cabinet is an absolutely secret committee, which can dissolve the
assembly which appointed it. It is an executive which is at once the
nominee of the legislature, and can annihilate the legislature. The
system stands in precise contrast to the presidential system, in which
the legislative and executive powers are entirely independent.
A good parliament is a capital choosing body; it is an electoral college
of the picked men of the nation. But in the American system the
president is chosen by a complicated machinery of caucuses; he is not
the choice of the nation, but of the wirepullers. The members of
congress are excluded from executive office, and the separation makes
neither the executive half nor the legislative half of political life
worth having. Hence it is only men of an inferior type who are attracted
to political life at all.
Again our system enables us to change our ruler suddenly on an
emergency. Thus we could abolish the Aberdeen Cabinet, which was in
itself eminently adapted for every sort of difficulty save the one it
had to meet, but wanted the daemonic element, and substitute a statesman
who had the precise sort of merit wanted at the moment. But under a
presidential government you can do nothing of the kind. There is no
elastic element; everything is rigid, specified, dated. You have
bespoken your government for the time, and you must keep it. Moreover,
under the English system all the leading statesmen are known quantities.
But in America a new president before his election is usually an unknown
quantity.
Cabinet government demands the mutual confidence of the electors, a calm
national mind, and what I may call rationality--a power involving
intelligence, yet distinct from it. It demands also a competent
legislature, which is a rarity. In the early stages of human society the
grand object is not to make new laws, but to prevent innovation. Custom
is the first check on tyranny, but at the present day the desire is to
adapt the law to changed conditions. In the past, however, continuous
legislatures were rare because they were not wanted. Now you have to get
a good legislature and to keep it good. To keep it good it must have a
sufficient supply of business. To get it good is a precedent difficulty.
A nation in which the mass of the people are intelligent, educated, and
comfortable can elect a good parliament. Or what I will call a
deferential nation may do so--I mean one in which the numerical majority
wishes to be ruled by the wiser minority.
Of deferential countries England is the type. But it is not to their
actual heavy, sensible middle-class rulers that the mass of the English
people yield deference, but to the theatrical show of society. The few
rule by their hold, not over the reason of the multitude, but over their
imaginations and their habits.
_II.--The Monarchy_
The use of the queen in a dignified capacity is incalculable. The best
reason why monarchy is a strong government is that it is an intelligible
government; whereas a constitution is complex. Men are governed by the
weakness of their imagination. To state the matter shortly, royalty is a
government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one
person doing interesting actions. A republic is a government in which
that attention is divided between many who are all doing uninteresting
actions. Secondly, if you ask the immense majority of the queen's
subjects by what right she rules, they will say she rules by God's
grace. They believe they have a mystic obligation to obey her. The crown
is a visible symbol of unity with an atmosphere of dignity.
Thirdly, the queen is the head of society. If she were not so, the prime
minister would be the first person in the country. As it is the House of
Commons attracts people who go there merely for social purposes; if the
highest social rank was to be scrambled for in the House of Commons, the
number of social adventurers there would be even more numerous. It has
been objected of late that English royalty is not splendid enough. It is
compared with the French court, which is quite the most splendid thing
in France; but the French emperor is magnified to emphasise the equality
of everyone else. Great splendour in our court would incite competition.
Fourthly, we have come to regard the crown as the head of our morality.
Lastly, constitutional royalty acts as a disguise; it enables our real
rulers to change without heedless people knowing it. Hence, perhaps, the
value of constitutional royalty in times of transition.
Popular theory regards the sovereign as a co-ordinate authority with the
House of Lords and the House of Commons. Also it holds that the queen is
the executive. Neither is true. There is no authentic explicit
information as to what the queen can do. The secrecy of the prerogative
is an anomaly, but none the less essential to the utility of English
royalty. Let us see how we should get on without a queen. We may suppose
the House of Commons appointing the premier just as shareholders choose
a director. If the predominant party were agreed as to its leader there
would not be much difference at the beginning of an administration. But
if the party were not agreed on its leader the necessity of the case
would ensure that the chief forced on the minority by the majority would
be an exceedingly capable man; where the judgment of the sovereign
intervenes there is no such security. If, however, there are three
parties, the primary condition of a cabinet polity is not satisfied.
Under such circumstances the only way is for the moderate people of
every party to combine in support of the government which, on the whole,
suits every party best. In the choice of a fit minister, if the royal
selection were always discreetly exercised, it would be an incalculable
benefit, but in most cases the wisest course for the monarch would be
inaction.
Now the sovereign has three rights, the right to be consulted, the right
to encourage, and the right to warn. In the course of a long reign a
king would acquire the same advantage which a permanent under-secretary
has over his superior, the parliamentary secretary. But whenever there
is discussion between a king and the minister, the king's opinion would
have its full weight, and the minister's would not. The whole position
is evidently attractive to an intelligent, sagacious and original
sovereign. But we cannot expect a lineal series of such kings. Neither
theory nor experience warrant any such expectations. The only fit
material for a constitutional king is a prince who begins early to
reign, who in his youth is superior to pleasure, is willing to labour,
and has by nature a genius for discretion.
_III.--The House of Lords and the House of Commons_
The use of the order of the lords in its dignified capacity is very
great. The mass of men require symbols, and nobility is the symbol of
mind. The order also prevents the rule of wealth. The Anglo-Saxon has a
natural instinctive admiration of wealth for its own sake; but from the
worst form of this our aristocracy preserves us, and the reverence for
rank is not so base as the reverence for money, or the still worse
idolatry of office. But as the picturesqueness of society diminishes,
aristocracy loses the single instrument of its peculiar power.
The House of Lords as an assembly has always been not the first, but the
second. The peers, who are of the most importance, are not the most
important in the House of Peers. In theory, the House of Lords is of
equal rank with the House of Commons; in practice it is not. The evil of
two co-equal houses is obvious. If they disagree, all business is
suspended. There ought to be an available decisive authority somewhere.
The sovereign power must be comeatable. The English have made it so by
the authority of the crown to create new peers. Before the Reform Act
the members of the peerage swayed the House of Commons, and the two
houses hardly collided except on questions of privilege. After the
Reform Bill the house ceased to be one of the latent directors and
palpable alterers.
It was the Duke of Wellington who presided over the change, and from the
duke himself we may learn that the use of the House of Lords is not to
be a bulwark against revolution. It cannot resist the people if the
people are determined. It has not the control of necessary physical
force. With a perfect lower house, the second chamber would be of
scarcely any value; but beside the actual house, a revising and leisured
legislature is extremely useful. The cabinet is so powerful in the
commons that it may inflict minor measures on the nation which the
nation does not like. The executive is less powerful in the second
chamber, which may consequently operate to impede minor instances of
parliamentary tyranny.
The House of Lords has the advantage: first, of being possible;
secondly, of being independent. It is accessible to no social bribe, and
it has leisure. On the other hand, it has defects. In appearance, which
is the important thing, it is apathetic. Next, it belongs exclusively to
one class, that of landowners. This would not so greatly matter if the
House of Lords _could_ be of more than common ability, but being an
hereditary chamber, it cannot be so. There is only one kind of business
in which our aristocracy retain a certain advantage. This is diplomacy.
And aristocracy is, in its nature, better suited to such work. It is
trained to the theatrical part of life; it is fit for that if it is fit
for anything. Otherwise an aristocracy is inferior in business. These
various defects would have been lessened if the House of Lords had not
resisted the creation of life peers.
The dignified aspect of the House of Commons is altogether secondary to
its efficient use. Its main function is to choose our president. It
elects the people whom it likes, and it dismisses whom it dislikes, too.
The premier is to the house what the house is to the nation. He must
lead, but he can only lead whither they will follow. Its second function
is _expressive_, to express the mind of the English people. Thirdly, it
ought to teach the nation. Fourthly, to give information, especially of
grievances--not, as in the old days, to the crown, but to the nation.
And, lastly, there is the function of legislation. I do not separate the
financial function from the rest of the legislative. In financial
affairs it lies under an exceptional disability; it is only the minister
who can propose to tax the people, whereas on common subjects any member
can propose anything. The reason is that the house is never economical;
but the cabinet is forced to be economical, because it has to impose the
taxation to meet, the expenditure.
Of all odd forms of government, the oddest really is this government by
public meeting. How does it come to be able to govern at all? The
principle of parliament is obedience to leaders. Change your leader if
you will, but while you have him obey him, otherwise you will not be
able to do anything at all. Leaders to-day do not keep their party
together by bribes, but they can dissolve. Party organisation is
efficient because it is not composed of warm partisans. The way to lead
is to affect a studied and illogical moderation.
Nor are the leaders themselves eager to carry party conclusions too far.
When an opposition comes into power, ministers have a difficulty in
making good their promises. They are in contact with the facts which
immediately acquire an inconvenient reality. But constituencies are
immoderate and partisan. The schemes both of extreme democrats and of
philosophers for changing the system of representation would prevent
parliamentary government from working at all. Under a system of equal
electoral districts and one-man vote, a parliament could not consist of
moderate men. Mr. Hare's scheme would make party bands and fetters
tighter than ever.
A free government is that which the people subject to it voluntarily
choose. If it goes by public opinion, the best opinion which the nation
will accept, it is a good government of its kind. Tried by this rule,
the House of Commons does its appointing business well. Of the
substantial part of its legislative task, the same may be said. Subject
to certain exceptions, the mind and policy of parliament possess the
common sort of moderation essential to parliamentary government. The
exceptions are two. First, it leans too much to the opinions of the
landed interest. Also, it gives too little weight to the growing
districts of the country, and too much to the stationary. But parliament
is not equally successful in elevating public opinion, or in giving
expression to grievances.
_IV.--Changes of Ministry_
There is an event which frequently puzzles some people; this is, a
change of ministry. All our administrators go out together. Is it wise
so to change all our rulers? The practice produces three great evils. It
brings in suddenly new and untried persons. Secondly, the man knows that
he may have to leave his work in the middle, and very likely never come
back to it. Thirdly, a sudden change of ministers may easily cause a
mischievous change of policy. A quick succession of chiefs do not learn
from each other's experience.
Now, those who wish to remove the choice of ministers from parliament
have not adequately considered what a parliament is. When you establish
a predominant parliament you give over the rule of the country to a
despot who has unlimited time and unlimited vanity. Every public
department is liable to attack. It is helpless in parliament if it has
no authorised defender. The heads of departments cannot satisfactorily
be put up for the defence; but a parliamentary head connected by close
ties with the ministry is a protecting machine. Party organisation
ensures the provision of such parliamentary heads. The alternative
provided in America involves changing not only the head but the whole
bureaucracy with each change of government.
This, it may be said, does not prove that this change is a good thing.
It may, however, be proved that some change at any rate is necessary to
a permanently perfect administration. If we look at the Prussian
bureaucracy, whatever success it may recently have achieved, it
certainly does not please the most intelligent persons at home.
Obstinate officials set at defiance the liberal initiations of the
government. In conflicts with simple citizens guilty officials are like
men armed cap-a-pie fighting with the defenceless. The bureaucrat
inevitably cares more for routine than for results. The machinery is
regarded as an achieved result instead of as a working instrument. It
tends to be the most unimproving and shallow of governments in quality,
and to over-government in point of quantity.
In fact, experience has proved in the case of joint-stock banks and of
railways that they are best conducted by an admixture of experts with
men of what may be, called business culture. So in a government office
the intrusion of an exterior head of the office is really essential to
its perfection. As Sir George Lewis said: "It is not the business of a
cabinet minister to work his department; his business is to see that it
is properly worked."
In short, a presidential government, or a hereditary government are
inferior to parliamentary government as administrative selectors. The
revolutionary despot may indeed prove better, since his existence
depends on his skill in doing so. If the English government is not
celebrated for efficiency, that is largely because it attempts to do so
much; but it is defective also from our ignorance. Another reason is
that in the English constitution the dignified parts, which have an
importance of their own, at the same time tend to diminish simple
efficiency.
_V.--Checks, Balances, and History_
In every state there must be somewhere a supreme authority on every
point. In some states, however, that ultimate power is different upon
different points. The Americans, under the mistaken impression that they
were imitating the English, made their constitution upon this principle.
The sovereignty rested with the separate states, which have delegated
certain powers to the central government. But the division of the
sovereignty does not end here. Congress rules the law, but the president
rules the administration. Even his legislative veto can be overruled
when two-thirds of both houses are unanimous. The administrative power
is divided, since on international policy the supreme authority is the
senate. Finally, the constitution itself can only be altered by
authorities which are outside the constitution. The result is that now,
after the civil war, there is no sovereign authority to settle immediate
problems.
In England, on the other hand, we have the typical constitution, in
which the ultimate power upon all questions is in the hands of the same
person. The ultimate authority in the English constitution is a
newly-elected House of Commons. Whatever the question on which it
decides, a new House of Commons can despotically and finally resolve. No
one can doubt the importance of singleness and unity. The excellence in
the British constitution is that it has achieved this unity. This is
primarily due to the provision which places the choice of the executive
in "the people's house." But it could not have been effected without
what I may call the "safety valve" and "the regulator." The "safety
valve" is the power of creating peers, the "regulator" is the cabinet's
power of dissolving. The defects of a popular legislature are: caprice
in selection, the sectarianism born of party organisation, which is the
necessary check on caprice, and the peculiar prejudices and interests of
the particular parliament. Now the caprice of parliament in the choice
of a premier is best checked by the premier himself having the power of
dissolution. But as a check on sectarianism such an extrinsic power as
that of a capable constitutional king is more efficient. For checking
the peculiar interests our colonial governors seem almost perfectly
qualified. But the intervention of a constitutional monarch is only
beneficial if he happens to be an exceptionally wise man. The peculiar
interests of a specific parliament are seldom in danger of overriding
national interests; hence, on the whole, the advantage of the premier
being the real dissolving authority.
The power of creating peers, vested in the premier, serves constantly to
modify the character of the second chamber. What we may call the
catastrophe creation of peers is different. That the power should reside
in the king would again be beneficial only in the case of the
exceptional monarch. Taken altogether, we find that hereditary royalty
is not essential to parliamentary government. Our conclusion is that
though a king with high courage and fine discretion, a king with a
genius for the place, is always useful, and at rare moments priceless,
yet a common king is of no use at a crisis, while, in the common course
of things, he will do nothing, and he need do nothing.
All the rude nations that have attained civilisation seem to begin in a
consultative and tentative absolutism. The king has a council of elders
whom he consults while he tests popular support in the assembly of
freemen. In England a very strong executive was an imperative necessity.
The assemblies summoned by the English sovereign told him, in effect,
how far he might go. Legislation as a positive power was very secondary
in those old parliaments; but their negative action was essential. The
king could not venture to alter the law until the people had expressed
their consent. The Wars of the Roses killed out the old councils. The
second period of the constitution continues to the revolution of 1688.
The rule of parliament was then established by the concurrence of the
usual supporters of royalty with the usual opponents of it. Yet the mode
of exercising that rule has since changed. Even as late as 1810 it was
supposed that when the Prince of Wales became Prince Regent he would be
able to turn out the ministry.
It is one of our peculiarities that the English people is always
antagonistic to the executive. It is their natural impulse to resist
authority as something imposed from outside. Hence our tolerance of
local authorities as instruments of resistance to tyranny of the central
authority.
Our constitution is full of anomalies. Some of them are, no doubt,
impeding and mischievous. Half the world believes that the Englishman is
born illogical. As a matter of fact, I am inclined to believe that the
English care more even than the French for simplicity; but the
constitution is not logical. The complexity we tolerate is that which
has grown up. Any new complexity, as such, is detestable to the English
mind. Let anyone try to advocate a plan of suffrage reform at all out of
the way, and see how many adherents he can collect.
This great political question of the day, the suffrage question, is made
exceedingly difficult by this history of ours. We shall find on
investigation that so far from an ultra-democratic suffrage giving us a
more homogeneous and decided House of Commons it would give us a less
homogeneous and more timid house. With us democracy would mean the rule
of money and mainly and increasingly of new money working for its own
ends.
* * * * *
VOLTAIRE
The Age of Louis XIV
Voltaire's "History of the Age of Louis XIV.," was published
when its author (see p. 259), long famous, was the companion
of Frederick the Great in Prussia--from 1750 to 1753. Voltaire
was in his twentieth year when the Grand Monarque died. Louis
XIV. had succeeded his father at the age of five years, in
1643; his nominal reign covered seventy-one years, and
throughout the fifty-three years which followed Mazarin's
death his declaration "L'État c'est moi" had been politically
and socially a truth. He controlled France with an absolute
sway; under him she achieved a European ascendency without
parallel save in the days of Napoleon. He sought to make her
the dictator of Europe. But for William of Orange,
Marlborough, and Eugene, he would have succeeded. Politically
he did not achieve his aim; but under him France became the
unchallenged leader of literary and artistic culture and
taste, the universal criterion.
_I.--France Under Mazarin_
We do not propose to write merely a life of Louis XIV.; our aim is a far
wider one. It is to give posterity a picture, not of the actions of a
single man, but of the spirit of the men of an age the most enlightened
on record. Every period has produced its heroes and its politicians,
every people has experienced revolutions; the histories of all are of
nearly equal value to those who desire merely to store their memory with
facts. But the thinker, and that still rarer person the man of taste,
recognises only four epochs in the history of the world--those four
fortunate ages in which the arts have been perfected: the great age of
the Greeks, the age of Cæsar and of Augustus, the age which followed the
fall of Constantinople, and the age of Louis XIV.; which last approached
perfection more nearly than any of the others.
On the death of Louis XIII., his queen, Anne of Austria, owed her
acquisition of the regency to the Parlement of Paris. Anne was obliged
to continue the war with Spain, in which the brilliant victories of the
young Duc d'Enghein, known to fame as the Great Condé, brought him
sudden glory and unprecedented prestige to the arms of France.
But internally the national finances were in a terribly unsatisfactory
state. The measures for raising funds adopted by the minister Mazarin
were the more unpopular because he was himself an Italian. The Paris
Parlement set itself in opposition to the minister; the populace
supported it; the resistance was organised by Paul de Gondi, afterwards
known as the Cardinal de Retz. The court had to flee from Paris to St.
Germain. Condé was won over by the queen regent; but the nobles, hoping
to recover the power which Richelieu had wrenched from them, took the
popular side. And their wives and daughters surpassed them in energy. A
very striking contrast to the irresponsible frivolity with which the
whole affair was conducted is presented by the grim orderliness with
which England had at that very moment carried through the last act in
the tragedy of Charles I. In France the factions of the Fronde were
controlled by love intrigues.
Condé was victorious. But he was at feud with Mazarin, made himself
personally unpopular, and found himself arrested when he might have made
himself master of the government. A year later the tables were turned;
Mazarin had to fly, and the Fronde released Condé. The civil war was
renewed; a war in which no principles were at stake, in which the
popular party of yesterday was the unpopular party of to-day; in which
there were remarkable military achievements, much bloodshed, and much
suffering, and which finally wore itself out in 1653, when Mazarin
returned to undisputed power. Louis XIV. was then a boy of fifteen.
Mazarin had achieved a great diplomatic triumph by the peace of
Westphalia in 1648; but Spain had remained outside that group of
treaties; and, owing to the civil war of the Fronde, Condé's successes
against her had been to a great extent made nugatory--and now Condé was
a rebel and in command of Spanish troops. But Condé, with a Spanish
army, met his match in Turenne with a French army.
At this moment, Christina of Sweden was the only European sovereign who
had any personal prestige. But Cromwell's achievements in England now
made each of the European statesmen anxious for the English alliance;
and Cromwell chose France. The combined arms of France and England were
triumphant in Flanders, when Cromwell died; and his death changed the
position of England. France was financially exhausted, and Mazarin now
desired a satisfactory peace with Spain. The result, was the Treaty of
the Pyrenees, by which the young King Louis took a Spanish princess in
marriage, an alliance which ultimately led to the succession of a
grandson of Louis to the Spanish throne. Immediately afterwards, Louis'
cousin, Charles II., was recalled to the throne of England. This closing
achievement of Mazarin had a triumphant aspect; his position in France
remained undisputed till his death in the next year (1661). He was a
successful minister; whether he was a great statesman is another
question. His one real legacy to France was the acquisition of Alsace.
_II.---The French Supremacy in Europe_
On Mazarin's death Louis at once assumed personal rule. Since the death
of Henry the Great, France had been governed by ministers; now she was
to be governed by the king--the power exercised by ministers was
precisely circumscribed. Order and vigour were introduced on all sides;
the finances were regulated by Colbert, discipline was restored in the
army, the creation of a fleet, was begun. In all foreign courts Louis
asserted the dignity of France; it was very soon evident that there was
no foreign power of whom he need stand in fear. New connections were
established with Holland and Portugal. England under Charles II. was of
little account.
To the king on the watch for an opportunity, an opportunity soon
presents itself. Louis found his when Philip IV. of Spain was succeeded
by the feeble Charles II. He at once announced that Flanders reverted to
his own wife, the new king's elder sister. He had already made his
bargain with the Emperor Leopold, who had married the other infanta.
Louis' armies were overrunning Flanders in 1667, and Franche-Comté next
year. Holland, a republic with John de Witt at its head, took alarm; and
Sir William Temple succeeded in effecting the Triple Alliance between
Holland, England, and Sweden. Louis found it advisable to make peace,
even at the price of surrendering Franche-Comté for the present.
Determined now, however, on the conquest of Holland, Louis had no
difficulty in secretly detaching the voluptuary Charles II. from the
Dutch alliance. Holland itself was torn between the faction of the De
Witts and the partisans of the young William of Orange. Overwhelming
preparations were made for the utterly unwarrantable enterprise.
As the French armies poured into Holland, practically no resistance was
offered. The government began to sue for peace. But the populace rose
and massacred the De Witts; young William was made stadtholder. Ruyter
defeated the combined French and English fleets at Sole Bay. William
opened the dykes and laid the country under water, and negotiated
secretly with the emperor and with Spain. Half Europe was being drawn
into a league against Louis, who made the fatal mistake of following the
advice of his war minister Louvois, instead of Condé and Turenne.
In every court in Europe Louis had his pensioners intriguing on his
behalf. His newly created fleet was rapidly learning its work. On land
he was served by the great engineer Vauban, by Turenne, Condé, and
Condé's pupil, Luxembourg. He decided to direct his own next campaign
against Franche-Comté. But during the year Turenne, who was conducting a
separate campaign in Germany with extraordinary brilliancy, was killed;
and after this year Condé took no further part in the war. Moreover, the
Austrians were now in the field, under the able leader Montecuculi.
In 1676-8 town after town fell before Vauban, a master of siege work as
of fortification; Louis, in many cases, being present in person. In
other quarters, also, the French arms were successful. Especially
noticeable were the maritime successes of Duquesne, who was proving
himself a match for the Dutch commanders. Louis was practically fighting
and beating half Europe single-handed, as he was now getting no
effective help from England or his nominal ally, Sweden. Finally, in
1678, he was able practically to dictate his own terms to the allies.
The peace had already been signed when William of Orange attacked
Luxembourg before Mons; a victory, on the whole, for him, but entirely
barren of results. With this peace of Nimeguen, Louis was at the height
of his power.
By assuming the right of interpreting for himself the terms of the
treaty, he employed the years of peace in extending his possessions. No
other power could now compare with France, but in 1688 Louis stood
alone, without any supporter, save James II. of England. And he
intensified the general dread by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
and the expulsion of the French Huguenots.
The determination of James to make himself absolute, and to restore
Romanism in England, caused leading Englishmen to enter on a
conspiracy--kept secret with extraordinary success--with William of
Orange. The luckless monarch was abandoned on every hand, and fled from
his kingdom to France, an object of universal mockery. Yet Louis
resolved to aid him. A French force accompanied him to Ireland, and
Tourville defeated the united fleets of England and Holland. At last
France was mistress of the seas; but James met with a complete overthrow
at the Boyne. The defeated James, in his flight, hanged men who had
taken part against him. The victorious William proclaimed a general
pardon. Of two such men, it is easy to see which was certain to win.
Louis had already engaged himself in a fresh European war before
William's landing in England. He still maintained his support of James.
But his newly acquired sea power was severely shaken at La Hogue. On
land, however, Louis' arms prospered. The Palatinate was laid waste in a
fashion which roused the horror of Europe. Luxembourg in Flanders, and
Catinat in Italy, won the foremost military reputations in Europe. On
the other hand, William proved himself one of those generals who can
extract more advantage from a defeat than his enemies from a victory, as
Steinkirk and Neerwinden both exemplified. France, however, succeeded in
maintaining a superiority over all her foes, but the strain before long
made a peace necessary. She could not dictate terms as at Nimeguen.
Nevertheless, the treaty of Ryswick, concluded in 1697, secured her
substantial benefits.
_III.---The Spanish Succession_
The general pacification was brief. North Europe was soon aflame with
the wars of those remarkable monarchs, Charles XII. and Peter the Great;
and the rest of Europe over the Spanish succession. The mother and wife
of Louis were each eldest daughters of a Spanish king; the mother and
wife of the Emperor Leopold were their younger sisters. Austrian and
French successions were both barred by renunciations; and the absorption
of Spain by either power would upset utterly the balance of power in
Europe. There was no one else with a plausible claim to succeed the
childless and dying Charles II. European diplomacy effected treaties for
partitioning the Spanish dominions; but ultimately Charles declared the
grandson of Louis his heir. Louis, in defiance of treaties, accepted the
legacy.
The whole weight of England was then thrown on to the side of the
Austrian candidate by Louis' recognition of James Edward Stuart as
rightful King of England. William, before he died, had successfully
brought about a grand alliance of European powers against Louis; his
death gave the conduct of the war to Marlborough. Anne was obliged to
carry on her brother-in-law's policy. Elsewhere, kings make their
subjects enter blindly on their own projects; in London the king must
enter upon those of his subjects.
When Louis entered on the war of the Spanish Succession he had already,
though unconsciously, lost that grasp of affairs which had distinguished
him; while he still dictated the conduct of his ministers and his
generals. The first commander who took the field against him was Prince
Eugene of Savoy, a man born with those qualities which make a hero in
war and a great man in peace. The able Catinat was superseded in Italy
by Villeroi, whose failures, however, led to the substitution of
Vendôme.
But the man who did more to injure the greatness of France than any
other for centuries past was Marlborough--the general with the coolest
head of his time; as a politician the equal, and as a soldier
immeasurably the superior, of William III. Between Marlborough and his
great colleague Eugene there was always complete harmony and complete
understanding, whether they were campaigning or negotiating.
In the Low Countries, Marlborough gained ground steadily, without any
great engagement. In Germany the French arms were successful, and at the
end of 1703 a campaign was planned with Vienna for its objective. The
advance was intercepted in 1704 by the junction of Eugene and the forces
from Italy with Marlborough and an English force. The result was the
tremendous overthrow of Hochstedt, or Blenheim. The French were driven
over the Rhine.
Almost at the same moment English sailors surprised and captured the
Rock of Gibraltar, which England still holds. In six weeks, too, the
English mastered Valencia and Catalonia for the archduke, under the
redoubtable Peterborough. Affairs went better in Italy (1705); but in
Flanders, Villeroi was rash enough to challenge Marlborough at Ramillies
in 1706. In half an hour the French army was completely routed, and lost
20,000 men; city after city opened its gates to the conqueror; Flanders
was lost as far as Lille. Vendôme was summoned from Italy to replace
Villeroi, whereupon Eugene attacked the French in their lines before
Turin, and dispersed their army, which was forced to withdraw from
Italy, leaving the Austrians masters there.
Louis seemed on the verge of ruin; but Spain was loyal to the Bourbon.
In 1707 Berwick won for the French the signal victory of Almanza. In
Germany, Villars made progress. Louis actually designed an invasion of
Great Britain in the name of the Pretender, but the scheme collapsed. He
succeeded in placing a great army in the field in Flanders; it was
defeated by Marlborough and Eugene at Oudenarde. Eugene sat down before
Lille, and took it. The lamentable plight of France was made worse by a
cruel winter.
Louis found himself forced to sue for peace, but the terms of the allies
were too intolerably humiliating. They demanded that Louis should assist
in expelling his own grandson from Spain. "If I must make war, I would
rather make it on my enemies than on my children," said Louis. Once more
an army took the field with indomitable courage. A desperate battle was
fought by Villars against Marlborough and Eugene at Malplaquet. Villars
was defeated, but with as much honour to the French as to the allies.
Louis again sued for peace, but the allies would not relax their
monstrous demands. Marlborough, Eugene, and the Dutch Heinsius all found
their own interest in prolonging the war. But with the Bourbon cause
apparently at its last gasp in Spain, the appearance there of Vendôme
revived the spirit of resistance.
Then the death of the emperor, and the succession to his position of his
brother, the Spanish claimant, the Archduke Charles, meant that the
allies were fighting to make one dominion of the Spanish and German
Empires. The steady advance of Marlborough in the Low Countries could
not prevent a revulsion of popular sentiment, which brought about his
recall and the practical withdrawal from the contest of England, where
Bolingbroke and Oxford were now at the head of affairs. Under Villars,
success returned to the French standards in Flanders.
Hence came in 1713 the peace of Utrecht, for the terms of which England
was mainly responsible. It was fair and just, but the English ministry
received scant justice for making it. The emperor refused at first to
accept it; but, when isolated, he agreed to its corollary, the peace of
Rastadt. Philip was secured on the throne of Spain.
Never was there a war or a peace in which so many natural expectations
were so completely reversed in the outcome. What Louis may have proposed
to himself after it was over, no one can say for he died the year after
the treaty of Utrecht.
_IV.--The Court of the Grand Monarque_
The brilliancy and magnificence of the court, as well as the reign of
Louis XIV., were such that the least details of his life seem
interesting to posterity, just as they excited the curiosity of every
court in Europe and of all his contemporaries. Such is the effect of a
great reputation. We care more to know what passed in the cabinet and
the court of an Augustus than for details of Attila's and Tamerlane's
conquests.
One of the most curious affairs in this connection is the mystery of the
Man with the Iron Mask, who was placed in the Ile Sainte-Marguerite just
after Mazarin's death, was removed to the Bastille in 1690, and died in
1703. His identity has never been revealed. That he was a person of very
great consideration is clear from the way in which he was treated; yet
no such person disappeared from public life. Those who knew the secret
carried it with them to their graves.
Once the man scratched a message on a silver plate, and flung it into
the river. A fisherman who picked it up brought it to the governor.
Asked if he had read the writing, he said, "No; he could not read
himself, and no one else had seen it." "It is lucky for you that you
cannot read," said the governor. And the man was detained till the truth
of his statement had been confirmed.
The king surpassed the whole court in the majestic beauty of his
countenance; the sound of his voice won the hearts which were awed by
his presence; his gait, appropriate to his person and his rank, would
have been absurd in anyone else. In those who spoke with him he inspired
an embarrassment which secretly flattered an agreeable consciousness of
his own superiority. That old officer who began to ask some favour of
him, lost his nerve, stammered, broke down, and finally said: "Sire, I
do not tremble thus in the presence of your enemies," had little
difficulty in obtaining his request.
Nothing won for him the applause of Europe so much as his unexampled
munificence. A number of foreign savants and scholars were the
recipients of his distinguished bounty, in the form of presents or
pensions; among Frenchmen who were similarly benefited were Racine,
Quinault, Fléchier, Chapelain, Cotin, Lulli.
A series of ladies, from Mazarin's niece, Marie Mancini, to Mme. la
Vallière and Mme. de Montespan, held sway over Louis' affections; but
after the retirement of the last, Mme. de Maintenon, who had been her
rival, became and remained supreme. The queen was dead; and Louis was
privately married to her in January, 1686, she being then past fifty.
Françoise d'Aubigné was born in 1635, of good family, but born and
brought up in hard surroundings. She was married to Scarron in 1651;
nine years later he died. Later, she was placed, in charge of the king's
illegitimate children. She supplanted Mme. de Montespan, to whom she
owed her promotion, in the king's favour. The correspondence in the
years preceding the marriage is an invaluable record of that mixture of
religion and gallantry, of dignity and weakness, to which the human
heart is so often prone, in Louis; and in the lady, of a piety and an
ambition which never came into conflict. She never used her power to
advance her own belongings.
In August, 1715, Louis was attacked by a mortal malady. His heir was his
great-grandson; the regency devolved on Orleans, the next prince of the
blood. His powers were to be limited by Louis' will but the will could
not override the rights which the Paris Parliament declared were
attached to the regency. The king's courage did not fail him as death
drew near.
"I thought," he said to Mme. de Maintenon, "that it was a harder thing
to die." And to his servants: "Why do you weep? Did you think I was
immortal?" The words he spoke while he embraced the child who was his
heir are significant. "You are soon to be king of a great kingdom. Above
all things, I would have you never forget your obligations to God.
Remember that you owe to Him all that you are. Try to keep at peace with
your neighbours. I have loved war too much. Do not imitate me in that,
or in my excessive expenditure. Consider well in everything; try to be
sure of what is best, and to follow that."
_V.--How France Flourished Under Louis XIV._
At the beginning of the reign the genius of Colbert, the restorer of the
national finances, was largely employed on the extension of commerce,
then almost entirely in the hands of the Dutch and English. Not only a
navy, but a mercantile marine was created; the West India and East India
companies were both established in 1664. Almost every year of Colbert's
ministry was marked by the establishment of a new industry.
Paris was lighted and paved and policed, almost rebuilt. Louis had a
marked taste for architecture, for gardens, and for sculpture. The law
owed many reforms to this monarch. The army was reorganised; merit, not
rank, became the ground of promotion: the bayonet replaced the pike, and
the artillery was greatly developed. When Louis began to rule there was
no navy. Arsenals were created, sailors were trained, and a fleet came
into being which matched those of Holland and England.
Even a brief summary shows the vast changes in the state accomplished by
Louis. His ministers seconded his efforts admirably. Theirs is the
credit for the details, for the execution; but the scheme, the general
principles, were due to him. The magistrates would not have reformed the
laws, order would not have been restored in the finances, discipline in
the army, police throughout the kingdom; there would have been no
fleets, no encouragement of the arts; none of all those improvements
carried out systematically, simultaneously, resolutely, under various
ministers, had there not been a master, greater than them all, imbued
with the general conceptions and determined on their fulfilment.
The spirit of commonsense, the spirit of criticism, gradually
progressing, insensibly destroyed much superstition; insomuch that
simple charges of sorcery were excluded from the courts in 1672. Such a
measure would have been impossible under Henry IV. or Louis XIII.
Nevertheless, such superstitions were deeply rooted. Everyone believed
in astrology; the comet of 1680 was regarded as a portent.
In science France was, indeed, outstripped by England and Florence. But
in eloquence, poetry, literature, and philosophy the French were the
legislators of Europe. One of the works which most contributed to.
forming the national taste was the "Maxims" of La Rochefoucauld. But the
work of genius which in itself summed up the perfections of prose and
set the mould of language was Pascal's "Lettres Provinciales." The age
was characterised by the eloquence of Bossuet. The "Télémaque" of
Fénelon, the "Caractères" of La Bruyère, were works of an order entirely
original and without precedent.
Racine, less original than Corneille, owes a still increasing reputation
to his unfailing elegance, correctness, and truth; he carried the tender
harmonies of poetry and the graces of language to their highest possible
perfection. These men taught the nation to think, to feel, and to
express itself. It was a curious stroke of destiny that made Molière the
contemporary of Corneille and Racine. Of him I will venture to say that
he was the legislator of life's amenities; of his other merits it is
needless to speak.
The other arts--of music, painting, sculpture and architecture--had made
little progress in France before this period. Lulli introduced an order
of music hitherto unknown. Poussin was our first great painter in the
reign of Louis XIII.; he has had no lack of successors. French sculpture
has excelled in particular. And we must remark on the extraordinary
advance of England during this period. We can exhaust ourselves in
criticising Milton, but not in praising him. Dryden was equalled by no
contemporary, surpassed by no predecessor. Addison's "Cato" is the one
English tragedy of sustained beauty. Swift is a perfected Rabelais. In
science, Newton and Halley stand to-day supreme; and Locke is infinitely
the superior of Plato.
_VI.--Religion Under Louis XIV._
To preserve at once union with the see of Rome and maintain the
liberties of the Gallican Church--her ancient rights; to make the
bishops obedient as subjects without infringing on their rights as
bishops; to make them contribute to the needs of the state, without
trespassing on their privileges, required a mixture of dexterity which
Louis almost always showed. The one serious and protracted quarrel with
Rome arose over the royal claim to appoint bishops, and the papal
refusal to recognise the appointments. The French Assembly of the Clergy
supported the king; but the famous Four Resolutions of that body were
ultimately repudiated by the bishops personally, with the king's
consent.
Dogmatism is responsible for introducing among men the horror of wars of
religion. Following the Reformation, Calvinism was largely identified
with republican principles. In France, the fierce struggles of Catholics
and Huguenots were stayed by the accession of Henry IV.; the Edict of
Nantes secured to the former the privileges which their swords had
practically won. But after his time they formed an organisation which
led to further contests, ended by Richelieu.
Favoured by Colbert, to Louis the Huguenots were suspect as rebels who
had with difficulty been forced to submission. By him they were
subjected to constantly increasing disabilities. At last the Huguenots
disobeyed the edicts against them. Still harsher measures were adopted;
and the climax came in 1685 with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
following on the "dragonnades" in Alsace. Protestantism was proscribed.
The effect was not the forcible conversion of the Calvinists. but their
wholesale emigration; the transfer to foreign states of an admirable
industrial and military population. Later, the people of the Cévennes
rose, and were put down with great difficulty, though Jean Cavalier was
their sole leader worthy the name. In fact, the struggle was really
ended by a treaty, and Cavalier died a general of France.
Calvinism is the parent of civil wars. It shakes the foundations of
states. Jansenism can excite only theological quarrels and wars of the
pen. The Reformation attacked the power of the Church; Jansenism was
concerned exclusively with abstract questions. The Jansenist disputes
sprang from problems of grace and predestination, fate and
free-will--that labyrinth in which man holds no clue.
A hundred years later Cornells Jansen, Bishop of Ypres, revived these
questions. Arnauld supported him. The views had authority from Augustine
and Chrysostom, but Arnauld was condemned. The two establishments of
Port Royal refused to sign the formularies condemning Jansen's book, and
they had on their side the brilliant pen of Pascal. On the other were
the Jesuits. Pascal, in the "Lettres Provinciales," made the Jesuits
ridiculous with his incomparable wit. The Jansenists were persecuted,
but the persecution strengthened them. But full of absurdities as the
whole controversy was to an intelligent observer, the crown, the
bishops, and the Jesuits were too strong for the Jansenists, especially
when Le Tellier became the king's confessor. But the affair was not
finally brought to a conclusion, and the opposing parties reconciled,
till after the death of Louis. Ultimately, Jansenism became merely
ridiculous. The fall of the Jesuits was to follow in due time.
* * * * *
DE TOCQUEVILLE
The Old Régime
Born at Paris on July 29, 1805, Alexis Henri Charles Clérel de
Tocqueville came of an old Norman family which had
distinguished itself both in law and in arms. Educated for the
Bar, he proceeded to America in 1831 to study the penitentiary
system. Four years later he published "De la Démocratie en
Amérique" (see Miscellaneous Literature), a work which created
an enormous sensation throughout Europe. De Tocqueville came
to England, where he married a Miss Mottley. He became a
member of the French Academy; was appointed to the Chamber of
Deputies, took an important part in public life, and in 1849
became vice-president of the Assembly, and Minister of Foreign
Affairs. His next work, "L'Ancien Régime" ("The Old Régime"),
translated under the title "On the State of Society in France
before the Revolution of 1789; and on the Causes which Led to
that Event," appeared in 1856. It is of the highest
importance, because it was the starting point of the true
conception of the Revolution. In it was first shown that the
centralisation of modern France was not the product of the
Revolution, but of the old monarchy, that the irritation
against the nobility was due, not to their power, but to their
lack of power, and that the movement was effected by masses
already in possession of property. De Tocqueville died at
Cannes on April 16, 1859.
_I.---The Last Days of Feudal Institutions_
The French people made, in 1789, the greatest effort which was ever
attempted by any nation to cut, so to speak, their destiny in halves,
and to separate by an abyss that which they had heretofore been from
that which they sought to become hereafter.
The municipal institutions, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries had raised the chief towns of Germany into rich and
enlightened small republics, still existed in the eighteenth; but they
were a mere semblance of the past.
All the powers of the Middle Ages which were still in existence seemed
to be affected by the same disease; all showed symptoms of the same
languor and decay.
Wherever the provincial assemblies had maintained their ancient
constitution unchanged, they checked instead of furthering the progress
of civilisation.
Royalty no longer had anything in common with the royalty of the Middle
Ages; it enjoyed other prerogatives, occupied a different place, was
imbued with a different spirit, and inspired different sentiments; the
administration of the state spread in all directions upon the ruin of
local authorities; the organised array of public officers superseded
more and more the government of the nobles.
