11. Henry's Plans.--Just as the reign of Louis XI. had been a period
of rest and recovery from the English wars, so that of Henry IV. was one
of restoration from the ravages of thirty years of intermittent civil
war. The king himself not only had bright and engaging manners, but was
a man of large heart and mind; and Sully did much for the welfare of the
country. Roads, canals, bridges, postal communications, manufactures,
extended commerce, all owed their promotion to him, and brought
prosperity to the burgher class; and the king was especially endeared to
the peasantry by his saying that he hoped for the time when no cottage
would be without a good fowl in its pot. The great silk manufactories of
southern France chiefly arose under his encouragement, and there was
prosperity of every kind. The Church itself was in a far better state
than before. Some of the best men of any time were then living--in
especial Vincent de Paul, who did much to improve the training of the
parochial clergy, and who founded the order of Sisters of Charity, who
prevented the misery of the streets of Paris from ever being so
frightful as in those days when deserted children became the prey of
wolves, dogs, and pigs. The nobles, who had grown into insolence during
the wars, either as favourites of Henry III. or as zealous supporters of
the Huguenot cause, were subdued and tamed. The most noted of these were
the Duke of Bouillon, the owner of the small principality of Sedan, who
was reduced to obedience by the sight of Sully's formidable train of
artillery; and the Marshal Duke of Biron, who, thinking that Henry had
not sufficiently rewarded his services, intrigued with Spain and Savoy,
and was beheaded for his treason. Hatred to the house of Austria in
Spain and Germany was as keen as ever in France; and in 1610 Henry IV.
was prepared for another war on the plea of a disputed succession to the
duchy of Cleves. The old fanaticism still lingered in Paris, and Henry
had been advised to beware of pageants there; but it was necessary that
his second wife, Mary de' Medici, should be crowned before he went to
the war, as she was to be left regent. Two days after the coronation, as
Henry was going to the arsenal to visit his old friend Sully, he was
stabbed to the heart in his coach, in the streets of Paris, by a fanatic
named Ravaillac. The French call him Le Grand Monarque; and he was one
of the most attractive and benevolent of men, winning the hearts of all
who approached him, but the immorality of his life did much to confirm
the already low standard that prevailed among princes and nobles in
France.
12. The States-General of 1614.--Henry's second wife, Mary de' Medici,
became regent, for her son, _Louis XIII._, was only ten years old, and
indeed his character was so weak that his whole reign was only one long
minority. Mary de' Medici was entirely under the dominion of an Italian
favourite named Concini, and his wife, and their whole endeavour was to
amass riches for themselves and keep the young king in helpless
ignorance, while they undid all that Sully had effected, and took bribes
shamelessly. The Prince of Conde tried to overthrow them, and, in hopes
of strengthening herself, in 1614 Mary summoned together the
States-General. There came 464 members, 132 for the nobles, 140 for the
clergy, and 192 for the third estate, _i.e._ the burghers, and these,
being mostly lawyers and magistrates from the provinces, were resolved
to make their voices heard. Taxation was growing worse and worse. Not
only was it confined to the burgher and peasant class, exempting the
clergy and the nobles, among which last were included their families to
the remotest generation, but it had become the court custom to multiply
offices, in order to pension the nobles, and keep them quiet; and this,
together with the expenses of the army, made the weight of taxation
ruinous. Moreover, the presentation to the civil offices held by
lawyers was made hereditary in their families, on payment of a sum down,
and of fees at the death of each holder. All these abuses were
complained of; and one of the deputies even told the nobility that if
they did not learn to treat the despised classes below them as younger
brothers, they would lay up a terrible store of retribution for
themselves. A petition to the king was drawn up, and was received, but
never answered. The doors of the house of assembly were closed--the
members were told it was by order of the king--and the States-General
never met again for 177 years, when the storm was just ready to fall.
13. The Siege of Rochelle.--The rottenness of the State was chiefly
owing to the nobility, who, as long as they were allowed to grind down
their peasants and shine at court, had no sense of duty or public
spirit, and hated the burghers and lawyers far too much to make common
cause with them against the constantly increasing power of the throne.
