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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12845 ***
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII., by Arthur Mee
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12845 ***
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+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12845 ***</div>
+
+<center> <h1>THE WORLD'S</h1> <h1>GREATEST</h1> <h1>BOOKS</h1>
+
+<h2>JOINT EDITORS</h2>
+
+<h3>ARTHUR MEE</h3>
+<h4>Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge</h4>
+
+<h3>J.A. HAMMERTON</h3>
+<h4>Editor of Harmsworth a Universal Encyclopaedia</h4>
+
+<h2>VOL. XII</h2> <h2>MODERN HISTORY</h2>
+</center>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h1><i>Table of Contents</i></h1>
+
+
+MODERN HISTORY<br />
+<br />
+AMERICA<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#SAMUEL_ELIOT'>ELIOT, SAMUEL</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_United_States'>History of the United Stales</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#WILLIAM_HICKLING_PRESCOTT'>PRESCOTT, W.  H.</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_Conquest_of_Mexico'>History of the Conquest of Mexico</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_Conquest_of_Peru'>History of the Conquest of Peru</a><br />
+<br />
+ENGLAND<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#EDWARD_HYDE'>EDWARD HYDE, E. OF CLARENDON</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_History_of_the_Rebellion'>History of the Rebellion</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#LORD_MACAULAY'>MACAULAY, LORD</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_England'>History of England</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#HENRY_BUCKLE'>BUCKLE, HENRY</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_Civilisation_in_England'>History of Civilization in
+England</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#WALTER_BAGEHOT'>BAGEHOT, WALTER</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_English_Constitution'>English Constitution</a><br />
+<br />
+FRANCE<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#VOLTAIRE1'>VOLTAIRE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_Age_of_Louis_XIV'>Age of Louis XIV</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#DE_TOCQUEVILLE'>TOCQUEVILLE, DE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_Old_Regime'>Old R&eacute;gime</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#FRANCOIS_MIGNET'>MIGNET, FRANCOIS</a><br
+/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_French_Revolution1'>History of the French
+Revolution</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#THOMAS_CARLYLE1'>CARLYLE, THOMAS</a><br
+/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_French_Revolution2'>History of the French
+Revolution</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#LAMARTINE'>LAMARTINE, A.M.L. DE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_Girondists'>History of the Girondists</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#HIPPOLYTE_ADOLPHE_TAINE'>TAINE,
+H.A.</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_Modern_Regime'>Modern R&eacute;gime</a><br />
+<br />
+GERMANY<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#THOMAS_CARLYLE2'>CARLYLE, THOMAS</a><br
+/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#Frederick_the_Great'>Frederick the Great</a><br />
+<br />
+GREECE<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#GEORGE_FINLAY'>FINLAY, GEORGE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_Greece'>History of Greece</a><br />
+<br />
+HOLLAND<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#JL_MOTLEY'>MOTLEY, J.L.</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_Rise_of_the_Dutch_Republic'>Rise of the Dutch Republic</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_United_Netherlands'>History of the United
+Netherlands</a><br />
+<br />
+INDIA<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#MOUNTSTUART_ELPHINSTONE'>ELPHINSTONE,
+MOUNTSTUART</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_History_of_India'>History of India</a><br />
+<br />
+RUSSIA<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#VOLTAIRE2'>VOLTAIRE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#Russia_Under_Peter_the_Great'>Russia under Peter the Great</a><br />
+<br />
+SPAIN<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#WH_PRESCOTT'>PRESCOTT, W.H.</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_Reign_of_Ferdinand_and_Isabella'>Reign of Ferdinand and
+Isabella</a><br />
+<br />
+SWEDEN<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#VOLTAIRE3'>VOLTAIRE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_Charles_XII'>History of Charles XII</a><br />
+<br />
+PAPACY<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#HENRY_MILMAN_DD'>MILMAN, HENRY</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_Latin_Christianity'>History of Latin Christianity</a><br
+/>
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#LEOPOLD_VON_RANKE'>VON RANKE,
+LEOPOLD</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_Popes'>History of the Popes</a><br />
+
+<p>A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
+of Volume XX.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><i>Acknowledgment</i></h1>
+
+<blockquote><p> Acknowledgment and thanks for permitting the use of the
+selection by H.A. Taine on "Modern R&eacute;gime," appearing in this
+volume, are hereby tendered to Madame Taine-Paul-Dubois, of Menthon St.
+Bernard, France, and Henry Holt &amp; Co., of New York. </p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='SAMUEL_ELIOT'></a>SAMUEL ELIOT</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_United_States'></a>History of the United
+States</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&deg; and 30'
+north latitude. Missouri was admitted in 1831, and Maine, as a free state,
+in 1820.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Boundary Treaty with Great Britain, in June, 1846, established the
+northern limits of Oregon at 49th parallel north latitude.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln, who had been elected for a second term, was assassinated on
+April 14, 1865, in Ford's Theatre, Washington.</p>
+
+<p>The United States expended $800,000,000 in revenue, and incurred a debt
+of three times that amount during the war.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Alaska was purchased from Russia, in 1867, for $7,200,000.00.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Hawaii had been annexed, and was made a territory, in 1900.</p>
+
+<p>A revolt against the United States in the Philippine Islands was put
+down, in 1901, after two years.</p>
+
+<p>McKinley was elected to a second term, with a still more overwhelming
+majority over Bryan.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='WILLIAM_HICKLING_PRESCOTT'></a>WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_Conquest_of_Mexico'></a>History of the Conquest
+of Mexico</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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." </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I. The Mexican Empire</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Invasion of the Empire</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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
+<i>just cause</i>, 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Retreat from Mexico</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Siege and Capture of Mexico</i></h3>
+
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_Conquest_of_Peru'></a>History of the Conquest
+of Peru</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Realm of the Incas</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The character of that empire which the Spaniards discovered and
+undertook to conquer may be briefly sketched.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>r&eacute;gime</i>. 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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--First Steps Towards Conquest</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Triumph of Pisarro; his Assassination</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Later Fortunes of the Conquerors</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Nu&ntilde;ez 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='EDWARD_HYDE'></a>EDWARD HYDE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_History_of_the_Rebellion'></a>The History of the
+Rebellion</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>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 Rh&eacute; (for some
+difference had also begotten a war with that country), a general peace was
+shortly concluded with both kingdoms.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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).</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>5,000</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &pound;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='LORD_MACAULAY'></a>LORD MACAULAY</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_England'></a>History of England</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>England in Earlier Times</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The First Civil War</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &pound;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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>Subservience to France</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>Monmouth and his Fate</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The Brutal Judge</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>Petition of the Seven Bishops and their Trial</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+"And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die?<br />
+Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why."<br />
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The miners from their caverns re-echoed the song with a variation:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+"Then twenty thousand underground will know the reason why."<br />
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The Prince of Orange</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>After the Great Revolution</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The War in Ireland</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The Battle of La Hogue</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>Creation of the Bank of England</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The Treaty of Ryswick</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='HENRY_BUCKLE'></a>HENRY BUCKLE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_Civilisation_in_England'></a>History of
+Civilisation in England</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.---General Principles</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 medi&aelig;val Christianity was merely an
+adapted paganism. Similarly, a religion imposed by authority is accepted in
+its form, but not necessarily in its essence.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---Civilisation in England</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Development of France</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.---Reaction in Spain</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--The Paradox of Scottish History</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>coup de grace</i> was given by the
+rebellion of 1745. The law referred to expressed an already accomplished
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='WALTER_BAGEHOT'></a>WALTER BAGEHOT</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_English_Constitution'></a>The English Constitution</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.---The Cabinet</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Monarchy</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The House of Lords and the House of Commons</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>could</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>expressive</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Changes of Ministry</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--Checks, Balances, and History</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='VOLTAIRE1'></a>VOLTAIRE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_Age_of_Louis_XIV'></a>The Age of Louis XIV</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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'&Eacute;tat 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--France Under Mazarin</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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
+C&aelig;sar 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Cond&eacute;, brought him sudden
+glory and unprecedented prestige to the arms of France.</p>
+
+<p>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. Cond&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>Cond&eacute; 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 Cond&eacute;. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, Cond&eacute;'s successes against
+her had been to a great extent made nugatory--and now Cond&eacute; was a
+rebel and in command of Spanish troops. But Cond&eacute;, with a Spanish
+army, met his match in Turenne with a French army.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---The French Supremacy in Europe</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Louis' armies were overrunning Flanders in 1667, and
+Franche-Comt&eacute; 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-Comt&eacute; for the present.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Cond&eacute; and Turenne.</p>
+
+<p>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, Cond&eacute;, and
+Cond&eacute;'s pupil, Luxembourg. He decided to direct his own next
+campaign against Franche-Comt&eacute;. But during the year Turenne, who was
+conducting a separate campaign in Germany with extraordinary brilliancy,
+was killed; and after this year Cond&eacute; took no further part in the
+war. Moreover, the Austrians were now in the field, under the able leader
+Montecuculi.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.---The Spanish Succession</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Vend&ocirc;me.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. Vend&ocirc;me 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Vend&ocirc;me
+revived the spirit of resistance.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Court of the Grand Monarque</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+Fl&eacute;chier, Chapelain, Cotin, Lulli.</p>
+
+<p>A series of ladies, from Mazarin's niece, Marie Mancini, to Mme. la
+Valli&egrave;re 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.