This view of the state of things, which prevailed throughout Europe as
well as within the boundaries of France, is essential to the
comprehension of what is about to follow, for no one who has seen and
studied France only can ever, I affirm, understand anything of the
French Revolution.
What was the real object of the revolution? What was its peculiar
character? For what precise reason was it made, and what did it effect?
The revolution was not made, as some have supposed, in order to destroy
the authority of religious belief. In spite of appearances, it was
essentially a social and political revolution; and within the circle of
social and political institutions it did not tend to perpetuate and give
stability to disorder, or--as one of its chief adversaries has said--to
methodise anarchy.
However radical the revolution may have been, its innovations were, in
fact, much less than have been commonly supposed, as I shall show
hereafter. What may truly be said is that it entirely destroyed, or is
still destroying--for it is not at an end--every part of the ancient
state of society that owed its origin to aristocratic and feudal
institutions.
But why, we may ask, did this revolution, which was imminent throughout
Europe, break out in France rather than elsewhere? And why did it
display certain characteristics which have appeared nowhere else, or, at
least, have appeared only in part?
One circumstance excites at first sight surprise. The revolution, whose
peculiar object it was, as we have seen, everywhere to abolish the
remnant of the institutions of the Middle Ages, did not break out in the
countries in which these institutions, still in better preservation,
caused the people most to feel their constraint and their rigour, but,
on the contrary, in the countries where their effects were least felt;
so that the burden seemed most intolerable where it was in reality least
heavy.
In no part of Germany, for instance, at the close of the eighteenth
century, was serfdom as yet completely abolished. Nothing of the kind
had existed in France for a long period of time. The peasant came, and
went, and bought and sold, and dealt and laboured as he pleased. The
last traces of serfdom could only be detected in one or two of the
eastern provinces annexed to France by conquest; everywhere else the
institution had disappeared. The French peasant had not only ceased to
be a serf; he had become an owner of land.
It has long been believed that the subdivision of landed property in
France dates from the revolution of 1789, and was only the result of
that revolution. The contrary is demonstrable by all the evidence.
The number of landed proprietors at that time amounted to one-half,
frequently to two-thirds, of their present number. Now, all these small
landowners were, in reality, ill at ease in the cultivation of their
property, and had to bear many charges, or easements, on the land which
they could not shake off.
Although what is termed in France the old régime is still very near to
us, few persons can now give an accurate answer to the question--How
were the rural districts of France administered before 1789?
In the eighteenth century all the affairs of the parish were managed by
a certain number of parochial officers, who were no longer the agents of
the manor or domain, and whom the lord no longer selected. Some of these
persons were nominated by the intendant of the province, others were
elected by the peasants themselves. The duty of these authorities was to
assess the taxes, to repair the church, to build schools, to convoke and
preside over the vestry or parochial meeting. They attended to the
property of the parish, and determined the application of it; they sued,
and were sued, in its name. Not only the lord of the domain no longer
conducted the administration of the small local affairs, but he did not
even superintend it. All the parish officers were under the government
or control of the central power, as we shall show in a subsequent
chapter. Nay, more; the seigneur had almost ceased to act as the
representative of the crown in the parish, or as the channel of
communication between the king and his subjects.
If we quit the parish, and examine the constitution of the larger rural
districts, we shall find the same state of things. Nowhere did the
nobles conduct public business either in their collective or their
individual capacity. This was peculiar to France.
Of all the peculiar rights of the French nobility, the political element
had disappeared; the pecuniary element alone remained, in some instances
largely increased.
_II.---A Shadow of Democracy_
Picture to yourself a French peasant of the eighteenth century. Take him
as he is described in the documents--so passionately enamoured of the
soil that he will spend all his savings to purchase it, and to purchase
it at any price. To complete his purchase he must first pay a tax, not
to the government, but to other landowners of the neighbourhood, as
unconnected as himself with the administration of public affairs, and
hardly more influential than he is. He possesses it at last; his heart
is buried in it with the seeds he sows. This little nook of ground,
which is his own in this vast universe, fills him with pride and
independence. But again these neighbours call him from his furrow, and
compel him to come to work for them without wages. He tries to defend
his young crops from their game; again they prevent him. As he crosses
the river they wait for his passage to levy a toll. He finds them at the
market, where they sell him the right of selling his own produce; and
when, on his return home, he wants to use the remainder of his wheat for
his own sustenance--of that wheat which was planted by his own hands,
and has grown under his eyes--he cannot touch it till he has ground it
at the mill and baked it at the bakehouse of these same men. A portion
of his little property is paid away in quit-rents to them also, and
these dues can neither be extinguished nor redeemed.
The lord, when deprived of his former power, considered himself
liberated from his former obligations; and no local authority, no
council, no provincial or parochial association had taken his place. No
single being was any longer compelled by law to take care of the poor in
the rural districts, and the central government had boldly undertaken to
provide for their wants by its own resources.
Every year the king's council assigned to each province certain funds
derived from the general produce of the taxes, which the intendant
distributed.
Sometimes the king's council insisted upon compelling individuals to
prosper, whether they would or no. The ordinances constraining artisans
to use certain methods and manufacture certain articles are innumerable;
and, as the intendants had not time to superintend the application of
all these regulations, there were inspectors general of manufactures,
who visited in the provinces to insist on their fulfilment.
So completely had the government already changed its duty as a sovereign
into that of a guardian.
In France municipal freedom outlived the feudal system. Long after the
landlords were no longer the rulers of the country districts, the towns
still retained the right of self-government.
In most instances the government of the towns was vested in two
assemblies. All the great towns were thus governed, and some of the
small ones. The first of these assemblies was composed of municipal
officers, more of less numerous according to the place. These municipal
officers never received any stipend, but they were remunerated by
exemptions from taxation and by privileges.
The second assembly, which was termed the general assembly, elected the
corporation, wherever it was still subject to election, and always
continued to take a part in the principal concerns of the town.
If we turn from the towns to the villages, we meet with different powers
and different forms of government.
In the eighteenth century the number and the name of the parochial
officers varied in the different provinces of France. In most of the
parishes they were, in the eighteenth century, reduced to two
persons--the one named the "collector," the other most commonly named
the "syndic." Generally, these parochial officers were either elected,
or supposed to be so; but they had everywhere become the instruments of
the state rather than the representatives of the community. The
collector levied the _taille_, or common tax, under the direct orders of
the intendant. The syndic, placed under the daily direction of the
sub-delegate of the intendant, represented that personage in all matters
relating to public order or affecting the government. He became the
principal agent of the government in relation to military service, to
the public works of the state, and to the execution of the general laws
of the kingdom.
Down to the revolution the rural parishes of France had preserved in
their government something of that democratic aspect which they had
acquired in the Middle Ages. The democratic assembly of the parish could
express its desires, but it had no more power to execute its will than
the corporate bodies in the towns. It could not speak until its mouth
had been opened, for the meeting could not be held without the express
permission of the intendant, and, to use the expression of those times,
which adapted language to the fact, "_under his good pleasure_."
_III.--The Ruin of the Nobility_
If we carefully examine the state of society in France before the
revolution, we may see that in each province men of various classes,
those, at least, who were placed above the common people grew to
resemble each other more and more, in spite of differences of rank.
Time, which had perpetuated, and, in many respects, aggravated the
privileges interposed between two classes of men, had powerfully
contributed to render them alike in all other respects.
For several centuries the French nobility had grown gradually poorer and
poorer. "Spite of its privileges, the nobility is ruined and wasted day
by day, and the middle classes get possession of the large fortunes,"
wrote a nobleman in a melancholy strain in 1755-Yet the laws by which
the estates of the nobility were protected still remained the same,
nothing appeared to be changed in their economical condition.
Nevertheless, the more they lost their power the poorer they everywhere
became in exactly the same proportion.
The non-noble classes alone seemed to inherit all the wealth which the
nobility had lost; they fattened, as is were, upon its substance. Yet
there were no laws to prevent the middle class from ruining themselves,
or to assist them in acquiring riches; nevertheless, they incessantly
increased their wealth--in many instances they had become as rich, and
often richer, than the nobles. Nay, more, their wealth was of the same
kind, for, though dwelling in the towns, they were often country
landowners, and sometimes they even bought seignorial estates.
Let us now look at the other side of the picture, and we shall see that
these same Frenchmen, who had so many points of resemblance among
themselves, were, nevertheless, more completely isolated from each other
than perhaps the inhabitants of any other country, or than had ever been
the case before in France.
The fact is, that as by degrees the general liberties of the country
were finally destroyed, involving the local liberties in their ruin, the
burgess and the noble ceased to come into contact with public life.
The system of creating new nobles, far from lessening the hatred of the
_roturier_ to the nobleman, increased it beyond measure; it was
envenomed by all the envy with which the new noble was looked upon by
his former equals. For this reason the _tiers état,_ in all their
complaints, always displayed more irritation against the newly ennobled
than against the old nobility.
In the eighteenth century the French peasantry could no longer be preyed
upon by petty feudal despots. They were seldom the object of violence on
the part of the government; they enjoyed civil liberty, and were owners
of a portion of the soil. But all the other classes of society stood
aloof from this class, and perhaps in no other part of the world had the
peasantry ever lived so entirely alone. The effects of this novel and
singular kind of oppression deserve a very attentive consideration.
This state of things did not exist in an equal degree among any other of
the civilised nations of Europe, and even in France it was comparatively
recent. The peasantry of the fourteenth century were at once oppressed
and more relieved. The aristocracy sometimes tyrannised over them, but
never forsook them.
In the eighteenth century a French village was a community of persons,
all of whom were poor, ignorant, and coarse; its magistrates were as
rude and as contemned as the people; its syndic could not read; its
collector could not record in his own handwriting the accounts on which
the income of his neighbour and himself depended.
Not only had the former lord of the manor lost the right of governing
this community, but he had brought himself to consider it a sort of
degradation to take any part in the government of it. The central power
of the state alone took any care of the matter, and as that power was
very remote, and had as yet nothing to fear from the inhabitants of the
villages, the only care it took of them was to extract revenue.
A further burden was added. The roads began to be repaired by forced
labour only--that is to say, exclusively at the expense of the
peasantry. This expedient for making roads without paying for them was
thought so ingenious that in 1737 a circular of the Comptroller-General
Orry established it throughout France.
Nothing can better demonstrate the melancholy fate of the rural
population; the progress of society, which enriches all the other
classes, drives them to despair, and civilisation itself turns against
that class alone.
The system of forced labour, by becoming a royal right, was gradually
extended to almost all public works. In 1719 I find it was employed to
build barracks. "Parishes are to send their best workmen," said the
ordinance, "and all other works are to give way to this." The same
forced service was used to escort convicts to the galleys and beggars to
the workhouse; it had to cart the baggage of troops as often as they
changed their quarters--a burthen which was very onerous at a time when
each regiment carried heavy baggage after it. Many carts and oxen had to
be collected for the purpose.
_IV.--Reform and Destruction Inevitable_
One further factor, and that the most important, remains to be noted:
the universal discredit into which every form of religious belief had
fallen, at the end of the eighteenth century, and which exercised
without any doubt the greatest influence upon the whole of the French
Revolution; it stamped its character.
Irreligion had produced an enormous public evil. The religious laws
having been abolished at the same time that the civil laws were
overthrown, the minds of men were entirely upset; they no longer knew
either to what to cling or where to stop. And thus arose a hitherto
unknown species of revolutionists, who carried their boldness to a pitch
of madness, who were surprised by no novelty and arrested by no scruple,
and who never hesitated to put any design whatever into execution. Nor
must it be supposed that these new beings have been the isolated and
ephemeral creation of a moment, and destined to pass away as that moment
passed. They have since formed a race of beings which has perpetuated
itself, and spread into all the civilised parts of the world, everywhere
preserving the same physiognomy, the same character.
From the moment when the forces I have described, and the added loss of
religion, matured, I believe that this radical revolution, which was to
confound in common ruin all that was worst and all that was best in the
institutions and condition of France, became inevitable. A people so
ill-prepared to act for themselves could not undertake a universal and
simultaneous reform without a universal destruction.
One last element must be remembered before we conclude. As the common
people of France had not appeared for one single moment on the theatre
of public affairs for upwards of 140 years, no one any longer imagined
that they could ever again resume their position. They appeared
unconscious, and were therefore believed to be deaf. Accordingly, those
who began to take an interest in their condition talked about them in
their presence just as if they had not been there. It seemed as if these
remarks could only be heard by those who were placed above the common
people, and that the only danger to be apprehended was that they might
not be fully understood by the upper classes.
The very men who had most to fear from the fury of the people declaimed
loudly in their presence on the cruel injustice under which the people
had always suffered. They pointed out to each other the monstrous vices
of those institutions which had weighed most heavily upon the lower
orders; they employed all their powers of rhetoric in depicting the
miseries of the people and their ill-paid labour; and thus they
infuriated while they endeavoured to relieve them.
Such was the attitude of the French nation on the eve of the revolution,
but when I consider this nation in itself it strikes me as more
extraordinary than any event in its own annals. Was there ever any
nation on the face of the earth so full of contrasts and so extreme in
all its actions; more swayed by sensations, less by principles; led
therefore always to do either worse or better than was expected of it,
sometimes below the common level of humanity, sometimes greatly above
it--a people so unalterable in its leading instincts that its likeness
may still be recognised in descriptions written two or three thousand
years ago, but at the same time so mutable in its daily thoughts and in
its tastes as to become a spectacle and an amazement to itself, and to
be as much surprised as the rest of the world at the sight of what it
has done--a people beyond all others the child of home and the slave of
habit, when left to itself; but when once torn against its will from the
native hearth and from its daily pursuits, ready to go to the end of the
world and to dare all things.
Such a nation could alone give birth to a revolution so sudden, so
radical, so impetuous in its course, and yet so full of reactions, of
contradictory incidents and of contrary examples. Without the reasons I
have related the French would never have made the revolution; but it
must be confessed that all these reasons united would not have sufficed
to account for such a revolution anywhere else but in France.
* * * * *
FRANÇOIS MIGNET
History of the French Revolution
François Auguste Alexis Mignet was born at Aix, in Provence,
on May 8, 1796, and began life at the Bar. It soon became
apparent that his true vocation was history, and in 1818 he
left his native town for Paris, where he became attached to
the "Courier Français," in the meantime delivering with
considerable success a series of lectures on modern history at
the Athénée. Mignet may be said to be the first great
specialist to devote himself to the study of particular
periods of French history. His "History of the French
Revolution, from 1789 to 1814," published in 1824, is a
strikingly sane and lucid arrangement of facts that came into
his hands in chaotic masses. Eminently concise, exact, and
clear, it is the first complete account by one other than an
actor in the great drama. Mignet was elected to the French
Academy in 1836, and afterwards published a series of masterly
studies dealing with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
among which are "Antonio Perez and Philip II.," and "The
History of Mary, Queen of Scots," and also biographies of
Franklin and Charles V. He died on March 24, 1884.
_I.--The Last Resort of the Throne_
I am about to take a rapid review of the history of the French
Revolution, which began the era of new societies in Europe, as the
English revolution had begun the era of new governments.
Louis XVI. ascended the throne on May 11, 1774. Finances, whose
deficiencies neither the restorative ministry of Cardinal de Fleury, nor
the bankrupt ministry of the Abbé Terray had been able to make good,
authority disregarded, an imperious public opinion; such were the
difficulties which the new reign inherited from its predecessors. And in
choosing, on his accession to the throne, Maurepas as prime minister,
Louis XVI. eminently contributed to the irresolute character of his
reign. On the death of Maurepas the queen took his place with Louis
XVI., and inherited all his influence over him. Maurepas, mistrusting
court ministers, had always chosen popular ministers; it is true he did
not support them; but if good was not brought about, at least evil did
not increase. After his death, court ministers succeeded the popular
ministers, and by their faults rendered the crisis inevitable which
others had endeavoured to prevent by their reforms. This difference of
choice is very remarkable; this it was which, by the change of men,
brought on the change of the system of administration. _The revolution
dates front this epoch;_ the abandonment of reforms and the return of
disorders hastened its approach and augmented its fury.
After the failure of the queen's minister the States-General had become
the only means of government, and the last resources of the throne. The
king, on August 8, 1788, fixed the opening for May 1, 1789. Necker, the
popular minister of finance, was recalled, and prepared everything for
the election of deputies and the holding of the States.
A religious ceremony preceded their installation. The king, his family,
his ministers, the deputies of the three orders, went in procession from
the Church of Nôtre Dame to that of St. Louis, to hear the opening mass.
The royal sitting took place the following day in the Salle des Menus.
Galleries, arranged in the form of an amphitheatre, were filled with
spectators. The deputies were summoned, and introduced according to the
order established in 1614. The clergy were conducted to the right, the
nobility to the left, and the commons in front of the throne at the end
of the hall. The deputations from Dauphiné, from Crépy-en-Valois, to
which the Duke of Orleans belonged, and from Provence, were received
with loud applause. Necker was also received on his entrance with
general enthusiasm.
Barentin, keeper of the seals, spoke next after the king. His speech
displayed little knowledge of the wishes of the nation, or it sought
openly to combat them. The dissatisfied assembly looked to M. Necker,
from whom it expected different language.
The court, so far from wishing to organise the States-General, sought to
annul them. No efforts were spared to keep the nobility and clergy
separate from and in opposition to the commons; but on May 6, the day
after the opening of the States, the nobility and clergy repaired to
their respective chambers, and constituted themselves. The Third Estate
being, on account of its double representation, the most numerous order,
had the Hall of the States allotted to it, and there awaited the two
other orders; it considered its situation as provisional, its members as
presumptive deputies, and adopted a system of inactivity till the other
orders should unite with it. Then a memorable struggle began, the issue
of which was to decide whether the revolution should be effected or
stopped.
The commons, having finished the verification of their own powers of
membership on June 17, on the motion of Sieyès, constituted themselves
the National Assembly, and refused to recognise the other two orders
till they submitted, and changed the assembly of the States into an
assembly of the people.
It was decided that the king should go in state to the Assembly, annul
its decrees, command the separation of the orders as constitutive of the
monarchy, and himself fix the reforms to be effected by the
States-General. It was feared that the majority of the clergy would
recognise the Assembly by uniting with it; and to prevent so decided a
step, instead of hastening the royal sittings, they and the government
closed the Hall of the States, in order to suspend the Assembly till the
day of that royal session.
At an appointed hour on June 20 the president of the commons repaired to
the Hall of the States, and finding an armed force in possession, he
protested against this act of despotism. In the meantime the deputies
arrived, and dissatisfaction increased. The most indignant proposed
going to Marly and holding the Assembly under the windows of the king;
one named the Tennis Court; this proposition was well received, and the
deputies repaired thither in procession.
Bailly was at their head; the people followed them with enthusiasm, even
soldiers volunteered to escort them, and there, in a bare hall, the
deputies of the commons, standing with upraised hands, and hearts full
of their sacred mission, swore, with only one exception, not to separate
till they had given France a constitution.
By these two failures the court prefaced the famous sitting of June 23.
At length it took place. A numerous guard surrounded the hall of the
States-General, the door of which was opened to the deputies, but closed
to the public. After a scene of authority, ill-suited to the occasion,
and at variance with his heart, Louis XVI. withdrew, having commanded
the deputies to disperse. The clergy and nobility obeyed. The deputies
of the people, motionless, silent, and indignant, remained seated.
The grand-master of the ceremonies, finding the Assembly did not break
up, came and reminded them of the king's order.
"Go and tell your master," cried Mirabeau, "that we, are here at the
command of the people, and nothing but the bayonet shall drive us
hence."
"You are to-day," added Sieyès calmly, "what you were yesterday. Let us
deliberate."
The Assembly, full of resolution and dignity, began the debate
accordingly.
On that day the royal authority was lost. The initiative in law and
moral power passed from the monarch to the Assembly. Those who, by their
counsels, had provoked this resistance did not dare to punish it Necker,
whose dismissal had been decided on that morning, was, in the evening,
entreated by the queen and Louis XVI. to remain in office.
_II.---"À la Bastille!"_
The court might still have repaired its errors, and caused its attacks
to be forgotten. But the advisers of Louis XVI., when they recovered
from the first surprise of defeat, resolved to have recourse to the use
of the bayonet after they had failed in that of authority.
The troops arrived in great numbers; Versailles assumed the aspect of a
camp; the Hall of the States was surrounded by guards, and the citizens
refused admission. Paris was also encompassed by various bodies of the
army ready to besiege or blockade it, as the occasion might require;
when the court, having established troops at Versailles, Sèvres, the
Champ de Mars, and St. Denis, thought it able to execute its project. It
began on July 11, by the banishment of Necker, who received while at
dinner a note from the king enjoining him to leave the country
immediately.
On the following day, Sunday, July 12, about four in the afternoon,
Necker's disgrace and departure became known in Paris. More than ten
thousand persons flocked to the Palais Royal. They took busts of Necker
and the Duke of Orleans, a report also having gone abroad that the
latter would be exiled, and covering them with crape, carried them in
triumph. A detachment of the Royal Allemand came up and attempted to
disperse the mob; but the multitude, continuing its course, reached the
Place Louis XV. Here they were assailed by the dragoons of the Prince de
Lambese. After resisting a few moments they were thrown into confusion;
the bearer of one of the busts and a soldier of one of the French guards
were killed.
During the evening the people had repaired to the Hôtel de Ville, and
requested that the tocsin might be sounded. Some electors assembled at
the Hôtel de Ville, and took the authority into their own hands. The
nights of July 12 and 13 were spent in tumult and alarm.
On July 13 the insurrection took in Paris a more regular character. The
provost of the merchants announced the immediate arrival of twelve
thousand guns from the manufactory of Charleville, which would soon be
followed by thirty thousand more.
The next day, July 14, the people that had been unable to obtain arms on
the preceding day came early in the morning to solicit some from the
committee, hurried in a mass to the Hôtel des Invalides, which contained
a considerable depot of arms, found 28,000 guns concealed in the
cellars, seized them, took all the sabres, swords, and cannon, and
carried them off in triumph; while the cannon were placed at the
entrance of the Faubourgs, at the palace of the Tuileries, on the quays
and on the bridges, for the defence of the capital against the invasion
of troops, which was expected every moment.
From nine in the morning till two the only rallying word throughout
Paris was "À la Bastille! A la Bastille!" The citizens hastened thither
in bands from all quarters, armed with guns, pikes, and sabres. The
crowd which already surrounded it was considerable; the sentinels of the
fortress were at their posts, and the drawbridges raised as in war. The
populace advanced to cut the chains of the bridge. The garrison
dispersed them with a charge of musketry. They returned, however, to the
attack, and for several hours their efforts were confined to the bridge,
the approach to which was defended by a ceaseless fire from the
fortress.
The siege had lasted more than four hours when the French guards arrived
with cannon. Their arrival changed the appearance of the combat. The
garrison itself begged the governor to yield.
The gates were opened, the bridge lowered, and the crowd rushed into the
Bastille.
_III.--"Bread! Bread!"_
The multitude which was enrolled on July 14 was not yet, in the
following autumn, disbanded. And the people, who were in want of bread,
wished for the king to reside at Paris, in the hope that his presence
would diminish or put a stop to the dearth of provisions. On the pretext
of protecting itself against the movements in Paris, the court summoned
troops to Versailles, doubled the household guards, and sent in
September (1789) for the dragoons and the Flanders regiment.
The officers of the Flanders regiment, received with anxiety in the town
of Versailles, were fêted at the château, and even admitted to the
queen's card tables. Endeavours were made to secure their devotion, and
on October 1, a banquet was given to them by the king's guards. The king
was announced. He entered attired in a hunting dress, the queen leaning
on his arm and carrying the dauphin. Shouts of affection and devotion
arose on every side. The health of the royal family was drunk with
swords drawn, and when Louis XVI. withdrew the music played "O Richard!
O mon roi! L'univers t'abandonne." The scene now assumed a very
significant character; the march of the Hullans and the profusion of
wine deprived the guests of all reserve. The charge was sounded;
tottering guests climbed the boxes as if mounting to an assault; white
cockades were distributed; the tri-colour cockade, it is said, was
trampled on.
The news of this banquet produced the greatest sensation in Paris. On
the 4th suppressed rumours announced an insurrection; the multitude
already looked towards Versailles. On the 5th the insurrection broke out
in a violent and invincible manner; the entire want of flour was the
signal. A young girl, entering a guardhouse, seized a drum and rushed
through the streets beating it and crying, "Bread! Bread!" She was soon
surrounded by a crowd of women. This mob advanced towards the Hôtel de
Ville, increasing as it went. It forced the guard that stood at the
door, and penetrated into the interior, clamouring for bread and arms;
it broke open doors, seized weapons, and marched towards Versailles. The
people soon rose _en masse_, uttering the same demand, till the cry "To
Versailles!" rose on every side. The women started first, headed by
Maillard, one of the volunteers of the Bastille. The populace, the
National Guard, and the French guards requested to follow them.
During this tumult the court was in consternation; the flight of the
king was suggested, and carriages prepared. But, in the meantime, the
rain, fatigue, and the inaction of the household troops lessened the
fury of the multitude, and Lafayette arrived at the head of the Parisian
army.
His presence restored security to the court, and the replies of the king
to the deputation from Paris satisfied the multitude and the army.
About six next morning, however, some men of the lower class, more
enthusiastic than the rest, and awake sooner than they, prowled round
the château. Finding a gate open, they informed their companions, and
entered.
Lafayette, apprised of the invasion of the royal residence, mounted his
horse and rode hastily to the scene of danger. On the square he met some
of the household troops surrounded by an infuriated mob, who were on the
point of killing them. He threw himself among them, called some French
guards who were near, and having rescued the household troops and
dispersed their assailant, he hurried to the château. But the scene was
not over. The crowd assembled again in the marble court under the king's
balcony, loudly called for him, and he appeared. They required his
departure for Paris. He promised to repair thither with his family, and
this promise was received with general applause. The queen was resolved
to accompany him, but the prejudice against her was so strong that the
journey was not without danger. It was necessary to reconcile her with
the multitude. Lafayette proposed to her to accompany him to the
balcony. After some hesitation, she consented. They appeared on it
together, and to communicate by a sign with the tumultuous crowd, to
conquer its animosity and to awaken its enthusiasm, Lafayette
respectfully kissed the queen's hand. The crowd responded with
acclamations.
Thus terminated the scene; the royal family set out for Paris, escorted
by the army, and its guards mixed with it.
The autumn of 1789 and the whole of the year 1790 were passed in the
debate and promulgation of rapid and drastic reforms, by which the
Parliament within eighteen months reduced the monarchy to little more
than a form. Mirabeau, the most popular member, and in a sense the
leader of the Parliament, secretly agreed with the court to save the
monarchy from destruction; but on his sudden death, on April 2, 1791,
the king and queen, in terror at their situation, determined to fly from
Paris. The plan, which was matured during May and June, was to reach the
frontier fortress of Montmédy by way of Chalons, and to take refuge with
the army on the frontier.
The royal family made every preparation for departure; very few persons
were informed of it, and no measures betrayed it. Louis XVI. and the
queen, on the contrary, pursued a line of conduct calculated to silence
suspicion, and on the night of June 20 they issued at the appointed hour
from the château, one by one, in disguise, and took the road to Chalons
and Montmédy.
The success of the first day's journey, the increasing distance from
Paris, rendered the king less reserved and more confident. He had the
imprudence to show himself, was recognised, and arrested at Varennes on
the 21st.
The king was provisionally suspended--a guard set over him, as over the
queen--and commissioners were appointed to question him.
_IV.--Europe Declares War on the Revolution_
While this was passing in the Assembly and in Paris, the emigrants, whom
the flight of Louis XVI. had elated with hope, were thrown into
consternation at his arrest. Monsieur, who had fled at the same time as
his brother, and with better fortune, arrived alone at Brussels with the
powers and title of regent. The emigrants thenceforth relied only on the
assistance of Europe; the officers quitted their colours; 290 members of
the Assembly protested against its decrees; in order to legitimatise
invasion, Bouillé wrote a threatening letter, in the inconceivable hope
of intimidating the Assembly, and at the same time to take up himself
the sole responsibility of the flight of Louis XVI.; finally the
emperor, the King of Prussia, and the Count d'Artois met at Pilnitz,
where they made the famous declaration of August 27, 1791, preparatory
to the invasion of France.
On April 20, 1792, Louis XVI. went to the Assembly, attended by all his
ministers. In that sitting war was almost unanimously decided upon. Thus
was undertaken against the chief of confederate powers that war which
was protracted throughout a quarter of a century, which victoriously
established the revolution, and which changed the whole face of Europe.
On July 28, when the allied army of the invaders began to move from
Coblentz, the Duke of Brunswick, its commander-in-chief, published a
manifesto in the name of the emperor and the King of Prussia. He
declared that the allied sovereigns were advancing to put an end to
anarchy in France, to arrest the attacks made on the altar and the
throne. He said that the inhabitants of towns _who dared to stand on the
defensive_ should instantly be punished as rebels, with the rigour of
war, and their houses demolished or burned; and that if the Tuileries
were attacked or insulted, the princes would deliver Paris over to
military execution and total subversion.
This fiery and impolitic manifesto more than anything else hastened the
fall of the throne, and prevented the success of the coalition.
The insurgents fixed the attack on the Tuileries for the morning of
August 10. The vanguard of the Faubourgs, composed of Marseillese and
Breton Federates, had already arrived by the Rue Saint Honoré, stationed
themselves in battle array on the Carrousel, and turned their cannon
against the Tuileries, when Louis XVI. left his chamber with his family,
ministers, and the members of the department, and announced to the
persons assembled for the defence of the palace that he was going to the
National Assembly. All motives for resistance ceased with the king's
departure. The means of defence had also been diminished by the
departure of the National Guards who escorted the king. The Swiss
discharged a murderous fire on the assailants, who were dispersed. The
Place du Carrousel was cleared. But the Marseillese and Bretons soon
returned with renewed force; the Swiss were fired on by the cannon, and
surrounded; and the crowd perpetrated in the palace all the excesses of
victory.
Royalty had already fallen, and thus on August 10 began the dictatorial
and arbitrary epoch of the revolution.
During three days, from September 2, the prisoners confined in the
Carmes, the Abbaye, the Conciergerie, the Force, etc., were slaughtered
by a band of about three hundred assassins. On the 20th, the in itself
almost insignificant success of Valmy, by checking the invasion,
produced on our troops and upon opinion in France the effect of the most
complete victory.
On the same day the new Parliament, the Convention, began its
deliberations. In its first sitting it abolished royalty, and proclaimed
the republic. And already Robespierre, who played so terrible a part in
our revolution, was beginning to take a prominent position in the
debates.
The discussion on the trial of Louis XVI. began on November 13. The
Assembly unanimously decided, on January 20, 1793, that Louis was
guilty; when the appeal was put to the question, 284 voices voted for,
424 against it; 10 declined voting. Then came the terrible question as
to the nature of the punishment. Paris was in a state of the greatest
excitement; deputies were threatened at the very door of the Assembly.
There were 721 voters. The actual majority was 361. The death of the
king was decided by a majority of 26 votes.
He was executed at half-past ten in the morning of January 21, and his
death was the signal for an almost universal war.
This time all the frontiers of France were to be attacked by the
European powers.
The cabinet of St. James, on learning the death of Louis XVI., dismissed
the Ambassador Chauvelin, whom it had refused to acknowledge since
August 10 and the dethronement of the king. The Convention, finding
England already leagued with the coalition, and consequently all its
promises of neutrality vain and illusive, on February 1, 1793, declared
war against the King of Great Britain and the stadtholder of Holland,
who had been entirely guided by the cabinet of St. James since 1788.
Spain came to a rupture with the republic, after having interceded in
vain for Louis XVI., and made its neutrality the price of the life of
the king. The German Empire entirely adopted the war; Bavaria, Suabia,
and the Elector Palatine joined the hostile circles of the empire.
Naples followed the example of the Holy See, and the only neutral powers
were Venice, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey.
In order to confront so many enemies, the Convention decreed a levy of
300,000 men.
The Austrians assumed the offensive, and at Liège put our army wholly to
the rout.
Meanwhile, partial disturbances had taken place several times in La
Vendée. The Vendéans beat the gendarmerie at Saint Florens. The troops
of the line and the battalions of the National Guard who advanced
against the insurgents were defeated.
At the same time tidings of new military disasters arrived, one after
the other. Dumouriez ventured a general action at Neerwinden, and lost
it. Belgium was evacuated, Dumouriez had recourse to the guilty project
of defection. He had conference with Colonel Mack, and agreed with the
Austrians to march upon Paris for the purpose of re-establishing the
monarchy, leaving them on the frontiers, and having first given up to
them several fortresses as a guarantee. He proceeded to the execution of
his impractical design. He was really in a very difficult position; the
soldiers were very much attached to him, but they were also devoted to
their country. He had the commissioners of the Convention arrested by
German hussars, and delivered them as hostages to the Austrians. After
this act of revolt he could no longer hesitate. He tried to induce the
army to join him, but was forsaken by it, and then went over to the
Austrian camp with the Duc de Chartres, Colonel Thouvenot, and two
squadrons of Berchiny. The rest of his army went to the camp at Famars,
and joined the troops commanded by Dampierre.
The Convention on learning the arrest of the commissions, established
itself as a permanent assembly, declared Dumouriez a traitor, authorised
any citizen to attack him, set a price on his head, and decreed the
famous Committee of Public Safety.
_V.---The Committee of Public Safety_
Thus was created that terrible power which first destroyed the enemies
of the Mountain, then the Mountain and the commune, and, lastly, itself.
The committee did everything in the name of the Convention, which it
used as an instrument. It nominated and dismissed generals, ministers,
representatives, commissioners, judges, and juries. It assailed
factions; it took the initiative in all measures. Through its
commissioners, armies and generals were dependent upon it, and it ruled
the departments with sovereign sway.
By means of the law touching suspected persons, it disposed of men's
liberties; by the revolutionary tribunal, of men's lives; by levies and
the maximum, of property; by decrees of accusation in the terrified
Convention, of its own members. Lastly, its dictatorship was supported
by the multitude who debated in the clubs, ruled in the revolutionary
committees; whose services it paid by a daily stipend, and whom it fed
with the maximum. The multitude adhered to a system which inflamed its
passions, exaggerated its importance, assigned it the first place, and
appeared to do everything for it.
Two enemies, however, threatened the power of this dictatorial
government. Danton and his faction, whose established popularity gave
him great weight, and who, as victory over the allies seemed more
certain, demanded a cessation of the "Terror," or martial law of the
committee; and the commune, or extreme republican municipal government
of Paris.
The Committee of Public Safety was too strong not to triumph over the
commune, but, at the same time, it had to resist the moderate party,
which demanded the cessation of the revolutionary government and the
dictatorship of the committees. The revolutionary government had only
been created to restrain, the dictatorship to conquer; and as Danton and
his party no longer considered restraint within and further victory
abroad essential, they sought to establish legal order. Early in 1794 it
was time for Danton to defend himself; the proscription, after striking
the commune, threatened him. He was advised to be on his guard and to
take immediate steps. His friends implored him to defend himself.
"I would rather," said he, "be guillotined than be a guillotiner;
besides, my life is not worth the trouble, and I am sick of the world!"
"Well, then, thou shouldst depart."
"Depart!" he repeated, curling his lip disdainfully, "Depart! Can we
carry your country away on the sole of our shoe?"
On Germinal 10, as the revolutionary calendar went (March 31, 1796), he
was informed that his arrest was being discussed in the Committee of
Public Safety. His arrest gave rise to general excitement, to a sombre
anxiety. Danton and the rest of the accused were brought before the
revolutionary tribunal. They displayed an audacity of speech and a
contempt of their judges wholly unusual. They were taken to the
Conciergerie, and thence to the scaffold.
They went to death with the intrepidity usual at that epoch. There were
many troops under arms, and their escort was numerous. The crowd,
generally loud in its applause, was silent. Danton stood erect, and
looked proudly and calmly around. At the foot of the scaffold he
betrayed a momentary emotion. "Oh, my best beloved--my wife!" he cried.
"I shall not see thee again!" Then suddenly interrupting himself: "No
weakness, Danton!"
Thus perished the last defender of humanity and moderation; the last who
sought to promote peace among the conquerors of the revolution and pity
for the conquered. For a long time no voice was raised against the
dictatorship of terror. During the four months following the fall of the
Danton party, the committee exercised their authority without opposition
or restraint. Death became the only means of governing, and the republic
was given up to daily and systematic executions.
Robespierre, who was considered the founder of a moral democracy, now
attained the highest degree of elevation and of power. He became the
object of the general flattery of his party; he was the _great man_ of
the republic. At the Jacobins and in the Convention his preservation was
attributed to "the good genius of the republic" and to the _Supreme
Being_, Whose existence he had decreed on Floréal 18, the celebration of
the new religion being fixed for Prairial 20.
But the end of this system drew near. The committees opposed Robespierre
in their own way. They secretly strove to bring about his fall by
accusing him of tyranny.
Naturally sad, suspicious, and timid, he became more melancholy and
mistrustful than ever. He even rose against the committee itself. On
Thermidor 8 (July 25, 1794), he entered the Convention at an early hour.
He ascended the tribunal, and denounced the committee in a most skilful
speech. Not a murmur, not a mark of applause welcomed this declaration
of war.
The members of the two committees thus attacked, who had hitherto
remained silent, seeing the Mountain thwarted and the majority
undecided, thought it time to speak. Vadier first opposed Robespierre's
speech and then Robespierre himself. Cambon went further. The committees
had also spent the night in deliberation. In this state of affairs the
sitting of Thermidor 9 (July 27) began.
Robespierre, after attempting to speak several times, while his voice
was drowned by cries of "Down with the tyrant!" and the bell which the
president, Thuriot, continued ringing, now made a last effort to be
heard. "President of assassins," he cried, "for the last time, will you
let me speak?"
Said one of the Mountain: "The blood of Danton chokes you!" His arrest
was demanded, and supported on all sides. It was now half-past five, and
the sitting was suspended till seven. Robespierre was transferred to the
Luxembourg. The commune, after having ordered the gaolers not to receive
him, sent municipal officers with detachments to bring him away.
Robespierre was liberated, and conducted in triumph to the Hôtel de
Ville. On arriving, he was received with the greatest enthusiasm. "Long
live Robespierre! Down with the traitors!" resounded on all sides. But
the Convention marched upon the Hôtel de Ville.
The conspirators, finding they were lost, sought to escape the violence
of their enemies by committing violence on themselves. Robespierre
shattered his jaw with a pistol shot. He was deposited for some time at
the Committee of Public Safety before he was transferred to the
Conciergerie; and here, stretched on a table, his face disfigured and
bloody, exposed to the looks, the invectives, the curses of all, he
beheld the various parties exulting in his fall, and charging upon him
all the crimes that had been committed.
On Thermidor 10, about five in the evening, he ascended the death-cart,
placed between Henriot and Couthon, mutilated like himself. His head was
enveloped in linen, saturated with blood; his face was livid, his eyes
were almost visionless. An immense crowd thronged round the cart,
manifesting the most boisterous and exulting joy. He ascended the
scaffold last. When his head fell, shouts of applause arose in the air,
and lasted for some minutes.
Thermidor 9 was the first day of the revolution it which those fell who
attacked. This indication alone manifested that the ascendant
revolutionary movement had reached its term. From that day the contrary
movement necessarily began.
From Thermidor 9, 1794, to the summer of 1795, the radical Mountain, in
its turn, underwent the destiny it had imposed on others--for in times
when the passions are called into play parties know not how to come to
terms, and seek only to conquer. From that period the middle class
resumed the management of the revolution, and the experiment of pure
democracy had failed.
* * * * *
THOMAS CARLYLE
History of the French Revolution
Carlyle's "History of the French Revolution" appeared in 1837,
some three years after the author had established himself in
London. Never has the individuality of a historian so
completely permeated his work; it is inconceivable that any
other man should have written a single paragraph, almost a
single sentence, of the history. To Carlyle, the story
presents itself as an upheaval of elemental forces, vast
elemental personalities storming titanically in their midst,
vividly picturesque as a primeval mountain landscape illumined
by the blaze of lightning, in a night of storms, with
momentary glimpses of moon and stars. Although it was
impossible for Carlyle to assimilate all the wealth of
material even then extant, the "History," considered as a
prose epic, has a permanent and unique value. His convictions,
whatever their worth, came, as he himself put it, "flamingly
from the heart." (Carlyle, biography: see vol. ix.)
_I.---The End of an Era_
On May 10, 1774, "with a sound absolutely like thunder," has the
horologe of time struck, and an old era passed away. Is it the healthy
peace or the ominous unhealthy, that rests on France for the next ten
years? Dubarrydom and its D'Aiguillons are gone for ever. There is a
young, still docile, well-intentioned king; a young, beautiful and
bountiful, well-intentioned queen; and with them all France, as it were,
become young. For controller-general, a virtuous, philosophic Turgot.
Philosophism sits joyful in her glittering salons; "the age of
revolutions approaches" (as Jean Jacques wrote), but then of happy,
blessed ones.