They only intrigued and struggled for personal advantages and rivalries,
and never thought of the good of the State. They bitterly hated Concini,
the Marshal d'Ancre, as he had been created, but he remained in power
till 1614, when one of the king's gentlemen, Albert de Luynes, plotted
with the king himself and a few of his guards for his deliverance.
Nothing could be easier than the execution. The king ordered the
captain of the guards to arrest Concini, and kill him if he resisted;
and this was done. Concini was cut down on the steps of the Louvre, and
Louis exclaimed, "At last I am a king." But it was not in him to be a
king, and he never was one all his life. He only passed under the
dominion of De Luynes, who was a high-spirited young noble. The
Huguenots had been holding assemblies, which were considered more
political than religious, and their towns of security were a grievance
to royalty. War broke out again, and Louis himself went with De Luynes
to besiege Montauban. The place was taken, but disease broke out in the
army, and De Luynes died. There was a fresh struggle for power between
the queen-mother and the Prince of Conde, ending in both being set aside
by the queen's almoner, Armand de Richelieu, Bishop of Lucon, and
afterwards a cardinal, the ablest statesman then in Europe, who gained
complete dominion over the king and country, and ruled them both with a
rod of iron. The Huguenots were gradually driven out of all their
strongholds, till only Rochelle remained to them. This city was bravely
and patiently defended by the magistrates and the Duke of Rohan, with
hopes of succour from England, until these being disconcerted by the
murder of the Duke of Buckingham, they were forced to surrender, after
having held out for more than a year. Louis XIII. entered in triumph,
deprived the city of all its privileges, and thus in 1628 concluded the
war that had begun by the attack of the Guisards on the congregation at
Vassy, in 1561. The lives and properties of the Huguenots were still
secure, but all favour was closed against them, and every encouragement
held out to them to join the Church. Many of the worst scandals had been
removed, and the clergy were much improved; and, from whatever motive it
might be, many of the more influential Huguenots began to conform to the
State religion.
CHAPTER VI.
POWER OF THE CROWN.
1. Richelieu's Administration.--Cardinal de Richelieu's whole idea of
statesmanship consisted in making the King of France the greatest of
princes at home and abroad. To make anything great of Louis XIII., who
was feeble alike in mind and body, was beyond any one's power, and
Richelieu kept him in absolute subjection, allowing him a favourite with
whom to hunt, talk, and amuse himself, but if the friend attempted to
rouse the king to shake off the yoke, crushing him ruthlessly. It was
the crown rather than the king that the cardinal exalted, putting down
whatever resisted. Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the king's only brother,
made a futile struggle for power, and freedom of choice in marriage, but
was soon overcome. He was spared, as being the only heir to the kingdom,
but the Duke of Montmorency, who had been led into his rebellion, was
brought to the block, amid the pity and terror of all France. Whoever
seemed dangerous to the State, or showed any spirit of independence,
was marked by the cardinal, and suffered a hopeless imprisonment, if
nothing worse; but at the same time his government was intelligent and
able, and promoted prosperity, as far as was possible where there was
such a crushing of individual spirit and enterprise. Richelieu's plan,
in fact, was to found a despotism, though a wise and well-ordered
despotism, at home, while he made France great by conquests abroad. And
at this time the ambition of France found a favourable field in the
state both of Germany and of Spain.
2. The War in Flanders and Italy.--The Thirty Years' War had been
raging in Germany for many years, and France had taken no part in it,
beyond encouraging the Swedes and the Protestant Germans, as the enemies
of the Emperor. But the policy of Richelieu required that the disunion
between its Catholic and Protestant states should be maintained, and
when things began to tend towards peace from mutual exhaustion, the
cardinal interfered, and induced the Protestant party to continue the
war by giving them money and reinforcements. A war had already begun in
Italy on behalf of the Duke of Nevers, who had become heir to the duchy
of Mantua, but whose family had lived in France so long that the Emperor
and the King of Spain supported a more distant claim of the Duke of
Savoy to part of the duchy, rather than admit a French prince into
Italy. Richelieu was quick to seize this pretext for attacking Spain,
for Spain was now dying into a weak power, and he saw in the war a means
of acquiring the Netherlands, which belonged to the Spanish crown. At
first nothing important was done, but the Spaniards and Germans were
worn out, while two young and able captains were growing up among the
French--the Viscount of Turenne, younger son to the Duke of Bouillon,
and the Duke of Enghien, eldest son of the Prince of Conde--and
Richelieu's policy soon secured a brilliant career of success. Elsass,
Lorraine, Artois, Catalonia, and Savoy, all fell into the hands of the
French, and from a chamber of sickness the cardinal directed the affairs
of three armies, as well as made himself feared and respected by the
whole kingdom. Cinq Mars, the last favourite he had given the king,
plotted his overthrow, with the help of the Spaniards, but was detected
and executed, when the great minister was already at death's door.