+Fran&ccedil;oise d'Aubign&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--How France Flourished Under Louis XIV.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 "T&eacute;l&eacute;maque" of
+F&eacute;nelon, the "Caract&egrave;res" of La Bruy&egrave;re, were works of
+an order entirely original and without precedent.</p>
+
+<p>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 Moli&egrave;re 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VI.--Religion Under Louis XIV.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 C&eacute;vennes 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='DE_TOCQUEVILLE'></a>DE TOCQUEVILLE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_Old_Regime'></a>The Old R&eacute;gime</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> Born at Paris on July 29, 1805, Alexis Henri Charles
+Cl&eacute;rel 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 D&eacute;mocratie en Am&eacute;rique" (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 R&eacute;gime" ("The Old R&eacute;gime"), 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.---The Last Days of Feudal Institutions</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever the provincial assemblies had maintained their ancient
+constitution unchanged, they checked instead of furthering the progress of
+civilisation.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Although what is termed in France the old r&eacute;gime 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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the peculiar rights of the French nobility, the political element
+had disappeared; the pecuniary element alone remained, in some instances
+largely increased.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---A Shadow of Democracy</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Every year the king's council assigned to each province certain funds
+derived from the general produce of the taxes, which the intendant
+distributed.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>So completely had the government already changed its duty as a sovereign
+into that of a guardian.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>If we turn from the towns to the villages, we meet with different powers
+and different forms of government.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>taille</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, "<i>under his good pleasure</i>."</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Ruin of the Nobility</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The system of creating new nobles, far from lessening the hatred of the
+<i>roturier</i> 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 <i>tiers &eacute;tat,</i> in all their
+complaints, always displayed more irritation against the newly ennobled
+than against the old nobility.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Reform and Destruction Inevitable</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='FRANCOIS_MIGNET'></a>FRAN&Ccedil;OIS MIGNET</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_French_Revolution1'></a>History of the French
+Revolution</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> Fran&ccedil;ois 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 Fran&ccedil;ais,"
+in the meantime delivering with considerable success a series of lectures
+on modern history at the Ath&eacute;n&eacute;e. 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.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Last Resort of the Throne</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Abb&eacute; 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. <i>The revolution dates front this epoch;</i> the
+abandonment of reforms and the return of disorders hastened its approach
+and augmented its fury.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 N&ocirc;tre Dame to that of St. Louis, to hear the opening
+mass.</p>
+
+<p>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 Dauphin&eacute;, from
+Cr&eacute;py-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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The commons, having finished the verification of their own powers of
+membership on June 17, on the motion of Siey&egrave;s, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>By these two failures the court prefaced the famous sitting of June
+23.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The grand-master of the ceremonies, finding the Assembly did not break
+up, came and reminded them of the king's order.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You are to-day," added Siey&egrave;s calmly, "what you were yesterday.
+Let us deliberate."</p>
+
+<p>The Assembly, full of resolution and dignity, began the debate
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---"&Agrave; la Bastille!"</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, S&egrave;vres, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>During the evening the people had repaired to the H&ocirc;tel de Ville,
+and requested that the tocsin might be sounded. Some electors assembled at
+the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, and took the authority into their own hands. The
+nights of July 12 and 13 were spent in tumult and alarm.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 H&ocirc;tel 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.</p>
+
+<p>From nine in the morning till two the only rallying word throughout
+Paris was "&Agrave; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The gates were opened, the bridge lowered, and the crowd rushed into the
+Bastille.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--"Bread! Bread!"</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The officers of the Flanders regiment, received with anxiety in the town
+of Versailles, were f&ecirc;ted at the ch&acirc;teau, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 H&ocirc;tel 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
+<i>en masse</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>His presence restored security to the court, and the replies of the king
+to the deputation from Paris satisfied the multitude and the army.</p>
+
+<p>About six next morning, however, some men of the lower class, more
+enthusiastic than the rest, and awake sooner than they, prowled round the
+ch&acirc;teau. Finding a gate open, they informed their companions, and
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>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 ch&acirc;teau. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Thus terminated the scene; the royal family set out for Paris, escorted
+by the army, and its guards mixed with it.</p>
+
+<p>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
+Montm&eacute;dy by way of Chalons, and to take refuge with the army on the
+frontier.</p>
+
+<p>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
+ch&acirc;teau, one by one, in disguise, and took the road to Chalons and
+Montm&eacute;dy.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The king was provisionally suspended--a guard set over him, as over the
+queen--and commissioners were appointed to question him.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Europe Declares War on the Revolution</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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, Bouill&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>who dared to stand on the defensive</i>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>This fiery and impolitic manifesto more than anything else hastened the
+fall of the throne, and prevented the success of the coalition.</p>
+
+<p>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 Honor&eacute;,
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Royalty had already fallen, and thus on August 10 began the dictatorial
+and arbitrary epoch of the revolution.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He was executed at half-past ten in the morning of January 21, and his
+death was the signal for an almost universal war.</p>
+
+<p>This time all the frontiers of France were to be attacked by the
+European powers.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>In order to confront so many enemies, the Convention decreed a levy of
+300,000 men.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrians assumed the offensive, and at Li&egrave;ge put our army
+wholly to the rout.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, partial disturbances had taken place several times in La
+Vend&eacute;e. The Vend&eacute;ans 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.---The Committee of Public Safety</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, thou shouldst depart."</p>
+
+<p>"Depart!" he repeated, curling his lip disdainfully, "Depart! Can we
+carry your country away on the sole of our shoe?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>great man</i> of the
+republic. At the Jacobins and in the Convention his preservation was
+attributed to "the good genius of the republic" and to the <i>Supreme
+Being</i>, Whose existence he had decreed on Flor&eacute;al 18, the
+celebration of the new religion being fixed for Prairial 20.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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 H&ocirc;tel 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 H&ocirc;tel de Ville.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='THOMAS_CARLYLE1'></a>THOMAS CARLYLE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_French_Revolution2'></a>History of the French
+Revolution</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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.)