But with the working people it is not so well, whom we lump together
into a kind of dim, compendious unity, monstrous but dim, far off, as
the _canaille_. Singular how long the rotten will hold together,
provided you do not handle it roughly. Visible in France is no such
thing as a government. But beyond the Atlantic democracy is born; a
sympathetic France rejoices over the rights of man. Rochambeaus,
Lameths, Lafayettes have drawn their swords in this sacred quarrel;
return, to be the missionaries of freedom. But, what to do with the
finances, having no Fortunatus purse?
For there is the palpablest discrepancy between revenue and expenditure.
Are we breaking down, then, into the horrors of national bankruptcy?
Turgot, Necker, and others have failed. What apparition, then, could be
welcomer than that of M. de Calonne? A man of indisputable genius, even
fiscal genius, more or less; of intrinsically rich qualities! For all
straits he has present remedy. Calonne also shall have trial! With a
genius for persuading--before all things for borrowing; after three
years of which, expedient heaped on expedient, the pile topples
perilous.
Whereupon a new expedient once more astonishes the world, unheard of
these hundred and sixty years--_Convocation of the Notables_. A round
gross of notables, meeting in February, 1787; all privileged persons. A
deficit so enormous! Mismanagement, profusion, is too clear; peculation
itself is hinted at. Calonne flies, storm-driven, over the horizon. To
whom succeeds Loménie-Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse--adopting
Calonne's plans, as Calonne had proposed to adopt Turgot's; and the
notables are, as it were, organed out in kind of choral anthem of
thanks, praises, promises.
Loménie issues conciliatory edicts, fiscal edicts. But if the Parlement
of Paris refuse to register them? As it does, entering complaints
instead. Loménie launches his thunderbolt, six score _lettres de
cachet;_ the Parlement is trundled off to Troyes, in Champagne, for a
month. Yet two months later, when a royal session is held, to have
edicts registered, there is no registering. Orleans, "Equality" that is
to be, has made the protest, and cut its moorings.
The provincial parlements, moreover, back up the Paris Parlement with
its demand for a States-General. Loménie hatches a cockatrice egg; but
it is broken in premature manner; the plot discovered and denounced.
Nevertheless, the Parlement is dispersed by D'Agoust with Gardes
Françaises and Gardes Suisses. Still, however, will none of the
provincial parlements register.
Deputations coming from Brittany meet to take counsel, being refused
audience; become the _Breton Club_, first germ of the _Jacobins'
Society_. Loménie at last announces that the States-General shall meet
in the May of next year (1789). For the holding of which, since there is
no known plan, "thinkers are invited" to furnish one.
_II.---The States-General_
Wherewith Loménie departs; flimsier mortal was seldom fated to do as
weighty a mischief. The archbishop is thrown out, and M. Necker is
recalled. States-General will meet, if not in January, at least in May.
But how to form it? On the model of the last States-General in 1614,
says the Parlement, which means that the _Tiers Etat_ will be of no
account, if the noblesse and the clergy agree. Wherewith terminates the
popularity of the Parlement. As for the "thinkers," it is a sheer
snowing of pamphlets. And Abbé Sieyès has come to Paris to ask three
questions, and answer them: _What is the Third Estate? All. What has it
hitherto been in our form of government? Nothing. What does it want? To
become something_.
The grand questions are: Shall the States-General sit and vote in three
separate bodies, or in one body, wherein the _Tiers Etat_ shall have
double representation? The notables are again summoned to decide, but
vanish without decision. With those questions still unsettled, the
election begins. And presently the national deputies are in Paris. Also
there is a sputter; drudgery and rascality rising in Saint-Antoine,
finally repressed by Gardes Suisses and grapeshot.
On Monday, May 4, is the baptism day of democracy, the extreme unction
day of feudalism. Behold the procession of processions advancing towards
Notre--our commons, noblesse, clergy, the king himself. Which of these
six hundred individuals in plain white cravat might one guess would
become their king? He with the thick black locks, shaggy beetle-brows
and rough-hewn face? Gabriel Honoré Riqueti de Mirabeau, the
world-compeller, the type Frenchman of this epoch, as Voltaire of the
last. And if Mirabeau is the greatest, who of these six hundred may be
the meanest? Shall we say that anxious, slight, ineffectual-looking man,
under thirty, in spectacles; complexion of an atrabiliar shade of pale
sea-green, whose name is Maximilien Robespierre?
Coming into their hall on the morrow, the commons deputies perceive that
they have it to themselves. The noblesse and the clergy are sitting
separately, which the noblesse maintain to be right; no agreement is
possible. After six weeks of inertia the commons deputies, on their own
strength, are getting under way; declare themselves not _Third Estate_,
but _National Assembly_. On June 20, shut out of their hall "for
repairs," the deputies find refuge in the tennis court! take solemn oath
that they will continue to meet till they have made the constitution.
And to these are joined 149 of the clergy. A royal session is held; the
king propounds thirty-five articles, which if the estates do not confirm
he will himself enforce. The commons remain immovable, joined now by the
rest of the clergy and forty-eight noblesse. So triumphs the Third
Estate.
War-god Broglie is at work, but grapeshot is good on one condition! The
Gardes Françaises, it seems, will not fire; nor they only. Other troops,
then? Rumour declares, and is verified, that Necker, people's minister,
is dismissed. "To arms!" cries Camille Desmoulins, and innumerable
voices yell responsive. Chaos comes. The Electoral Club, however,
declares itself a provisional municipality, sends out parties to keep
order in the streets that night, enroll a militia, with arms collected
where one may. Better to name it _National Guard_! And while the crisis
is going on, Mirabeau is away, sad at heart for the dying, crabbed old
father whom he loved.
Muskets are to be got from the Invalides; 28,000 National Guards are
provided with matchlocks. And now to the Bastile! But to describe this
siege perhaps transcends the talent of mortals. After four hours of
world-bedlam, it surrenders. The Bastile is down. "Why," said poor
Louis, "that is a revolt." "Sire," answered Liancourt, "it is not a
revolt; it is a revolution."
On the morrow, Louis paternally announces to the National Assembly
reconciliation. Amid enthusiasm, President Bailly is proclaimed Maire of
Paris, Lafayette general of the National Guard. And the first emigration
of aristocrat irreconcilables takes place. The revolution is sanctioned.
Nevertheless, see Saint-Antoine, not to be curbed, dragging old Foulon
and Berthier to the lantern, after which the cloud disappears, as
thunder-clouds do.
_III.---Menads and Feast of Pikes_
French Revolution means here the open, violent rebellion and victory of
disemprisoned anarchy against corrupt, worn-out authority; till the
frenzy working itself out, the uncontrollable be got harnessed. A
transcendental phenomenon, overstepping all rules and experience, the
crowning phenomenon of our modern time.
The National Assembly takes the name Constituent; with endless debating,
gets the rights of man written down and promulgated. A memorable night
is August 4, when they abolish privilege, immunity, feudalism, root and
branch, perfecting their theory of irregular verbs. Meanwhile,
seventy-two châteaus have flamed aloft in the Maçonnais and Beaujolais
alone. Ill stands it now with some of the seigneurs. And, glorious as
the meridian, M. Necker is returning from Bâle.
Pamphleteering, moreover, opens its abysmal throat wider and wider,
never to close more. A Fourth Estate of able editors springs up,
increases and multiplies, irrepressible, incalculable.
No, this revolution is not of the consolidating kind. Lafayette
maintains order by his patrols; we hear of white cockades, and, worse
still, black cockades; and grain grows still more scarce. One Monday
morning, maternity awakes to hear children weeping for bread, must forth
into the streets. _Allons_! Let us assemble! To the Hôtel de Ville, to
Versailles, to the lantern! All women gather and go; crowds storm all
stairs, force out all women; there is a universal "press of women." Who
will storm the Hôtel de Ville, but for shifty usher Maillard, who
snatches a drum, beats his Rogues' March to Versailles! And after them
the National Guard, resolute in spite of _Mon Général,_ who, indeed,
must go with them--Saint-Antoine having already gone. Maillard and his
menads demand at Versailles bread; speech with the king for a
deputation. The king speaks words of comfort. Words? But they want
"bread, not so much discoursing!"
Towards midnight comes Lafayette; seems to have saved the situation;
gets to bed about five in the morning. But rascaldom, gathering about
the château, breaks in. One of the royal bodyguard fires, whereupon the
deluge pours in, would deal utter destruction but for the coming of the
National Guard. The bodyguard mount the tri-colour. There is no choice
now. The king must from Versailles to Paris, in strange procession;
finally reaches the long-deserted Palace of the Tuileries. It is
Tuesday, October 6, 1789.
And so again, on clear arena under new conditions, with something even
of a new stateliness, we begin a new course of action. Peace of a father
restored to his children? Not only shall Paris be fed, but the king's
hand be seen in that work--_King Louis, restorer of French liberty!_
Alone of men, Mirabeau may begin to discern clearly whither all this is
tending. Patriotism, accordingly, regrets that his zeal seems to be
getting cool. A man stout of heart, enigmatic, difficult to unmask!
Meanwhile, finances give trouble enough. To appease the deficit we
venture on a hazardous step, sale of the clergy's lands; a paper-money
of _assignats_, bonds secured on that property is decreed; and young
Sansculottism thrives bravely, growing by hunger. Great and greater
waxes President Danton in his Cordeliers section. This man also, like
Mirabeau, has a natural _eye_.
And with the whole world forming itself into clubs, there is one club
growing ever stronger, till it becomes immeasurably strong; which,
having leased for itself the hall of the Jacobins' Convent, shall, under
the title of the Jacobins' Club, become memorable to all times and
lands; has become the mother society, with 300 shrill-tongued daughters
in direct correspondence with her, has also already thrown off the
mother club of the Cordeliers and the monarchist Feuillans.
In the midst of which a hopeful France on a sudden renews with
enthusiasm the national oath; of loyalty to the king, the law, the
constitution which the National Assembly shall make; in Paris, repeated
in every town and district of France! Freedom by social contract; such
was verily the gospel of that era.
From which springs a new idea: "Why all France has not one federation
and universal oath of brotherhood once for all?" other places than Paris
having first set example or federation. The place for it, Paris; the
scene to be worthy of it. Fifteen thousand men are at work on the Champs
de Mars, hollowing it out into a national amphitheatre. One may hope it
will be annual and perennial; a feast of pikes, notable among the high
tides of the year!
Workmen being lazy, all Paris turns out to complete the preparations,
her daughters with the rest. From all points of the compass federates
are arriving. On July 13, 1790, 200,000 patriotic men and 100,000
patriotic women sit waiting in the Champs de Mars. The generalissimo
swears in the name of armed France; the National Assembly swears; the
king swears; be the welkin split with vivats! And the feast of pikes
dances itself off and becomes defunct.
_IV.--The End of Mirabeau_
Of journals there are now some 133; among which, Marat, the People's
Friend, unseen, croaks harsh thunder. Clubbism thrives and spreads, the
Mother of Patriotism, sitting in the Jacobins, shining supreme over all.
The pure patriots now, sitting on the extreme tip of the left, count
only some thirty, Mirabeau not among the chosen; a virtuous Pétion; an
incorruptible Robespierre; conspicuous, if seldom audible, Philippe
d'Orleans; and Barnave triumvirate.
The plan of royalty, if it have any, is that of flying over the
frontiers; does not abandon the plan, yet never executes it.
Nevertheless, Mirabeau and the Queen of France have met, have parted
with mutual trust. It is strange, secret as the mysterious, but
indisputable. "Madame," he has said, "the monarchy is saved."
Possible--if Fate intervene not. Patriotism suspects the design of
flight; barking this time not at nothing. Suspects also the repairing of
the castle of Vincennes; General Lafayette has to wrestle persuasively
with Saint-Antoine.
On one royal person only can Mirabeau place dependence--the queen. Had
Mirabeau lived one other year! But man's years are numbered, and the
tale of Mirabeau's is complete. The giant oaken strength of him is
wasted; excess of effort, of excitement of all kinds; labour incessant,
almost beyond credibility. "When I am gone," he has said, "the miseries
I have held back will burst from all sides upon France." On April 2 he
feels that the last of the days has risen for him. His death is Titanic,
as his life has been. On the third evening is solemn public funeral. The
chosen man of France is gone.
The French monarchy now is, in all human probability, lost. Many things
invite to flight; but if the king fly, will there not be aristocrat
Austrian invasion, butchery, replacement of feudalism, wars more than
civil? The king desires to go to St. Cloud, but shall not; patriots will
not let the horses go. But Count Fersen, an alert young Swedish soldier,
has business on hand; has a new coach built, of the kind called Berline;
has made other purchases. On the night of Monday, June 20, certain royal
individuals are in a glass coach; Fersen is the coachman; out by the
Barrier de Clichy, till we find the waiting Berline; then to Bondy,
where is a chaise ready; and deft Fersen bids adieu.
With morning, and discovery, National Assembly adopts an attitude of
sublime calm; Paris also; yet messages are flying. Moreover, at Sainte
Menehould, on the route of the Berline, suspicious patriots are
wondering what certain lounging dragoons mean; while the Berline arrives
not. At last it comes; but Drouet, village postmaster, seeks a likeness;
takes horse in swift pursuit. So rolls on the Berline, and the chase
after it; till it comes to a dead stop in Varennes, where Drouet finds
it--in time to stop departure. Louis, the poor, phlegmatic man, steps
out; all step out. The flight is ended, though not the spurring and
riding of that night of spurs.
_V.---Constitution Will Not March_
In the last nights of September, Paris is dancing and flinging
fireworks; the edifice of the constitution is completed, solemnly
proffered to his majesty, solemnly accepted by him, to the sound of
cannon salvoes. There is to be a new Legislative Assembly, biennial; no
members of the Constituent Assembly to sit therein, or for four years to
be a minister, or hold a court appointment. So they vanish.
Among this new legislative see Condorcet, Brissot; most notable, Carnot.
An effervescent, well intentioned set of senators; too combustible where
continual sparks are flying, ordered to make the constitution march for
which marching three things bode ill--the French people, the French
king, the French noblesse and the European world.
For there are troubles in cities of the south. Avignon, where Jourdan
_coupe-tête_ makes lurid appearance; Perpignan, northern Caen also. With
factions, suspicions, want of bread and sugar, it is verily what they
call _déchiré,_ torn asunder, this poor country. And away over seas the
Plain of Cap Français one huge whirl of smoke and flame; one cause of
the dearth of sugar. What King Louis is and cannot help being, we
already know.
And, thirdly, there is the European world. All kings and kinglets are
astir, their brows clouded with menace. Swedish Gustav will lead
coalised armies, Austria and Prussia speak at Pilnitz, lean Pitt looks
out suspicious. Europe is in travail, the birth will be WAR. Worst
feature of all, the emigrants at Coblentz, an extra-national Versailles.
We shall have war, then!
Our revenue is assignats, our army wrecked disobedient, disorganised;
what, then, shall we do? Dumouriez is summoned to Paris, quick, shifty,
insuppressible; while royalist seigneurs cajole, and, as you turn your
legislative thumbscrew, king's veto steps in with magical paralysis. Yet
let not patriotism despair. Have we not a virtuous Pétion, Mayor of
Paris, a wholly patriotic municipality? Patriotism, moreover, has her
constitution that can march, the mother-society of the Jacobins; where
may be heard Brissot, Danton, Robespierre, the long-winded,
incorruptible man.
Hope bursts forth with appointment of a patriot ministry, this also his
majesty will try. Roland, perchance Wife Roland, Dumouriez, and others.
Liberty is never named with another word, Equality. In April poor Louis,
"with tears in his eyes," proposes that the assembly do now decree war.
Let our three generals on the frontier look to it therefore, since Duke
Brunswick has his drill-sergeants busy. We decree a camp of twenty
thousand National Volunteers; the hereditary representative answers
_veto_! Strict Roland, the whole Patriot ministry, finds itself turned
out.
Barbaroux writes to Marseilles for six hundred men who know how to die.
On June 20 a tree of Liberty appears in Saint-Antoine--a procession with
for standard a pair of black breeches---pours down surging upon the
Tuileries, breaks in. The king, the little prince royal, have to don the
cap of liberty. Thus has the age of Chivalry gone, and that of Hunger
come. On the surface only is some slight reaction of sympathy, mistrust
is too strong.
Now from Marseilles are marching the six hundred men who know how to
die, marching to the hymn of the Marseillaise. The country is in danger!
Volunteer fighters gather. Duke Brunswick shakes himself, and issues his
manifesto; and in Paris preternatural suspicion and disquietude. Demand
is for forfeiture, abdication in favour of prince royal, which
Legislature cannot pronounce. Therefore on the night of August 9 the
tocsin sounds; of Insurrection.
On August 18 the grim host is marching, immeasurable, born of the night.
Of the squadrons of order, not one stirs. At the Tuileries the red Swiss
look to their priming. Amid a double rank of National Guards the royal
family "marches" to the assembly. The Swiss stand to their post,
peaceable yet immovable. Three Marseillaise cannon are fired; then the
Swiss also fire. One strangest patriot onlooker thinks that the Swiss,
had they a commander, would beat; the name of him, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Having none----Honour to you, brave men, not martyrs, and yet almost
more. Your work was to die, and ye did it.
Our old patriot ministry is recalled; Roland; Danton Minister of
Justice! Also, in the new municipality, Robespierre is sitting. Louis
and his household are lodged in the Temple. The constitution is over!
Lafayette, whom his soldiers will not follow, rides over the border to
an Austrian prison. Dumouriez is commander-in-chief.
_VI.--Regicide_
In this month of September 1792 whatsoever is cruel in the panic frenzy
of twenty-five million men, whatsoever is great in the simultaneous
death-defiance of twenty-five million men, stand here in abrupt
contrast; all of black on one side, all of bright on the other. France
crowding to the frontiers to defend itself from foreign despots, to town
halls to defend itself from aristocrats, an insurrectionary improvised
Commune of Paris actual sovereign of France.
There is a new Tribunal of Justice dealing with aristocrats; but the
Prussians have taken Longwi, and La Vendée is in revolt against the
Revolution. Danton gets a decree to search for arms and to imprison
suspects, some four hundred being seized. Prussians have Verdun also,
but Dumouriez, the many-counseled, has found a possible Thermopylæ--if
we can secure Argonne; for which one had need to be a lion-fox and have
luck on one's side.
But Paris knows not Argonne, and terror is in her streets, with defiance
and frenzy. From a Sunday night to Thursday are a hundred hours, to be
reckoned with the Bartholomew butchery; prisoners dragged out by sudden
courts of wild justice to be massacred. These are the September
massacres, the victims one thousand and eighty-nine; in the historical
_fantasy_ "between two and three thousand"--nay, six, even twelve. They
have been put to death because "we go to fight the enemy; but we will
not leave robbers behind us to butcher our wives and children."
Horrible! But Brunswick is within a day's journey of us. "We must put
our enemies in fear." Which has plainly been brought about.
Our new National Convention is getting chosen; already we date First
Year of the Republic. And Dumouriez has snatched the Argonne passes;
Brunswick must laboriously skirt around; Dumouriez with recruits who,
once drilled and inured, will one day become a phalanxed mass of
fighters, wheels, always fronting him. On September 20, Brunswick
attacks Valmy, all day cannonading Alsatian Kellerman with French
Sansculottes, who do _not_ fly like poultry; finally retires; a day
precious to France!
On the morrow of our new National Convention first sits; old legislative
ending. Dumouriez, after brief appearance in Paris, returns to attack
Netherlands, winter though it be.
France, then, has hurled back the invaders, and shattered her own
constitution; a tremendous change. The nation has stripped itself of the
old vestures; patriots of the type soon to be called Girondins have the
problem of governing this naked nation. Constitution-making sets to work
again; more practical matters offer many difficulties; for one thing,
lack of grain; for another, what to do with a discrowned Louis
Capet--all things, but most of all fear, pointing one way. Is there not
on record a trial of Charles I.?
Twice our Girondin friends have attacked September massacres,
Robespierre dictatorship; not with success. The question of Louis
receives further stimulus from the discovery of hidden papers. On
December 11, the king's trial has _emerged_, before the Convention;
fifty-seven questions are put to him. Thereafter he withdraws, having
answered--for the most part on the simple basis of _No_. On December 26,
his advocate, Deséze, speaks for him. But there is to be debate.
Dumouriez is back in Paris, consorting with Girondins; suspicious to
patriots. The outcome, on January 15--Guilty. The sentence, by majority
of fifty-three, among them Egalité, once Orleans--Death. Lastly, no
delay.
On the morrow, in the Place de la Revolution, he is brought to the
guillotine; beside him, brave Abbé Edgeworth says, "Son of St. Louis,
ascend to Heaven"; the axe clanks down; a king's life is shorn away. At
home, this killing of a king has divided all friends; abroad it has
united all enemies. England declares war; Spain declares war; they all
declare war. "The coalised kings threaten us; we hurl at their feet, as
gage of battle, the head of a king."
_VII.--Reign of Terror_
Five weeks later, indignant French patriots rush to the grocers' shops;
distribute sugar, weighing it out at a just rate of eleven-pence; other
things also; the grocer silently wringing his hands. What does this
mean? Pitt has a hand in it, the gold of Pitt, all men think; whether it
is Marat he has bought, as the Girondins say; or the Girondins, as the
Jacobins say. This battle of Girondins and Mountain let no man ask
history to explicate.
Moreover, Dumouriez is checked; Custine also in the Rhine country is
checked; England and Spain are also taking the field; La Vendée has
flamed out again with its war cry of _God and the King_. Fatherland is
in danger! From our own traitors? "Set up a tribunal for traitors and a
Maximum for grain," says patriot Volunteers. Arrest twenty-two
Girondins!--though not yet. In every township of France sit
revolutionary committees for arrestment of suspects; notable also is the
_Tribunal Révolutionnaire_, and our Supreme Committee of Public Safety,
of nine members. Finally, recalcitrant Dumouriez finds safety in flight
to the Austrian quarters, and thence to England.
Before which flight, the Girondins have broken with Danton, ranged him
against them, and are now at open war with the Mountain. Marat is
attacked, acquitted with triumph. On Friday, May 31, we find a new
insurrectionary general of the National Guard enveloping the Convention,
which in three days, being thus surrounded by friends, ejects under
arrestment thirty-two Girondins. Surely the true reign of Fraternity is
now not far?
The Girondins are struck down, but in the country follows a ferment of
Girondist risings. And on July 9, a fair Charlotte Corday is starting
for Paris from Caen, with letters of introduction from Barbaroux to
Dupernet, whom she sees, concerning family papers. On July 13, she
drives to the residence of Marat, who is sick--a citoyenne who would do
France a service; is admitted, plunges a knife into Marat's heart. So
ends Peoples'-Friend Marat. She submits, stately, to inevitable doom. In
this manner have the beautifulest and the squalidest come into
collision, and extinguished one another.
At Paris is to be a new feast of pikes, over yet a new constitution;
statue of Nature, statue of Liberty, unveiled! _Republic one and
indivisible_--_Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death_! A new calendar
also, with months new-named. But Toulon has thrown itself into the hands
of the English, who will make a new Gibraltar of it! We beleaguer
Toulon; having in our army there remarkable Artillery-Major Napoleon
Bonaparte. Lyons also we beleaguer.
Committee of Public Safety promulgates levy _en masse;_ heroically
daring against foreign foes. Against domestic foes it issues the law of
the suspects--none frightfuller ever ruled in a nation of men. The
guillotine gets always quicker motion. Bailly, Brissot, are in prison.
Trial of the "Widow Capet"; whence Marie Antoinette withdraws to
die--not wanting to herself, the imperial woman! After her, the scaffold
claims the twenty-two Girondins.
Terror is become the order of the day. Arrestment on arrestment follows
quick, continual; "The guillotine goes not ill."
_VIII.--Climax and Reaction_
The suspect may well tremble; how much more the open rebels--the
Girondin cities of the south! The guillotine goes always, yet not fast
enough; you must try fusillading, and perhaps methods still
frightfuller. Marseilles is taken, and under martial law. At Toulon,
veteran Dugommier suffers a young artillery officer whom we know to try
his plan--and Toulon is once more the Republic's. Cannonading gives
place to guillotining and fusillading. At Nantes, the unspeakable horror
of the _noyades_.
Beside which, behold destruction of the Catholic religion; indeed, for
the time being, of religion itself; a new religion promulgated of the
Goddess of Reason, with the first of the Feasts of Reason, ushered in
with carmagnole dance.
Committee of Public Salvation ride this whirlwind; stranger set of
cloud-compellors Earth never saw. Convention commissioners fly to all
points of the territory, powerfuller than king or kaiser; frenzy of
patriotism drives our armies victorious, one nation against the whole
world; crowned by the _Vengeur_, triumphant in death; plunging down
carrying _vive la République_ along with her into eternity, in Howe's
victory of the First of June. Alas, alas! a myth, founded, like the
world itself, on _Nothing_!
Of massacring, altar-robbing, Hébertism, is there beginning to be a
sickening? Danton, Camille Desmoulins are weary of it; the Hébertists
themselves are smitten; nineteen of them travel their last road in the
tumbrils. "We should not strike save where it is useful to the
Republic," says Danton; quarrels with Robespierre; Danton, Camille,
others of the friends of mercy are arrested. At the trial, he shivers
the witnesses to ruin thunderously; nevertheless, sentence is passed. On
the scaffold he says, "Danton, no weakness! Thou wilt show my head to
the people--it is worth showing." So passes this Danton; a very man;
fiery-real, from the great fire-bosom of nature herself.
Foul Hébert and the Hébertists, great Danton and the Dantonists, are
gone, swift, ever swifter, goes the axe of Samson; Death pauses not. But
on Prairial 20, the world is in holiday clothes in the Jardin National.
Incorruptible Robespierre, President of the Convention, has decreed the
existence of the Supreme Being; will himself be priest and prophet; in
sky-blue coat and black breeches! Nowise, however, checking the
guillotine, going ever faster.
On July 26, when the Incorruptible addresses the Convention, there is
dissonance. Such mutiny is like fire sputtering in the ship's
powder-room. The Convention then must be purged, with aid of Henriot.
But next day, amid cries of _Tyranny! Dictatorship_! the Convention
decrees that Robespierre "is accused"; with Couthon and St. Just;
decreed "out of law"; Paris, after brief tumult, sides with the
Convention. So on July 28, 1794, the tumbrils go with this motley batch
of outlaws. This is the end of the Reign of Terror. The nation resolves
itself into a committee of mercy.
Thenceforth, writ of accusation and legal proof being decreed necessary,
Fouquier's trade is gone; the prisons deliver up suspects. For here was
the end of the revolution system. The keystone being struck out, the
whole arch-work of Sansculottism began to crack, till the abyss had
swallowed it all.
And still there is no bread, and no constitution; Paris rises once
again, flowing towards the Tuileries; checked in one day with two blank
cannon-shots, by Pichegru, conqueror of Holland. Abbé Sieyès provides
yet another constitution; unpleasing to sundry who will not be
dispersed. To suppress whom, a young artillery officer is named
commandant; who with whiff of grapeshot does very promptly suppress
them; and the thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into
space.
* * * * *
LAMARTINE
History of the Girondists
Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine, poet, historian, statesman,
was born at Macon, in Burgundy, on October 21, 1790. Early in
the nineteenth century he held a diplomatic appointment at
Naples, and in 1820 succeeded after many difficulties, in
finding a publisher for his first volume of poems, "Nouvelles
Méditations." The merits of the work were at once recognised,
and the young author soon found himself one of the most
popular of the younger generation of French poets. He next
adopted politics, and, with the Revolution of February, became
for a brief time the soul of political life in France. But the
triumph of imperialism and of Napoleon III. drove him into the
background, whereupon he retired from public life, and devoted
his remaining years to literature. He died on March I, 1869.
The publication, in 1847, of his "History of the Girondists,
or Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution,
from Unpublished Sources," was in the nature of a political
event in France. Brilliant in its romantic portraiture, the
work, like many other French histories, served the purposes of
a pamphlet as well as those of a chronicle.
_I.--The War-Seekers of the South_
The French Revolution had pursued its rapid progress for two full years.
Mirabeau, the first democratic leader, was dead. The royal family had
attempted flight and failed. War with Europe threatened and, in the
autumn of 1791, a new parliament was elected and summoned.
At this juncture the germ of a new opinion began to, display itself in
the south, and Bordeaux felt its full influence. The department of the
Gironde had given birth to a new political party in the twelve citizens
who formed its deputies. This department, far removed from the _centre_,
was at no distant period to seize on the empire alike of opinion and of
eloquence. The names (obscure and unknown up to this period) of Ducos,
Gaudet, Lafondladebat, Grangeneuve, Gensonné, Vergniaud, were about to
rise into notice and renown with the storms and the disasters of their
country; they were the men who were destined to give that impulse to the
revolution that had hitherto remained in doubt and indecision, which was
to precipitate it into a republic.
In the new parliament Brissot, the inspirer of the Gironde, the dogmatic
statesman of a party which needed ideas and a leader, ascended the
tribune in the midst of anticipated plaudits which betokened his
importance in the new Assembly. His voice was for war, as the most
efficacious of laws.
It was evident that a party, already formed, took possession of the
tribune, and was about to arrogate to itself the dominion of the
assembly. Brissot was its conspirator, Condorcet its philosopher,
Vergniaud its orator. Vergniaud mounted the tribune, with all the
prestige of his marvellous eloquence. The eager looks of the Assembly,
the silence that prevailed, announced in him one of the great actors of
the revolutionary drama, who only appear on the stage to win themselves
popularity, to intoxicate themselves with applause, and--to die.
Vergniaud, born at Limoges, and an advocate of the Bar of Bordeaux, was
now in his thirty-third year, for the revolutionary movement had seized
on and borne him along with its currents when very young. His dignified,
calm, and unaffected features announced the conviction of his power.
Facility, that agreeable concomitant of genius, had rendered alike
pliable his talents, his character, and even the position he assumed.
At the foot of the tribune he was loved with familiarity; as he ascended
it each man was surprised to find that he inspired him with admiration
and respect; but at the first words that fell from the speaker's lips
they felt the immense distance between the man and the orator. He was an
instrument of enthusiasm, whose value and whose place was in his
inspiration.
Pétion was the son of a procureur at Chartres, and a townsman of
Brissot; was brought up in the same way as he, in the same studies, same
philosophy, same hatreds. They were two men of the same mind. The
revolution, which had been the ideal of their youth, had called them on
the scene on the same day, but to play very different parts. Brissot,
the scribe, political adventurer, journalist, was the man of theory;
Pétion, the practical man. He had in his countenance, in his character,
and his talents, that solemn mediocrity which is of the multitude, and
charms it; at least he was a sincere man, a virtue which the people
appreciate beyond all others in those who are concerned in public
affairs.
The nomination of Pétion to the office of _maire_ of Paris gave the
Girondists a constant _point d'appui_ in the capital. Paris, as well as
the Assembly, escaped from the king's hands.
A report praised by Brissot in his journal, and by the Girondists in the
Assembly, afforded no longer any pretext for delaying the war. France
felt that her strength was equal to her indignation, and she could be
restrained no longer. The increasing unpopularity of the king augmented
the popular excitement. Twice had he already arrested, by his royal
veto, the energetic measures of the Assembly--the decree against the
_emigres_ and the decree against the priests who had not taken the oath.
These two vetoes, the one dictated by his honour, the other by his
conscience, were two terrible weapons placed in his hand by the
constitution, yet which he could not wield without wounding himself. The
Girondists revenged themselves for this resistance by compelling him to
make war on the princes, who were his brothers, and the emperor, whom
they believed to be his accomplice.
The war thus demanded by the ascendant Girondist party broke out in
April, 1792. Their enemies, the extreme radical party called "Jacobins,"
had opposed the war, and when the campaign opened in disaster the
beginning of their ascendancy and the Girondin decline had appeared.
These disasters were followed by a proclamation from the enemy that the
work of the revolution would be undone, and the town of Paris threatened
with military execution unless the king's power were fully restored. By
way of answer the populace of Paris stormed the royal palace, deposed
the king, and established a Radical government. Under this, a third
parliament, the most revolutionary of all, called the "Convention," was
summoned to carry on the war, the king was imprisoned, and on September
21, 1792, the day on which the invading armies were checked at Valmy, a
republic was declared.
_II.---the Fall of La Gironde_
The proclamation of the republic was hailed with the utmost joy in the
capital, the departments, and the army; to philosophers it was the type
of government found under the ruins of fourteen ages of prejudice and
tyranny; to patriots it was the declaration of war of a whole nation,
proclaimed on the day of the victory of Valmy, against the thrones
united to crush liberty; while to the people it was an intoxicating
novelty.
Those who most exulted were the Girondists. They met at Madame Roland's
that evening, and celebrated almost religiously the entrance of their
creation into the world; and voluntarily casting the veil of illusion
over the embarrassments of the morrow and the obscurities of the future,
gave themselves up to the greatest enjoyment God has permitted man on
earth--the birth of his idea, the contemplation of his work, and the
embodied possession of his desires.
The republic had at first great military successes, but they were not
long lived. After the execution of the king in January 1793, all Europe
banded together against France, the French armies were crushingly
defeated, their general, Dumouriez, fled to the enemy, and the
Girondins, who had been in power all this while, were fatally weakened.
Moreover, their attempt to save the king had added to their growing
unpopularity when, after Dumouriez's treason in March 1793 Danton
attacked them in the Convention.
The Jacobins comprehended that Danton, at last forced from his long
hesitation, decided for them, and was about to crush their enemies.
Every eye followed him to the tribune.
His loud voice resounded like a tocsin above the murmurs of the
Girondists. "It is they," he said, "who had the baseness to wish to save
the tyrant by an appeal to the people, who have been justly suspected of
desiring a king. It is they only who have manifestly desired to punish
Paris for its heroism by raising the departments against her; it is they
only who have supped clandestinely with Dumouriez when he was at Paris;
yes, it is they only who are the accomplices of this conspiracy."
The Convention oscillated during the struggle between the Girondins and
their Radical opponents with every speech.
Isnard, a Girondin, was named president by a strong majority. His
nomination redoubled the confidence of La Gironde in its force. A man
extravagant in everything, he had in his character the fire of his
language. He was the exaggeration of La Gironde--one of those men whose
ideas rush to their head when the intoxication of success or fear urges
them to rashness, and when they renounce prudence, that safeguard of
party.
The strain between the Girondists, with their parliamentary majority,
and the populace of Paris, who were behind the Radicals, or Jacobins,
increased, until, towards the end of May, the mob rose to march on the
parliament. The alarm-bells rang, and the drums beat to arms in all the
quarters of Paris.
The Girondists, at the sound of the tocsin and the drums, met for the
last time, not to deliberate, but to prepare and fortify themselves
against their death. They supped in an isolated mansion in the Rue de
Clichy, amidst the tolling of bells, the sound of the drums, and the
rattling of the guns and tumbrils. All could have escaped; none would
fly. Pétion, so feeble in the face of popularity, was intrepid when he
faced death; Gensonné, accustomed to the sight of war; Buzot, whose
heart beat with the heroic impressions of his unfortunate friend, Madame
Roland, wished them to await their death in their places in the
Convention, and there invoke the vengeance of the departments.
Some hours later the armed mob, Henriot, their general, at their head,
appeared before the parliament. The gates were opened at the sight of
the president, Hérault de Séchelles, wearing the tricoloured scarf. The
sentinels presented arms, the crowd gave free passage to the
representatives. They advanced towards the Carrousel. The multitude
which were on this space saluted the deputies. Cries of "Vive la
Convention! Deliver up the twenty-two! Down with the Girondists!"
mingled sedition with respect.
The Convention, unmoved by these shouts, marched in procession towards
the cannon by which Henriot, the commandant-general, in the midst of his
staff, seemed to await them. Hérault de Séchelles ordered Henriot to
withdraw this formidable array, and to grant a free passage to the
national representations. Henriot, who felt in himself the omnipotence
of armed insurrection, caused his horse to prance, while receding some
paces, and then said in an imperative tone to the Convention, "You will
not leave this spot until you have delivered up the twenty-two!"
"Seize this rebel!" said Hérault de Séchelles, pointing with his finger
to Henriot. The soldiers remained immovable.
"Gunners, to your pieces! Soldiers, to arms!" cried Henriot to the
troops. At these words, repeated by the officers along the line, a
motion of concentration around the guns took place. The Convention
retrograded.
Barbaroux, Lanjuinais, Vergniaud, Mollevault, and Gardien remained,
vainly expecting the armed men who were to secure their persons, but not
seeing them arrive, they retired to their own homes.
There followed the rising of certain parts of the country in favour of
the Girondins and against Paris. It failed. The Girondins were
prisoners, and after this failure of the insurrection the revolutionary
government proceeded to their trial. When their trial was decided on,
this captivity became more strict. They were imprisoned for a few days
in the Carmelite convent in the Rue de Vaugeraud, a monastery converted
into a prison, and rendered sinister by the bloody traces of the
massacres of September.
_III.--The Judges at the Bar_
On October 22, their _acte d'accusation_ was read to them, and their
trial began on the 26th. Never since the Knights Templars had a party
appeared more numerous, more illustrious, or more eloquent. The renown
of the accused, their long possession of power, their present danger,
and that love of vengeance which arises in men's hearts at mighty
reverses of fortune, had collected a crowd in the precincts of the
revolutionary tribunal.
At ten o'clock the accused were brought in. They were twenty-two; and
this fatal number, inscribed in the earliest lists of the proscription,
on May 31, at eleven o'clock, entered the _salle d'audience,_ between
two files of _gens d'armes,_ and took their places in silence on the
prisoners' bench.
Ducos was the first to take his seat: scarcely twenty-eight years of
age, his black and piercing eyes, the flexibility of his features, and
the elegance of his figure revealed one of those ardent temperaments in
whom everything is light, even heroism.
Mainveille followed him, the youthful deputy of Marseilles, of the same
age as Ducos, and of an equally striking but more masculine beauty than
Barbaroux. Duprat, his countryman and friend, accompanied him to the
tribunal. He was followed by Duchâtel, deputy of Deux Sévres, aged
twenty-seven years, who had been carried to the tribunal almost in a
dying state wrapped in blankets, to vote against the death of the
"Tyrant," and who was termed, from this act and this costume, the
"Spectre of Tyranny."
Carra, deputy of Sâone and Loire at the Convention, sat next to
Duchâtel. His vulgar physiognomy, the stoop of his shoulders, his large
head and disordered attire contrasted with the beauty and stature of
Duchâtel Learned, confused, fanatic, declamatory, impetuous alike in
attack or resistance, he had sided with the Gironde to combat the
excesses of the people.
A man of rustic appearance and garb, Duperret, the involuntary victim of
Charlotte Corday, sat next to Carra. He was of noble birth, but
cultivated with his own hands the small estate of his forefathers.
Gensonné followed them: he was a man of five-and-thirty, but the
ripeness of his intellect, and the resolution that dictated his opinions
gave his features that look of energy and decision that belongs to
maturer age.
Next came Lasource, a man of high-flown language and tragical
imagination. His unpowdered and closely-cut hair, his black coat, his
austere demeanour, and grave and ascetic features, recalled the minister
of the Holy Gospel and those Puritans of the time of Cromwell who sought
for God in liberty, and in their trial, martyrdom.
Valazé seemed like a soldier under fire; his conscience told him it was
his duty to die, and he died.
The Abbé Fauchet came immediately after Valazé. He was in his fiftieth
year, but the beauty of his features, the elevation of his stature, and
the freshness of his colour, made him appear much younger. His dress,
from its colour and make, befitted his sacred profession, and his hair
was so cut as to show the tonsure of the priest, so long covered by the
red bonnet of the revolutionist.
Brissot was the last but one.
Last came Vergniaud, the greatest and most illustrious of them all. All
Paris knew, and had beheld him in the tribune, and was now curious to
gaze not only on the orator on a level with his enemies, but the man
reduced to take his place on the bench of the accused. His prestige
still followed him, and he was one of those men from whom everything,
even impossibilities, are expected.
_IV.--The Banquet of Death_
The jury closed the debate on October 30, at eight o'clock in the
evening. All the accused were declared guilty of having conspired
against the unity and indivisibility of the republic, and condemned to
death. One of them, who had made a motion with his hand as though to
tear his garments, slipped from his seat on to the floor. It was Valazé.
"What, Valazé, are you losing your courage?" said Brissot, striving to
support him.
"No, I am dying," returned Valazé. And he expired, his hand on the
poignard with which he had pierced his heart.
At this spectacle silence instantly prevailed, and the example of Valazé
made the young Girondists blush for their momentary weakness.
It was eleven o'clock at night. After a moment's pause, occasioned by
the unexpectedness of the sentence and the emotion of the prisoners, the
sitting was closed amidst cries of "Vive la République!"
The Girondists, as they quitted their places, cried simultaneously. "We
die innocent! Vive la République!"
They were all confined for this their last night on earth in the large
dungeon, the waiting room of death.