Richelieu recommended an Italian priest, Julius Mazarin, whom he had
trained to work under him, to carry on the government, and died in the
December of 1642. The king only survived him five months, dying on the
14th of May, 1643. The war was continued on the lines Richelieu had laid
down, and four days after the death of Louis XIII. the army in the Low
Countries gained a splendid victory at Rocroy, under the Duke of
Enghien, entirely destroying the old Spanish infantry. The battles of
Freiburg, Nordlingen, and Lens raised the fame of the French generals to
the highest pitch, and in 1649 reduced the Emperor to make peace in the
treaty of Munster. France obtained as her spoil the three bishoprics,
Metz, Toul, and Verdun, ten cities in Elsass, Brisach, and the Sundgau,
with the Savoyard town of Pignerol; but the war with Spain continued
till 1659, when Louis XIV. engaged to marry Maria Theresa, a daughter of
the King of Spain.
3. The Fronde.--When an heir had long been despaired of, Anne of
Austria, the wife of Louis XIII., had become the mother of two sons, the
eldest of whom, _Louis XIV._, was only five years old at the time of his
father's death. The queen-mother became regent, and trusted entirely to
Mazarin, who had become a cardinal, and pursued the policy of Richelieu.
But what had been endured from a man by birth a French noble, was
intolerable from a low-born Italian. "After the lion comes the fox," was
the saying, and the Parliament of Paris made a last stand by refusing to
register the royal edict for fresh taxes, being supported both by the
burghers of Paris, and by a great number of the nobility, who were
personally jealous of Mazarin. This party was called the Fronde, because
in their discussions each man stood forth, launched his speech, and
retreated, just as the boys did with slings (_fronde_) and stones in the
streets. The struggle became serious, but only a few of the lawyers in
the parliament had any real principle or public spirit; all the other
actors caballed out of jealousy and party spirit, making tools of "the
men of the gown," whom they hated and despised, though mostly far their
superiors in worth and intelligence. Anne of Austria held fast by
Mazarin, and was supported by the Duke of Enghien, whom his father's
death had made Prince of Conde. Conde's assistance enabled her to
blockade Paris and bring the parliament to terms, which concluded the
first act of the Fronde, with the banishment of Mazarin as a peace
offering. Conde, however, became so arrogant and overbearing that the
queen caused him to be imprisoned, whereupon his wife and his other
friends began a fresh war for his liberation, and the queen was forced
to yield; but he again showed himself so tyrannical that the queen and
the parliament became reconciled and united to put him down, giving the
command of the troops to Turenne. Again there was a battle at the gates
of Paris, in which all Conde's friends were wounded, and he himself so
entirely worsted that he had to go into exile, when he entered the
Spanish service, while Mazarin returned to power at home.