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.---The End of an Era</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>canaille</i>. 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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon a new expedient once more astonishes the world, unheard of
+these hundred and sixty years--<i>Convocation of the Notables</i>. 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 Lom&eacute;nie-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.</p>
+
+<p>Lom&eacute;nie issues conciliatory edicts, fiscal edicts. But if the
+Parlement of Paris refuse to register them? As it does, entering complaints
+instead. Lom&eacute;nie launches his thunderbolt, six score <i>lettres de
+cachet;</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The provincial parlements, moreover, back up the Paris Parlement with
+its demand for a States-General. Lom&eacute;nie 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
+Fran&ccedil;aises and Gardes Suisses. Still, however, will none of the
+provincial parlements register.</p>
+
+<p>Deputations coming from Brittany meet to take counsel, being refused
+audience; become the <i>Breton Club</i>, first germ of the <i>Jacobins'
+Society</i>. Lom&eacute;nie 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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---The States-General</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Wherewith Lom&eacute;nie 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 <i>Tiers Etat</i> 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 Abb&eacute; Siey&egrave;s has come to Paris to ask three questions, and
+answer them: <i>What is the Third Estate? All. What has it hitherto been in
+our form of government? Nothing. What does it want? To become
+something</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The grand questions are: Shall the States-General sit and vote in three
+separate bodies, or in one body, wherein the <i>Tiers Etat</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Honor&eacute; 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?</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Third
+Estate</i>, but <i>National Assembly</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>War-god Broglie is at work, but grapeshot is good on one condition! The
+Gardes Fran&ccedil;aises, 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 <i>National Guard</i>! And while the
+crisis is going on, Mirabeau is away, sad at heart for the dying, crabbed
+old father whom he loved.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.---Menads and Feast of Pikes</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+ch&acirc;teaus have flamed aloft in the Ma&ccedil;onnais and Beaujolais
+alone. Ill stands it now with some of the seigneurs. And, glorious as the
+meridian, M. Necker is returning from B&acirc;le.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>Allons</i>! Let us assemble! To the H&ocirc;tel 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 H&ocirc;tel 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 <i>Mon G&eacute;n&eacute;ral,</i> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>Towards midnight comes Lafayette; seems to have saved the situation;
+gets to bed about five in the morning. But rascaldom, gathering about the
+ch&acirc;teau, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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--<i>King Louis, restorer of French liberty!</i></p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>assignats</i>, 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 <i>eye</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The End of Mirabeau</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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 P&eacute;tion; an
+incorruptible Robespierre; conspicuous, if seldom audible, Philippe
+d'Orleans; and Barnave triumvirate.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.---Constitution Will Not March</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>For there are troubles in cities of the south. Avignon, where Jourdan
+<i>coupe-t&ecirc;te</i> makes lurid appearance; Perpignan, northern Caen
+also. With factions, suspicions, want of bread and sugar, it is verily what
+they call <i>d&eacute;chir&eacute;,</i> torn asunder, this poor country.
+And away over seas the Plain of Cap Fran&ccedil;ais 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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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 P&eacute;tion, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>veto</i>!
+Strict Roland, the whole Patriot ministry, finds itself turned out.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VI.--Regicide</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>There is a new Tribunal of Justice dealing with aristocrats; but the
+Prussians have taken Longwi, and La Vend&eacute;e 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 Thermopyl&aelig;--if we
+can secure Argonne; for which one had need to be a lion-fox and have luck
+on one's side.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>fantasy</i>
+"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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>not</i> fly like poultry; finally retires; a day precious to France!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.?</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>emerged</i>, before the Convention; fifty-seven
+questions are put to him. Thereafter he withdraws, having answered--for the
+most part on the simple basis of <i>No</i>. On December 26, his advocate,
+Des&eacute;ze, 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
+Egalit&eacute;, once Orleans--Death. Lastly, no delay.</p>
+
+<p>On the morrow, in the Place de la Revolution, he is brought to the
+guillotine; beside him, brave Abb&eacute; 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."</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VII.--Reign of Terror</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, Dumouriez is checked; Custine also in the Rhine country is
+checked; England and Spain are also taking the field; La Vend&eacute;e has
+flamed out again with its war cry of <i>God and the King</i>. 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 <i>Tribunal
+R&eacute;volutionnaire</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>At Paris is to be a new feast of pikes, over yet a new constitution;
+statue of Nature, statue of Liberty, unveiled! <i>Republic one and
+indivisible</i>--<i>Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death</i>! 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.</p>
+
+<p>Committee of Public Safety promulgates levy <i>en masse;</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Terror is become the order of the day. Arrestment on arrestment follows
+quick, continual; "The guillotine goes not ill."</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VIII.--Climax and Reaction</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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 <i>noyades</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Vengeur</i>, triumphant in death; plunging down
+carrying <i>vive la R&eacute;publique</i> along with her into eternity, in
+Howe's victory of the First of June. Alas, alas! a myth, founded, like the
+world itself, on <i>Nothing</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Of massacring, altar-robbing, H&eacute;bertism, is there beginning to be
+a sickening? Danton, Camille Desmoulins are weary of it; the
+H&eacute;bertists 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.</p>
+
+<p>Foul H&eacute;bert and the H&eacute;bertists, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Tyranny! Dictatorship</i>! 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. Abb&eacute; Siey&egrave;s
+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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='LAMARTINE'></a>LAMARTINE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_Girondists'></a>History of the Girondists</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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 M&eacute;ditations." 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The War-Seekers of the South</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>centre</i>,
+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, Gensonn&eacute;, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>P&eacute;tion 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;
+P&eacute;tion, 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.</p>
+
+<p>The nomination of P&eacute;tion to the office of <i>maire</i> of Paris
+gave the Girondists a constant <i>point d'appui</i> in the capital. Paris,
+as well as the Assembly, escaped from the king's hands.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>emigres</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---the Fall of La Gironde</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>The Convention oscillated during the struggle between the Girondins and
+their Radical opponents with every speech.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.
+P&eacute;tion, so feeble in the face of popularity, was intrepid when he
+faced death; Gensonn&eacute;, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, H&eacute;rault de S&eacute;chelles, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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. H&eacute;rault de S&eacute;chelles 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Seize this rebel!" said H&eacute;rault de S&eacute;chelles, pointing
+with his finger to Henriot. The soldiers remained immovable.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Judges at the Bar</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>On October 22, their <i>acte d'accusation</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>salle d'audience,</i> between two
+files of <i>gens d'armes,</i> and took their places in silence on the
+prisoners' bench.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Duch&acirc;tel, deputy of Deux S&eacute;vres,
+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."</p>
+
+<p>Carra, deputy of S&acirc;one and Loire at the Convention, sat next to
+Duch&acirc;tel. His vulgar physiognomy, the stoop of his shoulders, his
+large head and disordered attire contrasted with the beauty and stature of
+Duch&acirc;tel Learned, confused, fanatic, declamatory, impetuous alike in
+attack or resistance, he had sided with the Gironde to combat the excesses
+of the people.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Gensonn&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Valaz&eacute; seemed like a soldier under fire; his conscience told him
+it was his duty to die, and he died.</p>
+
+<p>The Abb&eacute; Fauchet came immediately after Valaz&eacute;. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Brissot was the last but one.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Banquet of Death</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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 Valaz&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"What, Valaz&eacute;, are you losing your courage?" said Brissot,
+striving to support him.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am dying," returned Valaz&eacute;. And he expired, his hand on
+the poignard with which he had pierced his heart.</p>
+
+<p>At this spectacle silence instantly prevailed, and the example of
+Valaz&eacute; made the young Girondists blush for their momentary
+weakness.</p>
+
+<p>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 R&eacute;publique!"</p>
+
+<p>The Girondists, as they quitted their places, cried simultaneously. "We
+die innocent! Vive la R&eacute;publique!"</p>
+
+<p>They were all confined for this their last night on earth in the large
+dungeon, the waiting room of death.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>A long silence followed this speech of Vergniaud's, and the conversation
+turned from earth to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>When all was ready, and the last lock of hair had fallen on the stones
+of the dungeon, the executioners and <i>gens d'armes</i> 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:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<i>Contre nous de la tyrannie<br />
+L'&eacute;tendard sanglant est lev&eacute;.</i><br />
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='HIPPOLYTE_ADOLPHE_TAINE'></a>HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_Modern_Regime'></a>The Modern R&eacute;gime</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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 Coll&egrave;ge
+de Bourbon and the &Eacute;cole 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 R&eacute;gime,"
+appeared in 1875; the second, "The Revolution," in 1878-81-85; and the
+third, "The Modern R&eacute;gime," 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Architect of Modern France</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Contemplate in Gu&eacute;rin'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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>in all cases</i> 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, <i>according to the
+case</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>(&eacute;tats)</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Body-Social of a Despot</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>However clear and energetic the ideas of Napoleon are when he sets to
+work to make the New R&eacute;gime, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>gendarmerie</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>lyc&eacute;e,</i> it must pay for the annual support of the building,
+while the pupils, either day-scholars or boarders, pay accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>lyc&eacute;es,</i> are actually gratifications which it distributes
+among its functionaries and officials. It takes back with one hand what it
+bestows with the other.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The New Taxation, Fiscal and Bodily</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>mutation</i> 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 <i>timbre</i>, is
+enormous, since, in most cases, it takes five, seven, nine, and up to ten
+and one-half per cent, on the capital transmitted.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &Eacute;cole 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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Prefect Absolute</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Yet another institution which Napoleon gave to the Modern R&eacute;gime
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='THOMAS_CARLYLE2'></a>THOMAS CARLYLE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='Frederick_the_Great'></a>Frederick the Great</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p> 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.) </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--Forebears and Childhood</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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 <i>Vater Fritz</i>--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 <i>finis</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Crown Prince Leaves Kingship</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 C&uuml;strin;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Silesian Wars</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>not</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+Mar&eacute;chal 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Mar&eacute;chal Saxe, brilliant French