The deputy Bailleul, their colleague at the Assembly, proscribed like
them, but who had escaped the proscription, and was concealed in Paris,
had promised to send them from without on the day of their trial a last
repast, triumphant or funeral, according to the sentence. Bailleul,
though invisible, kept his promise through the agency of a friend. The
funeral supper was set out in the large dungeon; the daintiest meats,
the choicest wines, the rarest flowers, and numerous flambeaux decked
the oaken table--prodigality of dying men who have no need to save aught
for the following day.
The repast was prolonged until dawn. Vergniaud, seated at the centre of
the table, presided, with the same calm dignity he had presided at the
Convention on the night of August 10. The others formed groups, with the
exception of Brissot, who sat at the end of the table, eating but
little, and not uttering a word. For a long time nothing in their
features or conversation indicated that this repast was the prelude to
death. They ate and drank with appetite, but sobriety; but when the
table was cleared, and nothing left except the fruit, wine, and flowers,
the conversation became alternately animated, noisy and grave, as the
conversation of careless men, whose thoughts and tongues are freed by
wine.
Towards the morning the conversation became more solemn. Brissot spoke
prophetically of the misfortunes of the republic, deprived of her most
virtuous and eloquent citizens. "How much blood will it require to wash
out our own?" cried he. They were silent, and appeared terrified at the
phantom of the future evoked by Brissot.
"My friends," replied Vergniaud, "we have killed the tree by pruning it.
It was too aged. Robespierre cuts it. Will he be more fortunate than
ourselves? No, the soul is too weak to nourish the roots of civic
liberty; this people is too childish to wield its laws without hurting
itself. We were deceived as to the age in which we were born, and in
which we die for the freedom of the world."
A long silence followed this speech of Vergniaud's, and the conversation
turned from earth to heaven.
"What shall we be doing to-morrow at this time?" said Ducos, who always
mingled mirth with the most serious subjects. Each replied according to
his nature.
Vergniaud reconciled in a few words all the different opinions. "Let us
believe what we will," said he, "but let us die certain of our life and
the price of our death. Let us each sacrifice what we possess, the one
his doubt, the other his faith, all of us our blood, for liberty. When
man offers himself a victim to Heaven, what more can he give?"
When all was ready, and the last lock of hair had fallen on the stones
of the dungeon, the executioners and _gens d'armes_ made the condemned
march in a column to the court of the palace, where five carts,
surrounded by an immense crowd, awaited them. The moment they emerged
from the Conciergerie, the Girondists burst into the "Marseillaise,"
laying stress on these verses, which contained a double meaning:
_Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé._
From this moment they ceased to think of themselves, in order to think
of the example of the death of republicans they wished to leave the
people. Their voices sank at the end of each verse, only to rise more
sonorous at the first line of the next verse. On their arrival at the
scaffold they all embraced, in token of community in liberty, life, and
death, and then resumed their funeral chant.
All died without weakness. The hymn became feebler at each fall of the
axe; one voice still continued it, that of Vergniaud. Like his
companions, he did not die, but passed in enthusiasm, and his life,
begun by immortal orations, ended in a hymn to the eternity of the
revolution.
* * * * *
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
The Modern Régime
The early life of Hippolyte Adolphe Taine is notable for its
successes and its disappointments. Born at Vouziers, in
Ardennes, on April 21, 1838, he passed with great distinction
through the Collège de Bourbon and the École Normale. Until he
was twenty-five he filled minor positions at Toulon, Nevers,
and Poitiers; and then, hopeless of further promotion, he
abandoned educational work, returned to Paris, and devoted
himself to letters. During 1863-64 he produced his "History of
English Literature," a work which, on account of Taine's
uncompromising determinist views, raised a clerical storm in
France. About 1871 Taine conceived the idea of his great life
work, "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine," in which he
proposed to trace the causes and effects of the revolution of
1789. The first of the series, "The Ancient Régime," appeared
in 1875; the second, "The Revolution," in 1878-81-85; and the
third, "The Modern Régime," in 1890-94. As a study of events
arising out of the greatest drama of modern times the
supremacy of the last-named is unquestioned. It stands apart
as a trenchant analysis of modern France, Taine's conclusions
being that the Revolution, instead of establishing liberty,
destroyed it. Taine died on March 5, 1893.
_I.--The Architect of Modern France_
In trying to explain to ourselves the meaning of an edifice, we must
take into account whatever has opposed or favoured its construction, the
kind and quality of its available materials, the time, the opportunity,
and the demand for it; but, still more important, we must consider the
genius and taste of the architect, especially whether he is the
proprietor, whether he built it to live in himself, and, once installed
in it, whether he took pains to adapt it to his own way of living, to
his own necessities, to his own use.
Such is the social edifice erected by Napoleon Bonaparte, its architect,
proprietor, and principal occupant from 1799 to 1814. It is he who has
made modern France. Never was an individual character so profoundly
stamped on any collective work, so that, to comprehend the work, we must
first study the character of the man.
Contemplate in Guérin's picture the spare body, those narrow shoulders
under the uniform wrinkled by sudden movements, that neck swathed in its
high, twisted cravat, those temples covered by long, smooth, straight
hair, exposing only the mask, the hard features intensified through
strong contrasts of light and shade, the cheeks hollow up to the inner
angle of the eye, the projecting cheek-bones, the massive, protuberant
jaw, the sinuous, mobile lips, pressed together as if attentive; the
large, clear eyes, deeply sunk under the broad arched eyebrows, the
fixed oblique look, as penetrating as a rapier, and the two creases
which extend from the base of the nose to the brow as if in a frown of
suppressed anger and determined will. Add to this the accounts of his
contemporaries who saw or heard the curt accent, or the sharp, abrupt
gesture, the interrogating, imperious, absolute tone of voice, and we
comprehend how, the moment they accosted him, they felt the dominating
hand which seizes them, presses them down, holds them firmly, and never
relaxes its grasp.
Now, in every human society a government is necessary, or, in other
words, an organisation of the power of the community. No other machine
is so useful. But a machine is useful only as it is adapted to its
purpose; otherwise it does not work well, or it works adversely to that
purpose. Hence, in its construction, the prime necessity of calculating
what work it has to do, also the quantity of the materials one has at
one's disposal.
During the French Revolution, legislators had never taken this into
consideration; they had constituted things as theorists, and likewise as
optimists, without closely studying them, or else regarding them as they
wished to have them. In the national assemblies, as well as with the
public, the task was deemed easy and ordinary, whereas it was
extraordinary and immense, for the matter in hand consisted in effecting
a social revolution and in carrying on a European war.
What is the service which the public power renders to the public? The
principal one is the protection of the community against the foreigner,
and of private individuals against each other. Evidently, to do this, it
must _in all cases_ be provided with indispensable means, namely,
diplomats, an army, a fleet, arsenals, civil and criminal courts,
prisons, a police, taxation and tax-collectors, a hierarchy of agents
and local supervisors, who, each in his place and attending to his
special duty, will co-operate in securing the desired effect. Evidently,
again, to apply all these instruments, the public power must have,
_according to the case_, this or that form of constitution, this or that
degree of impulse and energy; according to the nature and gravity of
external or internal danger, it is proper that it should be concentrated
or divided, emancipated from control or under control, authoritative or
liberal. No indignation need be cherished beforehand against its
mechanism, whatever this may be. Properly speaking, it is a vast engine
in the human community, like any given industrial machine in a factory,
or any set of organs belonging to the living body.
Unfortunately, in France, at the end of the eighteenth century, a bent
was taken in the organisation of this machine, and a wrong bent. For
three centuries and more the public power had unceasingly violated and
discredited spontaneous bodies. At one time it had mutilated them and
decapitated them. For example, it had suppressed provincial governments
_(états)_ over three-quarters of the territory in all the electoral
districts; nothing remained of the old province but its name and an
administrative circumscription. At another time, without mutilating the
corporate body, it had enervated and deformed it, or dislocated and
disjointed it.
Corporations and local bodies, thus deprived of, or diverted from, their
purpose, had become unrecognisable under the crust of the abuses which
disfigured them; nobody, except a Montesquieu, could comprehend why they
should exist. On the approach of the revolution they seemed, not organs,
but excrescences, deformities, and, so to say, superannuated
monstrosities. Their historical and natural roots, their living germs
far below the surface, their social necessity, their fundamental
utility, their possible usefulness, were no longer visible.
_II.--The Body-Social of a Despot_
Corporations, and local bodies being thus emasculated, by the end of the
eighteenth century the principal features of modern France are traced; a
creature of a new and strange type arises, defines itself, and issues
forth its structure determining its destiny. It consists of a social
body organised by a despot and for a despot, calculated for the use of
one man, excellent for action under the impulsion of a unique will, with
a superior intelligence, admirable so long as this intelligence remains
lucid and this will remain healthy; adapted to a military life and not
to civil life and therefore badly balanced, hampered in its development,
exposed to periodical crises, condemned to precocious debility, but able
to live for a long time, and for the present, robust, alone able to bear
the weight of the new dominion and to furnish for fifteen successive
years the crushing labour, the conquering obedience, the superhuman,
murderous, insensate effort which its master, Napoleon, exacts.
However clear and energetic the ideas of Napoleon are when he sets to
work to make the New Régime, his mind is absorbed by the preoccupations
of the sovereign. It is not enough for him that his edifice should be
monumental, symmetrical, and beautiful. First of all, as he lives in it
and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants it habitable, and
habitable for Frenchmen of the year 1800. Consequently, he takes into
account the habits and dispositions of his tenants, the pressing and
permanent wants for which the new structure is to provide. These wants,
however, must not be theoretic and vague, but verified and defined; for
he is a calculator as close as he is profound, and deals only with
positive facts.
To restore tranquillity, many novel measures are essential. And first,
the political and administrative concentration just decreed, a
centralisation of all powers in one hand, local powers conferred by the
central power, and this supreme power in the hands of a resolute chief
equal in intelligence to his high position; next, a regularly paid army,
carefully equipped, properly clothed, and fed, strictly disciplined, and
therefore obedient and able to do its duty without wavering or
faltering, like any other instrument of precision; an active police
force and _gendarmerie_ held in check; administrators independent of
those under their jurisdiction--all appointed, maintained, watched and
restrained from above, as impartial as possible, sufficiently competent,
and, in their official spheres, capable functionaries; finally, freedom
of worship, and, accordingly, a treaty with Rome and the restoration of
the Catholic Church--that is to say, a legal recognition of the orthodox
hierarchy, and of the only clergy which the faithful may accept as
legitimate--in other words, the institution of bishops by the Pope, and
of priests by the bishops. This done, the rest is easily accomplished.
The main thing now is to dress the severe wounds the revolution has
made--which are still bleeding--with as little torture as possible, for
it has cut down to the quick; and its amputations, whether foolish or
outrageous, have left sharp pains or mute suffering in the social
organism.
Above all, religion must be restored. Before 1789, the ignorant or
indifferent Catholic, the peasant at his plough, the mechanic at his
work-bench, the good wife attending to her household, were unconscious
of the innermost part of religion; thanks to the revolution, they have
acquired the sentiment of it, and even the physical sensation. It is the
prohibition of the mass which has led them to comprehend its importance;
it is the revolutionary government which has transformed them into
theologians.
From the year IV. (1795) the orthodox priests have again recovered their
place and ascendancy in the peasant's soul which the creed assigns to
them; they have again become the citizen's serviceable guides, his
accepted directors, the only warranted interpreters of Christian truth,
the only authorised dispensers and ministers of divine grace. He attends
their mass immediately on their return, and will put up with no other.
Napoleon, therefore, as First Consul, concludes the Concordat with the
Pope and restores religion. By this Concordat the Pope "declares that
neither himself nor his successors shall in any manner disturb the
purchasers of alienated ecclesiastical property, and that the ownership
of the said property, the rights and revenues derived therefrom, shall
consequently remain incommutable in their hands or in those of their
assigns."
There remain the institutions for instruction. With respect to these,
the restoration seems more difficult, for their ancient endowment is
almost entirely wasted; the government has nothing to give back but
dilapidated buildings, a few scattered investments formerly intended for
the maintenance of a college scholarship, or for a village schoolhouse.
And to whom should these be returned, since the college and the
schoolhouse no longer exist? Fortunately, instruction is an article of
such necessity that a father almost always tries to procure it for his
children; even if poor, he is willing to pay for it, if not too dear;
only, he wants that which pleases him in kind and in quality, and,
therefore, from a particular source, bearing this or that factory stamp
or label.
The state invites everybody, the communes as well as private persons, to
the undertaking. It is on their liberality that it relies for replacing
the ancient foundations; it solicits gifts and legacies in favour of new
establishments, and it promises "to surround these donations with the
most invariable respect." Meanwhile, and as a precautionary measure, it
assigns to each its eventual duty; if the commune establishes a primary
school for itself, it must provide the tutor with a lodging, and the
parents must compensate him; if the commune founds a college or accepts
a _lycée,_ it must pay for the annual support of the building, while the
pupils, either day-scholars or boarders, pay accordingly.
In this way the heavy expenses are already met, and the state, the
manager-general of the service, furnishes simply a very small quota; and
this quota, mediocre as a rule, is found almost null in fact, for its
main largess consists in 6,400 scholarships which it establishes and
engages to support; but it confers only about 3,000 of them, and it
distributes nearly all of these among the children of its military or
civil employees, so that the son's scholarship becomes additional pay
for the father; thus, the two millions which the state seems, under this
head, to assign to the _lycées,_ are actually gratifications which it
distributes among its functionaries and officials. It takes back with
one hand what it bestows with the other.
This being granted, it organises the university and maintains it, not at
its own expense, however, but at the expense of others, at the expense
of private persons and parents, of the communes, and, above all, at the
expense of rival schools and private boarding-schools, of the free
institutions, and all this in favour of the university monopoly which
subjects these to special taxation as ingenious as it is multifarious.
Whoever is privileged to carry on a private school, must pay from two to
three hundred francs to the university; likewise, every person obtaining
permission to lecture on literature or on science.
_III.--The New Taxation, Fiscal and Bodily_
Now, as to taxes. The collection of a direct tax is a surgical operation
performed on the taxpayer, one which removes a piece of his substance;
he suffers on account of this, and submits to it only because he is
obliged to. If the operation is performed on him by other hands, he
submits to it voluntarily or not; but if he has to do it himself,
spontaneously and with his own hands, it is not to be thought of. On the
other hand, the collection of a direct tax according to the
prescriptions of distributive justice is a subjection of each taxpayer
to an amputation proportionate to his bulk, or at least to his surface;
this requires delicate calculation and is not to be entrusted to the
patients themselves; for not only are they surgical novices and poor
calculators, but, again, they are interested in calculating falsely.
To this end, Napoleon establishes two divisions of direct taxation: one,
the real-estate tax, which has no bearing on the taxpayer without any
property; and the other the personal tax, which does affect him, but
lightly. Such a system favours the poor; in other words, it is an
infraction of the principle of distributive justice; through the almost
complete exemption of those who have no property, the burden of direct
taxation falls almost entirely on those who own property. If they are
manufacturers, or in commerce, they support still another burden, that
of the license tax, which is a supplementary impost proportioned to
their probable gains. Finally, to all these annual and extra taxes,
levied on the probable or certain income derived from invested or
floating capital, the exchequer adds an eventual tax on capital itself,
consisting of the _mutation_ tax, assessed on property every time it
changes hands through gift, inheritance, or by contract, obtaining its
title under free donation or by sale, and which tax, aggravated by the
_timbre_, is enormous, since, in most cases, it takes five, seven, nine,
and up to ten and one-half per cent, on the capital transmitted.
One tax remains, and the last, that by which the state takes, no longer
money, but the person himself, the entire man, soul and body, and for
the best years of his life, namely, military service. It is the
revolution which has rendered this so burdensome; formerly it was light,
for, in principle, it was voluntary. The militia, alone, was raised by
force, and, in general, among the country people; the peasants furnished
men for it by casting lots. But it was simply a supplement to the active
army, a territorial and provincial reserve, a distinct, sedentary body
of reinforcements, and of inferior rank which, except in case of war,
never marched; it turned out but nine days of the year, and, after 1778,
never turned out again. In 1789 it comprised in all 75,260 men, and for
eleven years their names, inscribed on the registers, alone constituted
their presence in the ranks.
Napoleon put this military system in order. Henceforth every male
able-bodied adult must pay the debt of blood; no more exemptions in the
way of military service; all young men who had reached the required age
drew lots in the conscription and set out in turn according to the order
fixed by their drafted number.
But Napoleon is an intelligent creditor; he knows that this debt is
"most frightful and most detestable for families," that his debtors are
real, living men, and therefore different in kind, that the head of the
state should keep these differences in mind, that is to say, their
condition, their education, their sensibility and their vocation; that,
not only in their private interest, but again in the interest of the
public, not merely through prudence, but also through equity, all should
not be indistinguishably restricted to the same mechanical pursuit, to
the same manual labour, to the same indefinite servitude of soul and
body.
Napoleon also exempts the conscript who has a brother in the active
army, the only son of a widow, the eldest of three orphans, the son of a
father seventy-one years old dependent on his labour, all of whom are
family supports. He joins with these all young men who enlist in one of
his civil militias, in his ecclesiastical militia, or in his university
militia, pupils of the École Normale, seminarians for the priesthood, on
condition that they shall engage to do service in their vocation, and do
it effectively, some for ten years, others for life, subject to a
discipline more rigid, or nearly as rigid, as military discipline.
_IV.--The Prefect Absolute_
Yet another institution which Napoleon gave to the Modern Régime in
France is the Prefect of a Department. Before 1870, when this prefect
appointed the mayors, and when the council general held its session only
fifteen days in the year, this Prefect was almost omnipotent; still, at
the present day, his powers are immense, and his power remains
preponderant. He has the right to suspend the municipal council and the
mayor, and to propose their dismissal to the head of the state. Without
resorting to this extremity, he holds them with a strong hand, and
always uplifted over the commune, for he can veto the acts of the
municipal police and of the road committee, annul the regulations of the
mayor, and, through a skilful use of his prerogative, impose his own. He
holds in hand, removes, appoints or helps appoint, not alone the clerks
in his office, but likewise every kind and degree of clerk who, outside
his office, serves the commune or department, from the archivist down to
and comprising the lowest employees, such as forest-guards of the
department, policemen posted at the corner of a street, and
stone-breakers on the public highway.
Such, in brief, is the system of local and general society in France
from the Napoleonic time down to the date 1889, when these lines are
written. After the philosophic demolitions of the revolution, and the
practical constructions of the consulate, national or general government
is a vast despotic centralised machine, and local government could no
longer be a small patrimony.
The departments and communes have become more or less vast
lodging-houses, all built on the same plan and managed according to the
same regulations, one as passable as the other, with apartments in them
which, more or less good, are more or less dear, but at rates which,
higher or lower, are fixed at a uniform tariff over the entire
territory, so that the 36,000 communal buildings and the eighty-six
department hotels are about equal, it making but little difference
whether one lodges in the latter rather than in the former. The
permanent taxpayers of both sexes who have made these premises their
home have not obtained recognition for what they are, invincibly and by
nature, a syndicate of neighbours, an involuntary, obligatory
association, in which physical solidarity engenders moral solidarity, a
natural, limited society whose members own the building in common, and
each possesses a property-right more or less great according to the
contribution he makes to the expenses of the establishment.
Up to this time no room has yet been found, either in the law or in
minds, for this very plain truth; its place is taken and occupied in
advance by the two errors which in turn, or both at once, have led the
legislator and opinion astray.
* * * * *
THOMAS CARLYLE
Frederick the Great
Frederick the Great, born on January 24, 1712, at Berlin,
succeeded to the throne of Prussia in 1740, and died on August
17, 1786, at Potsdam, being the third king of Prussia, the
regal title having been acquired by his grandfather, whose
predecessors had borne the title of Elector of Brandenburg.
Building on the foundations laid by his great-grandfather and
his father, he raised his comparatively small and poor kingdom
to the position of a first-class military power, and won for
himself rank with the greatest of all generals, often matching
his troops victoriously against forces of twice and even
thrice their number. In Thomas Carlyle he found an
enthusiastic biographer, somewhat prone, however, to find for
actions of questionable public morality a justification in
"immutable laws" and "veracities," which to other eyes is a
little akin to Wordsworth's apology for Rob Roy. But whether
we accept Carlyle's estimate of him or no, the amazing skill,
tenacity, and success with which he stood at bay virtually
against all Europe, while Great Britain was fighting as his
ally her own duel in France in the Seven Years' War,
constitutes an unparallelled achievement. "Frederick the
Great" was begun about 1848, the concluding volumes appearing
in 1865. (Carlyle, see LIVES AND LETTERS.)
_I.--Forebears and Childhood_
About the year 1780 there used to be seen sauntering on the terrace of
Sans-Souci a highly interesting, lean, little old man of alert though
slightly stooping figure, whose name among strangers was King Friedrich
II., or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common
people was _Vater Fritz_--Father Fred. A king every inch of him, though
without the trappings of a king; in a Spartan simplicity of vesture. In
1786 his speakings and his workings came to _finis_ in this world of
time. Editors vaguely account this man the creator of the Prussian
monarchy, which has since grown so large in the world.
He was born in the palace of Berlin, about noon, on January 24, 1712; a
small infant, but of great promise and possibility. Friedrich Wilhelm,
Crown Prince of Prussia, father of this little infant, did himself make
some noise in the world as second king of Prussia.
The founder of the line was Conrad of Hohenzollern, who came to seek his
fortune under Barbarossa, greatest of all the kaisers. Friedrich I. of
that line was created Elector of Brandenburg in 1415; the eleventh in
succession was Friedrich Wilhelm, the "Great Elector," who in 1640 found
Brandenburg annihilated, and left it in 1688 sound and flourishing, a
great country, or already on the way towards greatness; a most rapid,
clear-eyed, active man. His son got himself made King of Prussia, and
was Friedrich I., who was still reigning when his grandson, Frederick
the Great, was born. Not two years later Friedrich Wilhelm is king.
Of that strange king and his strange court there is no light to be had
except from the book written by Frederick's little sister, Wilhelmina,
when she grew to size and knowledge of good and evil--a flickery wax
taper held over Frederick's childhood. In the breeding of him there are
two elements noticeable, widely diverse--the French and the German. Of
his infantine history the course was in general smooth. The boy, it was
said, was of extraordinary vivacity; only he takes less to soldiering
than the paternal heart could wish. The French element is in his
governesses--good Edict-of-Nantes ladies.
For the boy's teachers, Friedrich Wilhelm has rules for guidance strict
enough. He is to be taught useful knowledge--history of the last hundred
and fifty years, arithmetic, fortification; but nothing useless of Latin
and the like. Spartan training, too, which shall make a soldier of him.
Whereas young Fritz has vivacities, a taste for music, finery, and
excursions into forbidden realms distasteful and incomprehensible to
Friedrich Wilhelm. We perceive the first small cracks of incurable
division in the royal household, traceable from Fritz's sixth or seventh
year; a divulsion splitting ever wider, new offences super-adding
themselves. This Fritz ought to fashion himself according to his
father's pattern, and he does not. These things make life all bitter for
son and for father, necessitating the proud son to hypocrisies very
foreign to him had there been other resource.
The boy in due time we find (at fifteen) attached to the amazing
regiment of giants, drilling at Potsdam; on very ill terms with his
father, however, who sees in him mainly wilful disobedience and
frivolity. Once, when Prussia and Hanover seem on the verge of war over
an utterly trivial matter, our crown prince acquires momentary favour.
The Potsdam Guards are ordered to the front, and the prince handles them
with great credit. But the favour is transitory, seeing that he is
caught reading French books, and arrayed in a fashion not at all
pleasing to the Spartan parent.
_II.--The Crown Prince Leaves Kingship_
The life is indeed so intolerable that Fritz is with difficulty
dissuaded from running away. The time comes when he will not be
dissuaded, resolves that he will endure no longer. There were only three
definite accomplices in the wild scheme, which had a very tragical
ending. Of the three, Lieutenant Keith, scenting discovery, slipped over
the border and so to England; his brother, Page Keith, feeling discovery
certain, made confession, after vigilance had actually stopped the
prince when he was dressed for the flight. There was terrible wrath of
the father over the would-be "deserter and traitor," and not less over
the other accomplice, Lieutenant Katte, who had dallied too long. The
crown prince himself was imprisoned; court-martial held on the
offenders; a too-lenient sentence was overruled by the king, and Katte
was executed. The king was near frenzied, but beyond doubt thought
honestly that he was doing no more than justice demanded.
As for the crown prince himself, deserting colonel of a regiment, the
court-martial, with two dissentients, condemned him to death; sentence
which the Junius Brutus of a king would have duly carried out. But
remonstrance is universal, and an autograph letter from the kaiser
seemingly decisive. Frederick was, as it were, retired to a house of his
own and a court of his own--court very strictly regulated--at Cüstrin;
not yet a soldier of the Prussian army, but hoping only to become so
again; while he studied the domain sciences, more particularly the
rigidly economical principles of state finance as practised by his
father. The tragedy has taught him a lesson, and he has more to learn.
That period is finally ended when he is restored to the army in 1732.
Reconciliation, complete submission, and obedience, a prince with due
appreciation of facts has now made up his mind to; very soon shaped into
acceptance of paternal demand that he shall wed Elizabeth of
Brunswick-Bevern, insipid niece of the kaiser. In private correspondence
he expresses himself none too submissively, but offers no open
opposition to the king's wishes.
The charmer of Brunswick turned out not so bad as might have been
expected; not ill-looking; of an honest, guileless heart, if little
articulate intellect; considerable inarticulate sense; after marriage,
which took place in June 1733, shaped herself successfully to the
prince's taste, and grew yearly gracefuller and better-looking. But the
affair, before it came off, gave rise to a certain visit of Friedrich
Wilhelm to the kaiser, of which in the long run the outcome was that
complete distrust of the kaiser displaced the king's heretofore
determined loyalty to him.
Meanwhile an event has fallen out at Warsaw. Augustus, the physically
strong, is no more; transcendent king of edacious flunkies, father of
354 children, but not without fine qualities; and Poland has to find a
new king. His death kindled foolish Europe generally into fighting, and
gave our crown prince his first actual sight and experience of the facts
of war. Stanislaus is overwhelmingly the favourite candidate, supported,
too, by France. The other candidate, August of Saxony, secures the
kaiser's favour by promise of support to his Pragmatic Sanction; and the
appearance of Russian troops secures "freedom of election" and choice of
August by the electors who are not absent. August is crowned, and Poland
in a flame. Friedrich Wilhelm cares not for Polish elections, but, as by
treaty bound, provides 10,000 men to support the kaiser on the Rhine,
while he gives asylum to the fugitive Stanislaus. Crown prince, now
twenty-two, is with the force; sees something of warfare, but nothing
big.
War being finished, Frederick occupied a mansion at Reinsberg with his
princess, and things went well, if economically, with much
correspondence with the other original mind of those days, Voltaire. But
big events are coming now. Mr. Jenkins's ear re-emerges from cotton-wool
after seven years, and Walpole has to declare war with Spain in 1739.
Moreover, Friedrich Wilhelm is exceedingly ill. In May 1740 comes a
message--Frederick must come to Potsdam quickly if he is to see his
father again. The son comes. "Am not I happy to have such a son to leave
behind me?" says the dying king. On May 31 he dies. No baresark of them,
nor Odin's self, was a bit of truer stuff.
_III.--The Silesian Wars_
Shall we, then, have the philosopher-king, as Europe dimly seems to half
expect? He begins, indeed, with opening corn magazines, abolishing legal
torture; will have freedom of conscience and the Press; encourage
philosophers and men of letters. In those days he had his first meeting
with Voltaire, recorded for us by the Frenchman twenty years later; for
his own reasons, vitriolically and with inaccuracies, the record
amounting to not much. Frederick was suffering from a quartan fever. Of
which ague he was cured by the news that Kaiser Carl died on October 20,
and Maria Theresa was proclaimed sovereign of the Hapsburg inheritance,
according to the Pragmatic Sanction.
Whereupon, without delay, Frederick forms a resolution, which had sprung
and got to sudden fixity in the head of the young king himself, and met
with little save opposition from all others--to make good his rights in
Silesia. A most momentous resolution; not the peaceable magnanimities,
but the warlike, are the thing appointed for Frederick henceforth.
In mid-December the troops entered Silesia; except in the hills, where
Catholics predominate, with marked approbation of the population, we
find. Of warlike preparation to meet the Prussians is practically none,
and in seven weeks Silesia is held, save three fortresses easy to manage
in spring. Will the hold be maintained?
Meanwhile, France will have something to say, moved by a figure not much
remembered, yet notable, Marshal Belleisle; perhaps, after Frederick and
Voltaire, the most notable of that time. A man of large schemes,
altogether accordant with French interests, but not, unfortunately, with
facts and law of gravitation. For whom the first thing needful is that
Grand Duke Franz, husband of Maria Theresa, shall not be elected kaiser;
who shall be is another matter--why not Karl Albert of Bavaria as well
as another?
After brief absence, Frederick is soon back in Silesia, to pay attention
to blockaded Glogau and Brieg and Neisse; harassed, however, by Austrian
Pandours out of Glatz, a troublesome kind of cavalry. The siege of
Neisse is to open on April 4, when we find Austrian Neipperg with his
army approaching; by good fortune a dilatory Neipperg; of which comes
the battle of Mollwitz.
In which fight victory finally rested with Prussians and Schwerin, who
held the field, Austrians retiring, but not much pursued; demonstration
that a new military power is on the scene (April 10). A victory, though,
of old Friedrich Wilhelm, and his training and discipline, having in it
as yet nothing of young Frederick's own.
A battle, however, which in effect set going the conflagration
unintelligible to Englishmen, known as War of the Austrian Accession. In
which we observe a clear ground for Anglo-Spanish War, and
Austro-Prussian War; but what were the rest doing? France is the author
of it, as an Anti-Pragmatic war; George II. and Hanover are dragged into
it as a Pragmatic war; but the intervention of France at all was
barefacedly unjust and gratuitous. To begin with, however, Belleisle's
scheming brings about election to kaisership of Karl Albert of Bavaria,
principal Anti-Pragmatic claimant to the Austrian heritage.
Brieg was taken not long after Mollwitz, and now many diplomatists come
to Frederick's camp at Strehlen. In effect, will he choose English or
French alliance? Will England get him what will satisfy him from
Austria? If not, French alliance and war with Austria--which problem
issues in treaty with France--mostly contingent. Diplomatising
continues, no one intending to be inconveniently loyal to engagements;
so that four months after French treaty comes another engagement or
arrangement of Klein Schnelendorf--Frederick to keep most of Silesia,
but a plausible show of hostilities--nothing more--to be maintained for
the present. In consequence of which Frederick solemnly captures Neisse.
The arrangement, however, comes to grief, enough of it being divulged
from Vienna to explode it. Out of which comes the Moravian expedition;
by inertness of allies turned into a mere Moravian foray, "the French
acting like fools, and the Saxons like traitors," growls Frederick.
Raid being over, Prince Karl, brother of Grand Duke Franz, comes down
with his army, and follows the battle of Chotusitz, also called of
Czaslau. A hard-fought battle, ending in defeat of the Austrians; not in
itself decisive, but the eyes of Europe very confirmatory of the view
that the Austrians cannot beat the Prussians. From a wounded general,
too, Frederick learns that the French have been making overtures for
peace on their own account, Prussia to be left to Austria if she likes,
of which is documentary proof.
No need, then, for Frederick to be scrupulous about making his own
terms. His Britannic Majesty is urgent that Maria Theresa should agree
with Frederick. Out of which comes Treaty of Breslau, ceding Silesia to
Prussia; and exceeding disgust of Belleisle, ending the first Silesian
War.
With which Frederick would have liked to see the European war ended
altogether; but it went on, Austria, too, prospering. He tries vainly to
effect combinations to enforce peace. George of England, having at last
fairly got himself into the war, and through the battle of Dettingen,
valorously enough; operations emerging in a Treaty of Worms (September
1743), mainly between England and Austria, which does _not_ guarantee
the Breslau Treaty. An expressive silence! "What was good to give is
good to take." Is Frederick, then, not secure of Silesia? If he must
guard his own, he can no longer stand aside. So the Worms Treaty begets
an opposition treaty, chief parties Prussia, France, and Kaiser Karl
Albert of Bavaria, signed at Frankfurt-on-Maine, May 1744.
Before which France has actually declared war on England, with whose
troops her own have been fighting for a not inconsiderable time without
declaration of war; and all the time fortifications in Silesia have been
becoming realities. Frederick will strike when his moment comes.
The imperative moment does come when Prince Karl, or, more properly,
Traun, under cloak of Prince Karl, seems on the point of altogether
crushing the French. Frederick intervenes, in defence of the kaiser;
swoops on Bohemia, captures Prag; in short, brings Prince Karl and Traun
back at high speed, unhindered by French. Thenceforward, not a
successfully managed campaign on Frederick's part, admirably conducted
on the other side by Traun. This campaign the king's school in the art
of war, and M. de Traun his teacher--so Frederick himself admits.
Austria is now sure to invade Silesia; will Frederick not block the
passes against Prince Karl, now having no Traun under his cloak?
Frederick will not--one leaves the mouse-trap door open, pleasantly
baited, moreover, into which mouse Karl will walk. And so, three weeks
after that remarkable battle of Fontenoy, in another quarter, very
hard-won victory of Maréchal Saxe over Britannic Majesty's Martial Boy,
comes battle of Hohenfriedberg. A most decisive battle, "most decisive
since Blenheim," wrote Frederick, whose one desire now is peace.
Britannic Majesty makes peace for himself with Frederick, being like to
have his hands full with a rising in the Scotch Highlands; Austria will
not, being still resolute to recover Silesia--rejects bait of Prussian
support in imperial election for Wainz, Kaiser Karl being now dead. What
is kaisership without Silesia? Prussia has no insulted kaiser to defend,
desires no more than peace on the old Breslau terms properly ratified;
but finances are low. Grand Duke Franz is duly elected; but the empress
queen will have Silesia. Battle of Sohr does not convince her. There
must be another surprising last attempt by Saxony and Austria; settled
by battles of Hennensdorf and Kesselsdorf.
So at last Frederick got the Peace of Dresden--security, it is to be
hoped, in Silesia, the thing for which he had really gone to war;
leaving the rest of the European imbroglio to get itself settled in its
own fashion after another two years of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
Frederick now has ten years of peace before him, during which his
actions and salutary conquests over difficulties were many, profitable
to Prussia and himself. Frederick has now, by his second Silesian war,
achieved greatness; "Frederick the Great," expressly so denominated by
his people and others. However, there are still new difficulties, new
perils and adventures ahead.
For the present, then, Frederick declines the career of conquering hero;
goes into law reform; gets ready a country cottage for himself, since
become celebrated under the name of Sans-Souci. General war being at
last ended, he receives a visit from Maréchal Saxe, brilliant French
field-marshal, most dissipated man of his time, one of the 354 children
of Augustus the Physically Strong.
But the ten years are passing--there is like to be another war. Peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, made in a hurry, had left some questions open in
America, answered in one way by the French, quite otherwise by English
colonists. Canada and Louisiana mean all America west of the
Alleghanies? Why then? Whomsoever America does belong to, it surely is
not France. Braddock disasters, Frenchmen who understand war--these
things are ominous; but there happens to be in England a Mr. Pitt. Here
in Europe, too, King Frederick had come in a profoundly private manner
upon certain extensive anti-Prussian symptoms--Austrian, Russian,
Saxon--of a most dangerous sort; in effect, an underground treaty for
partitioning Prussia; knowledge thereof extracted from Dresden archives.
_IV.--The Seven Years' War Opens_
Very curious diplomatisings, treaties, and counter-treaties are going
on. What counts is Frederick's refusal to help France against England,
and agreement with George of England--and of Hanover--to keep foreign
troops off German soil? Also Kaunitz has twirled Austrian policy on its
axis; we are to be friends with France. In this coming war, England and
Austria, hitherto allies, to be foes; France and Austria, hitherto foes,
to be allies.
War starts with the French capture of Minorca and the Byng affair, well
known. What do the movements of Russian and Austrian troops mean?
Frederick asks at Vienna; answer is no answer. We are ready then; Saxony
is the key to Bohemia. Frederick marches into Saxony, demands inspection
of Dresden Archives, with originals of documents known to him; blockades
the Saxons in Pirna, somewhat forcibly requiring not Saxon neutrality,
but Saxon alliance. And meanwhile neither France nor Austria is deaf to
the cries of Saxon-Polish majesty. Austrian Field-Marshal Browne is
coming to relieve the Saxons; is foiled, but not routed, at Lobositz;
tries another move, executing admirably his own part, but the Saxons
fail in theirs; the upshot, capitulation, the Saxon troops forced to
volunteer as Prussians.
For the coming year, 1757, there are arrayed against Frederick four
armies--French, Austrian, Russian, Swedish; help only from a Duke of
Cumberland on the Weser; the last two enemies not presently formidable.
He is not to stand on the defensive, but to go on it; startles the world
by suddenly marching on Prag, in three columns. Before Prag a mighty
battle desperately fought; old Schwerin killed, Austrian Browne wounded
mortally--fatal to Austria; Austrians driven into Prag, with loss of
13,000 men. Not annihilative, since Prag can hold out, though with
prospect of famishing.
But Daun is coming, in no haste--Fabius Cunctator about to be
named--with 60,000 men; does come to Kolin. Frederick attacks; but a
blunder of too-impetuous Mannstein fatally overturns the plan of battle;
to which the resulting disaster is imputed: disaster seemingly
overwhelming and irretrievable, but Daun does not follow up. The siege
of Prag is raised and the Prussian army--much smaller--retreats to
Saxony. And on the west Cumberland is in retreat seawards, after
Hastenbeck, and French armies are advancing; Cumberland very soon
mercifully to disappear, Convention of Kloster-Seven unratified. But
Pitt at last has hold of the reins in England, and Ferdinand of
Brunswick gets nominated to succeed Cumberland--Pitt's selection?
In these months nothing comes but ill-fortune; clouds gathering; but all
leading up to a sudden and startling turning of tables. In October,
Soubise is advancing; and then--Rossbach. Soubise thinks he has
Frederick outflanked, finds himself unexpectedly taken on flank instead;
rolled up and shattered by a force hardly one-third of his own; loses
8,000 men, the Prussians not 600; a tremendous rout, after which
Frederick had no more fighting with the French.
Having settled Soubise and recovered repute, Frederick must make haste
to Silesia, where Prince Karl, along with Fabius Daun, is already
proclaiming Imperial Majesty again, not much hindered by Bevern.
Schweidnitz falls; Bevern, beaten at Breslau, gets taken prisoner;
Prussian army marches away; Breslau follows Schweidnitz. This is what
Frederick finds, three weeks after Rossbach. Well, we are one to three
we will have at Prince Karl--soldiers as ready and confident as the
king, their hero. Challenge accepted by Prince Karl; consummate
manoeuvring, borrowed from Epaminondas, and perfect discipline wreck the
Austrian army at Leuthen; conquest of Silesia brought to a sudden end.
The most complete of all Frederick's victories.
Next year (1758) the first effective subsidy treaty with England takes
shape, renewed annually; England to provide Frederick with two-thirds of
a million sterling. Ferdinand has got the French clear over Rhine
already. Frederick's next adventure, a swoop on Olmütz, is not
successful; the siege not very well managed; Loudon, best of partisan
commanders, is dispatched by Daun to intercept a very necessary convoy;
which means end of siege. Cautious Daun does not strike on the Prussian
retreat, not liking pitched battles.
However, it is now time to face an enemy with whom we have not yet
fought; of whose fighting capacity we incline to think little, in spite
of warnings of Marshal Keith, who knows them. The Russians have occupied
East Prussia and are advancing. On August 25, Frederick comes to
hand-grips with Russia--Theseus and the Minotaur at Zorndorf; with much
ultimate slaughter of Russians, Seidlitz, with his calvary, twice saving
the day; the bloodiest battle of the Seven Years' War, giving Frederick
new views of Russian obstinacy in the field. The Russians finally
retire; time for Frederick to be back in Saxony.
For Daun has used his opportunity to invade Saxony; very cleverly
checked by Prince Henri, while Frederick is on his way back. To Daun's
surprise, the king moves off on Silesia. Daun moved on Dresden.
Frederick, having cleared Silesia, sped back, and Daun retired. The end
of the campaign leaves the two sides much as it found them; Frederick at
least not at all annihilated. Ferdinand also has done excellently well.
_V.--Frederick at Bay_
Not annihilated, but reduced to the defensive; best of his veterans
killed off by now, exchequer very deficient in spite of English subsidy.
The allies form a huge cordon all round; broken into at points during
the spring, but Daun finds at last that Frederick does not mean any
invasion; that he, Daun, must be the invader. But now and hereafter
Fabius Cunctator waits for Russia.
In summer Russia is moving; Soltikoff, with 75,000 men, advancing,
driving back Dohna. Frederick's best captains are all gone now; he tries
a new one, Wedell, who gets beaten at Züllichau. Moreover, Haddick and
Loudon are on the way to join Soltikoff. Frederick plans and carries out
his movements to intercept the Austrians with extraordinary swiftness;
Haddick and Austrian infantry give up the attempted junction, but not so
swift-moving Loudon with his 20,000 horse; interception a partial
failure, and now Frederick must make straight for the Russians.
Just about this time--August 1--Ferdinand has won the really splendid
victory of Minden, on the Weser, a beautiful feat of war; for Pitt and
the English in their French duel a mighty triumph; this is Pitt's year,
but the worst of all in Frederick's own campaigns. His attack now on the
Russians was his worst defeat--at Kunersdorf. Beginning victoriously, he
tried to drive victory home with exhausted troops, who were ultimately
driven in rout by Loudon with fresh regiments (August 9).
For the moment Frederick actually despaired; intended to resign command,
and "not to revive the ruin of his country." But Daun was not capable of
dealing the finishing stroke; managed, however, to take Dresden, on
terms. Frederick, however, is not many weeks in recovering his
resolution; and a certain astonishing march of his brother, Prince
Henri--fifty miles in fifty-six hours through country occupied by the
enemy--is a turning-point. Soltikoff, sick of Daun's inaction, made
ready to go home and England rejoiced over Wolfe's capture of Quebec.
Frederick, recovering, goes too far, tries a blow at Daun, resulting in
disaster of Maxen, loss of a force of 12,000 men. On the other hand,
Hawke finished the French fleet at Quiberon Bay. A very bad year for
Frederick, but a very good one for his ally. Next year Loudon is to
invade Silesia.
It did seem to beholders in this year 1660 that Frederick was doomed,
could not survive; but since he did survive it, he was able to battle
out yet two more campaigns, enemies also getting worn out; a race
between spent horses. Of the marches by which Frederick carried himself
through this fifth campaign it is not possible to give an idea. Failure
to bring Daun to battle, sudden siege of Dresden--not successful,
perhaps not possible at all that it should have succeeded. In August a
dash on Silesia with three armies to face--Daun, Lacy, Loudon, and
possible Russians, edged off by Prince Henri. At Liegnitz the best of
management, helped by good luck and happy accident, gives him a decisive
victory over London's division, despite Loudon's admirable conduct; a
miraculous victory; Daun's plans quite scattered, and Frederick's
movements freed. Three months later the battle of Torgau, fought
dubiously all day, becomes a distinct victory in the night. Neither
Silesia nor Saxony are to fall to the Austrians.
Liegnitz and Torgau are a better outcome of operations than Kunersdorf
and Maxen; the king is, in a sense, stronger, but his resources are more
exhausted, and George III. is now become king in England; Pitt's power
very much in danger there. In the next year most noteworthy is Loudon's
brilliant stroke in capturing Schweidnitz, a blow for Frederick quite
unlooked for.
In January, however, comes bright news from Petersburg: implacable
Tsarina Elizabeth is dead, Peter III. is Tsar, sworn friend and admirer
of Frederick; Russia, in short, becomes suddenly not an enemy but a
friend. Bute, in England, is proposing to throw over his ally,
unforgivably; to get peace at price of Silesia, to Frederick's wrath,
who, having moved Daun off, attacks Schweidnitz, and gets it, not
without trouble. And so, practically, ends the seventh campaign.
French and English had signed their own peace preliminaries, to disgust
of Excellency Mitchell, the first-rate ambassador to Frederick during
these years. Austria makes proffers, and so at last this war ends with
Treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg; issue, as concerns Austria and
Prussia, "as you were before the war."
_VI.--Afternoon and Evening of Frederick's Life_
Frederick's Prussia is safe; America and India are to be English, not
French; France is on the way towards spontaneous combustion in
1789;--these are the fruits of the long war. During the rest of
Frederick's reign--twenty-three years--is nothing of world history to
dwell on. Of the coming combustion Frederick has no perception; for what
remains of him, he is King of Prussia, interesting to Prussia chiefly:
whereof no continuous narrative is henceforth possible to us, only a
loose appendix of papers, as of the extraordinary speed with which
Prussia recovered--brave Prussia, which has defended itself against
overwhelming odds. The repairing of a ruined Prussia cost Frederick much
very successful labour.
Treaty with Russia is made in 1764, Frederick now, having broken with
England, being extremely anxious to keep well with such a country under
such a Tsarina, about whom there are to be no rash sarcasms. In 1769 a
young Kaiser Joseph has a friendliness to Frederick very unlike his
mother's animosity. Out of which things comes first partition of Poland
(1772); an event inevitable in itself, with the causing of which
Frederick had nothing whatever to do, though he had his slice. There was
no alternative but a general European war; and the slice, Polish
Prussia, was very desirable; also its acquisition was extremely
beneficial to itself.
In 1778 Frederick found needful to interpose his veto on Austrian
designs in respect of Bavarian succession; got involved subsequently in
Bavarian war of a kind, ended by intervention of Tsarina Catherine. In
1780 Maria Theresa died; Joseph and Kaunitz launched on ambitious
adventures for imperial domination of the German Empire, making
overtures to the Tsarina for dual empire of east and west, alarming to
Frederick. His answer was the "Fürstenbund," confederation of German
princes, Prussia atop, to forbid peremptorily that the laws of the Reich
be infringed; last public feat of Frederick; events taking an unexpected
turn, which left it without actual effect in European history.
A few weeks after this Fürstenbund, which did very effectively stop
Joseph's schemes, Frederick got a chill, which was the beginning of his
breaking up. In January 1786, he developed symptoms concluded by the
physician called in to be desperate, but not immediately mortal. Four
months later he talked with Mirabeau in Berlin, on what precise errand
is nowise clear; interview reported as very lively, but "the king in
much suffering."
Nevertheless, after this he did again appear from Sans-Souci on
horseback several times, for the last time on July 4. To the last he
continued to transact state business. "The time which I have still I
must employ; it belongs not to me but to the state"--till August 15.
On August 17 he died. In those last days it is evident that chaos is
again big. Better for a royal hero, fallen old and feeble, to be hidden
from such things; hero whom we may account as hitherto the last of the
kings.
* * * * *
GEORGE FINLAY
History of Greece
George Finlay, the historian of Greece, was born on December
21, 1799, at Faversham, Kent, England, where his father, Capt.
J. Finlay, R.E., was inspector of the Government powder mills.
His early instruction was undertaken by his mother, to whose
training he attributed his love of history. He studied law at
Glasgow and Göttingen universities, at the latter of which he
became acquainted with a Greek fellow-student, and resolved to
take part in the struggle for Greek independence. He proceeded
to Greece, where he met Byron and the leaders of the Greek
patriotic forces, took part in many engagements with the
Turks, and conducted missions on behalf of the Greek
provisional government until the independence of Greece was
established. Finlay bought an estate in Attica, on which he
resided for many years. The publication of his great series of
histories of Greece began in 1844, and was completed in 1875
with the second edition, which brought the history of modern
Greece down to 1864. It has been said that Finlay, like
Machiavelli, qualified himself to write history by wide
experience as student, soldier, statesman, and economist. He
died on January 26, 1875.
_I.--Greece Under the Romans_
The conquests of Alexander the Great effected a permanent change in the
political conditions of the Greek nation, and this change powerfully
influenced its moral and social state during the whole period of its
subjection to the Roman Empire.
Alexander introduced Greek civilisation as an important element in his
civil government, and established Greek colonies with political rights
throughout his conquests. During 250 years the Greeks were the dominant
class in Asia, and the corrupting influence of this predominance was
extended to the whole frame of society in their European as well as
their Asiatic possessions. The great difference which existed in the
social condition of the Greeks and Romans throughout their national
existence was that the Romans formed a nation with the organisation of a
single city. The Greeks were a people composed of a number of rival
states, and the majority looked with indifference on the loss of their
independence. The Romans were compelled to retain much of the civil
government, and many of the financial arrangements which they found
existing. This was a necessity, because the conquered were much further
advanced in social civilisation than the conquerors. The financial
policy of Rome was to transfer as much of the money circulating in the
provinces, and the precious metals in the hands of private individuals,
as it was possible into the coffers of the state.
Hence, the whole empire was impoverished, and Greece suffered severely
under a government equally tyrannical in its conduct and unjust in its
legislation. The financial administration of the Romans inflicted, if
possible, a severer blow on the moral constitution of society than on
the material prosperity of the country. It divided the population of
Greece into two classes. The rich formed an aristocratic class, the poor
sank to the condition of serfs. It appears to be a law of human society
that all classes of mankind who are separated by superior wealth and
privileges from the body of the people are, by their oligarchical
constitution, liable to rapid decline.
The Greeks and the Romans never showed any disposition to unite and form
one people, their habits and tastes being so different. Although the
schools of Athens were still famous, learning and philosophy were but
little cultivated in European Greece because of the poverty of the
people and the secluded position of the country.
In the changes of government which preceded the establishment of
Byzantium as the capital of the Roman Empire by Constantine, the Greeks
contributed to effect a mighty revolution of the whole frame of social
life by the organisation which they gave to the Church from the moment
they began to embrace the Christian religion. It awakened many of the
national characteristics which had slept for ages, and gave new vigour
to the communal and municipal institutions, and even extended to
political society. Christian communities of Greeks were gradually melted
into one nation, having a common legislation and a common civil
administration as well as a common religion, and it was this which
determined Constantine to unite Church and State in strict alliance.
From the time of Constantine the two great principles of law and
religion began to exert a favourable influence on Greek society, and
even limited the wild despotism of the emperors. The power of the
clergy, however, originally resting on a more popular and more pure
basis than that of the law, became at last so great that it suffered the
inevitable corruption of all irresponsible authority entrusted to
humanity.
Then came the immigration and ravages of the Goths to the south of the
Danube, and that unfortunate period marked the commencement of the rapid
decrease of the Greek race, and the decline of Greek civilisation
throughout the empire. Under Justinian (527-565), the Hellenic race and
institutions in Greece itself received the severest blow. Although he
gave to the world his great system of civil law, his internal
administration was remarkable for religious intolerance and financial
rapacity. He restricted the powers and diminished the revenues of the
Greek municipalities, closed the schools of rhetoric and philosophy at
Athens, and seized the endowments of the Academy of Plato, which had
maintained an uninterrupted succession of teachers for 900 years. But it
was not till the reign of Heraclius that the ancient existence of the
Hellenic race terminated.
_II.--The Byzantine and Greek Empires_
The history of the Byzantine Empire divides itself into three periods
strongly marked by distinct characteristics. The first commences with
the reign of Leo III., the Isaurian, in 716, and terminates with that of
Michael III., in 867. It comprises the whole history of the predominance
of iconoclasm in the established church, of the reaction which
reinstated the Orthodox in power, and restored the worship of pictures
and images.
It opens with the effort by which Leo and the people of the empire saved
the Roman law and the Christian religion from the conquering Saracen. It
embraces the long and violent struggle between the government and the
people, the emperors seeking to increase the central power by
annihilating every local franchise, and to constitute themselves the
fountains of ecclesiastical as completely as of civil legislation.
The second period begins with the reign of Bazil I., in 867, and during
two centuries the imperial sceptre was retained by members of his
family. At this time the Byzantine Empire attained its highest pitch of
external power and internal prosperity. The Saracens were pursued into
the plains of Syria, the Bulgarian monarchy was conquered, the
Slavonians in Greece were almost exterminated, Byzantine commerce filled
the whole of the Mediterranean. But the real glory of the period
consisted in the respect for the administration of justice which
purified society more generally than it had ever done at any preceding
era of the history of the world.
The third period extends from the accession of Isaac I., in 1057, to the
conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders, in 1204. This is the
true period of the decline and fall of the Eastern Empire. The
separation of the Greek and Latin churches was accomplished. The wealth
of the empire was dissipated, the administration of justice corrupted,
and the central authority lost all control over the population.
But every calamity of this unfortunate period sinks into insignificance
compared with the destruction of the greater part of the Greek race by
the savage incursions of the Seljouk Turks in Asia Minor. Then followed
the Crusades, the first three inflicting permanent evils on the Greek
race; while the fourth, which was organised in Venice, captured and
plundered Constantinople. A treaty entered into by the conquerors put an
end to the Eastern Roman Empire, and Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was
elected emperor of the East. The conquest of Constantinople restored the
Greeks to a dominant position in the East; but the national character of
the people, the political constitution of the imperial government, and
the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Orthodox Church were all destitute
of every theory and energetic practice necessary for advancing in a
career of improvement.
Towards the end of the thirteenth century a small Turkish tribe made its
first appearance in the Seljouk Empire. Othman, who gave his name to
this new band of immigrants, and his son, Orkhan, laid the foundation of
the institutions and power of the Othoman Empire. No nation ever
increased so rapidly from such small beginnings, and no government ever
constituted itself with greater sagacity than the Othoman; but no force
or prudence could have enabled this small tribe of nomads to rise with
such rapidity to power if it had not been that the Greek nation and its
emperors were paralysed by political and moral corruption. Justice was
dormant in the state, Christianity was torpid in the Church, orthodoxy
performed the duties of civil liberty, and the priest became the focus
of political opposition. By the middle of the fourteenth century the
Othoman Turks had raided Thrace, Macedonia, the islands of the Aegean,
plundered the large town of Greece, and advanced to the shores of the
Bosphorus.
At the end of the fourteenth century John VI. asked for efficient
military aid from Western Europe to avert the overthrow of the Greek
Empire by the Othoman power, but the Pope refused, unless John consented
to the union of the Greek and Latin Churches and the recognition of the
papal supremacy. In 1438 the Council of Ferrara was held, and was
transferred in the following year to Florence, when the Greek emperor
and all the bishops of the Eastern Church, except the bishop of Ephesus,
adopted the doctrines of the Roman Church, accepted the papal supremacy,
and the union of the two Churches was solemnly ratified in the cathedral
of Florence on July 6, 1439. But little came of the union. The Pope
forgot to sent a fleet to defend Constantinople; the Christian princes
would not fight the battles of the Greeks.
Then followed the conquest, in May 1453, of Constantinople, despite a
desperate resistance, by Mohammed II., who entered his new capital,
riding triumphantly past the body of the Emperor Constantine. Mohammed
proceeded at once to the church of St. Sophia, where, to convince the
Greeks that their Orthodox empire was extinct, the sultan ordered a
moolah to ascend the Bema and address a sermon to the Mussulmans
announcing that St. Sophia was now a mosque set apart for the prayers of
true believers. The fall of Constantinople is a dark chapter in the
annals of Christianity. The death of the unfortunate Constantine,
neglected by the Catholics and deserted by the Orthodox, alone gave
dignity to the final catastrophe.
_III.--Othoman and Venetian_
The conquest of Greece by Mohammed II. was felt to be a boon by the
greater part of the population. The sultan's government put an end to
the injustices of the Greek emperors and the Frank princes, dukes, and
signors who for two centuries had rendered Greece the scene of incessant
civil wars and odious oppression, and whose rapacity impoverished and
depopulated the country. The Othoman system of administration was
immediately organised. Along with it the sultan imposed a tribute of a
fifth of the male children of his Christian subjects as a part of that
tribute which the Koran declared was the lawful price of toleration to
those who refused to embrace Islam. Under these measures the last traces
of the former political institutions and legal administration of Greece
were swept away.
The mass of the Christian population engaged in agricultural operations
were, however, allowed to enjoy a far larger portion of the fruits of
their labour under the sultan's government than under that of many
Christian monarchs. The weak spots in the Othoman government were the
administration of justice and of finance. The naval conquests of the
Othomans in the islands and maritime districts of Greece, and the
ravages of Corsairs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, reduced
and degraded the population, exterminated the best families, enslaved
the remnant, and destroyed the prosperity of Greek trade and commerce.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century ecclesiastical corruption in
the Orthodox Church increased. Bishoprics, and even the patriarchate
were sold to the highest bidder. The Turks displayed their contempt for
them by ordering the cross which until that time had crowned the dome of
the belfry of the patriarchate to be taken down. There can be no doubt,
however, that in the rural district the secular clergy supplied some of
the moral strength which eventually enabled the Greeks successfully to
resist the Othoman power. Happily, the exaction of the tribute of
children fell into disuse; and, that burden removed, the nation soon
began to fed the possibility of improving its condition.
The contempt with which the ambassadors of the Christian powers were
treated at the Sublime Porte increased after the conquest of Candia and
the surrender of Crete in 1669, and the grand vizier, Kara Mustapha,
declared war against Austria and laid siege to Vienna in 1683. This was
the opportune moment taken by the Venetian Republic to declare war
against the Othoman Empire, and Greece was made the chief field of
military operations.
Morosini, the commander of the Venetian mercenary army, successfully
conducted a series of campaigns between 1684 and 1687, but with terrible
barbarity on both sides. The Venetian fleet entered the Piraeus on
September 21, 1687. The city of Athens was immediately occupied by their
army, and siege laid to the Acropolis. On September 25 a Venetian bomb
blew up a powder magazine in the Propylæa, and the following evening
another fell in the Parthenon. The classic temple was partially ruined;
much of the sculpture which had retained its inimitable excellence from
the days of Phidæas was defaced, and a part utterly destroyed. The Turks
persisted in defending the place until September 28, when, they
capitulated. The Venetians continued the campaign until the greater part
of Northern Greece submitted to their authority, and peace was declared
in 1696. During the Venetian occupation of Greece through the ravages of
war, oppressive taxation, and pestilence, the Greek inhabitants
decreased from 300,000 to about 100,000.
Sultan Achmet III., having checkmated Peter the Great in his attempt to
march to the conquest of Constantinople, assembled a large army at
Adrianople under the command of Ali Cumurgi, which expelled the
Venetians from Greece before the end of 1715. Peace was concluded, by
the Treaty of Passarovitz, in July 1718. Thereafter, the material and
political position of the Greek nation began to exhibit many signs of
improvement, and the agricultural population before the end of the
eighteenth century became, in the greatest part of the country, the
legal as well as the real proprietors of the soil, which made them feel
the moral sentiment of freemen.
The increased importance of the diplomatic relations of the Porte with
the Christian powers opened a new political career to the Greeks at
Constantinople, and gave rise to the formation of a class of officials
in the Othoman service called "phanariots," whose venality and illegal
exactions made the name a by-word for the basest servility, corruption,
and rapacity.
This system was extended to Wallachia and Moldavia, and no other
Christian race in the Othoman dominions was exposed to so long a period
of unmitigated extortion and cruelty as the Roman population of these
principalities. The Treaty of Kainardji which concluded the war with
Russia between 1768 and 1774, humbled the pride of the sultan, broke the
strength of the Othoman Empire, and established the moral influence of
Russia over the whole of the Christian populations in Turkey. But Russia
never insisted on the execution of the articles of the treaty, and the
Greeks were everywhere subjected to increased oppression and cruelty.
During the war from 1783 to 1792, caused by Catherine II. of Russia
assuming sovereignty over the Crimea, Russia attempted to excite the
Christians in Greece to take up arms against the Turks, but they were
again abandoned to their fate on the conclusion of the Treaty of Yassi
in 1792, which decided the partition of Poland.
Meanwhile, the diverse ambitions of the higher clergy and the phanariots
at Constantinople taught the people of Greece that their interests as a
nation were not always identical with the policy of the leaders of the
Orthodox Church. A modern Greek literature sprang up and, under the
influence of the French Revolution, infused love of freedom into the
popular mind, while the sultan's administration every day grew weaker
under the operation of general corruption. Throughout the East it was
felt that the hour of a great struggle for independence on the part of
the Greeks had arrived.
_IV.--The Greek Revolution_
The Greek revolution began in 1821. Two societies are supposed to have
contributed to accelerating it, but they did not do much to ensure its
success. These were the Philomuse Society, founded at Athens in 1812,
and the Philiké Hetaireia, established in Odessa in 1814. The former was
a literary club, the latter a political society whose schemes were wild
and visionary. The object of the inhabitants of Greece was definite and
patriotic.
The attempt of Alexander Hypsilantes, the son of the Greek Hospodar of
Wallachia, under the pretence that he was supported by Russia, to upset
the Turkish government in Moldavia and Wallachia was a miserable fiasco
distinguished for massacres, treachery, and cowardice, and it was
repudiated by the Tsar of Russia. Very different was the intensity of
the passion with which the inhabitants of modern Greece arose to destroy
the power of their Othoman masters. In the month of April 1821, a
Mussulman population, amounting to upwards of 20,000 souls, was living
dispersed in Greece employed in agriculture. Before two months had
elapsed the greater part--men, women, and children--were murdered
without mercy or remorse. The first insurrectional movement took place
in the Peloponnesus at the end of March. Kalamata was besieged by a
force of 2,000 Greeks, and taken on April 4. Next day a solemn service
of the Greek Church was performed on the banks of the torrent that flows
by Kalamata, as a thanksgiving for the success of the Greek arms.
Patriotic tears poured down the cheeks of rude warriors, and ruthless
brigands sobbed like children. All present felt that the event formed an
era in Greek history. The rising spread to every part of Greece, and to
some of the islands.
Sultan Mahmud II. believed that he could paralyse the movements of the
Greeks by terrific cruelty. On Easter Sunday, April 22, the Patriarch
Gregorios and three other bishops were executed in Constantinople--a
deed which caused a thrill of horror from the Moslem capital to the
mountains of Greece, and the palaces of St. Petersburg. The sultan next
strengthened his authority in Thrace and in Macedonia, and extinguished
the flames of rebellion from Mount Athos to Olympus.
In Greece itself the patriots were triumphant. Local senates were formed
for the different districts, and a National Assembly met at Piada, three
miles to the west of the site of the ancient Epidaurus, which formulated
a constitution and proclaimed it on January 13, 1822. This constitution
established a central government consisting of a legislative assembly
and an executive body of five members, with Prince Alexander
Mavrocordato as President of Greece.
It is impossible here to go into the details of the war of independence
which was carried on from 1822 to 1827. The outstanding incidents were
the triple siege and capitulation of the Acropolis at Athens; the
campaigns of Ibrahim Pasha and his Egyptian army in the Morea; the
defence of Mesolonghi by the Greeks with a courage and endurance, an
energy and constancy which will awaken the sympathy of free men in every
country as long as Grecian history endures; the two civil wars, for one
of which the Primates were especially blamable; the dishonesty of the
government, the rapacity of the military, the indiscipline of the navy;
and the assistance given to the revolutionaries by Lord Byron and other
English sympathisers. Lord Byron arrived at Mesolonghi on January 5,
1824. His short career in Greece was unconnected with any important
military event, for he died on April 19; but the enthusiasm he awakened
perhaps served Greece more than his personal exertions would have done
had his life been prolonged, because it resulted in the provision of a
fleet for the Greek nation by the English and American Philhellenes,
commanded by Lord Cochrane.
By the beginning of 1827 the whole of Greece was laid waste, and the
sufferings of the agricultural population were terrible. At the same
time, the greater part of the Greeks who bore arms against the Turks
were fed by Greek committees in Switzerland, France, and Germany; while
those in the United States directed their attention to the relief of the
peaceful population. It was felt that the intervention of the European
powers could alone prevent the extermination of the population or their
submission to the sultan. On July 6, 1827, a treaty Between Great
Britain, France, and Russia was signed at London to take common measures
for the pacification of Greece, to enforce an armistice between the
Greeks and the Turks, and, by an armed intervention, to secure to the
Greeks virtual independence under the suzerainty of the sultan. The
Greeks accepted the armistice, but the Turks refused; and then followed
the destruction of the Othoman fleet by the allied squadrons under
Admiral Sir Edward Coddrington at Navarino, on October 21, 1827.
In the following April, Russia declared war against Turkey, and the
French government, by a protocol, were authorised to dispatch a French
army of 14,000 men under the command of General Maison. This force
landed at Petalidi, in the Gulf of Coron. Ibrahim Pasha withdrew his
army to Egypt, and the French troops occupied the strong places of
Greece almost without resistance from the Turkish garrisons.
France thus gained the honour of delivering Greece from the last of her
conquerors, and she increased the debt of gratitude due by the Greeks by
the admirable conduct of her soldiers, who converted mediæval
strongholds into habitable towns, repaired the fortresses, and
constructed roads. Count John Capodistrias, a Corfiot noble, who had
been elected President of Greece in April 1827 for a period of seven
years by the National Assembly of Troezen, arrived in Greece in January
1828. He found the country in a state of anarchy, and at once put a stop
to some of the grossest abuses in the army, navy, and financial
administration.
_V.--The Greek Monarchy_
The war terminated in 1829, and the Turks finally evacuated continental
Greece in September of the same year. The allied powers declared Greece
an independent state with a restricted territory, and nominated Prince
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (afterwards King of the Belgians) to be its
sovereign. Prince Leopold accepted the throne on February 11, but
resigned it on May 17. Thereafter Capodistrias exercised his functions
as president in the most tyrannical fashion, and was assassinated on
October 9, 1831; from which date till February 1833 anarchy prevailed in
the country.
Agostino Capodistrias, brother of the assassinated president, who had
been chosen president by the National Assembly on December 20, 1831, was
ejected out of the presidency by the same assembly in April 1832, and
Prince Otho of Bavaria was elected King of Greece. Otho, accompanied by
a small Bavarian army, landed from an English frigate in Greece at
Nauplia on February 6, 1833. He was then only seventeen years of age,
and a regency of three Bavarians was appointed to administer the
government during his minority, his majority being fixed at June 1,
1835.
The regency issued a decree in August 1833, proclaiming the national
Church of Greece independent of the patriarchate and synod of
Constantinople and establishing an ecclesiastical synod for the kingdom
on the model of that of Russia, but with more freedom of action. In
judicial procedure, however, the regency placed themselves above the
tribunals. King Otho, who had come of age in 1835, and married a
daughter of the Duke of Oldenburg in 1837, became his own prime minister
in 1839, and claimed to rule with absolute power. He did not possess
ability, experience, energy, or generosity; consequently, he was not
respected, obeyed, feared, or loved. The administrative incapacity of
King Otho's counsellors disgusted the three protecting powers as much as
their arbitrary conduct irritated the Greeks.
A revolution naturally followed. Otho was compelled to abandon absolute
power in order to preserve his crown, and in March 1844 he swore
obedience to a constitution prepared by the National Assembly, which put
an end to the government of alien rulers under which the Greeks had
lived for two thousand years. The destinies of the race were now in the
hands of the citizens of liberated Greece. But the attempt was
unsuccessful. The corruption of the government and the contracted views
of King Otho rendered the period from the adoption of the constitution
to his expulsion in 1862 a period of national stagnation. In October
1862 revolt broke out, and on the 23rd a provisional government at
Athens issued a proclamation declaring, in his absence, that the reign
of King Otho was at an end.
When Otho and his queen returned in a frigate to the Piraeus they were
not allowed to land. Otho appealed to the representatives of the powers,
who refused to support him against the nation, and he and his queen took
refuge on board H.M.S. Scylla, and left Greece for ever.
The National Assembly held in Athens drew up a new constitution, laying
the foundations of free municipal institutions, and leaving the nation
to elect their sovereign. Then followed the abortive, though almost
unanimous, election as king of Prince Alfred of England. Afterwards the
British Government offered the crown to the second son of Prince
Christian of Holstein-Glücksburg. On March 30, 1863, he was unanimously
elected King of Greece, and the British forces left Corfu on June 2,
1864.
* * * * *
J.L. MOTLEY
The Rise of the Dutch Republic
John Lothrop Motley, historian and diplomatist, was born at
Dorchester, Massachusetts, now part of Boston, on April 15,
1814. After graduating at Harvard University, he proceeded to
Europe, where he studied at the universities of Berlin and
Göttingen. At the latter he became intimate with Bismarck, and
their friendly relations continued throughout life. In 1846
Motley began to collect materials for a history of Holland,
and in 1851 he went to Europe to pursue his investigations.
The result of his labours was "The Rise of the Dutch
Republic--a History," published in 1856. The work was received
with enthusiasm in Europe and America. Its distinguishing
character is its graphic narrative and warm sympathy; and
Froude said of it that it is "as complete as industry and
genius can make it, and a book which will take its place among
the finest stories in this or any language." In 1861 Motley
was appointed American Minister to Austria, where he remained
until 1867; and in 1869 General Grant sent him to represent
the United States in England. Motley died on May 29, 1877, at
the Dorsetshire house of his daughter, near Dorchester.
_I.--Woe to the Heretic_
The north-western corner of the vast plain which extends from the German
Ocean to the Ural Mountains is occupied by the countries called the
Netherlands. The history of the development of the Netherland nation
from the time of the Romans during sixteen centuries is ever marked by
one prevailing characteristic, one master passion--the love of liberty,
the instinct of self-government. Largely compounded of the bravest
Teutonic elements--Batavian and Frisian--the race has ever battled to
the death with tyranny, and throughout the dark ages struggled
resolutely towards the light, wresting from a series of petty sovereigns
a gradual and practical recognition of the claims of humanity. With the
advent of the Burgundian family, the power of the commons reached so
high a point that it was able to measure itself, undaunted, with the
spirit of arbitrary power. Peaceful in their pursuits, phlegmatic by
temperament, the Netherlanders were yet the most belligerent and
excitable population in Europe.
For more than a century the struggle for freedom, for civic life, went
on, Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, Mary's husband Maximilian,
Charles V., in turn assailing or undermining the bulwarks raised age
after age against the despotic principle. Liberty, often crushed, rose
again and again from her native earth with redoubled energy. At last, in
the sixteenth century, a new and more powerful spirit, the genius of
religious freedom, came to participate in the great conflict. Arbitrary
power, incarnated in the second Charlemagne, assailed the new
combination with unscrupulous, unforgiving fierceness. In the little
Netherland territory, humanity, bleeding but not killed, still stood at
bay, and defied the hunters. The two great powers had been gathering
strength for centuries. They were soon to be matched in a longer and
more determined combat than the world had ever seen.
On October 25, 1555, the Estates of the Netherlands were assembled in
the great hall of the palace at Brussels to witness amidst pomp and
splendour the dramatic abdication of Charles V. as sovereign of the
Netherlands in favour of his son Philip. The drama was well played. The
happiness of the Netherlands was apparently the only object contemplated
in the great transaction, and the stage was drowned in tears. And yet,
what was the Emperor Charles to the inhabitants of the Netherlands that
they should weep for him? Their interests had never been even a
secondary consideration with their master. He had fulfilled no duty
towards them; he had committed the gravest crimes against them; he was
in constant conflict with their ancient and dearly-bought political
liberties.
Philip II., whom the Netherlands received as their new master, was a man
of foreign birth and breeding, not speaking a word of their language. In
1548 he had made his first appearance in the Netherlands to receive
homage in the various provinces as their future sovereign, and to
exchange oaths of mutual fidelity with them all.
One of the earliest measures of Philip's reign was to re-enact the dread
edict of 1550. This he did by the express advice of the Bishop of Arras.
The edict set forth that no one should print, write, copy, keep,
conceal, sell, buy, or give in churches, streets, or other places any
book or writing by Luther, Calvin, and other heretics reprobated by the
Holy Church; nor break, or injure the images of the Holy Virgin or
canonised saints; nor in his house hold conventicles, or be present at
any such, in which heretics or their adherents taught, baptised, or
formed conspiracies, against the Holy Church and the general welfare.
Further, all lay persons were forbidden to converse or dispute
concerning the Holy Scriptures openly or secretly, or to read, teach, or
expound them; or to preach, or to entertain any of the opinions of the
heretics.
Disobedience to this edict was to be punished as follows. Men to be
executed with the sword, and women to be buried alive if they do not
persist in their errors; if they do persist in them, then they are to be
executed with fire, and all their property in both cases is to be
confiscated to the crown. Those who failed to betray the suspected were
to be liable to the same punishment, as also those who lodged, furnished
with food, or favoured anyone suspected of being a heretic. Informers
and traitors against suspected persons were to be entitled on conviction
to one-half of the property of the accused.
At first, however, the edict was not vigorously carried into effect
anywhere. It was openly resisted in Holland; its proclamation was flatly
refused in Antwerp, and repudiated throughout Brabant. This disobedience
was in the meantime tolerated because Philip wanted money to carry on
the war between Spain and France which shortly afterwards broke out. At
the close of the war, a treaty was entered into between France and Spain
by which Philip and Henry II. bound themselves to maintain the Catholic
worship inviolate by all means in their power, and to extinguish the
increasing heresy in both kingdoms. There was a secret agreement to
arrange for the Huguenot chiefs throughout the realms of both, a
"Sicilian Vespers" upon the first favourable occasion.
Henry died of a wound received from Montgomery in a tournay held to
celebrate the conclusion of the treaty, and Catherine de Medici became
Queen-Regent of France, and deferred carrying out the secret plot till
St. Bartholomew's Day fourteen years after.
_II.--The Netherlands Are, and Will Be, Free_
Philip now set about the organisation of the Netherlands provinces.
Margaret, Duchess of Parma, was appointed regent, with three boards, a
state council, a privy council, and a council of finance, to assist in
the government. It soon became evident that the real power of the
government was exclusively in the hands of the Consulta--a committee of
three members of the state council, by whose deliberation the regent was
secretly to be guided on all important occasions; but in reality the
conclave consisted of Anthony Perrenot, Bishop of Arras, afterwards
Cardinal Granvelle. Stadtholders were appointed to the different
provinces, of whom only Count Egmont for Flanders and William of Orange
for Holland need be mentioned.
An assembly of the Estates met at Ghent on August 7, 1589, to receive
the parting instructions of Philip previous to his departure for Spain.
The king, in a speech made through the Bishop of Arras, owing to his
inability to speak French or Flemish, submitted a "request" for three
million gold florins "to be spent for the good of the country." He made
a violent attack on "the new, reprobate and damnable sects that now
infested the country," and commanded the Regent Margaret "accurately and
exactly to cause to be enforced the edicts and decrees made for the
extirpation of all sects and heresies." The Estates of all the provinces
agreed, at a subsequent meeting with the king, to grant their quota of
the "request," but made it a condition precedent that the foreign
troops, whose outrages and exactions had long been an intolerable
burden, should be withdrawn. This enraged the king, but when a
presentation was made of a separate remonstrance in the name of the
States-General, signed by the Prince of Orange, Count Egmont, and other
leading patricians, against the pillaging, insults, and disorders of the
foreign soldiers, the king was furious. He, however, dissembled at a
later meeting, and took leave of the Estates with apparent cordiality.
Inspired by the Bishop of Arras, under secret instructions from Philip,
the Regent Margaret resumed the execution of the edicts against heresies
and heretics which had been permitted to slacken during the French war.
As an additional security for the supremacy of the ancient religion,
Philip induced the Pope, Paul IV., to issue, in May, 1559, a Bull
whereby three new archbishoprics were appointed, with fifteen subsidiary
bishops and nine prebendaries, who were to act as inquisitors. To
sustain these two measures, through which Philip hoped once and for ever
to extinguish the Netherland heresy, the Spanish troops were to be kept
in the provinces indefinitely.
Violent agitation took place throughout the whole of the Netherlands
during the years 1560 and 1561 against the arbitrary policy embodied in
the edicts, and the ruthless manner in which they were enforced in the
new bishoprics, and against the continued presence of the foreign
soldiery. The people and their leaders appealed to their ancient
charters and constitutions. Foremost in resistance was the Prince of
Orange, and he, with Egmont, the soldier hero of St. Quentin, and
Admiral Horn, united in a remarkable letter to the king, in which they
said that the royal affairs would never be successfully conducted so
long as they were entrusted to Cardinal Granvelle. Finally, Granvelle
was recalled by Philip. But the Netherlands had now reached a condition
of anarchy, confusion, and corruption.
The four Estates of Flanders, in a solemn address to the king, described
in vigorous language the enormities committed by the inquisitors, and
called upon Philip to suppress these horrible practices so manifestly in
violation of the ancient charters which he had sworn to support. Philip,
so far from having the least disposition to yield in this matter,
dispatched orders in August, 1564, to the regent, ordering that the
decrees of the Council of Trent should be published and enforced without
delay throughout the Netherlands. By these decrees the heretic was
excluded, so far as ecclesiastical dogma could exclude him, from the
pale of humanity, from consecrated earth, and from eternal salvation.
The decrees conflicted with the privileges of the provinces, and at a
meeting of the council William of Orange made a long and vehement
discourse, in which he said that the king must be unequivocally informed
that this whole machinery of placards and scaffolds, of new bishops and
old hangmen, of decrees, inquisitors and informers, must once and for
ever be abolished. Their day was over; the Netherlands were free
provinces, and were determined to vindicate their ancient privileges.
The unique effect of these representations was stringent instructions
from Philip to Margaret to keep the whole machinery of persecution
constantly at work. Fifty thousand persons were put to death in
obedience to the edicts, 30,000 of the best of the citizens migrated to
England. Famine reigned in the land. Then followed the revolt of the
confederate nobles and the episode of the "wild beggars." Meantime,
during the summer of 1556, many thousands of burghers, merchants,
peasants, and gentlemen were seen mustering and marching through the
fields of every province, armed, but only to hear sermons and sing hymns
in the open air, as it was unlawful to profane the churches with such
rites. The duchess sent forth proclamations by hundreds, ordering the
instant suppression of these assemblies and the arrest of the preachers.
This brought the popular revolt to a head.
_III.--The Image-Breaking Campaign_
There were many hundreds of churches in the Netherlands profusely
adorned with chapels. Many of them were filled with paintings, all were
peopled with statues. Commencing on August 18, 1556, for the space of
only six or seven summer days and nights, there raged a storm by which
nearly every one of these temples was entirely rifled of its contents;
not for plunder, but for destruction.
It began at Antwerp, on the occasion of a great procession, the object
of which was to conduct around the city a colossal image of the Virgin.
The rabble sacked thirty churches within the city walls, entered the
monasteries burned their invaluable libraries, and invaded the
nunneries. The streets were filled with monks and nuns, running this way
and that, shrieking and fluttering, to escape the claws of fiendish
Calvinists. The terror was imaginary, for not the least remarkable
feature in these transactions was that neither insult nor injury was
offered to man or woman, and that not a farthing's value of the immense
amount of property was appropriated. Similar scenes were enacted in all
the other provinces, with the exception of Limburg, Luxemburg, and
Namur.
The ministers of the reformed religion, and the chiefs of the liberal
party, all denounced the image-breaking. The Prince of Orange deplored
the riots. The leading confederate nobles characterised the insurrection
as insensate, and many took severe measures against the ministers and
reformers. The regent was beside herself with indignation and terror.
Philip, when he heard the news, fell into a paroxysm of frenzy. "It
shall cost them dear!" he cried. "I swear it by the soul of my father!"
The religious war, before imminent, became inevitable. The duchess,
inspired by terror, proposed to fly to Mons, but was restrained by the
counsels of Orange, Horn, and Egmont. On August 25 came the crowning act
of what the reformers considered their most complete triumph, and the
regent her deepest degradation. It was found necessary, under the
alarming aspect of affairs, that liberty of worship, in places where it
had been already established, should be accorded to the new religion.
Articles of agreement to this effect were drawn up and exchanged between
the government and Louis of Nassau and fifteen others of the
confederacy.
A corresponding pledge was signed by them, that as long as the regent
was true to her engagement they would consider their previously existing
league annulled, and would cordially assist in maintaining tranquillity,
and supporting the authority of his majesty. The important "Accord" was
then duly signed by the duchess. It declared that the Inquisition was
abolished, that his majesty would soon issue a new general edict,
expressly and unequivocally protecting the nobles against all evil
consequences from past transactions, and that public preaching according
to the forms of the new religion was to be practised in places where it
had already taken place.
Thus, for a fleeting moment, there was a thrill of joy throughout the
Netherlands. But it was all a delusion. While the leaders of the people
were exerting themselves to suppress the insurrection, and to avert
ruin, the secret course pursued by the government, both at Brussels and
at Madrid, may be condensed into the formula--dissimulation,
procrastination, and, again, dissimulation.
The "Accord" was revoked by the duchess, and peremptory prohibition of
all preaching within or without city walls was proclaimed. Further, a
new oath of allegiance was demanded from all functionaries. The Prince
of Orange spurned the proposition and renounced all his offices,
desiring no longer to serve a government whose policy he did not
approve, and a king by whom he was suspected. Terrible massacres of
Protestant heretics took place in many cities.
_IV.--Alva the Terrible_
It was determined at last that the Netherland heresy should be conquered
by force of arms, and an army of 10,000 picked and veteran troops was
dispatched from Spain under the Duke of Alva. The Duchess Margaret made
no secret of her indignation at being superseded when Alva produced his
commission appointing him captain-general, and begging the duchess to
co-operate with him in ordering all the cities of the Netherlands to
receive the garrisons which he would send them. In September, 1567, the
Duke of Alva established a new court for the trial of crimes committed
"during the recent period of troubles." It was called the "Council of
Troubles," but will be for ever known in history as the "Blood Council."
It superseded all other courts and institutions. So well did this new
and terrible engine perform its work that in less than three months
1,800 of the highest, the noblest, and the most virtuous men in the
land, including Count Egmont and Admiral Horn, suffered death. Further
than that, the whole country became a charnal-house; columns and stakes
in every street, the doorposts of private houses, the fences in the
fields were laden with human carcases, strangled, burned, beheaded.