+field-marshal, most dissipated man of his time, one of the 354 children of
+Augustus the Physically Strong.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Seven Years' War Opens</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Olm&uuml;tz, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--Frederick at Bay</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Z&uuml;llichau. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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).</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VI.--Afternoon and Evening of Frederick's Life</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+"F&uuml;rstenbund," 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.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks after this F&uuml;rstenbund, 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='GEORGE_FINLAY'></a>GEORGE FINLAY</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_Greece'></a>History of Greece</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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 G&ouml;ttingen
+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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--Greece Under the Romans</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Byzantine and Greek Empires</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Othoman and Venetian</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Propyl&aelig;a, 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 Phid&aelig;as 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Greek Revolution</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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 Philik&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 medi&aelig;val
+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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--The Greek Monarchy</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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-Gl&uuml;cksburg. On March 30, 1863, he was unanimously elected
+King of Greece, and the British forces left Corfu on June 2, 1864.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='JL_MOTLEY'></a>J.L. MOTLEY</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_Rise_of_the_Dutch_Republic'></a>The Rise of the Dutch
+Republic</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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 G&ouml;ttingen. 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--Woe to the Heretic</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Netherlands Are, and Will Be, Free</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Image-Breaking Campaign</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Alva the Terrible</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--The Union of the Provinces</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VI.--The Assassination of William of Orange</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 G&eacute;rard, a fanatical Catholic who had for years
+formed the design of murdering the Prince of Orange. The interview was so
+entirely unexpected that G&eacute;rard 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 G&eacute;rard 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
+G&eacute;rard, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+G&eacute;rard. 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 Comt&eacute;, and took
+their place at once among the landed aristocracy.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_United_Netherlands'></a>History of the United
+Netherlands</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> "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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--After the Death of William</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--Leicester and the Armada</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Maurice of Nassau</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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
+B&eacute;arnais.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+B&eacute;arnais 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>ad interim</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Winning Through</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>In 1600 the States-General planned the invasion of the Spanish
+Netherlands, but the scheme proved impracticable, and was abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>uti possidetis</i> 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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='MOUNTSTUART_ELPHINSTONE'></a>MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_History_of_India'></a>The History of India</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Hindus</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Mahometan Conquest</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Baber and Aber</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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'&eacute;tat assumed the
+reins of Government. Perhaps it was fortunate for both that the fallen
+minister was assassinated by a personal enemy.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Mogul Empire</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='VOLTAIRE2'></a>VOLTAIRE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='Russia_Under_Peter_the_Great'></a>Russia Under Peter the
+Great</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> Fran&ccedil;ois 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 "Si&egrave;cle de Louis Quatorze" (see
+<i>ante</i>) 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--All the Russias</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The province nearest to our own realms is Livonia, long a heathen
+region. Tsar Peter conquered it from the Swedes.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--At the School of Europe</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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).</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--War with Sweden</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Expansion of Russia</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>bouleversement</i>, which
+involved the overthrow of the regency of Orleans in France.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--Peter the Great</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='WH_PRESCOTT'></a>W.H. PRESCOTT</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_Reign_of_Ferdinand_and_Isabella'></a>The Reign of
+Ferdinand and Isabella</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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
+<i>ante</i>) 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--Castile and Aragon</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--Overthrow of the Moorish Dominion</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>hermandad</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Auto da f&eacute;</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Italian Wars</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 r&eacute;gime 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--After Isabella</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='VOLTAIRE3'></a>VOLTAIRE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_Charles_XII'></a>History of Charles XII</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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 <i>ante</i>). 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Meteor Blazes</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--From Triumph to Disaster</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Meteor Quenched</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='HENRY_MILMAN_DD'></a>HENRY MILMAN, D.D.</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_Latin_Christianity'></a>History of Latin
+Christianity</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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.)
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--Development of the Church of Rome</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 medi&aelig;val Christianity--its ethics, its asceticism,
+its sacerdotalism, and its superstitions--had reached its lasting
+shape.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Western Empire and Theocracy</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Triumph and Decline of the Papacy</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+Grost&ecirc;te of Lincoln, on whom fell Stephen Langton's mantle, is the
+noblest ecclesiastical figure of the time.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Captivity, Seclusion, and Revival</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='LEOPOLD_VON_RANKE'></a>LEOPOLD VON RANKE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_Popes'></a>History of the Popes</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Papacy at the Reformation</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--Sixteenth Century Popes</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Counter Reformation: First Stage</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Counter Reformation: Second Stage</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>cujus regio ejus
+relig&iuml;o</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12845 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #12845 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12845)
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+Project Gutenberg's The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII., by Arthur Mee
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII.
+       Modern History
+
+Author: Arthur Mee
+
+Release Date: July 7, 2004 [EBook #12845]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREATEST BOOKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hagerson, Kevin Handy and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII., by Arthur Mee
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+  <title>The World's Greatest Books Vol XII</title>
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+  .index
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII., by Arthur Mee
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII.
+       Modern History
+
+Author: Arthur Mee
+
+Release Date: July 7, 2004 [EBook #12845]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREATEST BOOKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hagerson, Kevin Handy and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<center> <h1>THE WORLD'S</h1> <h1>GREATEST</h1> <h1>BOOKS</h1>
+
+<h2>JOINT EDITORS</h2>
+
+<h3>ARTHUR MEE</h3>
+<h4>Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge</h4>
+
+<h3>J.A. HAMMERTON</h3>
+<h4>Editor of Harmsworth a Universal Encyclopaedia</h4>
+
+<h2>VOL. XII</h2> <h2>MODERN HISTORY</h2>
+</center>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h1><i>Table of Contents</i></h1>
+
+
+MODERN HISTORY<br />
+<br />
+AMERICA<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#SAMUEL_ELIOT'>ELIOT, SAMUEL</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_United_States'>History of the United Stales</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#WILLIAM_HICKLING_PRESCOTT'>PRESCOTT, W.  H.</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_Conquest_of_Mexico'>History of the Conquest of Mexico</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_Conquest_of_Peru'>History of the Conquest of Peru</a><br />
+<br />
+ENGLAND<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#EDWARD_HYDE'>EDWARD HYDE, E. OF CLARENDON</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_History_of_the_Rebellion'>History of the Rebellion</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#LORD_MACAULAY'>MACAULAY, LORD</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_England'>History of England</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#HENRY_BUCKLE'>BUCKLE, HENRY</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_Civilisation_in_England'>History of Civilization in
+England</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#WALTER_BAGEHOT'>BAGEHOT, WALTER</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_English_Constitution'>English Constitution</a><br />
+<br />
+FRANCE<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#VOLTAIRE1'>VOLTAIRE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_Age_of_Louis_XIV'>Age of Louis XIV</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#DE_TOCQUEVILLE'>TOCQUEVILLE, DE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_Old_Regime'>Old R&eacute;gime</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#FRANCOIS_MIGNET'>MIGNET, FRANCOIS</a><br
+/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_French_Revolution1'>History of the French
+Revolution</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#THOMAS_CARLYLE1'>CARLYLE, THOMAS</a><br
+/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_French_Revolution2'>History of the French
+Revolution</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#LAMARTINE'>LAMARTINE, A.M.L. DE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_Girondists'>History of the Girondists</a><br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#HIPPOLYTE_ADOLPHE_TAINE'>TAINE,
+H.A.</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_Modern_Regime'>Modern R&eacute;gime</a><br />
+<br />
+GERMANY<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#THOMAS_CARLYLE2'>CARLYLE, THOMAS</a><br
+/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#Frederick_the_Great'>Frederick the Great</a><br />
+<br />
+GREECE<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#GEORGE_FINLAY'>FINLAY, GEORGE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_Greece'>History of Greece</a><br />
+<br />
+HOLLAND<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#JL_MOTLEY'>MOTLEY, J.L.</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_Rise_of_the_Dutch_Republic'>Rise of the Dutch Republic</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_United_Netherlands'>History of the United
+Netherlands</a><br />
+<br />
+INDIA<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#MOUNTSTUART_ELPHINSTONE'>ELPHINSTONE,
+MOUNTSTUART</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_History_of_India'>History of India</a><br />
+<br />
+RUSSIA<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#VOLTAIRE2'>VOLTAIRE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#Russia_Under_Peter_the_Great'>Russia under Peter the Great</a><br />
+<br />
+SPAIN<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#WH_PRESCOTT'>PRESCOTT, W.H.</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#The_Reign_of_Ferdinand_and_Isabella'>Reign of Ferdinand and
+Isabella</a><br />
+<br />
+SWEDEN<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#VOLTAIRE3'>VOLTAIRE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_Charles_XII'>History of Charles XII</a><br />
+<br />
+PAPACY<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#HENRY_MILMAN_DD'>MILMAN, HENRY</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_Latin_Christianity'>History of Latin Christianity</a><br
+/>
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#LEOPOLD_VON_RANKE'>VON RANKE,
+LEOPOLD</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+href='#History_of_the_Popes'>History of the Popes</a><br />
+
+<p>A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
+of Volume XX.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><i>Acknowledgment</i></h1>
+
+<blockquote><p> Acknowledgment and thanks for permitting the use of the
+selection by H.A. Taine on "Modern R&eacute;gime," appearing in this
+volume, are hereby tendered to Madame Taine-Paul-Dubois, of Menthon St.