Within a few months after the arrival of Alva the spirit of the nation
seemed hopelessly broken.
The Duchess of Parma, who had demanded her release from the odious
position of a cipher in a land where she had so lately been sovereign,
at last obtained it, and took her departure in December for Parma, thus
finally closing her eventful career in the Netherlands. The Duke of Alva
took up his position as governor-general, and amongst his first works
was the erection of the celebrated citadel of Antwerp, not to protect,
but to control the commercial capital of the provinces.
Events marched swiftly. On February 16, 1568, a sentence of the
Inquisition condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as
heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named,
were excepted; and a proclamation of the king, dated ten days later,
confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried
into instant execution, without regard to age, sex, or condition. This
is probably the most concise death-warrant ever framed. Three millions
of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in
three lines.
The Prince of Orange at last threw down the gauntlet, and published a
reply to the active condemnation which had been pronounced against him
in default of appearance before the Blood Council. It would, he said, be
both death and degradation to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the
infamous "Council of Blood," and he scorned to plead before he knew not
what base knaves, not fit to be the valets of his companions and
himself.
Preparations were at once made to levy troops and wage war against
Philip's forces in the Netherlands. Then followed the long, ghastly
struggle between the armies raised by the Prince of Orange and his
brother, Count Louis of Nassau, who lost his life mysteriously at the
battle of Mons, and those of Alva and the other governors-general who
succeeded him--Don Louis de Requesens, the "Grand Commander," Don John
of Austria, the hero of Lepanto, and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma.
The records of butcheries and martyrdoms, including those during the
sack and burning of Antwerp by the mutinous Spanish soldiery, are only
relieved by the heroic exploits of the patriotic armies and burghers in
the memorable defences of Haarlem, Leyden, Alkmaar, and Mons. At one
time it seemed that the Prince of Orange and his forces were about to
secure a complete triumph; but the news of the massacre of St.
Bartholomew in Paris brought depression to the patriotic army and
corresponding spirit to the Spanish armies, and the gleam faded. The
most extraordinary feature of Alva's civil administration were his
fiscal decrees, which imposed taxes that utterly destroyed the trade and
manufactures of the country.
There were endless negotiations inspired by the States-General, the
German Emperor, and the governments of France and England to secure
peace and a settlement of the Netherlands affairs, but these, owing
mostly to insincere diplomacy, were ineffective.
_V.--The Union of the Provinces_
In the meantime, the union of Holland and Zealand had been accomplished,
with the Prince of Orange as sovereign. The representatives of various
provinces thereafter met with deputies from Holland and Zealand in
Utrecht in January, 1579, and agreed to a treaty of union which was ever
after regarded as the foundation of the Netherlands Republic. The
contracting provinces agreed to remain eternally united, while each was
to retain its particular privileges, liberties, customs, and laws. All
the provinces were to unite to defend each other with life, goods, and
blood against all forces brought against them in the king's name, and
against all foreign potentates. The treaty also provided for religious
peace and toleration. The Union of Utrecht was the foundation of the
Netherlands Republic, which lasted two centuries.
For two years there were a series of desultory military operations and
abortive negotiations for peace, including an attempt--which failed--to
purchase the Prince of Orange. The assembly of the united provinces met
at The Hague on July 26, 1581, and solemnly declared their independence
of Philip and renounced their allegiance for ever. This act, however,
left the country divided into three portions--the Walloon or reconciled
provinces; the united provinces under Anjou; and the northern provinces
under Orange.
Early in February, 1582, the Duke of Anjou arrived in the Netherlands
from England with a considerable train. The articles of the treaty under
which he was elected sovereign as Duke of Brabant made as stringent and
as sensible a constitutional compact as could be desired by any
Netherland patriot. Taken in connection with the ancient charters, which
they expressly upheld, they left to the new sovereign no vestige of
arbitrary power. He was the hereditary president of a representative
republic.
The Duke of Anjou, however, became discontented with his position. Many
nobles of high rank came from France to pay their homage to him, and in
the beginning of January, 1583, he entered into a conspiracy with them
to take possession, with his own troops, of the principal cities in
Flanders. He reserved to himself the capture of Antwerp, and
concentrated several thousands of French troops at Borgehout, a village
close to the walls of Antwerp. A night attack was treacherously made on
the city, but the burghers rapidly flew to arms, and in an hour the
whole of the force which Anjou had sent to accomplish his base design
was either dead or captured. The enterprise, which came to be known as
the "French Fury," was an absolute and disgraceful failure, and the duke
fled to Berghem, where he established a camp. Negotiations for
reconciliation were entered into with the Duke of Anjou, who, however,
left for Paris in June, never again to return to the Netherlands.
_VI.--The Assassination of William of Orange_
The Princess Charlotte having died on May 5, 1582, the Prince of Orange
was married for the fourth time on April 21, 1583, on this occasion to
Louisa, daughter of the illustrious Coligny. In the summer of 1584 the
prince and princess took up their residence at Delft, where Frederick
Henry, afterwards the celebrated stadtholder, was born to them. During
the previous two years no fewer than five distinct attempts to
assassinate the prince had been made, and all of them with the privity
of the Spanish government or at the direct instigation of King Philip or
the Duke of Parma.
A sixth and successful attempt was now to be made. On Sunday morning,
July 8, the Prince of Orange received news of the death of Anjou. The
courier who brought the despatches was admitted to the prince's bedroom.
He called himself Francis Guion, the son of a martyred Calvinist, but he
was in reality Balthazar Gérard, a fanatical Catholic who had for years
formed the design of murdering the Prince of Orange. The interview was
so entirely unexpected that Gérard had come unarmed, and had formed no
plans for escape. He pleaded to the officer on duty in the prince's
house that he wanted to attend divine service in the church opposite,
but that his attire was too shabby and travel-stained, and that, without
new shoes and stockings, he was unfit to join the congregation. Having
heard this, the prince ordered instantly a sum of money to be given to
him. With this fund Gérard the following day bought a pair of pistols
and ammunition. On Tuesday, July 10, the prince, his wife, family, and
the burgomaster of Leewarden dined as usual, at mid-day. At two o'clock
the company rose from table, the prince leading the way, intending to
pass to his private apartments upstairs. He had reached the second stair
when Gérard, who had obtained admission to the house on the plea that he
wanted a passport, emerged from a sunken arch and, standing within a
foot or two of the prince, discharged a pistol at his heart. He was
carried to a couch in the dining-room, where in a few minutes he died in
the arms of his wife and sister.
The murderer succeeded in making his escape through a side door, and
sped swiftly towards the ramparts, where a horse was waiting for him at
the moat, but was followed and captured by several pages and
halberdiers. He made no effort to deny his identity, but boldly avowed
himself and his deed. Afterwards he was subjected to excruciating
tortures, and executed on July 14 with execrable barbarity. The reward
promised by Philip to the man who should murder Orange was paid to the
father and mother of Gérard. The excellent parents were ennobled and
enriched by the crime of their son, but, instead of receiving the 25,000
crowns promised in the ban issued by Philip in 1580 at the instigation
of Cardinal Granvelle, they were granted three seignories in the Franche
Comté, and took their place at once among the landed aristocracy.
The prince was entombed on August 3 at Delft amid the tears of a whole
nation. Never was a more extensive, unaffected and legitimate sorrow
felt at the death of any human being. William the Silent had gone
through life bearing the load of a people's sorrows upon his shoulders
with a smiling face. The people were grateful and affectionate, for they
trusted the character of their "Father William," and not all the clouds
which calumny could collect ever dimmed to their eyes the radiance of
that lofty mind to which they were accustomed in their darkest
calamities to look for light.
The life and labours of Orange had established the emancipated
commonwealth upon a secure foundation, but his death rendered hopeless
the union of all the Netherlands at that time into one republic.
* * * * *
History of the United Netherlands
"The History of the United Netherlands, 1584-1609," published
between 1860 and 1867, is the continuation of the "Rise of the
Dutch republic"; the narrative of the stubborn struggle
carried on after the assassination of William the Silent until
the twelve years' truce of 1609 recognised in effect, though
not in form, that a new independent nation was established on
the northern shore of Western Europe--a nation which for a
century to come was to hold rank as first or second of the sea
powers. While the great Alexander of Parma lived to lead the
Spanish armies, even Philip II. could not quite destroy the
possibility of his ultimate victory. When Parma was gone, we
can see now that the issue of the struggle was no longer in
doubt, although in its closing years Maurice of Nassau found a
worthy antagonist in the Italian Spinola.
_I.--After the Death of William_
William the Silent, Prince of Orange, had been murdered on July 10,
1584. It was natural that for an instant there should be a feeling as of
absolute and helpless paralysis. The Estates had now to choose between
absolute submission to Spain, the chance of French or English support,
and fighting it out alone. They resolved at once to fight it out, but to
seek French support, in spite of the fact that Francis of Anjou, now
dead, had betrayed them. For the German Protestants were of no use, and
they did not expect vigorous aid from Elizabeth. But France herself was
on the verge of a division into three, between the incompetent Henry
III. on the throne, Henry of Guise of the Catholic League, and Henry of
Navarre, heir apparent and head of the Huguenots.
The Estates offered the sovereignty of the Netherlands to Henry; he
dallied with them, but finally rejected the offer. Meanwhile, there was
an increased tendency to a rapprochement with England; but Elizabeth had
excellent reasons for being quite resolved not to accept the sovereignty
of the Netherlands. In France, matters came to a head in March 1585,
when the offer of the Estates was rejected. Henry III. found himself
forced into the hands of the League, and Navarre was declared to be
barred from the succession as a heretic, in July.
While diplomacy was at work, and the Estates were gradually turning from
France to England, Alexander of Parma, the first general, and one of the
ablest statesmen of the age, was pushing on the Spanish cause in the
Netherlands. Flagrantly as he was stinted in men and money, a consummate
genius guided his operations. The capture of Antwerp was the crucial
point; and the condition of capturing Antwerp was to hold the Scheldt
below that city, and also to secure the dams, since, if the country were
flooded, the Dutch ships could not be controlled in the open waters.
The burghers scoffed at the idea that Parma could bridge the Scheldt, or
that his bridge, if built, could resist the ice-blocks that would come
down in the winter. But he built his bridge, and it resisted the
ice-blocks. An ingenious Italian in Antwerp devised the destruction of
the bridge, and the passage of relief-ships, by blowing up the bridge
with a sort of floating mines. The explosion was successfully carried
out with terrific effect; a thousand Spaniards were blown to pieces; but
by sheer blundering the opening was not at once utilised, and Parma was
able to rebuild the bridge.
Then, by a fine feat of arms, the patriots captured the Kowenstyn dyke,
and cut it; but the loss was brilliantly retrieved, the Kowenstyn was
recaptured, and the dyke repaired. After that, Antwerp's chance of
escape sank almost to nothing, and its final capitulation was a great
triumph for Parma.
The Estates had despaired of French help, and had opened negotiations
with England some time before the fall of Antwerp had practically
secured the southern half of the Netherlands to Spain. It was
unfortunate that the negotiations took the form of hard bargaining on
both sides. The Estates wished to give Elizabeth sovereignty, which she
did not want; they did not wish to give her hard cash for her
assistance, which she did want, as well as to have towns pawned to her
as security. Walsingham was anxious for England to give the Estates open
support; the queen, as usual, blew hot and cold.
Walsingham and Leicester, however, carried the day. Leicester was
appointed to be general, and Philip Sidney was sent to be governor of
Flushing, at about the time when Drake was preparing for what is known
as the Carthagena Expedition. The direct intervention of the English
government in the Netherlands, where hitherto there had been no state
action, though many Englishmen were fighting as volunteers, was
tantamount to a declaration of war with Spain. But the haggling over
terms had made it too late to save Antwerp.
Leicester had definite orders to do nothing contradictory to the queen's
explicit refusal of both sovereignty and protectorate. But he was
satisfied that a position of supreme authority was necessary; and he had
hardly reached his destination when he was formally offered, and
accepted, the title of Governor-General (January 1586). The proposal had
the full support of young Maurice of Nassau, second son of William the
Silent, and destined to succeed his father in the character of
Liberator.
Angry as Elizabeth was, she did not withdraw Leicester. In fact, Parma
was privately negotiating with her; negotiations in which Burghley and
Hatton took part, but which did not wholly escape Walsingham. Parma had
no intention of being bound by these negotiations; they were pure
dissimulation on his part; and, possibly, but not probably, on
Elizabeth's. Parma, in fact, was nervous as to possible French action.
But their practical effect was to paralyse Leicester, and their object
to facilitate the invasion of England.
_II.--Leicester and the Armada_
In the spring, Parma was actively prosecuting the war. He attacked
Grave, which was valorously relieved by Martin Schenk and Sir John
Norris; but soon after he took it, to Leicester's surprise and disgust.
The capture of Axed by Maurice of Nassau and Sidney served as some
balance. Presently Leicester laid siege to Zutphen; but the place was
relieved, in spite of the memorable fight of Warnsfeld, where less than
six hundred English attacked and drove off a force of six times their
number, for reinforcements compelled their retreat. This was the famous
battle of Zutphen, where Philip Sidney fell.
But Elizabeth persisted in keeping Leicester in a false position which
laid him open to suspicion; while his own conduct kept him on ill terms
with the Estates, and the queen's parsimony crippled his activities. In
effect, there was soon a strong opposition to Leicester. He was at odds
also with stout Sir John Norris, from which evil was to come.
Now, the discovery of Babington's plot made Leicester eager to go back
to England, since he was set upon ending the life of Mary Stuart. At the
close of November he took ship from Flushing. But while Norris was left
in nominal command, his commission was not properly made out; and the
important town of Deventer was left under the papist Sir William
Stanley, with the adventurer Rowland York at Zutphen, because they were
at feud with Norris. Then came disaster; for Stanley and York
deliberately introduced Spanish troops by night, and handed over
Deventer and Zutphen to the Spaniards, which was all the worse, as
Leicester had ample warning that mischief was brewing. Every suspicion
ever felt against Leicester, or as to the honesty of English policy,
seemed to be confirmed, and there was a wave of angry feeling against
all Englishmen. The treachery of Anjou seemed about to be repeated.
The Queen of Scots was on the very verge of her doom, and Elizabeth was
entering on that most lamentable episode of her career, in which she
displayed all her worst characteristics, when a deputation arrived from
the Estates to plead for more effective help. The news of Deventer had
not yet arrived, and the queen subjected them to a furious and
contumelious harangue, and advised them to make peace with Philip. But
on the top of this came a letter from the Estates, with some very plain
speaking about Deventer.
Buckhurst, about the best possible ambassador, was despatched to the
Estates. He very soon found the evidence of the underhand dealings of
certain of Leicester's agents to be irresistible. He appealed
vehemently, as did Walsingham at home, for immediate aid, dwelling on
the immense importance to England of saving the Netherlands. But
Leicester had the queen's ear. Charges of every kind were flying on
every hand. Buckhurst's efforts met with the usual reward. The Estates
would have nothing to do with counsels of peace. At the moment they were
appointing Maurice of Nassau captain-general came the news that
Leicester was returning with intolerable claims.
While this was going on, Parma had turned upon Sluys, which, like the
rest of the coast harbours, was in the hands of the States. This was the
news which had necessitated the appointment of Maurice of Nassau. The
Dutch and English in Sluys fought magnificently. But the dissensions of
the opposing parties outside prevented any effective relief. Leicester's
arrival did not, mend matters. The operations intended to effect a
relief were muddled. At last the garrison found themselves with no
alternative but capitulation on the most honourable terms. In the
meanwhile, however, Drake had effected his brilliant destruction of the
fleet and stores preparing in Cadiz harbour; though his proceedings were
duly disowned by Elizabeth, now zealously negotiating with Parma.
This game of duplicity went on merrily; Elizabeth was intriguing behind
the backs of her own ministers; Parma was deliberately deceiving and
hoodwinking her, with no thought of anything but her destruction. In
France, civil war practically, between Henry of Navarre and Henry of
Guise was raging. In the Netherlands, the hostility between the Estates,
led by Barneveld and Leicester continued. When the earl was finally
recalled to England, and Willoughby was left in command, it was not due
to him that no overwhelming disaster had occurred, and that the splendid
qualities shown by other Englishmen had counter-balanced politically his
own extreme unpopularity.
The great crisis, however, was now at hand. The Armada was coming to
destroy England, and when England was destroyed the fate of the
Netherlands would soon be sealed. But in both England and the
Netherlands the national spirit ran high. The great fleet came; the
Flemish ports were held blockaded by the Dutch. The Spaniards had the
worse of the fighting in the Channel; they were scattered out of Calais
roads by the fireships, driven to flight in the engagement of
Gravelines, and the Armada was finally shattered by storms. Philip
received the news cheerfully; but his great project was hopelessly
ruined.
Of the events immediately following, the most notable were in
France--the murder of Guise, followed by that of Henry III., and the
claim of Henry IV. to be king. The actual operations in the Netherlands
brought little advantage to either side, and the Anglo-Dutch expedition
to Lisbon was a failure. But the grand fact which was to be of vital
consequence was this: that Maurice of Nassau was about to assume a new
character. The boy was now a man; the sapling had developed into the
oak-tree.
_III.--Maurice of Nassau_
The crushing blow, then, had failed completely. But Philip, instead of
concentrating on another great effort in the Netherlands, or retrieval
of the Armada disaster, had fixed his attention on France. The Catholic
League had proclaimed Henry IV.'s uncle, the Cardinal of Bourbon, king
as Charles X. Philip, to Parma's despair, meant to claim the succession
for his own daughter; and Parma's orders were to devote himself to
crushing the Béarnais.
And this was at the moment when Barneveld, the statesman, with young
Maurice, the soldier, were becoming decisively recognised as the chiefs
of the Dutch. Maurice had realised that the secret of success lay in
engineering operations, of which he had made himself a devoted student,
and in a reorganisation of the States army and of tactics, in which he
was ably seconded by his cousin Lewis William.
While Parma was forced to turn against Henry, who was pressing Paris
hard, Breda was captured (March 1590) by a very daring stratagem carried
out with extraordinary resolution--an event of slight intrinsic
importance, but exceedingly characteristic. During the summer several
other places were reduced, but Maurice was planning a great and
comprehensive campaign.
The year gave triumphant proof of the genius of Parma as a general, and
of the soundness of his views as to Philip's policy. Henry was
throttling Paris; by masterly movements Parma evaded the pitched battle,
for which Béarnais thirsted, yet compelled his adversary to relinquish
the siege. Nevertheless, Henry's activity was hardly checked; and when
Parma, in December, returned to the Netherlands, he found the Spanish
provinces in a deplorable state, and the Dutch states prospering and
progressing; while in France itself Henry's victory had certainly been
staved off, but had by no means been made impossible.
Throughout 1591, Maurice's operations were recovering strong places for
the States, one after another, from Zutphen and Deventer to Nymegen.
Parma was too much hampered by the bonds Philip had imposed on him to
meet Maurice effectively. And Henry was prospering in Normandy and
Brittany, and was laying siege to Rouen before the year ended.
In the spring Parma succeeded in relieving Rouen. Then Henry manoeuvred
him into what seemed a trap; but his genius was equal to the occasion,
and he escaped. But while the great general was engaged in France,
Maurice went on mining and sapping his way into Netherland fortresses.
In the meantime, Philip's grand object was to secure the French crown
for his own daughter, whose mother had been a sister of the last three
kings of France; the present plan being to marry her to the young Duke
of Guise--a scheme not to the liking of Guise's uncle Mayenne, who
wanted the crown himself. But Philip's chief danger lay in the prospect
of Henry turning Catholic.
Parma's death, in December 1592, deprived Philip of the genius which had
for years past been the mainstay of his power. Henry's public
announcement of his return to the Holy Catholic Church, in the summer of
1593, deprived the Spanish king of nearly all the support he had
hitherto received in France. Before this Maurice had opened his attack
on the two great cities which the Spaniards still held in the United
Provinces, Gertruydenberg and Groningen. His scientific methods secured
the former in June. In similar scientific style he raised the siege of
Corwarden. A year after Gertruydenberg, Groningen surrendered.
In 1595, France and Spain were at open war again, and in spite of
Henry's apostasy he had drawn into close alliance with the United
Provinces. The inefficient Archduke Ernest, who had succeeded Parma,
died at the beginning of the year. Fuentes, nephew of Alva, was the new
governor, _ad interim_. His operations in Picardy were successfully
conducted. The summer gave an extraordinary example of human vigour
triumphing, both physically and mentally, over the infirmities of old
age. Christopher Mondragon, at the age of ninety-two, marched against
Maurice, won a skirmish on the Lippe, and spoilt Maurice's campaign. In
January 1596 the governorship was taken over by the Archduke Albert. A
disaster both to France and England was the Spaniards' capture of
Calais, which Elizabeth might have relieved, but offered to do so only
on condition of it being restored to England--an offer flatly declined.
At the same time Henry and Elizabeth negotiated a league, but its
ostensible arrangements, intended to bring in the United Provinces and
Protestant German States, were very different from the real
stipulations, the queen promising very much less than was supposed. At
the end of October the Estates signed the articles.
Before winter was over, Maurice, with 800 horse, cut up an army of 5,000
men on the heath of Tiel, killing 2,000 and taking 500 prisoners, with a
loss of nine or ten men only. The enemy had comprised the pick of the
Spaniards' forces, and their prestige was absolutely wiped out. This was
just after Philip had wrecked European finance at large by publicly
repudiating the whole of his debts. The year 1697 was further remarkable
for the surprise and capture of Amiens by the Spaniards, and its siege
and recovery by Henry--a siege conducted on the engineering methods
introduced by Maurice. But the relations of the provinces with France
were now much strained; uncertainty prevailed as to whether either Henry
or Elizabeth, or both, might not make peace with Spain separately.
The Treaty of Vervins did, in fact, end the war between France and
Spain. It was followed almost at once by the death of Philip, who,
however, had just married the infanta to the archduke, and ceded the
sovereignty of the Netherlands to them.
_IV.--Winning Through_
In 1600 the States-General planned the invasion of the Spanish
Netherlands, but the scheme proved impracticable, and was abandoned.
Ostend was the one position in Flanders held by the United Provinces,
with a very mixed garrison. The archduke besieged Ostend (1601). Maurice
did not attack him, but captured the keys of the debatable land of
Cleves and Juliers. The siege of Ostend developed into a tremendous
affair, and a school in the art of war. Maurice, instead of aiming at a
direct relief, continued his operations so as to prevent the archduke
from a thorough concentration. In the summer of 1602 he was besieging
Grave, and Ostend was kept amply supplied from the sea, where the Dutch
had inflicted a tremendous defeat on the enemy. But early in 1603 the
Spaniards succeeded in carrying some outworks.
The death of Elizabeth, and the accession of James I. to the throne of
England affected the European situation; but Robert Cecil, Lord
Salisbury, was the new king's minister. Nevertheless, no long time had
elapsed before James was entering upon alliance with the Spaniard.
A new commander-in-chief was now before Ostend in the person of Ambrose
Spinola, an unknown young Italian, who was soon to prove himself a
worthy antagonist for Maurice. Spinola continued the siege of Ostend,
where the garrison were being driven inch by inch within an
ever-narrowing circle. This year, Maurice's counter-stroke was the
investment of Sluys, which was reduced in three months, in spite of a
skilful but unsuccessful attempt at its relief by Spinola. At length,
however, the long resistance of Ostend was finished when there was
practically nothing of the place left. The garrison marched out with the
honours of war, after a siege of over three years.
The next year was a bad one for Maurice. Spinola was beginning to show
his quality. Maurice's troops met with one reverse, when what should
have been a victory was turned into a rout by an unaccountable panic.
Spinola had learnt his business from Maurice, and was a worthy pupil.
All through 1606 the game of intrigue was going on without any great
advance or advantage to anyone. But while the Dutch had been campaigning
in the Netherlands, they had also been establishing themselves in the
Spice Islands, and in 1607 the rise of the United Provinces as a
sea-power received emphatic demonstration in a great fight off
Gibraltar. The disparity in size between the Spanish and Dutch vessels
was enormous, but the victory was overwhelming. Not a Dutch ship was
lost, and the Spanish fleet, which had viewed their approach with
laughter, was annihilated. The name of Heemskerk, the Dutch admiral who
inspired the battle, and lost his life at its beginning, is enrolled
among those of the nation's heroes.
This event had greatly stimulated the desire of the archduke for an
armistice, which had been in process of negotiation. With the old king
negotiation had been futile, since there was no prospect of his ever
conceding the minimum requirements of the provinces. Now, Spain had
reached a different position, and Spinola himself required a far heavier
expenditure than she was prepared for as the alternative to a peace on
the _uti possidetis_ basis. In the provinces, however, Barneveld and
Maurice were in antagonism; but an armistice was established and
extended, while solemn negotiations went on at The Hague in the
beginning of 1608. The proposals accepted next year implied virtually
the recognition of the Dutch republic as an independent nation, though
nominally there was only a truce for twelve years. The practical effect
was to secure not only independence but religious liberty, and the form
implied the independence and security of the Indian trade and even of
the West Indian trade. So, in 1609 the Dutch republic took its place
among the European powers.
* * * * *
MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE
The History of India
Mountstuart Elphinstone was born in October 1779, and joined
the Bengal service in 1795, some three years before the
arrival in India of Lord Mornington, afterwards Marquess
Wellesley. He continued in the Indian service till 1829, and
was offered but refused the Governor Generalship. The last
thirty years of his life he passed in comparative retirement
in England, and died in November, 1859, at Hook Wood. He was
one of the particularly brilliant group of British
administrators in India in the first quarter of the last
century. Like his colleagues, Munro and Malcolm, he was a keen
student of Indian History. And although some of his views
require to be modified in the light of more recent enquiry,
his "History of India" published in 1841 is still the standard
authority from the earliest times to the establishment of the
British as a territorial power.
_I.--The Hindus_
India is crossed from East to West by a chain of mountains called the
Vindhyas. The country to the North of this chain is now called Hindustan
and that to the South of it the Deckan. Hindustan is in four natural
divisions; the valley of the Indus including the Panjab, the basin of
the Ganges, Rajputana and Central India. Neither Bengal nor Guzerat is
included in Hindustan power. The rainy season lasts from June to October
while the South West wind called the Monsoon is blowing.
Every Hindu history must begin with the code of Menu which was probably
drawn up in the 9th century B.C. In the society described, the first
feature that strikes us is the division into four castes--the
sacerdotal, the military, the industrial, and the servile. The Bramin is
above all others even kings. In theory he is excluded from the world
during three parts of his life. In practice he is the instructor of
kings, the interpreter of the military class; the king, his ministers,
and the soldiers. Third are the Veisyas who conduct all agricultural and
industrial operations; and fourth the Sudras who are outside the pale.
The king stands at the head of the Government with a Bramin for chief
Counsellor. Elaborate rules and regulations are laid down in the code as
to administration, taxation, foreign policy, and war. Land perhaps but
not certainly was generally held in common by village communities.
The king himself administers justice or deputes that work to Bramins.
The criminal code is extremely rude; no proportion is observed between
the crime and the penalty, and offences against Bramins or religion are
excessively penalised. In the civil law the rules of evidence are
vitiated by the admission of sundry excuses for perjury. Marriage is
indissoluble. The regulations on this subject and on inheritance are
elaborate and complicated.
The religion is drawn from the sacred books called the Vedas, compiled
in a very early form of Sanskrit. There is one God, the supreme spirit,
who created the universe including the inferior deities. The whole
creation is re-absorbed and re-born periodically. The heroes of the
later Hindu Pantheon do not appear. The religious observances enjoined
are infinite; but the eating of flesh is not prohibited. At this date,
however, moral duties are still held of higher account than ceremonial.
Immense respect is enjoined for immemorial customs as being the root of
all piety. The distinction between the three superior or "Twice Born"
classes points to the conclusion that they were a conquering people and
that the servile classes were the subdued Aborigines. It remains to be
proved, however, that the conquerors were not indigenous. The system
might have come into being as a natural growth, without the hypothesis
of an external invasion.
The Bramins claim that they alone now have preserved their lineage in
its purity. The Rajputs, however, claim to be pure Cshatriyas. In the
main the Bramin rules of life have been greatly relaxed. The castes
below the Cshatriyas have now become extremely mixed and extremely
numerous; a servile caste no longer exists. A man who loses caste is
excluded both from all the privileges of citizenship and all the
amenities of private life. As a rule, however, the recovery of caste by
expiation is an easy matter. The institution of Monastic Orders scarcely
seems to be a thousand years old.
Menu's administrative regulations have similarly lost their uniformity.
The township or village community, however, has survived. It is a
self-governing unit with its own officials, for the most part
hereditary. In large parts of India the land within the community is
regarded as the property of a group of village landowners, who
constitute the township, the rest of the inhabitants being their
tenants. The tenants whether they hold from the landowners or from the
Government are commonly called Ryots. An immense proportion of the
produce, or its equivalent, has to be paid to the State. The Zenindars
who bear a superficial likeness to English landlords were primarily the
Government officials to whom these rents were farmed. Tenure by military
service bearing some resemblance to the European feudal system is found
in the Rajput States. The code of Menu is still the basis of the Hindu
jurisprudence.
Religion has been greatly modified. Monotheism has been supplanted by a
gross Polytheism, by the corruption of symbolism. At the head are the
Triad Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the preserver, Siva the destroyer.
Fourteen more principal deities may be enumerated. To them must be added
their female Consorts. Many of the Gods are held to be incarnations of
Vishnu or Siva. Further, there is a vast host of spirits and demons,
good or evil. By far the most numerous sect is that of the followers of
Devi the spouse of Siva. The religions of the Buddhists and the Jains
though differing greatly from the Hindu seemed to have the same origin.
The five languages of Hindustan are of Sanscrit origin, belonging to the
Indo-European family. Of the Deckan languages, two are mixed, while the
other three have no connection with Sanscrit.
From Menu's code it is clear that there was an open trade between the
different parts of India. References to the sea seemed to prove that a
coasting trade existed. Maritime trade was probably in the hands of the
Arabs. The people of the East Coast were more venturesome sailors than
those of the West. The Hindus certainly made settlements in Java. There
are ten nations in India which differ from each other as much as do the
nations of Europe, and also resemble each other in much the same degree.
The physical contrast between the Hindustanis and the Bengalis is
complete; their languages are as near akin and as mutually
unintelligible as English and German, yet in religion, in their notions
on Government, in very much of their way of life, they are
indistinguishable to the European.
Indian widows sometimes sacrifice themselves on the husband's funeral
pile. Such a victim is called Sati. It is uncertain when the custom was
first introduced, but, evidently it existed before the Christian era.
A curious feature is that as there are castes for all trades, so there
are hereditary thief castes. Hired watchmen generally belong to these
castes on a principle which is obvious. The mountaineers of Central
India are a different race from the dwellers in the plain. They appear
to have been aboriginal inhabitants before the Hindu invasion. The
mountaineers of the Himalayas are in race more akin to the Chinese.
Established Hindu chronology is found in the line of Magadha. We can fix
the King Ajata Satru, who ruled, in the time of Gotama, in the
middle of the sixth century B.C. Some generations later comes
Chandragupta--undoubtedly the Sandracottus of Diodorus. The early legend
apparently begins to give place to real history with Rama, who certainly
invaded the Deckan. He would seem to have been a king in Oudh. The next
important event is the war of the Maha Bharata, probably in the
fourteenth century B.C. Soon after the main seat of Government seems to
have transferred to Delhi. The kingdom of Magadha next assumes a
commanding position though its rulers long before Chandragupta were of
low caste. Of these kings the greatest is Asoka, three generations after
Chandragupta. There was certainly no lord paramount of India at the time
of Alexander's invasion. Nothing points to any effective universal Hindu
Empire, though such an empire is claimed for various kings at intervals
until the beginning of the Mahometan invasions.
_II.--The Mahometan Conquest_
The wave of Mahometan conquest was, in course of time, to sweep into
India. By the end of the seventh century the Arabs were forcing their
way to Cabul 664 A.D. At the beginning of the next century Sindh was
overrun and Multan was captured; nevertheless, no extended conquest was
as yet attempted. After the reign of the Calif Harun al Raschid at
Bagdad the Eastern rulers fell upon evil days. Towards the end of the
tenth century a satrapy was established at Ghazni and in the year 1001
Mahmud of Ghazni, having declared his independence, began his series of
invasions. On his fourth expedition Mahmud met with a determined
resistance from a confederacy of Hindu princes. A desperate battle was
fought and won by him near Peshawer. Mahmud made twelve expeditions into
India altogether, on one of which he carried off the famous gates of
Somnat; but he was content to leave subordinate governors in the Punjab
and at Guzerat and never sought to organise an empire. During his life
Mahmud was incomparably the greatest ruler in Asia.
After his death the rulers of Ghazni were unable to maintain a
consistent supremacy. It was finally overthrown by Ala ud din of Ghor.
His nephew, Shahab ud din, was the real founder of the Mahometan Empire
in India. The princes of the house of Ghazni who had taken refuge in the
Punjab and Guzarat were overthrown and thus the only Mahometan rivals
were removed. On his first advance against the Rajput kingdom of Delhi,
he was routed; but a second invasion was successful, and a third carried
his arms to Behar and even Bengal.
On the death of Shahab ud din, his new and vast Indian dominion became
independent under his general Kutb ud din, who had begun life as a
slave. The dynasty was carried on by another slave Altamish. Very soon
after this the Mongol Chief Chengiz Khan devastated half the world, but
left India comparatively untouched. Altamish established the Mahometan
rule of Delhi over all Hindustan. This series of rulers, known as the
slave kings, was brought to an end after eighty-two years by the
establishment of the Khilji dynasty in 1288 by the already aged Jelal ud
din. His nephew and chief Captain Ala ud din opened a career of
conquest, invading the Deckan even before he secured the throne for
himself by assassinating his uncle. In fact, he extended his dominion
over almost the whole of India in spite of frequent rebellions and
sundry Mongol incursions all successfully repressed or dispersed. In
1321 the Khilji dynasty was overthrown by the House of Tughlak.
The second prince of this house, Mahomet Tughlak, was a very remarkable
character. Possessed of extraordinary accomplishments, learned,
temperate, and brave, he plunged upon wholly irrational and
inpracticable schemes of conquest which were disastrous in themselves
and also from the methods to which the monarch was driven to procure the
means for his wild attempts. One portion after another of the vast
empire broke into revolt and at the end of the century the dynasty was
overturned and the empire shattered by the terrific invasion of
Tamerlane the Tartar. It was not till the middle of the seventeenth
century that the Lodi dynasty established itself at Delhi and ruled not
without credit for nearly seventy years. The last ruler of this house
was Ibrahim, a man who lacked the worthy qualities of his predecessors.
And in 1526 Ibrahim fell before the conquering arms of the mighty Baber,
the founder of the Mogul dynasty.
_III.--Baber and Aber_
Baber was a descendant of Tamerlane. He himself was a Turk, but his
mother was a Mongol; hence the familiar title of the dynasty known as
the Moguls. Succeeding to the throne of Ferghana at the age of twelve
the great conqueror's youth was full of romantic vicissitudes, of sharp
reverses and brilliant achievements. He was only four and twenty when he
succeeded in making himself master of Cabul. He was forty-four, when
with a force of twelve thousand men he shattered the huge armies of
Ibrahim at Panipat and made himself master of Delhi. His conquests were
conducted on what might almost be called principles of knight errantry.
His greatest victories were won against overwhelming odds, at the head
of followers who were resolved to conquer or die. And in three years he
had conquered all Hindustan. His figure stands out with an extraordinary
fascination, as an Oriental counterpart of the Western ideal of
chivalry; and his autobiography is an absolutely unique record
presenting the almost sole specimen of real history in Asia.
But Baber died before he could organise his empire and his son Humayun
was unable to hold what had been won. An exceedingly able Mahometan
Chief, Shir Khan, raised the standard of revolt, made himself master of
Behar and Bengal, drove Humayun out of Hindustan, and established
himself under the title of Shir Shah. His reign was one of conspicuous
ability. It was not till he had been dead for many years that Humayun
was able to recover his father's dominion. Indeed, he himself fell
before victory was achieved. The restoration was effected in the name of
his young son Akber, a boy of thirteen, by the able general and
minister, Bairam Khan, at the victory of Panipat in 1556. The long reign
of Akber initiates a new era.
Two hundred years before this time the Deckan had broken free from the
Delhi dominion. But no unity and no supremacy was permanently
established in the southern half of India where, on the whole, Mahometan
dynasties now held the ascendancy. Rajputana on the other hand, which
the Delhi monarchs had never succeeded in bringing into complete
subjection, remained purely Hindu under the dominion of a variety of
rajahs.
The victory of Panipat was decisive. Naturally enough, Bairam assumed
complete control of the State. His rule was able, but harsh and
arrogant. After three years the boy king of a sudden coup d'état assumed
the reins of Government. Perhaps it was fortunate for both that the
fallen minister was assassinated by a personal enemy.
Of all the dynasties that had ruled in India that of Baber was the most
insecure in its foundations. It was without any means of support
throughout the great dominion which stretched from Cabul to Bengal. The
boy of eighteen had a tremendous task before him. Perhaps it was this
very weakness which suggested to Akber the idea of giving his power a
new foundation by setting himself at the head of an Indian nation, and
forming the inhabitants of his vast dominion, without distinction of
race or religion, into a single community. Swift and sudden in action,
the young monarch broke down one after another the attempts of
subordinates to free themselves from his authority. By the time that he
was twenty-five he had already crushed his adversaries by his vigour or
attached them by his clemency. The next steps were the reduction of
Rajputana, Ghuzerat and Bengal; and when this was accomplished Akber's
sway extended over the whole of India north of the Deckan, to which was
added Kashmir and what we now call Afghanistan. Akber had been on the
throne for fifty years before he was able to intervene actively in the
Deckan and to bring a great part of it under his sway.
But the great glory of Akber lies not in the conquests which made the
Mogul Empire the greatest hitherto known in India, but in that empire's
organisation and administration. Akber Mahometanism was of the most
latitudinarian type. His toleration was complete. He had practically no
regard for dogma, while deeply imbued with the spirit of religion. In
accordance with his liberal principles Hinduism was no bar to the
highest offices. In theory his philosophy was not new, though it was so
in practical application.
None of his reforms are more notable than the revenue system carried out
by his Hindu minister, Todar Mal, itself a development of a system
initiated by Shir Shah. His empire was divided into fifteen provinces,
each under a viceroy under the control of the king himself. Great as a
warrior and great as an administrator Akber always enjoyed abundant
leisure for study and amusement. He excelled in all exercises of
strength and skill; his history is filled with instances of romantic
courage, and he had a positive enjoyment of danger. Yet he had no
fondness for war, which he neither sought nor continued without good
reason.
_IV.--The Mogul Empire_
Akber died in 1605 and was succeeded by his son Selim, who took the
title of Jehan Gir. The Deckan, hardly subdued, achieved something like
independence under a great soldier and administrator of Abyssinian
origin, named Malik Amber. In the sixth year of his reign Jehan Gir
married the beautiful Nur Jehan, by whose influence the emperor's
natural brutality was greatly modified in practice. His son, Prince
Khurram, later known as Shah Jehan, distinguished himself in war with
the Rajputs, displaying a character not unworthy of his grandfather. In
1616 the embassy of Sir Thomas Roe from James I visited the Court of the
Great Mogul. Sir Thomas was received with great honour, and is full of
admiration of Jehan Gir's splendour. It is clear, however, that the high
standards set up by Akber were fast losing their efficacy.
Jehan Gir died in 1627 and was succeeded by Shah Jehan. Much of his
reign was largely occupied with wars in the Deckan and beyond the
northwest frontier on which the emperor's son Aurangzib was employed.
Most of the Deckan was brought into subjection, but Candahar was finally
lost. Shah Jehan was the most magnificent of all the Moguls. In spite of
his wars, Hindustan itself enjoyed uninterrupted tranquillity, and on
the whole, a good Government. It was he who constructed the fabulously
magnificent peacock throne, built Delhi anew, and raised the most
exquisite of all Indian buildings, the Taj Mahal or Pearl Mosque, at
Agre. After a reign of thirty years he was deposed by his son Aurangzib,
known also as Alam Gir.
Aurangzib had considerable difficulty in securing his position by the
suppression of rivals; but our interest now centres in the Deckan, where
the Maratta people were organised into a new power by the redoubtable
Sivaji. Though some of the Marattas claim Rajput descent, they are of
low caste. They have none of the pride or dignity of the Rajput, and
they care nothing for the point of honour; but they are active, hardy,
persevering, and cunning. Sivaji was the son of a distinguished soldier
named Shahji, in the service of the King of Bijapur. By various
artifices young Sivaji brought a large area under his control. Then he
revolted against Bijapur, posing as a Hindu leader. He wrung for himself
a sort of independence from Bijapur. His proceedings attracted the
attention of Aurangzib, who, however, did not immediately realise how
dangerous the Maratta was to become. Himself occupied in other parts of
the empire, Aurangzib left lieutenants to deal with Sivaji; and since he
never trusted a lieutenant, the forces at their disposal were
insufficient or were divided under commanders who were engaged as much
in thwarting each other as in endeavouring to crush the common foe.
Hence the vigorous Sivaji was enabled persistently to consolidate his
organisation.
At the same time Aurangzib was departing from the traditions of his
house and acting as a bigoted champion of Islam; differentiating between
his Mussulman subjects and the Hindus so as completely to destroy that
national unity which it had been the aim of his predecessors to
establish. The result was a Rajput revolt and the permanent alienation
of the Rajputs from the Mogul Government.
In spite of these difficulties Aurangzib renewed operations against
Sivaji, to which the Maratta retorted by raiding expeditions in
Hindustan; whereby he hoped to impress on the Mogul the advisability of
leaving him alone; his object being to organise a great dominion in the
Deckan--a dominion largely based on his championship of Hinduism as
against Mahometanism. When Sivaji died, in 1680, his son Sambaji proved
a much less competent successor; but the Maratta power was already
established. Aurangzib directed his arms not so much against the
Marattas as to the overthrow of the great kingdoms of the Deckan. When
he turned against the Marattas, they met his operations by the adoption
of guerrilla tactics, to which the Maratta country was eminently
adapted. Most of Aurangzib's last years were occupied in these
campaigns. The now aged emperor's industry and determination were
indefatigable, but he was hopelessly hampered by his constitutional
inability to trust in the most loyal of his servants. He had deposed his
own father and lived in dread that his son Moazzim would treat him in
the same fashion. He died in 1707 in the eighty-ninth year of his life
and the fiftieth of his reign. In the eyes of Mahometans this fanatical
Mahometan was the greatest of his house. But his rule, in fact,
initiated the disintegration of the Mogul Empire. He had failed to
consolidate the Mogul supremacy in the Deckan, and he had revived the
old religious antagonism between Mahometans and Hindus.
Prince Moazzim succeeded under the title of Bahadur Shah. Dissensions
among the Marattas enabled him to leave the Deckan in comparative peace
to the charge of Daud Khan. He hastened also to make peace with the
Rajputs; but he was obliged to move against a new power which had arisen
in the northwest, that of the Sikhs. Primarily a sort of reformed sect
of the Hindus the Sikhs were converted by persecution into a sort of
religious and military brotherhood under their Guru or prophet, Govind.
They were too few to make head against the power of the empire, but they
could only be scattered, not destroyed; and in later days were to assume
a great prominence in Indian affairs. A detailed account of the
incompetent successors of Bahadur Shah would be superfluous. The
outstanding features of the period was the disintegration of the central
Government and the development in the south of two powers; that of the
Marattas and that of Asaf Jah, the successor of Daud Khan, and the first
of the Nizams of the Deckan. The supremacy among the Marattas passed to
the Peshwas, the Bramin Ministers of the successors of Sivaji, who
established a dynasty very much like that of the Mayors of the Palace in
the Frankish Kingdom of the Merovingians. But the final blow to the
power of the Moguls was struck by the tremendous invasion of Nadir Shah
the Persian, in 1739, when Delhi was sacked and its richest treasures
carried away; though the Persian departed still leaving the emperor
nominal Suzerian of India. Before twenty years were past the greatest of
all revolutions in India affairs had taken place; and Robert Clive had
made himself master of Bengal in the name of the British East India
Company.
* * * * *
VOLTAIRE
Russia Under Peter the Great
François Marie Arouet, known to the world by the assumed name
of Voltaire (supposed to be an anagram of Arou[v]et l[e]
j[eun]), was born in Paris on November 21, 1694. Before he was
twenty-two, his caustic pen had got him into trouble. At
thirty-one, when he was already famous for his drama,
"OEdipe," as well as for audacious lampoons, he was obliged to
retreat to England, where he remained some three years.
Various publications during the years following his return
placed him among the foremost French writers of the day. From
1750 to 1753 he was with Frederick the Great in Prussia. When
the two quarrelled, Voltaire settled in Switzerland and in
1758 established himself at Ferney, about the time when he
published "Candide." His "Siècle de Louis Quatorze" (see
_ante_) had appeared some years earlier. In 1762 he began a
series of attacks on the Church and Christianity; and he
continued to reign, a sort of king of literature, till his
death, in Paris on May 30, 1778. An admirable criticism of him
is to be found in Morley's "Voltaire"; but the great biography
is that of Desnoiresterres. His "Russia under Peter the Great"
was written after Voltaire took up his residence at Ferney in
1758. This epitome is prepared from the French text.
_I.--All the Russias_
When, about the beginning of the present century, the Tsar Peter laid
the foundations of Petersburg, or, rather, of his empire, no one foresaw
his success. Anyone who then imagined that a Russian sovereign would be
able to send victorious fleets to the Dardanelles, to subjugate the
Crimea, to clear the Turks out of four great provinces, to dominate the
Black Sea, to set up the most brilliant court in Europe, and to make all
the arts flourish in the midst of war--anyone expressing such an idea
would have passed for a mere dreamer. Peter the Great built the Russian
Empire on a foundation firm and lasting.
That empire is the most extensive in our hemisphere. Poland, the Arctic
Ocean, Sweden, and China lie on its boundaries. It is so vast that when
it is mid-day at its western extremity it is nearly midnight at the
eastern. It is larger than all the rest of Europe, than the Roman
Empire, than the empire of Darius which Alexander conquered. But it will
take centuries, and many more such Tsars as Peter, to render that
territory populous, productive, and covered with cities, like the
northern lands of Europe.
The province nearest to our own realms is Livonia, long a heathen
region. Tsar Peter conquered it from the Swedes.
To the north is the province of Revel and Esthonia, also conquered from
the Swedes by Peter. The Gulf of Finland borders Esthonia; and here at
this junction of the Neva and Lake Ladoga is the city of Petersburg, the
youngest and the fairest of the cities of the empire, built by Peter in
spite of a mass of obstacles. Northward, again, is Archangel, which the
English discovered in 1533, with the result that the commerce fell
entirely into their hands and those of the Dutch. On the west of
Archangel is Russian Lapland. Then, ascending the Dwina from the coast,
we arrive at the territories of Moscow, long the centre of the empire. A
century ago Moscow was without the ordinary amenities of civilisation,
though it could display an Oriental profusion on state occasions.
West of Moscow is Smolensk, recovered from the Poles by Peter's father
Alexis. Between Petersburg and Smolensk is Novgorod; south of Smolensk
is Kiev or Little Russia; and Red Russia, or the Ukraine, watered by the
Dnieper, the Borysthenes of the Greeks--the country of the Cossacks.
Between the Dnieper and the Don northwards is Belgorod; then Nischgorod,
then Astrakan, the march of Asia and Europe with Kazan, recovered from
the Tartar empire of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane by Ivan Vasilovitch.
Siberia is peopled by Samoeides and Ostiaks, and its southern regions by
hordes of Tartars--like the Turks and Mongols, descendants of the
ancient Scythians. At the limit of Siberia is Kamschatka.
Throughout this vast but thinly populated empire the manners and customs
are Asiatic rather than European. As the Janissaries control the Turkish
government, so the Strelitz Guards used to dispose of the throne.
Christianity was not established till late in the tenth century, in the
Greek form, and liberated from the control of the Greek Patriarch, a
subject of the Grand Turk, in 1588.
Before Peter's day, Russia had neither the power, the cultivated
territories, the subjects, nor the revenues which she now enjoys. She
had no foothold in Livonia or Finland, little or no control over the
Cossacks or in Astrakan. The White, Black, Baltic, and Caspian seas were
of no use to a nation which had not even a name for a fleet. She had to
place herself on a level with the cultivated nations, though she was
without knowledge of the science of war by land or sea, and almost of
the rudiments of manufacture and agriculture, to say nothing of the fine
arts. Her sons were even forbidden to learn by travel; she seemed to
have condemned herself to eternal ignorance. Then Peter was born, and
Russia was created.
_II.--At the School of Europe_
It was owing to a series of dynastic revolutions and usurpations that
young Michael Romanoff, Peter's grandfather, was chosen Tsar at the age
of fifteen, in 1613. He was succeeded in 1645 by his son, Alexis
Michaelovitch. Alexis, in his wars with Poland, recovered from her
Smolensk, Kiev, and the Ukraine. He waged war with the Turk in aid of
Poland, introduced manufactures, and codified the laws, proving himself
a worthy sire for Peter the Great; but he died in 1677 too soon--he was
but forty-six--to complete the work he had begun. He was succeeded by
his eldest son, Feodor. There was a second, Ivan; and Peter, not five
years old, the child of his second marriage. Dying five years later,
Feodor named Peter his successor. An elder sister, Sophia, intrigued to
place the incapable Ivan on the throne instead, as her own puppet, by
the aid of the turbulent Strelitz Guard. After a series of murders, the
Strelitz proclaimed Ivan and Peter joint sovereigns, associating Sophia
with them as co-regent.
Sophia ruled with the aid of an able minister, Gallitzin. But she formed
a conspiracy against Peter, who, however, made his escape, rallied his
supporters, crushed the conspiracy, and secured his position as Autocrat
of the Russias, being then in his seventeenth year (1689).
Peter not only set himself to repair his neglected education by the
study of German and Dutch, and an instinctive horror of water by
resolutely plunging himself into it; he developed an immediate interest
in boats and shipping, and promptly set about organising a disciplined
force, destined for use against the Strelitz. The nucleus was his
personal regiment, called the Preobazinsky. He had already a corps of
foreigners, under the command of a Scot named Gordon. Another foreigner,
Le Fort, on whom he relied, raised and disciplined another corps, and
was made admiral of the infant fleet which he began to construct on the
Don for use against the Crim Tartars.
His first political measure was to effect a treaty with China, his next
an expedition for the subjugation of the Tartars of Azov. Gordon and Le
Fort, with their two corps and other forces, marched on Azov in 1695.
Peter accompanied, but did not command, the army. Unsuccessful at first,
his purpose was effected in 1696; Azov was conquered, and a fleet placed
on its sea. He celebrated a triumph in Roman fashion at Moscow; and
then, not content with despatching a number of young men to Italy and
elsewhere to collect knowledge, he started on his travels himself.
As one of the suite of an embassy he passed through Livonia and Germany
till he arrived at Amsterdam, where he worked as a hand at shipbuilding.
He also studied surgery at this time, and incidentally paid a visit to
William of Orange at The Hague. Early next year he visited England,
formally, lodging at Deptford, and continuing his training in naval
construction. Thence, and from Holland, he collected mathematicians,
engineers, and skilled workmen. Finally, he returned to Russia by way of
Vienna, to establish satisfactory relations with the emperor, his
natural and necessary ally against the Turk.
Peter had made his arrangements for Russia during his absence. Gordon
with his corps was at Moscow; the Strelitz were distributed in Astrakan
and Azov, where some successful operations were carried out.
Nevertheless, sedition raised its head. Insurrection was checked by
Gordon, but disaffection remained. Reappearing unexpectedly, he punished
the mutinous Strelitz mercilessly, and that body was entirely done away
with. New regiments were created on the German model; and he then set
about reorganising the finances, reforming the political position of the
Church, destroying the power of the higher clergy, and generally
introducing more enlightened customs from western Europe.
_III.--War with Sweden_
In 1699, the sultan was obliged to conclude a peace at Carlovitz, to the
advantage of all the powers with whom he had been at war. This set Peter
free on the side of Sweden. The youth of Charles XII. tempted Peter to
the recovery of the Baltic provinces. He set about the siege of Riga and
Narva. But Charles, in a series of marvellous operations, raised the
siege of Riga, and dispersed or captured the very much greater force
before Narva in November 1700.
The continued successes of Charles did not check Peter's determination
to maintain Augustus of Saxony and Poland against him. It was during the
subsequent operations against Charles's lieutenants in Livonia that
Catherine--afterwards to become Peter's empress--was taken prisoner.
The Tsar continued to press forward his social reforms at Moscow, and
his naval and military programmes. His fleet was growing on Lake Ladoga.
In its neighbourhood was the important Swedish fortress of Niantz, which
he captured in May 1703; after which he resolved to establish the town
which became Petersburg, where the Neva flows into the Gulf of Finland;
and designed the fortifications of Cronstadt, which were to render it
impregnable. The next step was to take Narva, where he had before been
foiled. The town fell on August 20, 1704; when Peter, by his personal
exertions, checked the violence of his soldiery.
Menzikoff, a man of humble origin, was now made governor of Ingria. In
June 1705, a formidable attempt of the Swedes to destroy the rapidly
rising Petersburg and Cronstadt was completely repulsed. A Swedish
victory, under Lewenhaupt, at Gemavers, in Courland, was neutralised by
the capture of Mittau. But Poland was now torn from Augustus, and
Charles's nominee, Stanislaus, was king. Denmark had been forced into
neutrality; exaggerated reports of the defeat at Gemavers had once more
stirred up the remnants of the old Strelitz. Nevertheless, Peter, before
the end of the year, was as secure as ever.
In 1706, Augustus was reduced to a formal abdication and recognition of
Stanislaus as King of Poland; and Patkul, a Livonian, Peter's ambassador
at Dresden, was subsequently delivered to Charles and put to death, to
the just wrath of Peter. In October, the Russians, under Menzikoff, won
their first pitched battle against the Swedes, a success which did not
save Patkul.
In February 1708, Charles himself was once more in Lithuania, at the
head of an army. But his advance towards Moscow was disputed at
well-selected points, and even his victory at Hollosin was a proof that
the Russians had now learned how to fight.
When Charles reached the Dnieper, he unexpectedly marched to unite with
Mazeppa in the Ukraine, instead of continuing his advance on Moscow.
Menzikoff intercepted Lewenhaupt on the march with a great convoy to
join Charles, and that general was only able to cut his way through with
5,000 of his force. Mazeppa's own movement was crushed, and he only
joined Charles as a fugitive, not an ally. Charles's desperate
operations need not be followed. It suffices to say that in May 1709, he
had opened the siege of Pultawa, by the capture of which he counted that
the road to Moscow would lie open to him.
Here the decisive battle was fought on July 12. The dogged patience with
which Peter had turned every defeat into a lesson in the art of war met
with its reward. The Swedish army was shattered; Charles, prostrated by
a wound, was himself carried into safety across the Turkish frontier.
Peter's victory was absolutely decisive and overwhelming; and what it
meant was the civilising of a territory till then barbarian. Its effects
in other European countries, including the recovery of the Polish crown
by Augustus, are pointed out in the history of Charles XII. The year
1710 witnessed the capture of a series of Swedish provinces in the
Baltic provinces; and the Swedish forces in Pomerania were neutralised.
_IV.--The Expansion of Russia_
Now the Sultan Ahmed III. declared war on Peter; not for the sake of his
guest, Charles XII., but because of Peter's successes in Azov, his new
port of Taganrog, and his ships on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. He
outraged international law by throwing the Russian envoy and his suite
into prison. Peter at once left his Swedish campaign to advance his
armies against Turkey.
Before leaving Moscow he announced his marriage with the Livonian
captive, Catherine, whom he had secretly made his wife in 1707. Apraksin
was sent to take the supreme command by land and sea. Cantemir, the
hospodar of Moldavia, promised support, for his own ends.
The Turkish vizier, Baltagi Mehemet, had already crossed the Danube, and
was marching up the Pruth with 100,000 men. Peter's general Sheremetof
was in danger of being completely hemmed in when Peter crossed the
Dnieper, Catherine stoutly refusing to leave the army. No help came from
Cantemir, and supplies were running short. The Tsar was too late to
prevent the passage of the Pruth by the Turks, who were now on his lines
of communication; and he found himself in a trap, without supplies, and
under the Turkish guns. When he attempted to withdraw, the Turkish force
attacked, but were brilliantly held at bay by the Russian rear-guard.
Nevertheless, the situation was desperate. It was Catherine who saved
it. At her instigation, terms--accompanied by the usual gifts--were
proposed to the vizier; and, for whatever reason, the vizier was
satisfied to conclude a peace then and there. He was probably
unconscious of the extremities to which Peter was reduced. Azov was to
be retroceded, Taganrog, and other forts, dismantled; the Tsar was not
to interfere in Poland, and Charles was to be allowed a free return to
his own dominions. The hopes of Charles were destroyed, and he was
reduced to intriguing at the Ottoman court.
Peter carried out some of the conditions of the Pruth treaty. The more
important of them he successfully evaded for some time. The treaty,
however, was confirmed six months later. But the Pruth affair was a more
serious check to the Tsar than even Narva had been, for it forced him to
renounce the dominion of the Black Sea. He turned his attention to
Pomerania, though the injuries his health had suffered drove him to take
the waters at Carlsbad.
His object was to drive the Swedes out of their German territories, and
confine them to Scandinavia; and to this end he sought alliance with
Hanover, Brandenburg, and Denmark. About this time he married his son
Alexis (born to him by his first wife) to the sister of the German
Emperor; and proceeded to ratify by formal solemnities his own espousal
to Catherine.
Charles might have saved himself by coming out of Turkey, buying the
support of Brandenburg by recognising her claim on Stettin, and
accepting the sacrifice of his own claim to Poland, which Stanislaus was
ready to make for his sake. He would not. Russians, Saxons, and Danes
were now acting in concert against the Swedes in Pomerania. A Swedish
victory over the Danes and Gadebesck and the burning of Altona were of
no real avail. The victorious general not long after was forced to
surrender with his whole army. Stettin capitulated on condition of being
transferred to Prussia. Stralsund was being besieged by Russians and
Saxons; Hanover was in possession of Bremen and Verden; and Peter was
conquering Finland, when, at last, Charles suddenly reappeared at
Stralsund, in November 1715. But the brilliant naval operation by which
Peter captured the Isle of Aland had already secured Finland.
During the last three years a new figure had risen to prominence, the
ingenious, ambitious and intriguing Baron Gortz, who was now to become
the chief minister and guide of the Swedes. Under his influence,
Charles's hostility was now turned in other directions than against
Russia, and Peter was favourably inclined towards the opening of a new
chapter in his relations with Sweden, since he had made himself master
of Ingria, Finland, Livonia, Esthonia, and Carelia. The practical
suspension of hostilities enabled Peter to start on a second European
tour, while Charles, driven at last from Weimar and Stralsund--all that
was left him south of the Baltic--was planning the invasion of Norway.
During this tour the Tsar passed three months in Holland, his old school
in the art of naval construction; and while he was there intrigues were
on foot which threatened to revolutionise Europe. Gortz had conceived
the design of allying Russia and Sweden, restoring Stanislaus in Poland,
recovering Bremen and Verden from Hanover, and finally of rejecting the
Hanoverian Elector from his newly acquired sovereignty in Great Britain
by restoring the Stuarts. Spain, now controlled by Alberoni, was to be
the third power concerned in effecting this _bouleversement_, which
involved the overthrow of the regency of Orleans in France.
The discovery of this plot, through the interception of some letters
from Gortz, led to the arrest of Gortz in Holland, and of the Swedish
ambassador, Gyllemborg, in London. Peter declined to commit himself. His
reception when he went to Paris was eminently flattering; but an attempt
to utilise it for a reunion of the Greek and Latin Churches was a
complete failure. The Gortz plot had entirely collapsed before Peter
returned to Russia.
_V.--Peter the Great_
Peter had been married in his youth to Eudoxia Feodorovna Lapoukin. With
every national prejudice, she had stood persistently in the way of his
reforms. In 1696 he had found it necessary to divorce her, and seclude
her in a convent. Alexis, the son born of this marriage in 1690,
inherited his mother's character, and fell under the influence of the
most reactionary ecclesiastics. Politically and morally the young man
was a reactionary. He was embittered, too, by his father's second
marriage; and his own marriage, in 1711, was a hideous failure. His
wife, ill-treated, deserted, and despised, died of wretchedness in 1715.
She left a son.
Peter wrote to Alexis warning him to reform, since he would sooner
transfer the succession to one worthy of it than to his own son if
unworthy. Alexis replied by renouncing all claim to the succession.
Renunciation, Peter answered, was useless. Alexis must either reform, or
give the renunciation reality by becoming a monk. Alexis promised; but
when Peter left Russia, he betook himself to his brother-in-law's court
at Vienna, and then to Naples, which at the time belonged to Austria.
Peter ordered him to return; if he did, he should not be punished; if
not, the Tsar would assuredly find means.
Alexis obeyed, returned, threw himself at his father's feet. A
reconciliation was reported. But next day Peter arraigned his son before
a council, and struck him out of the succession in favour of Catherine's
infant son Peter. Alexis was then subjected to a series of incredible
interrogations as to what he would or would not have done under
circumstances which had never arisen.
At the strange trial, prolonged over many months, the 144 judges
unanimously pronounced sentence of death. Catherine herself is said by
Peter to have pleaded for the stepson, whose accession would certainly
have meant her own destruction. Nevertheless, the unhappy prince was
executed. That Peter slew him with his own hand, and that Catherine
poisoned him, are both fables. The real source of the tragedy is to be
found in the monks who perverted the mind of the prince.
This same year, 1718, witnessed the greatest benefits to Peter's
subjects--in general improvements, in the establishment and perfecting
of manufactures, in the construction of canals, and in the development
of commerce. An extensive commerce was established with China through
Siberia, and with Persia through Astrakan. The new city of Petersburg
replaced Archangel as the seat of maritime intercourse with Europe.
Peter was now the arbiter of Northern Europe. In May 1724, he had
Catherine crowned and anointed as empress. But he was suffering from a
mental disease, and of this he died, in Catherine's arms, in the
following January, without having definitely nominated a successor.
Whether or not it was his intention, it was upon his wife Catherine that
the throne devolved.
* * * * *
W.H. PRESCOTT
The Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella
William Hickling Prescott was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on
May 4, 1796. His first great historical work, "The History of
the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella," published in 1838, was
compiled under circumstances of extraordinary difficulty.
During most of the time of its composition the author was
deprived of sight, and was dependent on having all documents
read to him. Before it was completed he recovered the use of
his eyes, and was able to correct and verify. Nevertheless,
the changes required were few. The "Conquest of Mexico" and
"Conquest of Peru" (see _ante_) followed at intervals of five
and four years, and ten years later the uncompleted "Philip
II." He died in New York on January 28, 1859. The subjects of
this work, Ferdinand and Isabella, were the monarchs who
united the Spanish kingdoms into one nation, ended the Moorish
dominion in Europe, and annexed the New World to Spain, which
during the ensuing century threatened to dominate the states
of Christendom.
_I.--Castile and Aragon_
After the great Saracen invasion, at the beginning of the eighth
century, Spain was broken up into a number of small but independent
states. At the close of the fifteenth century, these were blended into
one great nation. Before this, the numbers had been reduced to
four--Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and the Moorish kingdom of Granada.
The civil feuds of Castile in the fourteenth century were as fatal to
the nobility as were the English Wars of the Roses. At the close, the
power of the commons was at its zenith. In the long reign of John II.,
the king abandoned the government to the control of favourites. The
constable, Alvaro de Luna, sought to appropriate taxing and legislative
powers to the crown. Representation in the cortes was withdrawn from all
but eighteen privileged cities. Politically disastrous, the reign was
conspicuous for John's encouragement of literature, the general
intellectual movement, and the birth of Isabella, three years before
John's death.
The immediate heir to the throne was Isabella's elder half-brother
Henry. Her mother was the Princess of Portugal, so that on both sides
she was descended from John of Gaunt, the father of our Lancastrian
line. Both her childhood and that of Ferdinand of Aragon, a year her
junior, were passed amidst tumultuous scenes of civil war. Henry,
good-natured, incompetent, and debauched, yielded himself to favourites,
hence he was more than once almost rejected from his throne. Old King
John II. of Aragon was similarly engaged in a long civil war, mainly
owing to his tyrannous treatment of his eldest son, Carlos.
But by 1468 Isabella and Ferdinand were respectively recognised as the
heirs of Castile and Aragon. In spite of her brother, Isabella made
contract of marriage with the heir of Aragon, the instrument securing
her own sovereign rights in Castile, though Henry thereupon nominated
another successor in her place. The marriage was effected under romantic
conditions in October 1469, one circumstance being that the bull of
dispensation permitting the union of cousins within the forbidden
degrees was a forgery, though the fact was unknown at the time to
Isabella. The reason of the forgery was the hostility of the then pope;
a dispensation was afterwards obtained from Sixtus IV. The death of
Henry, in December 1474, placed Isabella and Ferdinand on the throne of
Castile.
_II.--Overthrow of the Moorish Dominion_
Isabella's claim to Castile rested on her recognition by the Cortes; the
rival claimant was a daughter of the deceased king, or at any rate, of
his wife, a Portuguese princess. Alfonso of Portugal supported his niece
Joanna's claim. In March 1476 Ferdinand won the decisive victory of
Toro; but the war of the succession was not definitely terminated by
treaty till 1479, some months after Ferdinand had succeeded John on the
throne of Aragon.
Isabella was already engaged in reorganising the administration of
Castile; first, in respect of justice, and codification of the law;
secondly, by depressing the nobles. A sort of military police, known as
the _hermandad_, was established. These reforms were carried out with
excellent effect; instead of birth, merit became the primary
qualification for honourable offices. Papal usurpations on
ecclesiastical rights were resisted, trade was regulated, and the
standard of coinage restored. The whole result was to strengthen the
crown in a consolidated constitution.
Restrained by her natural benevolence and magnanimity, urged forward by
her strong piety and the influence of the Dominican Torquemada, Isabella
assented to the introduction of the Inquisition--aimed primarily at the
Jews--with its corollary of the _Auto da fé_, of which the actual
meaning is "Act of Faith." Probably 10,220 persons were burnt at the
stake during the eighteen years of Torquemada's ministry.
Now, however, we come to the great war for the ejection of the Moorish
rule in southern Spain. The Saracen power of Granada was magnificent;
the population was industrious, sober, and had far exceeded the
Christian powers in culture, in research, and in scientific and
philosophical inquiry.
So soon as Ferdinand and Isabella had established their government in
their joint dominion, they turned to the project of destroying the
Saracen power and conquering its territory. But the attack came from
Muley Abul Hacen, the ruler of Granada, in 1481. Zahara, on the
frontier, was captured and its population carried into slavery. A
Spanish force replied by surprising Alhama. The Moors besieged it in
force; it was relieved, but the siege was renewed. In an unsuccessful
attack on Loja, Ferdinand displayed extreme coolness and courage. A
palace intrigue led to the expulsion from Granada of Abdul Hacen, in
favour of his son, Abu Abdallah, or Boabdil. The war continued with
numerous picturesque episodes. A rout of the Spaniards in the Axarquia
was followed by the capture of Boabdil in a rout of the Moors; he was
ransomed, accepting an ignominious treaty, while the war was maintained
against Abdul Hacen.
In the summer of 1487, Malaja fell, after a siege in which signal
heroism was displayed by the Moorish defenders. Since they had refused
the first offers, they now had to surrender at discretion. The entire
population, male and female, were made slaves. The capture of Baza, in
December, after a long and stubborn resistance, was followed by the
surrender of Almeria and the whole province appertaining to it.
It was not till 1491 that Granada itself was besieged; at the close of
the year it surrendered, on liberal terms. The treaty promised the Moors
liberty to exercise their own religion, customs, and laws, as subjects
of the Spanish monarchy. The Mohammedan power in Western Europe was
extinguished.
Already Christopher Columbus had been unsuccessfully seeking support for
his great enterprise. At last, in 1492, Isabella was won over. In
August, the expedition sailed--a few months after the cruel edict for
the expulsion of the Jews. In the spring of 1493 came news of his
discovery. In May the bull of Alexander VI. divided the New World and
all new lands between Spain and Portugal.
_III.--The Italian Wars_
In the foreign policy, the relations with Europe, which now becomes
prominent, Ferdinand is the moving figure, as Isabella had been within
Spain. In Spain, Portugal, France, and England, the monarchy had now
dominated the old feudalism. Consolidated states had emerged. Italy was
a congeries of principalities and republics. In 1494 Charles VIII. of
France crossed the Alps to assert his title to Naples, where a branch of
the royal family of Aragon ruled. His successor raised up against him
the League of Venice, of which Ferdinand was a member. Charles withdrew,
leaving a viceroy, in 1495. Ferdinand forthwith invaded Calabria.
The Spanish commander was Gonsalvo de Cordova; who, after a reverse in
his first conflict, for which he was not responsible, never lost a
battle. He had learnt his art in the Moorish war, and the French were
demoralised by his novel tactics. In a year he had earned the title of
"The Great Captain." Calabria submitted in the summer of 1496. The
French being expelled from Naples, a truce was signed early in 1498,
which ripened into a definitive treaty.
On the death of Cardinal Mendoza, for twenty years the monarchs' chief
minister, his place was taken by Ximenes, whose character presented a
rare combination of talent and virtue; who proceeded to energetic and
much-needed reforms in church discipline.
Not with the same approbation can we view the zeal with which he devoted
himself to the extermination of heresy. The conversion of the Moors to
Christianity under the régime of the virtuous Archbishop of Granada was
not rapid enough. Ximenes, in 1500, began with great success a
propaganda fortified by liberal presents. Next he made a holocaust of
Arabian MSS. The alarm and excitement caused by measures in clear
violation of treaty produced insurrection; which was calmed down, but
was followed by the virtually compulsory conversion of some fifty
thousand Moors.
This stirred to revolt the Moors of the Alpuxarras hill-country; crushed
with no little difficulty, but great severity, the insurrection broke
out anew on the west of Granada. This time the struggle was savage. When
it was ended the rebels were allowed the alternative of baptism or
exile.
Columbus had returned to the New World in 1493 with great powers; but
administrative skill was not his strong point, and the first batch of
colonists were without discipline. He returned and went out again, this
time with a number of convicts. Matters became worse. A very incompetent
special commissioner, Bobadilla, was sent with extraordinary powers to
set matters right, and he sent Columbus home in chains, to the
indignation of the king and queen. The management of affairs was then
entrusted to Ovando, Columbus following later. It must be observed that
the economic results of the great discovery were not immediately
remarkable; but the moral effect on Europe at large was incalculable.
On succeeding to the French throne, Louis XII. was prompt to revive the
French claims in Italy (1498); but he agreed with Ferdinand on a
partition of the kingdom of Naples, a remarkable project of robbery. The
Great Captain was despatched to Sicily, and was soon engaged in
conquering Calabria. It was not long, however, before France and Aragon
were quarrelling over the division of the spoil. In July 1502 war was
declared between them in Italy. The war was varied by set combats in the
lists between champions of the opposed nations.
In 1503 a treaty was negotiated by Ferdinand's son-in-law, the Archduke
Philip. Gonsalvo, however, not recognising instructions received from
Philip, gave battle to the French at Cerignola, and won a brilliant
victory. A few days earlier another victory had been won by a second
column; and Gonsalvo marched on Naples, which welcomed him. The two
French fortresses commanding it were reduced. Since Ferdinand refused to
ratify Philip's treaty, a French force entered Roussillon; but retired
on Ferdinand's approach. The practical effect of the invasion was a
demonstration of the new unity of the Spanish kingdom.
In Italy, Louis threw fresh energy into the war; and Gonsalvo found his
own forces greatly out-numbered. In the late autumn there was a sharp
but indecisive contest at the Garigliano Bridge. Gonsalvo held to his
position, despite the destitution of his troops, until he received
reinforcements. Then, on December 28, he suddenly and unexpectedly
crossed the river; the French retired rapidly, gallantly covered by the
rear-guard, hotly attacked by the Spanish advance guard. The retreat
being checked at a bridge, the Spanish rear was enabled to come up, and
the French were driven in route. Gaeta surrendered on January 4; no
further resistance was offered. South Italy was in the hands of
Gonsalvo.
_IV.--After Isabella_
Throughout 1503 and 1504 Queen Isabella's strength was failing. In
November 1504 she died, leaving the succession to the Castilian crown to
her daughter Joanna, and naming Ferdinand regent. Magnanimity,
unselfishness, openness, piety had been her most marked moral traits;
justice, loyalty, practical good sense her political characteristics--a
most rare and virtuous lady.
Her death gives a new complexion to our history. Joanna was proclaimed
Queen of Castile; Ferdinand was governor of that kingdom in her name,
but his regency was not accepted without demur. To secure his brief
authority he made alliance with Louis, including a marriage contract
with Louis' niece, Germaine de Ford. Six weeks after the wedding, the
Archduke Philip landed in Spain. Ferdinand's action had ruined his
popularity, and he saw security only in a compact assuring Philip the
complete sovereignty--Joanna being insane.
Philip's rule was very unpopular and very brief. A sudden illness, in
which for once poison was not suspected of playing a part, carried him
off. Ferdinand, absent at the time in Italy, was restored to the regency
of Castile, which he held undisputed--except for futile claims of the
Emperor Maximilian--for the rest of his life.
The years of Ferdinand's sole rule displayed his worst characteristics,
which had been restrained during his noble consort's life. He was
involved in the utterly unscrupulous and immoral wars issuing out of the
League of Cambray for the partition of Venice. The suspicion and
ingratitude with which he treated Gonsalvo de Cordova drove the Great
Captain into a privacy not less honourable than his glorious public
career. Within a twelvemonth of Gonsalvo's death, Ferdinand followed him
to the grave in January 1516--lamented in Aragon, but not in Castile.
During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the overgrown powers and
factious spirit of the nobility had been restrained. That genuine piety
of the queen which had won for the monarchs the title of "The Catholic"
had not prevented them from firmly resisting the encroachments of
ecclesiastical authority. The condition of the commons had been greatly
advanced, but political power had been concentrated in the crown, and
the crowns of Castile and Aragon were permanently united on the
accession of Charles--afterwards Charles V.--to both the thrones.
Under these great rulers we have beheld Spain emerging from chaos into a
new existence; unfolding, under the influence of institutions adapted to
her genius, energies of which she was before unconscious; enlarging her
resources from all the springs of domestic industry and commercial
enterprise; and insensibly losing the ferocious habits of the feudal age
in the requirements of an intellectual and moral culture. We have seen
her descend into the arena with the other nations of Europe, and in a
very few years achieve the most important acquisitions of territory both
in that quarter and in Africa; and finally crowning the whole by the
discovery and occupation of a boundless empire beyond the waters.
* * * * *
VOLTAIRE
History of Charles XII
Voltaire's "History of Charles XII." was his earliest notable
essay in history, written during his sojourn in England in
1726-9, when he was acquiring the materials for his "Letters
on the English," eleven years after the death of the Swedish
monarch. The prince who "left a name at which the world grew
pale, to point a moral and adorn a tale," was killed by a
cannon-ball when thirty-six years old, after a career
extraordinarily brilliant, extraordinarily disastrous, and in
result extraordinarily ineffective. A tremendous contrast to
the career, equally unique, of his great antagonist, Peter the
Great of Russia, whose history Voltaire wrote thirty years
later (see _ante_). Naturally the two works in a marked degree
illustrate each other. In both cases Voltaire claims to have
had first-hand information from the principal actors in the
drama.
_I.--The Meteor Blazes_
The house of Vasa was established on the throne of Sweden in the first
half of the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century, Christina,
daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus, abdicated in favour of her
cousin, who ascended the throne as Charles X. He and his vigorous son,
Charles XI., established a powerful absolute monarchy. To the latter was
born, on June 27, 1682, the infant who became Charles XII.--perhaps the
most extraordinary man who ever lived, who in his own person united all
the great qualities of his ancestors, whose one defect and one
misfortune was that he possessed all those qualities in excess.
In childhood he developed exceptional physical powers, and remarkable
linguistic facility. He succeeded to the throne at the age of fifteen,
in 1697. Within the year he declared himself of age, and asserted his
position as king; and the neighbouring powers at once resolved to take
advantage of the Swedish monarch's youth--the kings Christian of
Denmark, Augustus of Saxony and Poland, and the very remarkable Tsar
Peter the Great of Russia. Among them, the three proposed to appropriate
all the then Swedish territories on the Russian and Polish side of the
Gulf of Finland and the Baltic.
Danes and Saxons, joined by the forces of other German principalities,
were already attacking Holstein, whose duke was Charles's cousin; the
Saxons, too, were pouring into Livonia. On May 8, 1700, Charles sailed
from Stockholm with 8,000 men to the succour of Holstein, which he
effected with complete and immediate success by swooping on Copenhagen.
On August 6, Denmark concluded a treaty, withdrawing her claims in
Holstein and paying the duke an indemnity. Three months later, the Tsar,
who was besieging Narva, in Ingria, with 80,000 Muscovites, learnt that
Charles had landed, and was advancing with 20,000 Swedes. Another 30,000
were being hurried up by the Tsar when Charles, with only 8,000 men,
came in contact with 25,000 Russians at Revel. In two days he had swept
them before him, and with his 8,000 men fell upon the Russian force of
ten times that number in its entrenchments at Narva. Prodigies of valour
were performed, the Muscovites were totally routed. Peter, with 40,000
reinforcements, had no inclination to renew battle, but he very promptly
made up his mind that his armies must be taught how to fight. They
should learn from the victorious Swedes how to conquer the Swedes.
With the spring, Charles fell upon the Saxon forces in Livonia, before a
fresh league between Augustus and Peter had had time to develop
advantageously. After one decisive victory, the Duchy of Courland made
submission, and he marched into Lithuania. In Poland, neither the war
nor the rule of Augustus was popular, and in the divided state of the
country Charles advanced triumphantly. A Polish diet was summoned, and
Charles awaited events; he was at war, he said, not with Poland, but
with Augustus. He had, in fact, resolved to dethrone the King of Poland
by the instrumentality of the Poles themselves--a process made the
easier by the normal antagonism between the diet and the king, an
elective, not a hereditary ruler.
Augustus endeavoured, quite fruitlessly, to negotiate with Charles on
his own account, while the diet was much more zealous to curtail his
powers than to resist the Swedish monarch, and was determined that, at
any price, the Saxon troops should leave Poland. Intrigues were going on
on all sides. Presently Charles set his forces in motion. When Augustus
learned that there was to be no peace till Poland had a new king, he
resolved to fight. Charles's star did not desert him. He won a complete
victory. Pressing in pursuit of Augustus, he captured Cracow, but his
advance was delayed for some weeks by a broken leg; and in the interval
there was a considerable rally to the support of Augustus. But the
moment Charles could again move, he routed the enemy at Pultusk. The
terror of his invincibility was universal. Success followed upon
success. The anti-Saxon party in the diet succeeded in declaring the
throne vacant. Charles might certainly have claimed the crown for
himself, but chose instead to maintain the title of the Sobieski
princes. The kidnapping of James Sobieski, however, caused Charles to
insist on the election of Stanislaus Lekzinsky.
_II.--From Triumph to Disaster_
Charles left Warsaw to complete the subjugation of Poland, leaving the
new king in the capital. Stanislaus and his court were put to sudden
flight by the appearance of Augustus with 20,000 men. Warsaw fell at
once; but when Charles turned on the Saxon army, only the wonderful
skill of Schulembourg saved it from destruction. Augustus withdrew to
Saxony, and began repairing the fortifications of Dresden.
By this time, wherever the Swedes appeared, they were confident of
victory if they were but twenty to a hundred. Charles had made nothing
for himself out of his victories, but all his enemies were
scattered--except Peter, who had been sedulously training his people in
the military arts. On August 21, 1704, Peter captured Narva. Now he made
a new alliance with Augustus. Seventy thousand Russians were soon
ravaging Polish territory. Within two months, Charles and Stanislaus had
cut them up in detail, or driven them over the border. Schulembourg
crossed the Oder, but his battalions were shattered at Frawenstad by
Reuschild. On September 1, 1706, Charles himself was invading Saxony.
The invading troops were held under an iron discipline; no violence was
permitted. In effect, Augustus had lost both his kingdom and his
electorate. His prayers for peace were met by the demand for formal and
permanent resignation of the Polish crown, repudiation of the treaties
with Russia, restoration of the Sobieskies, and the surrender of Patkul,
a Livonian "rebel" who was now Tsar Peter's plenipotentiary at Dresden.
Augustus accepted, at Altranstad, the terms offered by Charles. Patkul
was broken on the wheel; Peter determined on vengeance; again the
Russians overran Lithuania, but retired before Stanislaus.
In September 1707, Charles left Saxony at the head of 43,000 men,
enriched with the spoils of Poland and Saxony. Another 20,000 met him in
Poland; 15,000 more were ready in Finland. He had no doubts of his power
to dethrone the Tsar. In January 1708 he was on the march for Grodow.
Peter retreated before him, and in June was entrenched beyond the
Beresina. Driven thence by a flank movement, the Russians engaged
Charles at Hollosin, where he gained one of his most brilliant
victories. Retreat and pursuit continued towards Moscow.
Charles now pushed on towards the Ukraine, where he was secretly in
treaty with the governor, Mazeppa. But when he reached the Ukraine,
Mazeppa joined him not as an ally, but as a fugitive. Meanwhile,
Lewenhaupt, marching to effect a junction with him, was intercepted by
Peter with thrice his force, and finally cut his way through to Charles
with only 5,000 men.