+Bernard, France, and Henry Holt &amp; Co., of New York. </p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='SAMUEL_ELIOT'></a>SAMUEL ELIOT</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_United_States'></a>History of the United
+States</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&deg; and 30'
+north latitude. Missouri was admitted in 1831, and Maine, as a free state,
+in 1820.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Boundary Treaty with Great Britain, in June, 1846, established the
+northern limits of Oregon at 49th parallel north latitude.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln, who had been elected for a second term, was assassinated on
+April 14, 1865, in Ford's Theatre, Washington.</p>
+
+<p>The United States expended $800,000,000 in revenue, and incurred a debt
+of three times that amount during the war.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Alaska was purchased from Russia, in 1867, for $7,200,000.00.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Hawaii had been annexed, and was made a territory, in 1900.</p>
+
+<p>A revolt against the United States in the Philippine Islands was put
+down, in 1901, after two years.</p>
+
+<p>McKinley was elected to a second term, with a still more overwhelming
+majority over Bryan.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='WILLIAM_HICKLING_PRESCOTT'></a>WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_Conquest_of_Mexico'></a>History of the Conquest
+of Mexico</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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." </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I. The Mexican Empire</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Invasion of the Empire</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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
+<i>just cause</i>, 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Retreat from Mexico</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Siege and Capture of Mexico</i></h3>
+
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_Conquest_of_Peru'></a>History of the Conquest
+of Peru</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Realm of the Incas</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The character of that empire which the Spaniards discovered and
+undertook to conquer may be briefly sketched.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>r&eacute;gime</i>. 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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--First Steps Towards Conquest</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Triumph of Pisarro; his Assassination</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Later Fortunes of the Conquerors</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Nu&ntilde;ez 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='EDWARD_HYDE'></a>EDWARD HYDE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_History_of_the_Rebellion'></a>The History of the
+Rebellion</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>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 Rh&eacute; (for some
+difference had also begotten a war with that country), a general peace was
+shortly concluded with both kingdoms.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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).</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>5,000</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &pound;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='LORD_MACAULAY'></a>LORD MACAULAY</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_England'></a>History of England</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>England in Earlier Times</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The First Civil War</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &pound;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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>Subservience to France</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>Monmouth and his Fate</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The Brutal Judge</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>Petition of the Seven Bishops and their Trial</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+"And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die?<br />
+Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why."<br />
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The miners from their caverns re-echoed the song with a variation:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+"Then twenty thousand underground will know the reason why."<br />
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The Prince of Orange</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>After the Great Revolution</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The War in Ireland</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The Battle of La Hogue</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>Creation of the Bank of England</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>The Treaty of Ryswick</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='HENRY_BUCKLE'></a>HENRY BUCKLE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_Civilisation_in_England'></a>History of
+Civilisation in England</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.---General Principles</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 medi&aelig;val Christianity was merely an
+adapted paganism. Similarly, a religion imposed by authority is accepted in
+its form, but not necessarily in its essence.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---Civilisation in England</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Development of France</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.---Reaction in Spain</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--The Paradox of Scottish History</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>coup de grace</i> was given by the
+rebellion of 1745. The law referred to expressed an already accomplished
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='WALTER_BAGEHOT'></a>WALTER BAGEHOT</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_English_Constitution'></a>The English Constitution</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.---The Cabinet</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Monarchy</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The House of Lords and the House of Commons</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>could</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>expressive</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Changes of Ministry</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--Checks, Balances, and History</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='VOLTAIRE1'></a>VOLTAIRE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_Age_of_Louis_XIV'></a>The Age of Louis XIV</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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'&Eacute;tat 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--France Under Mazarin</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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
+C&aelig;sar 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Cond&eacute;, brought him sudden
+glory and unprecedented prestige to the arms of France.</p>
+
+<p>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. Cond&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>Cond&eacute; 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 Cond&eacute;. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, Cond&eacute;'s successes against
+her had been to a great extent made nugatory--and now Cond&eacute; was a
+rebel and in command of Spanish troops. But Cond&eacute;, with a Spanish
+army, met his match in Turenne with a French army.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---The French Supremacy in Europe</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Louis' armies were overrunning Flanders in 1667, and
+Franche-Comt&eacute; 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-Comt&eacute; for the present.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Cond&eacute; and Turenne.</p>
+
+<p>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, Cond&eacute;, and
+Cond&eacute;'s pupil, Luxembourg. He decided to direct his own next
+campaign against Franche-Comt&eacute;. But during the year Turenne, who was
+conducting a separate campaign in Germany with extraordinary brilliancy,
+was killed; and after this year Cond&eacute; took no further part in the
+war. Moreover, the Austrians were now in the field, under the able leader
+Montecuculi.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.---The Spanish Succession</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Vend&ocirc;me.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. Vend&ocirc;me 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Vend&ocirc;me
+revived the spirit of resistance.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Court of the Grand Monarque</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+Fl&eacute;chier, Chapelain, Cotin, Lulli.</p>
+
+<p>A series of ladies, from Mazarin's niece, Marie Mancini, to Mme. la
+Valli&egrave;re 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.
+Fran&ccedil;oise d'Aubign&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--How France Flourished Under Louis XIV.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 "T&eacute;l&eacute;maque" of
+F&eacute;nelon, the "Caract&egrave;res" of La Bruy&egrave;re, were works of
+an order entirely original and without precedent.</p>
+
+<p>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 Moli&egrave;re 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VI.--Religion Under Louis XIV.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 C&eacute;vennes 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='DE_TOCQUEVILLE'></a>DE TOCQUEVILLE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_Old_Regime'></a>The Old R&eacute;gime</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> Born at Paris on July 29, 1805, Alexis Henri Charles
+Cl&eacute;rel 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 D&eacute;mocratie en Am&eacute;rique" (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 R&eacute;gime" ("The Old R&eacute;gime"), 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.---The Last Days of Feudal Institutions</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever the provincial assemblies had maintained their ancient
+constitution unchanged, they checked instead of furthering the progress of
+civilisation.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Although what is termed in France the old r&eacute;gime 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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the peculiar rights of the French nobility, the political element
+had disappeared; the pecuniary element alone remained, in some instances
+largely increased.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---A Shadow of Democracy</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Every year the king's council assigned to each province certain funds
+derived from the general produce of the taxes, which the intendant
+distributed.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>So completely had the government already changed its duty as a sovereign
+into that of a guardian.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>If we turn from the towns to the villages, we meet with different powers
+and different forms of government.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>taille</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, "<i>under his good pleasure</i>."</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Ruin of the Nobility</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The system of creating new nobles, far from lessening the hatred of the
+<i>roturier</i> 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 <i>tiers &eacute;tat,</i> in all their
+complaints, always displayed more irritation against the newly ennobled
+than against the old nobility.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Reform and Destruction Inevitable</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='FRANCOIS_MIGNET'></a>FRAN&Ccedil;OIS MIGNET</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_French_Revolution1'></a>History of the French
+Revolution</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> Fran&ccedil;ois 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 Fran&ccedil;ais,"
+in the meantime delivering with considerable success a series of lectures
+on modern history at the Ath&eacute;n&eacute;e. 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.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Last Resort of the Throne</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Abb&eacute; 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. <i>The revolution dates front this epoch;</i> the
+abandonment of reforms and the return of disorders hastened its approach
+and augmented its fury.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 N&ocirc;tre Dame to that of St. Louis, to hear the opening
+mass.</p>
+
+<p>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 Dauphin&eacute;, from
+Cr&eacute;py-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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The commons, having finished the verification of their own powers of
+membership on June 17, on the motion of Siey&egrave;s, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>By these two failures the court prefaced the famous sitting of June
+23.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The grand-master of the ceremonies, finding the Assembly did not break
+up, came and reminded them of the king's order.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You are to-day," added Siey&egrave;s calmly, "what you were yesterday.