So severe was the winter that both Peter and Charles, contrary to their
custom, agreed to a suspension of arms. Isolated as he was, towards the
end of May, Charles laid siege to Pultawa, the capture of which would
have opened the way to Moscow. Thither Peter marched against him, while
Charles himself was unable to move owing to a serious wound in the foot,
endured with heroic fortitude. On July 8, the decisive battle was
fought. The victory lay with the Russians, and Charles was forced to fly
for his life. His best officers were prisoners. A column under
Lewenhaupt succeeded in joining the king, now prostrated by his wound
and by fever. At the Dnieper, Charles was carried over in a boat; the
force, overtaken by the Russians, was compelled to capitulate. Peter
treated the captured Swedish generals with distinction. Charles himself
escaped to Bender, in Turkey.
Virtually a captive in the Turkish dominions, Charles conceived the
project of persuading the sultan to attack Russia. At the outset, the
grand vizier, Chourlouly Ali, favoured his ideas; but Peter, by lavish
and judicious bribery, soon won him over. The grand vizier, however, was
overthrown by a palace intrigue, and was replaced by an incorruptible
successor, Numa Chourgourly, who was equally determined to treat the
fugitive king in becoming fashion and to decline to make war on the
Tsar.
Meanwhile, Charles's enemies were taking advantage of his enforced
absence. Peter again overran Livonia. Augustus repudiated the treaty of
Altranstad, and recovered the Polish crown. The King of Denmark
repudiated the treaty of Travendal, and invaded Sweden, but his troops
were totally routed by the raw levies of the Swedish militia at
Helsimburg.
The Vizier Chourgourly, being too honourable for his post, was displaced
by Baltaji Mehemet, who took up the schemes of Charles. War was declared
against Russia. The Prince of Moldavia, Cantemir, supported Peter. The
Turks seemed doomed to destruction; but first the advancing Tsar found
himself deserted by the Moldavians, and allowed himself to be hemmed in
by greatly superior forces on the Pruth. With Peter himself and his army
entirely at his mercy, Baltaji Mehemet--to the furious indignation of
Charles--was content to extort a treaty advantageous to Turkey but
useless to the Swede; and Peter was allowed to retire with the honours
of war.
_III.--The Meteor Quenched_
The great desire of the Porte was, in fact, to get rid of its
inconvenient guest; to dispatch him to his own dominions in safety with
an escort to defend him, but no army for aggression. Charles conceived
that the sultan was pledged to give him an army. The downfall of the
vizier--owing to the sultan's wrath on learning that Peter was not
carrying out the pledges of the Pruth treaty--did not help matters; for
the favourite, Ali Cournourgi, now intended Russia to aid his own
ambitions, and the favourite controlled the new vizier. Within six
months of Pruth, war had been declared and a fresh peace again patched
up, Peter promising to withdraw all his forces from Poland, and the
Turks to eject Charles.
But Charles was determined not to budge. He demanded as a preliminary
half a million to pay his debts. A larger sum was provided; still he
would not move. The sultan felt that he had now discharged all that the
laws of hospitality could possibly demand. Threats only made the king
more obstinate. His supplies were cut off and his guards withdrawn,
except his own 300 Swedes; whereupon Charles fortified the house he had
built himself. All efforts to bring him to reason were of no avail. A
force of Janissaries was despatched to cut the Swedes to pieces; but the
men listened to Baron Grothusen's appeal for a delay of three days, and
flatly refused to attack. But when they sent Charles a deputation of
veterans, he refused to see them, and sent them an insulting message.
They returned to their quarters, now resolved to obey the pasha.
The 300 Swedes could do nothing but surrender; yet Charles, with twenty
companions, held his house, defended it with a valour and temporary
success which were almost miraculous, and were only overwhelmed by
numbers when they sallied forth and charged the Turkish army with swords
and pistols. Once captured, the king displayed a calm as imperturbable
as his rage before had been tempestuous.
Charles was now conveyed to the neighbourhood of Adrianople, where he
was joined by another royal prisoner--Stanislaus, who had attempted to
enter Turkey in disguise in order to see him, but had been discovered
and arrested. Charles was allowed to remain at Demotica. Here he abode
for ten months, feigning illness; both he and his little court being
obliged to live frugally and practically without attendants, the
chancellor, Mullern, being the cook of the establishment.
The hopes which Charles obstinately clung to, of Turkish support, were
finally destroyed when Cournourgi at last became grand vizier. His
sister Ulrica warned him that the council of regency at Stockholm would
make peace with Russia and Denmark. At length he demanded to be allowed
to depart. In October 1714 he set out in disguise for the frontier, and
having reached Stralsund on November 21, not having rested in a bed for
sixteen days, on the same day he was already issuing from Stralsund
instructions for the vigorous prosecution of the war in every direction.
But meanwhile the northern powers, without exception, had been making
partition of all the cis-Baltic territories of the Swedish crown. Tsar
Peter, master of the Baltic, held that ascendancy which had once
belonged to Charles. But the hopes of Sweden revived with the knowledge
that the king had reappeared at Stralsund.
Even Charles could not make head against the hosts of his foes.
Misfortune pursued him now, as successes had once crowded upon him.
Before long he was himself practically cooped up in Stralsund, while the
enemies' ships controlled the Baltic. In October, Stralsund was
resolutely besieged. His attempt to hold the commanding island of Rugen
failed after a desperate battle. The besiegers forced their way into
Stralsund itself. Exactly two months after the trenches had been opened
against Stralsund, Charles slipped out to sea--the ice in the harbour
had first to be broken up--ran the gauntlet of the enemy's forts and
fleets, and reached the Swedish coast at Carlscrona.
Charles now subjected his people to a merciless taxation in order to
raise troops and a navy. Suddenly, at the moment when all the powers at
once seemed on the point of descending on Sweden, Charles flung himself
upon Norway, at that time subject to Denmark. This was in accordance
with a vast design proposed by his minister, Gortz, in which Charles was
to be leagued with his old enemy Peter, and with Spain, primarily
against England, Hanover, and Augustus of Poland and Saxony. Gortz's
designs became known to the regent Orleans; he was arrested in Holland,
but promptly released.
Gortz, released, continued to work out his intriguing policy with
increased determination. Affairs seemed to be progressing favourably.
Charles, who had been obliged to fall back from Norway, again invaded
that country, and laid siege to Fredericshall. Here he was inspecting a
part of the siege works, when his career was brought to a sudden close
by a cannon shot. So finished, at thirty-six, the one king who never
displayed a single weakness, but in whom the heroic virtues were so
exaggerated as to be no less dangerous than the vices with which they
are contrasted.
* * * * *
HENRY MILMAN, D.D.
History of Latin Christianity
The "History of Latin Christianity, to the Pontificate of
Nicholas V.," which is here presented, was published in
1854-56. It covers the religious or ecclesiastical history of
Western Europe from the fall of paganism to the pontificate of
Nicholas V., a period of eleven centuries, corresponding
practically with what are commonly called the Middle Ages, and
is written from the point of view of a large-minded Anglican
who is not seeking to maintain any thesis, but simply to set
forth a veracious account of an important phase of history.
(Milman, see vol. xi, p. 68.)
_I.--Development of the Church of Rome_
For ten centuries after the extinction of paganism, Latin Christianity
was the religion of Western Europe. It became gradually a monarchy, with
all the power of a concentrated dominion. The clergy formed a second
universal magistracy, exercising always equal, asserting, and for a long
time possessing, superior power to the civil government. Western
monasticism rent from the world the most powerful minds, and having
trained them by its stern discipline, sent them back to rule the world.
Its characteristic was adherence to legal form; strong assertion of, and
severe subordination to, authority. It maintained its dominion unshaken
till, at the Reformation, Teutonic Christianity asserted its
independence.
The Church of Rome was at first, so to speak, a Greek religious colony;
its language, organisation, scriptures, liturgy, were Greek. It was from
Africa, Tertullian, and Cyprian that Latin Christianity arose. As the
Church of the capital--before Constantinople--the Roman Church
necessarily acquired predominance; but no pope appears among the
distinguished "Fathers" of the Church until Leo.
The division between Greek and Latin Christianity developed with the
division between the Eastern and the Western Empire; Rome gained an
increased authority by her resolute support of Athanasius in the Arian
controversy.
The first period closes with Pope Damasus and his two successors. The
Christian bishop has become important enough for his election to count
in profane history. Paganism is writhing in death pangs; Christianity is
growing haughty and wanton in its triumph.
Innocent I., at the opening of the fifth century, seems the first pope
who grasped the conception of Rome's universal ecclesiastical dominion.
The capture of Rome by Alaric ended the city's claims to temporal
supremacy; it confirmed the spiritual ascendancy of her bishop
throughout the West.
To this period, the time of Augustine and the Pelagian controversy,
belongs the establishment in Western Christendom of the doctrine of
predestination, and that of the inherent evil of matter which is at the
root of asceticism and monasticism. It was a few years later that the
Nestorian controversy had the effect of giving fixity to that conception
of the "Mother of God" which is held by Roman Catholics.
The pontificate of Leo is an epoch in the history of Christianity. He
had utter faith in himself and in his office, and asserted his authority
uncompromisingly. The Metropolitan of Constantinople was becoming a
helpless instrument in the hands of the Byzantine emperor; the Bishop of
Rome was becoming an independent potentate. He took an authoritative and
decisive part in the controversy formally ended at the Council of
Chalcedon; it was he who stayed the advance of Attila. Leo and his
predecessor, Innocent, laid the foundations of the spiritual monarchy of
the West.
In the latter half of the fifth century, the disintegration of the
Western Empire by the hosts of Teutonic invaders was being completed.
These races assimilated certain aspects of Christian morals and assumed
Christianity without assimilating the intellectual subtleties of the
Eastern Church, and for the most part in consequence adopted the Arian
form. But when the Frankish horde descended, Clovis accepted the
orthodox theology, thereby in effect giving it permanence and
obliterating Arianism in the West. Theodoric, the Gothic king of Italy,
in nominal subjection to the emperor, was the last effective upholder of
toleration for his own Arian creed. Almost simultaneous with his death
was the accession of Justinian to the empire. The re-establishment of
effective imperial sway in Italy reduced the papacy to a subordinate
position. The recovery was the work of Gregory I., the Great; but papal
opposition to Gothic or Lombard dominion in Italy destroyed the prospect
of political unification for the peninsula.
Western monasticism had been greatly extended and organised by Benedict
of Nursia and his rule--comprised in silence, humility, and obedience.
Monasticism became possessed of the papal chair in the person of Gregory
the Great. Of noble descent and of great wealth, which he devoted to
religious uses as soon as he became master of it, he had also the
characteristics which were held to denote the highest holiness. In
austerity, devotion, and imaginative superstition, he, whose known
virtue and capacity caused him to be forced into the papal chair,
remained a monk to the end of his days.
But he became at once an exceedingly vigorous man of affairs. He
reorganised the Roman liturgy; he converted the Lombards and Saxons. And
he proved himself virtual sovereign of Rome. His administration was
admirable. He exercised his disciplinary authority without fear or
favour. And his rule marks the epoch at which all that we regard as
specially characteristic of mediæval Christianity--its ethics, its
asceticism, its sacerdotalism, and its superstitions--had reached its
lasting shape.
Gregory the Great had not long passed away when there arose in the East
that new religion which was to shake the world, and to bring East and
West once more into a prolonged conflict. Mohammedanism, born in Arabia,
hurled itself first against Asia, then swept North Africa. By the end of
the seventh century it was threatening the Byzantine Empire on one side
of Europe, and the Gothic dominion in Spain on the other. On the other
hand, in the same period, Latin Christianity had decisively taken
possession of England, driving back that Celtic or Irish Christianity
which had been beforehand with it in making entry to the North.
Similarly, it was the Irish missionaries who began the conversion of the
outer Teutonic barbarians; but the work was carried out by the Saxon
Winfrid (Boniface) of the Latin Church.
The popes, however, during this century between Gregory I. and Gregory
II. again sank into a position of subordination to the imperial power.
Under the second Gregory, the papacy reasserted itself in resistance to
the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, the "Iconoclast," the "Image-breaker," who
strove to impose on Christendom his own zeal against images. To Leo,
images meant image-worship. To his opponents, images were useful
symbols. Rome defied the emperor's attempt to claim spiritual
dictatorship. East and West were rent in twain at the moment when Islam
was assaulting both West and East. Leo rolled back the advancing torrent
before Constantinople, as Charles Martel rolled it back almost
simultaneously in the great battle of Tours; but the Empire and the
West, Byzantium and Rome, never presented a united front to the Moslem.
The Iconoclastic controversy threw Italy against its will into the hands
of the image-worshipping Lombards; and hate of Lombard ascendancy turned
the eyes of Gregory's successors to the Franks, to Charles Martel; to
Pepin, who obtained from Pope Stephen sanction for his seizure of the
Frankish crown, and in return repressed the Lombards; and finally to
Charles the Great, otherwise Charlemagne, who on the last Christmas Day
of the eighth century was crowned (Western) emperor and successor of the
Caesars.
_II.--The Western Empire and Theocracy_
Charlemagne, the first emperor of the restored or Holy Roman Empire, by
his conquests brought into a single dominion practically all Western
Europe from the Elbe and the Danube to the Ebro. He stood the champion
and the head of Western Christendom, palpably the master, and not even
in theory the subordinate, of the Pontiff from whom he received the
imperial crown. But he established ecclesiastics as a territorial
nobility, counteracting the feudal nobility; and when the mighty emperor
was gone, and the unity of what was nominally one empire passed away,
this ecclesiastical nobility became an instrument for the elevation of
the spiritual above the temporal head of Christendom. The change was
already taking place under his son Louis the Pious, whose character
facilitated it.
The disintegration of the empire was followed by a hideous degradation
of the papacy. But the Saxon line of emperors, the Ottos, sprung from
Henry the Fowler, once more revived the empire; the third of them
established a worthy pope in Silvester II. But both emperor and pope
died just after the eleventh century opened. Elections of popes and
anti-popes continued to be accompanied by the gravest scandals, until
the Emperor Henry III. (Franconian dynasty) set a succession of Germans
on the papal throne.
The high character of the pontificate was revived in the persons of Leo
IX. and Victor II. (Gebhard of Eichstadt); many abuses were put down or
at least checked with a firm hand. But Henry's death weakened the
empire, and Stephen IX. added to the rigid enforcement of orthodoxy more
peremptory claims for the supremacy of the Holy See. His successor,
Nicholas II., strengthened the position as against the empire by
securing the support of the fleshly arm--the Normans. His election was
an assertion of the right of the cardinals to make their own choice.
Alexander II. was chosen in disregard of the Germans and the empire, and
the Germans chose an anti-pope. At the back of the Italian papal party
was the great Hildebrand. In 1073 Hildebrand himself ascended the papal
throne as Gregory VII. With Hildebrand, the great struggle for supremacy
between the empire and the papacy was decisively opened.
Gregory's aim was to establish a theocracy through an organised dominant
priesthood separated from the world, but no less powerful than the
secular forces; with the pope, God's mouthpiece, and vice-regent, at its
head. The temporal powers were to be instruments in his hand, subject to
his supreme authority. Clerical celibacy acquired a political value; the
clergy would concentrate on the glory of the Church those ambitions
which made laymen seek to aggrandise their families.
The collision between Rome and the emperor came quickly. The victory at
the outset fell to the pope, and Henry IV. was compelled to humble
himself and entreat pardon as a penitent at Canossa. Superficially, the
tables were turned later; when Gregory died, Henry was ostensibly
victor.
But Gregory's successor, Urban, as resolute and more subtle, retrieved
what had only been a check. The Crusades, essentially of ecclesiastical
inspiration, were given their great impulse by him; they were a movement
of Christendom against the Paynim, of the Church against Islam; they
centred in the pope, not the emperor, and they made the pope, not the
emperor, conspicuously the head of Christendom.
The twelfth century was the age of the Crusades, of Anselm and Abelard,
of Bernard of Clairvaux, and Arnold of Brescia. It saw the settlement of
the question of investitures, and in England the struggle between Henry
II. and Becket, in which the murder of the archbishop gave him the
victory. It saw a new enthusiasm of monasticism, not originated by, but
centring in, the person of Bernard, a more conspicuous and a more
authoritative figure than any pope of the time. To him was due the
suppression of the intellectual movement from within against the
authority of the Church, connected with Abelard's name.
Arnold of Brescia's movement was orthodox, but, would have transformed
the Church from a monarchial into a republican organisation, and
demanded that the clergy should devote themselves to apostolical and
pastoral functions with corresponding habits of life. He was a
forerunner of the school of reformers which culminated in Zwingli.
In the middle of the century the one English pope, Hadrian IV., was a
courageous and capable occupant of the papal throne, and upheld its
dignity against Frederick Barbarossa; though he could not maintain the
claim that the empire was held as a fief of the papacy. But the strife
between the spiritual and temporal powers issued on his death in a
double election, and an imperial anti-pope divided the allegiance of
Christendom with Alexander III. It was not till after Frederick had been
well beaten by the Lombard League at Legnano that emperor and pope were
reconciled, and the reconciliation was the pope's victory.
_III.--Triumph and Decline of the Papacy_
Innocent III., mightiest of all popes, was elected in 1198. He made the
papacy what it remained for a hundred years, the greatest power in
Christendom. The future Emperor Frederick II. was a child entrusted to
Innocent's guardianship. The pope began by making himself virtually
sovereign of Italy and Sicily, overthrowing the German baronage therein.
A contest for the imperial throne enabled the pope to assume the right
of arbitration. Germany repudiated his right. Innocent was saved from
the menace of defeat by the assassination of the opposition emperor. But
the successful Otho proved at once a danger.
Germany called young Frederick to the throne, and now Innocent sided
with Germany; but he did not live to see the death of Otho and the
establishment of the Hohenstaufen. More decisive was his intervention
elsewhere. Both France and England were laid under interdicts on account
of the misdoings of Philip Augustus and John; both kings were forced to
submission. John received back his kingdom as a papal fief. But Langton,
whom Innocent had made archbishop, guided the barons in their continued
resistance to the king, whose submission made him Rome's most cherished
son. England and the English clergy held to their independence. Pedro of
Aragon voluntarily received his crown from the pope. In every one of the
lesser kingdoms of Europe, Innocent asserted his authority.
Innocent's efforts for a fresh crusade begot not the overthrow of the
Saracen, but the substitution of a Latin kingdom under the Roman
obedience for the Greek empire of Byzantium. In effect it gave Venice
her Mediterranean supremacy. The great pope was not more zealous against
Islam than against the heterogeneous sects which were revolting against
sacerdotalism; whereof the horrors of the crusade against the Albigenses
are the painful witness.
Not the least momentous event in the rule of this mightiest of the popes
was his authorisation of the two orders of mendicant friars, the
disciples of St. Dominic, and of St. Francis of Assisi, with their vows
of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and their principle of human
brotherhood. And in both cases Innocent's consent was given with
reluctance.
It may be said that Frederick II. was at war with the papacy until his
death in the reign of Innocent III.'s fourth successor, Innocent IV.
With Honorius the emperor's relations were at first friendly; both were
honestly anxious to take a crusade in hand. The two were brought no
further than the verge of a serious breach about Frederick's exercise of
authority over rebellious ecclesiastics. But Gregory IX., though an
octogenarian, was recognised as of transcendent ability and indomitable
resolution; and his will clashed with that of the young emperor, a
brilliant prince, born some centuries too early.
Frederick was pledged to a crusade; Gregory demanded that the expedition
should sail. Frederick was quite warranted in saying that it was not
ready; and through no fault of his. Gregory excommunicated him, and
demanded his submission before the sentence should be removed. Frederick
did not submit, but when he sailed it was without the papal support.
Frederick endeavoured to proceed by treaty; it was a shock to Moslems
and to Christendom alike. The horrified Gregory summoned every
disaffected feudatory of the empire in effect to disown the emperor. But
Frederick's arms seemed more likely to prosper. Christendom turned
against the pope in the quarrel. Christendom would not go crusading
against an emperor who had restored the kingdom of Jerusalem. The two
came to terms. Gregory turned his attention to becoming the Justinian of
the Church.
But a rebellion against Frederick took shape practically as a renewal of
the papal-imperial contest. Gregory prepared a league; then once more he
launched his ban. Europe was amazed by a sort of war of proclamations.
Nothing perhaps served the pope better now than the agency of the
mendicant orders. The military triumph of Frederick, however, seemed
already assured when Gregory died. Two years later, Innocent IV. was
pope. After hollow overtures, Innocent fled to Lyons, and there launched
invectives against Frederick and appeals to Christendom.
Frederick, by attaching, not the papacy but the clergy, alienated much
support. Misfortunes gathered around him. His death ensured Innocent's
supremacy. Soon the only legitimate heir of the Hohenstaufen was an
infant, Conradin; and Conradin's future depended on his able but
illegitimate uncle, Manfred. But Innocent did not live long to enjoy his
victory; his arrogance and rapacity brought no honour to the papacy.
English Grostête of Lincoln, on whom fell Stephen Langton's mantle, is
the noblest ecclesiastical figure of the time.
For some years the imperial throne remained vacant; the matter of first
importance to the pontiffs--Alexander, Urban, Clement--was that
Conradin, as he grew to manhood, should not be elected. Manfred became
king of South Italy, with Sicily; but with no legal title. Urban, a
Frenchman, agreed with Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louis, that he
should have the crown, on terms. Manfred fell in battle against him at
Beneventum, and with him all real chance of a Hohenstaufen recovery. Not
three years after, young Conradin, in a desperate venture after his
legitimate rights, was captured and put to death by Charles of Anjou.
A temporary pacification of Western Christendom was the work of Gregory
X.; his aim was a great crusade. At last an emperor was elected, Rudolph
of Hapsburg. But Gregory died. Popes followed each other and died in
swift succession. Presently, on the abdication of the hermit Celestine,
Boniface VIII. was chosen pope. His bull, "Clericis laicos," forbidding
taxation of the clergy by the temporal authority, brought him into
direct hostility with Philip the Fair of France, and though the quarrel
was temporarily adjusted, the strife soon broke out again. The bulls,
"Unam Sanctam" and "Ausculta fili," were answered by a formal
arraignment of Boniface in the States-General of France, followed by the
seizure of the pope's own person by Philip's Italian partisans.
_IV.--Captivity, Seclusion, and Revival_
The successor of Boniface was Benedict IX. He acted with dignity and
restraint, but he lived only two years. After long delays, the cardinals
elected the Archbishop of Bordeaux, a subject of the King of England.
But before he became Clement V. he had made his pact with the King of
France. He was crowned, not in Italy, but at Lyons, and took up his
residence at Avignon, a papal fief in Provence, on the French borders.
For seventy years the popes at Avignon were practically the servants of
the King of France.
At the very outset, Clement was compelled to lend his countenance to the
suppression of the Knights Templars by the temporal power. Philip forced
the pope and the Consistory to listen to an appalling and incredible
arraignment of the dead Boniface; then he was rewarded for abandoning
the persecution of his enemy's memory by abject adulation: the pope had
been spared from publicly condemning his predecessor.
John XXII. was not, in the same sense, a tool of the last monarchs of
the old House of Capet, of which, during his rule, a younger branch
succeeded in the person of Philip of Valois. John was at constant feud
with the Emperor Louis of Bavaria, and also, within the ecclesiastical
pale, with the Franciscan Order. Louis of Bavaria died during the
pontificate of Clement VI., and Charles of Bohemia, already emperor in
the eyes of the pope, was accepted by Germany. He virtually abdicated
the imperial claim to rule in Italy; but by his "Golden Bull" he
terminated the old source of quarrel, the question of the authority by
which emperors were elected. The "Babylonish captivity" ended when
Gregory XI. left Avignon to die in Italy; it was to be replaced by the
Great Schism.
For thirty-eight years rival popes, French and Italian, claimed the
supremacy of the Church. The schism was ended by the Council of
Constance; Latin Christianity may be said to have reached its
culminating point under Nicholas V., during whose pontificate the Turks
captured Constantinople.
* * * * *
LEOPOLD VON RANKE
History of the Popes
Leopold von Ranke was born at Wiehe, on December 21, 1795, and
died on May 23, 1886. He became Professor of History at Berlin
at the age of twenty-nine; and his life was passed in
researches, the fruits of which he gave to the world in an
invaluable series of historical works. The earlier of these
were concerned mainly with the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries--in English history generally called the Tudor and
Stuart periods--based on examinations of the archives of
Vienna and Rome, Venice and Florence, as well as of Berlin. In
later years, when he had passed seventy, he travelled more
freely outside of his special period. The "History of the
Popes in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries" here
presented was published in 1834-7. The English translation by
Sarah Austin (1845) was the subject of review in one of
Macaulay's famous essays. It is mainly concerned with the
period, not of the Reformation itself, but of the century and
a quarter following--roughly from 1535 to 1760, the period
during which the religious antagonisms born of the Reformation
were primary factors in all European complications.
_I.--The Papacy at the Reformation_
The papacy was intimately allied with the Roman Empire, with the empire
of Charlemagne, and with the German or Holy Roman Empire revived by
Otto. In this last the ecclesiastical element was of paramount
importance, but the emperor was the supreme authority. From that
authority Gregory VII. resolved to free the pontificate, through the
claim that no appointment by a layman to ecclesiastical office was
valid; while the pope stood forth as universal bishop, a crowned
high-priest. To this supremacy the French first offered effectual
resistance, issuing in the captivity of Avignon. Germany followed suit,
and the schism of the church was closed by the secular princes at
Constance and Basle. The papacy was restored in form, but not to its old
supremacy.
The pontificates of Sixtus IV. and the egregious Alexander VI. were
followed by the militant Julius II., who aimed, with some success, at
making the pope a secular territorial potentate. But the intellectual
movement challenged the papal claim, the direct challenge emanating from
Germany and Luther. But this was at the moment when the empire was
joined with Spain under Charles V. The Diet of Worms pointed to an
accord between emperor and pope, when Leo X. died unexpectedly. His
successor, Adrian, a Netherlander and an admirable man, sought vainly to
inaugurate reform of the Church from within, but in brief time made way
for Clement VII.
Hitherto, the new pope's interests had all been on the Spanish side, at
least as against France; everything had been increasing the Spanish
power in Italy, but Clement aimed at freedom from foreign domination.
The discovery of his designs brought about the Decree of Spires, which
gave Protestantism a legal recognition in the empire, and also the
capture and sack of Rome by Frundsberg's soldiery. Charles's ascendancy
in Italy and over the papacy was secured. Clement, now almost at his
beck, would have persuaded him to apply coercion to the German
Protestants; but this did not suit the emperor, whose solution for
existing difficulties was the summoning of a general council, which
Clement was quite determined to evade. Moreover, matters were made worse
for the papacy when England broke away from the papal obedience over the
affair of Katharine of Aragon.
Paul III., Clement's immediate successor, began with an effort after
regeneration by appointing several cardinals of the Contarini type,
associates of the Oratory of Divine Love, many of whom stood, in part at
least, on common ground with avowed Protestants, notably on the dogma of
justification by faith. He appears seriously to have desired a
reconciliation with the Protestants; and matters looked promising when a
conference was held at Ratisbon, where Contarini himself represented the
pope.
Terms of union were even agreed on, but, being referred to Luther on one
side and Paul on the other, were rejected by both, after which there was
no hope of the cleavage being bridged. The regeneration of the Church
would have to be from within.
_II.--Sixteenth Century Popes_
The interest of this period lies mainly in the antagonism between the
imperative demand for internal reform of the Church and the policy which
had become ingrained in the heads of the Church. For the popes, these
political aspirations stood first and reform second. Alexander Farnese
(Paul III.) was pope from 1534 to 1549. He was already sixty-seven when
he succeeded Clement. Policy and enlightenment combined at first to make
him advance Contarini and his allies, and to hope for reconciliation
with the Protestants. Policy turned him against acceptance of the
Ratisbon proposals, as making Germany too united. Then he urged the
emperor against the Protestants, but when the success of Charles was too
complete he was ill-pleased. He withdrew the Council from Trent to
Bologna, to remove it from imperial influences which threatened the
pope's personal supremacy. So far as he was concerned, reformation had
dropped into the background.
Julius III. was of no account; Marcellus, an excellent and earnest man,
might have done much had he not died in three weeks. His election, and
that of his successor, Caraffa, as Paul IV., both pointed to a real
intention of reform. Caraffa had all his life been a passionate advocate
of moral reform, but even he was swept away by the political conditions
and his hatred of Spain, which was an obsession. Professed detestation
of Spain was a sure way to his favour, which, his kinsfolk recognising,
they won his confidence only to their own ultimate destruction when he
discovered that he had been deceived. Half his reign was worse than
wasted in a futile contest with Spain; when it was done, he turned
rigorously to energetic disciplinary reforms, but death stayed his hand.
A very different man was Pius IV., the pontiff under whom the Council of
Trent was brought to a close. Far from rigid himself, he still could
not, if he would, have altogether deserted the paths of reform. But most
conspicuously he was inaugurator of a new policy, not asserting claims
to supremacy, but seeking to induce the Catholic powers to work hand in
hand with the papacy--Spain and the German Empire being now parted under
the two branches of the House of Hapsburg. In this policy he was most
ably assisted by the diplomatic tact of Cardinal Moroni, who succeeded
in bringing France, Spain, and the empire into a general acceptance of
the positions finally laid down by the Council of Trent, whereby the
pope's ecclesiastical authority was not impaired, but rather
strengthened.
On his death, he was succeeded by one of the more rigid school, Pius V.
(1563-1572). This pope continued to maintain the monastic austerity of
his own life; his personal virtue and piety were admirable; but, being
incapable of conceiving that anything could be right except on the exact
lines of his own practice, he was both extremely severe and extremely
intolerant; especially he was, in harmony with Philip of Spain, a
determined persecutor.
But to his idealism was largely due that league which, directed against
the Turk, issued in one of the most memorable checks to the Ottoman
arms, the battle of Lepanto.
Gregory XIII. succeeded him immediately before the massacre of St.
Bartholomew. It was rather the pressure of his surroundings than his
personal character that gave his pontificate a spiritual aspect. An
honourable care in the appointment of bishops and for ecclesiastical
education were its marks on this side. He introduced the Gregorian
Calendar. He was a zealous promoter of war, open and covert, with
Protestantism, especially with Elizabeth; his financial arrangements
were effective and ingenious. But he failed to obtain control over the
robber bands which infested the Papal States.
Their suppression was carried out with unexampled severity by Sixtus V.
Sixtus was learned and prudent, and of remarkable self-control; he is
also charged with being crafty and malignant. Not very accurately, he is
commonly regarded as the author of much which was actually due to his
predecessors; but his administration is very remarkable. Rigorous to the
verge of cruelty in the enforcement of his laws, they were themselves
commonly mild and conciliatory. He was energetic in encouraging
agriculture and manufactures. Nepotism, the old ingrained vice of the
popes, had been practised by none of his three immediate predecessors,
though he is often credited with its abolition. His financial methods
were successful immediately, but really accumulated burdens which became
portentously heavy.
The treatment of public buildings in Rome by Sixtus V., his destruction
of antiquities there, and his curious attempts to convert some of the
latter into Christian monuments, mark the change from the semi-paganism
of the times of Leo X. Similarly, the ecclesiastical spirit of the time
opposed free inquiry. Giordano Bruno was burnt. The same movement is
visible in the change from Ariosto to Tasso. Religion had resumed her
empire. The quite excellent side of these changes is displayed in such
beautiful characters as Cardinal Borromeo and Filippo Neri.
_III.--The Counter Reformation: First Stage_
Ever since the Council of Trent closed in 1563, the Church had been
determined on making a re-conquest of the Protestant portion of
Christendom. In the Spanish and Italian peninsulas, Protestantism never
obtained a footing; everywhere else it had established itself in one of
the two forms into which it was divided--the Lutheran and the
Calvinistic. In Germany it greatly predominated among the populations,
mainly in the Lutheran form. In France, where Catholicism predominated,
the Huguenots were Calvinist. Calvinism prevailed throughout
Scandinavia, in the Northern Netherlands, in Scotland, and--differently
arrayed--in England.
In Germany, the Augsburg declaration, which made the religion of each
prince the religion also of his dominions, the arrangement was
favourable to a Catholic recovery; since princes were more likely to be
drawn back to the fold than populations, as happened notably in the case
of Albert of Bavaria, who re-imposed Catholicism on a country whose
sympathies were Protestant. In Germany, also, much was done by the wide
establishment of Jesuit schools, whither the excellence of the education
attracted Protestants as well as Catholics. The great ecclesiastical
principalities were also practically secured for Catholicism.
The Netherlands were under the dominion of Philip of Spain, the most
rigorous supporter of orthodoxy, who gave the Inquisition free play. His
severities induced revolt, which Alva was sent to suppress, acting
avowedly by terrorist methods. In France the Huguenots had received
legal recognition, and were headed by a powerful section of the
nobility; the Catholic section, with which Paris in particular was
entirely in sympathy, were dominant, but not at all securely so--a state
of rivalry which culminated in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, while
Alva was in the Netherlands.
Nevertheless, these events stirred the Protestants both in France and in
the Netherlands to a renewed and desperate resistance. On the other
hand, some of the German Catholic princes displayed a degree of
tolerance which permitted extensions of Protestantism within their
realms. In England, the government was uncompromisingly Protestant. Then
the pope and Philip tried intervention by fostering rebellion in
Catholic Ireland and by the Jesuit mission of Parsons and Campion in
England, but the only effect was to make the Protestantism of the
government the more implacable.
A change in Philip's methods in the Netherlands separated the northern
Protestant provinces from the Catholic Walloons. The assassination of
William of Orange decided the rulers of some of the northern German
states who had been in two minds. The accession of Rudolf II. of Austria
had a decisive effect in South Germany. When the failure of the house of
Valois made the Huguenot Henry of Navarre heir to the French throne, the
Catholic League, supported by the pope, determined to prevent his
succession, while the reigning king, Henry III., Catholic though he was,
was bitterly opposed to the Guises.
The immediate effect was the compulsory submission of the king to the
Guises and the League, followed by the assassination, first of Guise and
then of the king, at the moment when the Catholic aggression had taken
shape in the Spanish Armada, and received a check more overwhelming than
Philip was ready to recognise.
In certain fundamental points, the papacy was now re-asserting
Hildebrandine claims--the right of controlling succession to temporal
thrones. It is an error to regard it as essentially a supporter of
monarchy; it was the accident of the position which commonly brought it
into alliance with monarchies. In the Netherlands, it was by its support
of the constitutional demands of the Walloon nobles that the south was
saved for Catholicism. It asserted the duty of peoples to refuse
allegiance to princes who departed from Catholicism, and it was
Protestant monarchism which replied by asserting the divine right of
kings; the Jesuits actually derived the power of the princes from the
people. Thus a separate Catholic party arose, which, maintaining the
divine appointment of princes, restricted the intervention of the church
to spiritual affairs, and in France supported Navarre's claim to the
throne; while, on the other hand, Philip and the Spaniards, strongly
interested in preventing his succession, were ready to maintain, even
against a fluctuating pope, that heresy was a permanent bar to
succession, not to be removed even by recantation.
Sixtus V. found himself unable to decide. The rapid demise of three
popes in succession after him (1590-1591) led to the election of Clement
VIII. in January 1592, a man of ability and piety. He mistrusted the
genuineness of the offer which Henry had for some time been making of
returning to the bosom of the church, and was not inclined to alienate
Spain. There was danger that the French Catholics would maintain their
point, and even sever themselves from Rome. The acceptance of Henry
would once more establish France as a Catholic power, and relieve the
papacy of its dependence on Spain. At the end of 1595 Clement resolved
to receive Henry into the church, and he reaped the fruits in the
support which Henry promptly gave him in his claim to resume Ferrara
into the Papal States. In his latter years, he and his right-hand man
and kinsman, Cardinal Aldobrandini, found themselves relying on French
support to counteract the Spanish influences which were now opposed to
Clement's own sway.
On Clement's death another four weeks' papacy intervened before the
election of Paul V., a rigorous legalist who cared neither for Spain nor
France, but for whatever he regarded as the rights of the Church, as to
which he had most exaggerated ideas. These very soon brought him in
conflict with Venice, a republic which firmly maintained the supremacy
of the authority of the State, rejecting the secular authority of the
Church. To the pope's surprise, excommunication was of no effect; the
Jesuits found that if they held by the pope there was no room for them
in Venice, and they came out in a body. The governments of France and
Spain disregarded the popular voice which would have set them at
war--France for Venice, Spain for the pope--and virtually imposed peace;
on the whole, though not completely, in favour of Venice.
But the conflict had impeded and even threatened to subvert that unity,
secular and ecclesiastical, which was the logical aim of the whole of
the papal policy.
_IV.--The Counter Reformation: Second Stage_
Meanwhile, the Protestantism which had threatened to prevail in Poland
had been checked under King Stephen, and under Sigismund III.
Catholicism had been securely re-established, though Protestantism was
not crushed. But this prince, succeeding to the Swedish crown, was
completely defeated in his efforts to obtain a footing for Catholicism,
to which his success would have given an enormous impulse throughout the
north.
In Germany, the ecclesiastical princes, with the skilled aid of the
Jesuits, thoroughly re-established Catholicism in their own realms, in
accordance with the legally recognised principle _cujus regio ejus
religïo_. The young Austrian archduke, Ferdinand of Carinthia, a pupil
of the Jesuits, was equally determined in the suppression of
Protestantism within his territories. The "Estates" resisted, refusing
supplies; but the imminent danger from the Turks forced them to yield
the point; while Ferdinand rested on his belief that the Almighty would
not protect people from the heathen while they remained heretical; and
so he gave suppression of heresy precedence over war with the Turk.
The Emperor Rudolph, in his latter years, pursued a like policy in
Bohemia and Hungary. The aggressiveness of the Catholic movement drove
the Protestant princes to form a union for self-defence, and within the
hereditary Hapsburg dominions the Protestant landholders asserted their
constitutional rights in opposition. Throughout the empire a deadlock
was threatening. In Switzerland the balance of parties was recognised;
the principal question was, which party would become dominant in the
Grisons.
There was far more unity in Catholicism than in Protestantism, with its
cleavage of Lutherans and Calvinists, and numerous subdivisions of the
latter. The Church at this moment stood with monarchism, and the
Catholic princes were able men; half Protestantism was inclined to
republicanism, and the princes were not able men. The Catholic powers,
except France, which was half Protestant, were ranged against the
Protestants; the Protestant powers were not ranged against the
Catholics. The contest began when the Calvinist Elector Palatine
accepted the crown of Bohemia, against the title of Ferdinand of
Carinthia and Austria, who about the same time became emperor.
The early period of the Thirty Years' War thus opened was wholly
favourable to the Catholics. The defeat of the Elector Palatine led to
the Catholicising of Bohemia and Hungary; and also, partly through papal
influence, to the transfer of the Palatinate itself to Bavaria, carrying
the definite preponderance of the Catholics in the central imperial
council. At the same time Catholicism acquired a marked predominance in
France, partly through the defections of Huguenot nobles; was obviously
gaining ground in the Netherlands; and was being treated with much more
leniency by the government in England. And, besides all this, in every
part of the globe the propaganda instituted under Gregory XV. and the
Jesuit missions was spreading Catholic doctrine far and wide.
But the two great branches of the house of Hapsburg, the Spanish and the
German, were actively arrayed on the same side; and the menace of
Hapsburg supremacy was alarming. About the time when Urban VIII.
succeeded Gregory (1623), French policy, guided by Richelieu, was
becoming definitely anti-Spanish, and organised a huge assault on the
Hapsburgs, in conjunction with Protestants, though in France the
Huguenots were quite subordinated. This done, Richelieu found it politic
to retire from the new combination, whereby a powerful impulse was given
to Catholicism.
But Richelieu wished when free to combat the Hapsburgs, and Pope Urban
favoured France, magnified himself as a temporal prince, and was anxious
to check the Hapsburg or Austro-Spanish ascendancy. The opportunity for
alliance with France came, over the incidents connected with the
succession of the French Duc de Nevers to Mantua, just when Richelieu
had obtained complete predominance over the Huguenots. Papal antagonism
to the emperor was becoming obvious, while the emperor regarded himself
as the true champion of the Faith, without much respect to the pope.
In this crisis the Catholic anti-imperialists turned to the only
Protestant force which was not a beaten one--Gustavus Adolphus of
Sweden. Dissatisfaction primarily with the absolutism at which the
emperor and Wallenstein were aiming brought several of the hitherto
imperialist allies over, and Ferdinand at the Diet of Ratisbon was
forced to a change of attitude. The victories of Gustavus brought new
complications; Catholicism altogether was threatened. The long course of
the struggle which ensued need not be followed. The peace of Westphalia,
which ended it, proved that it was impossible for either combatant to
effect a complete conquest; it set a decisive limit to the Catholic
expansion, and to direct religious aggression. The great spiritual
contest had completed its operation.
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