+Let us deliberate."</p>
+
+<p>The Assembly, full of resolution and dignity, began the debate
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---"&Agrave; la Bastille!"</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, S&egrave;vres, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>During the evening the people had repaired to the H&ocirc;tel de Ville,
+and requested that the tocsin might be sounded. Some electors assembled at
+the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, and took the authority into their own hands. The
+nights of July 12 and 13 were spent in tumult and alarm.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 H&ocirc;tel 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.</p>
+
+<p>From nine in the morning till two the only rallying word throughout
+Paris was "&Agrave; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The gates were opened, the bridge lowered, and the crowd rushed into the
+Bastille.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--"Bread! Bread!"</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The officers of the Flanders regiment, received with anxiety in the town
+of Versailles, were f&ecirc;ted at the ch&acirc;teau, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 H&ocirc;tel 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
+<i>en masse</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>His presence restored security to the court, and the replies of the king
+to the deputation from Paris satisfied the multitude and the army.</p>
+
+<p>About six next morning, however, some men of the lower class, more
+enthusiastic than the rest, and awake sooner than they, prowled round the
+ch&acirc;teau. Finding a gate open, they informed their companions, and
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>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 ch&acirc;teau. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Thus terminated the scene; the royal family set out for Paris, escorted
+by the army, and its guards mixed with it.</p>
+
+<p>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
+Montm&eacute;dy by way of Chalons, and to take refuge with the army on the
+frontier.</p>
+
+<p>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
+ch&acirc;teau, one by one, in disguise, and took the road to Chalons and
+Montm&eacute;dy.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The king was provisionally suspended--a guard set over him, as over the
+queen--and commissioners were appointed to question him.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Europe Declares War on the Revolution</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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, Bouill&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>who dared to stand on the defensive</i>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>This fiery and impolitic manifesto more than anything else hastened the
+fall of the throne, and prevented the success of the coalition.</p>
+
+<p>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 Honor&eacute;,
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Royalty had already fallen, and thus on August 10 began the dictatorial
+and arbitrary epoch of the revolution.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He was executed at half-past ten in the morning of January 21, and his
+death was the signal for an almost universal war.</p>
+
+<p>This time all the frontiers of France were to be attacked by the
+European powers.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>In order to confront so many enemies, the Convention decreed a levy of
+300,000 men.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrians assumed the offensive, and at Li&egrave;ge put our army
+wholly to the rout.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, partial disturbances had taken place several times in La
+Vend&eacute;e. The Vend&eacute;ans 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.---The Committee of Public Safety</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, thou shouldst depart."</p>
+
+<p>"Depart!" he repeated, curling his lip disdainfully, "Depart! Can we
+carry your country away on the sole of our shoe?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>great man</i> of the
+republic. At the Jacobins and in the Convention his preservation was
+attributed to "the good genius of the republic" and to the <i>Supreme
+Being</i>, Whose existence he had decreed on Flor&eacute;al 18, the
+celebration of the new religion being fixed for Prairial 20.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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 H&ocirc;tel 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 H&ocirc;tel de Ville.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='THOMAS_CARLYLE1'></a>THOMAS CARLYLE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_French_Revolution2'></a>History of the French
+Revolution</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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.)
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.---The End of an Era</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>canaille</i>. 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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon a new expedient once more astonishes the world, unheard of
+these hundred and sixty years--<i>Convocation of the Notables</i>. 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 Lom&eacute;nie-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.</p>
+
+<p>Lom&eacute;nie issues conciliatory edicts, fiscal edicts. But if the
+Parlement of Paris refuse to register them? As it does, entering complaints
+instead. Lom&eacute;nie launches his thunderbolt, six score <i>lettres de
+cachet;</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The provincial parlements, moreover, back up the Paris Parlement with
+its demand for a States-General. Lom&eacute;nie 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
+Fran&ccedil;aises and Gardes Suisses. Still, however, will none of the
+provincial parlements register.</p>
+
+<p>Deputations coming from Brittany meet to take counsel, being refused
+audience; become the <i>Breton Club</i>, first germ of the <i>Jacobins'
+Society</i>. Lom&eacute;nie 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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---The States-General</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Wherewith Lom&eacute;nie 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 <i>Tiers Etat</i> 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 Abb&eacute; Siey&egrave;s has come to Paris to ask three questions, and
+answer them: <i>What is the Third Estate? All. What has it hitherto been in
+our form of government? Nothing. What does it want? To become
+something</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The grand questions are: Shall the States-General sit and vote in three
+separate bodies, or in one body, wherein the <i>Tiers Etat</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Honor&eacute; 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?</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Third
+Estate</i>, but <i>National Assembly</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>War-god Broglie is at work, but grapeshot is good on one condition! The
+Gardes Fran&ccedil;aises, 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 <i>National Guard</i>! And while the
+crisis is going on, Mirabeau is away, sad at heart for the dying, crabbed
+old father whom he loved.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.---Menads and Feast of Pikes</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+ch&acirc;teaus have flamed aloft in the Ma&ccedil;onnais and Beaujolais
+alone. Ill stands it now with some of the seigneurs. And, glorious as the
+meridian, M. Necker is returning from B&acirc;le.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>Allons</i>! Let us assemble! To the H&ocirc;tel 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 H&ocirc;tel 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 <i>Mon G&eacute;n&eacute;ral,</i> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>Towards midnight comes Lafayette; seems to have saved the situation;
+gets to bed about five in the morning. But rascaldom, gathering about the
+ch&acirc;teau, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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--<i>King Louis, restorer of French liberty!</i></p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>assignats</i>, 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 <i>eye</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The End of Mirabeau</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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 P&eacute;tion; an
+incorruptible Robespierre; conspicuous, if seldom audible, Philippe
+d'Orleans; and Barnave triumvirate.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.---Constitution Will Not March</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>For there are troubles in cities of the south. Avignon, where Jourdan
+<i>coupe-t&ecirc;te</i> makes lurid appearance; Perpignan, northern Caen
+also. With factions, suspicions, want of bread and sugar, it is verily what
+they call <i>d&eacute;chir&eacute;,</i> torn asunder, this poor country.
+And away over seas the Plain of Cap Fran&ccedil;ais 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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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 P&eacute;tion, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>veto</i>!
+Strict Roland, the whole Patriot ministry, finds itself turned out.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VI.--Regicide</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>There is a new Tribunal of Justice dealing with aristocrats; but the
+Prussians have taken Longwi, and La Vend&eacute;e 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 Thermopyl&aelig;--if we
+can secure Argonne; for which one had need to be a lion-fox and have luck
+on one's side.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>fantasy</i>
+"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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>not</i> fly like poultry; finally retires; a day precious to France!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.?</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>emerged</i>, before the Convention; fifty-seven
+questions are put to him. Thereafter he withdraws, having answered--for the
+most part on the simple basis of <i>No</i>. On December 26, his advocate,
+Des&eacute;ze, 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
+Egalit&eacute;, once Orleans--Death. Lastly, no delay.</p>
+
+<p>On the morrow, in the Place de la Revolution, he is brought to the
+guillotine; beside him, brave Abb&eacute; 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."</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VII.--Reign of Terror</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, Dumouriez is checked; Custine also in the Rhine country is
+checked; England and Spain are also taking the field; La Vend&eacute;e has
+flamed out again with its war cry of <i>God and the King</i>. 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 <i>Tribunal
+R&eacute;volutionnaire</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>At Paris is to be a new feast of pikes, over yet a new constitution;
+statue of Nature, statue of Liberty, unveiled! <i>Republic one and
+indivisible</i>--<i>Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death</i>! 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.</p>
+
+<p>Committee of Public Safety promulgates levy <i>en masse;</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Terror is become the order of the day. Arrestment on arrestment follows
+quick, continual; "The guillotine goes not ill."</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VIII.--Climax and Reaction</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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 <i>noyades</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Vengeur</i>, triumphant in death; plunging down
+carrying <i>vive la R&eacute;publique</i> along with her into eternity, in
+Howe's victory of the First of June. Alas, alas! a myth, founded, like the
+world itself, on <i>Nothing</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Of massacring, altar-robbing, H&eacute;bertism, is there beginning to be
+a sickening? Danton, Camille Desmoulins are weary of it; the
+H&eacute;bertists 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.</p>
+
+<p>Foul H&eacute;bert and the H&eacute;bertists, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Tyranny! Dictatorship</i>! 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. Abb&eacute; Siey&egrave;s
+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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='LAMARTINE'></a>LAMARTINE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_Girondists'></a>History of the Girondists</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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 M&eacute;ditations." 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The War-Seekers of the South</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>centre</i>,
+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, Gensonn&eacute;, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>P&eacute;tion 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;
+P&eacute;tion, 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.</p>
+
+<p>The nomination of P&eacute;tion to the office of <i>maire</i> of Paris
+gave the Girondists a constant <i>point d'appui</i> in the capital. Paris,
+as well as the Assembly, escaped from the king's hands.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>emigres</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.---the Fall of La Gironde</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>The Convention oscillated during the struggle between the Girondins and
+their Radical opponents with every speech.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.
+P&eacute;tion, so feeble in the face of popularity, was intrepid when he
+faced death; Gensonn&eacute;, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, H&eacute;rault de S&eacute;chelles, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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. H&eacute;rault de S&eacute;chelles 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Seize this rebel!" said H&eacute;rault de S&eacute;chelles, pointing
+with his finger to Henriot. The soldiers remained immovable.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Judges at the Bar</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>On October 22, their <i>acte d'accusation</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>salle d'audience,</i> between two
+files of <i>gens d'armes,</i> and took their places in silence on the
+prisoners' bench.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Duch&acirc;tel, deputy of Deux S&eacute;vres,
+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."</p>
+
+<p>Carra, deputy of S&acirc;one and Loire at the Convention, sat next to
+Duch&acirc;tel. His vulgar physiognomy, the stoop of his shoulders, his
+large head and disordered attire contrasted with the beauty and stature of
+Duch&acirc;tel Learned, confused, fanatic, declamatory, impetuous alike in
+attack or resistance, he had sided with the Gironde to combat the excesses
+of the people.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Gensonn&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Valaz&eacute; seemed like a soldier under fire; his conscience told him
+it was his duty to die, and he died.</p>
+
+<p>The Abb&eacute; Fauchet came immediately after Valaz&eacute;. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Brissot was the last but one.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Banquet of Death</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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 Valaz&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"What, Valaz&eacute;, are you losing your courage?" said Brissot,
+striving to support him.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am dying," returned Valaz&eacute;. And he expired, his hand on
+the poignard with which he had pierced his heart.</p>
+
+<p>At this spectacle silence instantly prevailed, and the example of
+Valaz&eacute; made the young Girondists blush for their momentary
+weakness.</p>
+
+<p>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 R&eacute;publique!"</p>
+
+<p>The Girondists, as they quitted their places, cried simultaneously. "We
+die innocent! Vive la R&eacute;publique!"</p>
+
+<p>They were all confined for this their last night on earth in the large
+dungeon, the waiting room of death.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>A long silence followed this speech of Vergniaud's, and the conversation
+turned from earth to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>When all was ready, and the last lock of hair had fallen on the stones
+of the dungeon, the executioners and <i>gens d'armes</i> 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:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<i>Contre nous de la tyrannie<br />
+L'&eacute;tendard sanglant est lev&eacute;.</i><br />
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='HIPPOLYTE_ADOLPHE_TAINE'></a>HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_Modern_Regime'></a>The Modern R&eacute;gime</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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 Coll&egrave;ge
+de Bourbon and the &Eacute;cole 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 R&eacute;gime,"
+appeared in 1875; the second, "The Revolution," in 1878-81-85; and the
+third, "The Modern R&eacute;gime," 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Architect of Modern France</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Contemplate in Gu&eacute;rin'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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>in all cases</i> 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, <i>according to the
+case</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>(&eacute;tats)</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Body-Social of a Despot</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>However clear and energetic the ideas of Napoleon are when he sets to
+work to make the New R&eacute;gime, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>gendarmerie</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>lyc&eacute;e,</i> it must pay for the annual support of the building,
+while the pupils, either day-scholars or boarders, pay accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>lyc&eacute;es,</i> are actually gratifications which it distributes
+among its functionaries and officials. It takes back with one hand what it
+bestows with the other.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The New Taxation, Fiscal and Bodily</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>mutation</i> 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 <i>timbre</i>, is
+enormous, since, in most cases, it takes five, seven, nine, and up to ten
+and one-half per cent, on the capital transmitted.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &Eacute;cole 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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Prefect Absolute</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Yet another institution which Napoleon gave to the Modern R&eacute;gime
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='THOMAS_CARLYLE2'></a>THOMAS CARLYLE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='Frederick_the_Great'></a>Frederick the Great</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p> 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.) </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--Forebears and Childhood</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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 <i>Vater Fritz</i>--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 <i>finis</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Crown Prince Leaves Kingship</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 C&uuml;strin;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Silesian Wars</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>not</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+Mar&eacute;chal 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Mar&eacute;chal Saxe, brilliant French
+field-marshal, most dissipated man of his time, one of the 354 children of
+Augustus the Physically Strong.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Seven Years' War Opens</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Olm&uuml;tz, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--Frederick at Bay</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Z&uuml;llichau. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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).</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VI.--Afternoon and Evening of Frederick's Life</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+"F&uuml;rstenbund," 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.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks after this F&uuml;rstenbund, 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='GEORGE_FINLAY'></a>GEORGE FINLAY</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_Greece'></a>History of Greece</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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 G&ouml;ttingen
+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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--Greece Under the Romans</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Byzantine and Greek Empires</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Othoman and Venetian</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Propyl&aelig;a, 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 Phid&aelig;as 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Greek Revolution</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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 Philik&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 medi&aelig;val
+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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--The Greek Monarchy</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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-Gl&uuml;cksburg. On March 30, 1863, he was unanimously elected
+King of Greece, and the British forces left Corfu on June 2, 1864.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='JL_MOTLEY'></a>J.L. MOTLEY</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_Rise_of_the_Dutch_Republic'></a>The Rise of the Dutch
+Republic</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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 G&ouml;ttingen. 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--Woe to the Heretic</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Netherlands Are, and Will Be, Free</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Image-Breaking Campaign</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Alva the Terrible</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--The Union of the Provinces</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>VI.--The Assassination of William of Orange</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 G&eacute;rard, a fanatical Catholic who had for years
+formed the design of murdering the Prince of Orange. The interview was so
+entirely unexpected that G&eacute;rard 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 G&eacute;rard 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
+G&eacute;rard, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+G&eacute;rard. 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 Comt&eacute;, and took
+their place at once among the landed aristocracy.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_United_Netherlands'></a>History of the United
+Netherlands</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> "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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--After the Death of William</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--Leicester and the Armada</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Maurice of Nassau</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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
+B&eacute;arnais.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+B&eacute;arnais 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>ad interim</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Winning Through</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>In 1600 the States-General planned the invasion of the Spanish
+Netherlands, but the scheme proved impracticable, and was abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>uti possidetis</i> 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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='MOUNTSTUART_ELPHINSTONE'></a>MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_History_of_India'></a>The History of India</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Hindus</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Mahometan Conquest</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Baber and Aber</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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'&eacute;tat assumed the
+reins of Government. Perhaps it was fortunate for both that the fallen
+minister was assassinated by a personal enemy.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Mogul Empire</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='VOLTAIRE2'></a>VOLTAIRE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='Russia_Under_Peter_the_Great'></a>Russia Under Peter the
+Great</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> Fran&ccedil;ois 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 "Si&egrave;cle de Louis Quatorze" (see
+<i>ante</i>) 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--All the Russias</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The province nearest to our own realms is Livonia, long a heathen
+region. Tsar Peter conquered it from the Swedes.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--At the School of Europe</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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).</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--War with Sweden</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Expansion of Russia</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>bouleversement</i>, which
+involved the overthrow of the regency of Orleans in France.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>V.--Peter the Great</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='WH_PRESCOTT'></a>W.H. PRESCOTT</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='The_Reign_of_Ferdinand_and_Isabella'></a>The Reign of
+Ferdinand and Isabella</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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
+<i>ante</i>) 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--Castile and Aragon</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--Overthrow of the Moorish Dominion</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>hermandad</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Auto da f&eacute;</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Italian Wars</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 r&eacute;gime 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--After Isabella</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='VOLTAIRE3'></a>VOLTAIRE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_Charles_XII'></a>History of Charles XII</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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 <i>ante</i>). 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Meteor Blazes</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--From Triumph to Disaster</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Meteor Quenched</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='HENRY_MILMAN_DD'></a>HENRY MILMAN, D.D.</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_Latin_Christianity'></a>History of Latin
+Christianity</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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.)
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--Development of the Church of Rome</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 medi&aelig;val Christianity--its ethics, its asceticism,
+its sacerdotalism, and its superstitions--had reached its lasting
+shape.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--The Western Empire and Theocracy</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--Triumph and Decline of the Papacy</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+Grost&ecirc;te of Lincoln, on whom fell Stephen Langton's mantle, is the
+noblest ecclesiastical figure of the time.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--Captivity, Seclusion, and Revival</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h1><a name='LEOPOLD_VON_RANKE'></a>LEOPOLD VON RANKE</h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name='History_of_the_Popes'></a>History of the Popes</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p> 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. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3><i>I.--The Papacy at the Reformation</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>II.--Sixteenth Century Popes</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>III.--The Counter Reformation: First Stage</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><i>IV.--The Counter Reformation: Second Stage</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>cujus regio ejus
+relig&iuml;o</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII., by Arthur Mee
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+</pre>
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+</body>
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+
diff --git a/old/12845.txt b/old/12845.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..24893a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/12845.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10644 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII., by Arthur Mee
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII.
+       Modern History
+
+Author: Arthur Mee
+
+Release Date: July 7, 2004 [EBook #12845]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREATEST BOOKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hagerson, Kevin Handy and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+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 Regime
+
+  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 Regime
+
+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 Regime," 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 deg. 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 _regime_. 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 Nunez 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 Rhe (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 L200,000 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 L35,000. 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 mediaeval 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'Etat 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 Caesar 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 Conde, 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. Conde 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.
+
+Conde 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 Conde. 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, Conde's successes
+against her had been to a great extent made nugatory--and now Conde was
+a rebel and in command of Spanish troops. But Conde, 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-Comte 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-Comte 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 Conde 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, Conde, and
+Conde's pupil, Luxembourg. He decided to direct his own next campaign
+against Franche-Comte. But during the year Turenne, who was conducting a
+separate campaign in Germany with extraordinary brilliancy, was killed;
+and after this year Conde 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
+Vendome.
+
+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. Vendome 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 Vendome
+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, Flechier, Chapelain, Cotin, Lulli.
+
+A series of ladies, from Mazarin's niece, Marie Mancini, to Mme. la
+Valliere 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.
+Francoise d'Aubigne 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 "Telemaque" of
+Fenelon, the "Caracteres" of La Bruyere, 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 Moliere 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 Cevennes
+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 Regime
+
+
+     Born at Paris on July 29, 1805, Alexis Henri Charles Clerel 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 Democratie en
+     Amerique" (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 Regime" ("The Old Regime"),
+     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 regime 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 etat,_ 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.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FRANCOIS MIGNET
+
+
+History of the French Revolution
+
+
+     Francois 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 Francais," in the meantime delivering with
+     considerable success a series of lectures on modern history at
+     the Athenee. 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 Abbe 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 Notre 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 Dauphine, from Crepy-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 Sieyes, 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 Sieyes 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.---"A 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, Sevres, 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 Hotel de Ville, and
+requested that the tocsin might be sounded. Some electors assembled at
+the Hotel 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 Hotel 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 "A 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 feted at the chateau, 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 Hotel 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 chateau. 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 chateau. 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 Montmedy 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 chateau, one by one, in disguise, and took the road to Chalons
+and Montmedy.
+
+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, Bouille 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 Honore, 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 Liege put our army wholly to
+the rout.
+
+Meanwhile, partial disturbances had taken place several times in La
+Vendee. The Vendeans 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 Floreal 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 Hotel 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 Hotel 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 Lomenie-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.
+
+Lomenie issues conciliatory edicts, fiscal edicts. But if the Parlement
+of Paris refuse to register them? As it does, entering complaints
+instead. Lomenie 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. Lomenie 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
+Francaises 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_. Lomenie 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 Lomenie 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 Abbe Sieyes 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 Honore 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 Francaises, 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 chateaus have flamed aloft in the Maconnais and Beaujolais
+alone. Ill stands it now with some of the seigneurs. And, glorious as
+the meridian, M. Necker is returning from Bale.
+
+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 Hotel 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 Hotel 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 General,_ 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 chateau, 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 Petion; 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-tete_ makes lurid appearance; Perpignan, northern Caen also. With
+factions, suspicions, want of bread and sugar, it is verily what they
+call _dechire,_ torn asunder, this poor country. And away over seas the
+Plain of Cap Francais 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 Petion, 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 Vendee 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 Thermopylae--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, Deseze, 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 Egalite, once Orleans--Death. Lastly, no
+delay.
+
+On the morrow, in the Place de la Revolution, he is brought to the
+guillotine; beside him, brave Abbe 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 Vendee 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 Revolutionnaire_, 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 Republique_ 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, Hebertism, is there beginning to be a
+sickening? Danton, Camille Desmoulins are weary of it; the Hebertists
+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 Hebert and the Hebertists, 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. Abbe Sieyes 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
+     Meditations." 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, Gensonne, 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.
+
+Petion 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;
+Petion, 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 Petion 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. Petion, so feeble in the face of popularity, was intrepid when he
+faced death; Gensonne, 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, Herault de Sechelles, 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. Herault de Sechelles 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 Herault de Sechelles, 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 Duchatel, deputy of Deux Sevres, 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 Saone and Loire at the Convention, sat next to
+Duchatel. His vulgar physiognomy, the stoop of his shoulders, his large
+head and disordered attire contrasted with the beauty and stature of
+Duchatel 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.
+
+Gensonne 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.
+
+Valaze seemed like a soldier under fire; his conscience told him it was
+his duty to die, and he died.
+
+The Abbe Fauchet came immediately after Valaze. 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 Valaze.
+
+"What, Valaze, are you losing your courage?" said Brissot, striving to
+support him.
+
+"No, I am dying," returned Valaze. 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 Valaze
+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 Republique!"
+
+The Girondists, as they quitted their places, cried simultaneously. "We
+die innocent! Vive la Republique!"
+
+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'etendard sanglant est leve._
+
+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 Regime
+
+
+     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 College de Bourbon and the Ecole 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 Regime," appeared
+     in 1875; the second, "The Revolution," in 1878-81-85; and the
+     third, "The Modern Regime," 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 Guerin'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
+_(etats)_ 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 Regime, 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 _lycee,_ 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 _lycees,_ 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 Ecole 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 Regime 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 Cuestrin;
+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 Marechal 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 Marechal 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 Olmuetz, 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 Zuellichau. 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 "Fuerstenbund," 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 Fuerstenbund, 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 Goettingen 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 Propylaea, 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 Phidaeas 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 Philike 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 mediaeval
+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-Gluecksburg. 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
+     Goettingen. 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 Gerard, a fanatical Catholic who had for years
+formed the design of murdering the Prince of Orange. The interview was
+so entirely unexpected that Gerard 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 Gerard 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 Gerard, 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 Gerard. 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
+Comte, 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 Bearnais.
+
+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 Bearnais 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'etat 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
+
+
+     Francois 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 "Siecle 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 fe_, 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 regime 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 mediaeval 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 Grostete 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
+religio_. 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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