4. The Court of Anne of Austria.--The court of France, though never
pure, was much improved during the reign of Louis XIII. and the regency
of Anne of Austria. There was a spirit of romance and grace about it,
somewhat cumbrous and stately, but outwardly pure and refined, and quite
a step out of the gross and open vice of the former reigns. The Duchess
de Rambouillet, a lady of great grace and wit, made her house the centre
of a brilliant society, which set itself to raise and refine the
manners, literature, and language of the time. No word that was
considered vulgar or coarse was allowed to pass muster; and though in
process of time this censorship became pedantic and petty, there is no
doubt that much was done to purify both the language and the tone of
thought. Poems, plays, epigrams, eulogiums, and even sermons were
rehearsed before the committee of taste in the Hotel de Rambouillet, and
a wonderful new stimulus was there given, not only to ornamental but to
solid literature. Many of the great men who made France illustrious were
either ending or beginning their careers at this time. Memoir writing
specially flourished, and the characters of the men and women of the
court are known to us on all sides. Cardinal de Retz and the Duke of
Rochefoucauld, both deeply engaged in the Fronde, have left, the one
memoirs, the other maxims of great power of irony. Mme. de Motteville,
one of the queen's ladies, wrote a full history of the court. Blaise
Pascal, one of the greatest geniuses of all times, was attaching
himself to the Jansenists. This religious party, so called from Jansen,
a Dutch priest, whose opinions were imputed to them, had sprung up
around the reformed convent of Port Royal, and numbered among them some
of the ablest and best men of the time; but the Jesuits considered them
to hold false doctrine, and there was a continual debate, ending at
length in the persecution of the Jansenists. Pascal's "Provincial
Letters," exposing the Jesuit system, were among the ablest writings of
the age. Philosophy, poetry, science, history, art, were all making
great progress, though there was a stateliness and formality in all that
was said and done, redolent of the Spanish queen's etiquette and the
fastidious refinement of the Hotel Rambouillet.
5. Court of Louis XIV.--The attempt from the earliest times of the
French monarchy had been to draw all government into the hands of the
sovereign, and the suppression of the Fronde completed the work. Louis
XIV., though ill educated, was a man of considerable ability, much
industry, and great force of character, arising from a profound belief
that France was the first country in the world, and himself the first of
Frenchmen; and he had a magnificent courtesy of demeanour, which so
impressed all who came near him as to make them his willing slaves.
"There is enough in him to make four kings and one respectable man
besides" was what Mazarin said of him; and when in 1661 the cardinal
died, the king showed himself fully equal to becoming his own prime
minister. "The State is myself," he said, and all centred upon him so
that no room was left for statesmen. The court was, however, in a most
brilliant state. There had been an unusual outburst of talent of every
kind in the lull after the Wars of Religion, and in generals, thinkers,
artists, and men of literature, France was unusually rich. The king had
a wonderful power of self-assertion, which attached them all to him
almost as if he were a sort of divinity. The stately, elaborate Spanish
etiquette brought in by his mother, Anne of Austria, became absolutely
an engine of government. Henry IV. had begun the evil custom of keeping
the nobles quiet by giving them situations at court, with pensions
attached, and these offices were multiplied to the most enormous and
absurd degree, so that every royal personage had some hundreds of
personal attendants. Princes of the blood and nobles of every degree
were contented to hang about the court, crowding into the most narrow
lodgings at Versailles, and thronging its anterooms; and to be ordered
to remain in the country was a most severe punishment.
6. France under Louis XIV.--There was, in fact, nothing but the chase
to occupy a gentleman on his own estate, for he was allowed no duties
or responsibilities. Each province had a governor or _intendant_, a sort
of viceroy, and the administration of the cities was managed chiefly on
the part of the king, even the mayors obtaining their posts by purchase.
The unhappy peasants had to pay in the first place the taxes to
Government, out of which were defrayed an intolerable number of
pensions, many for useless offices; next, the rents and dues which
supported their lord's expenditure at court; and, thirdly, the tithes
and fees of the clergy. Besides which, they were called off from the
cultivation of their own fields for a certain number of days to work at
the roads; their horses might be used by royal messengers; their lord's
crops had to be got in by their labour gratis, while their own were
spoiling; and, in short, the only wonder is how they existed at all.
Their hovels and their food were wretched, and any attempt to amend
their condition on the part of their lord would have been looked on as
betokening dangerous designs, and probably have landed him in the
Bastille. The peasants of Brittany--where the old constitution had been
less entirely ruined--and those of Anjou were in a less oppressed
condition, and in the cities trade flourished. Colbert, the
comptroller-general of the finances, was so excellent a manager that the
pressure of taxation was endurable in his time, and he promoted new
manufactures, such as glass at Cherbourg, cloth at Abbeville, silk at
Lyons; he also tried to promote commerce and colonization, and to create
a navy. There was a great appearance of prosperity, and in every
department there was wonderful ability. The Reformation had led to a
considerable revival among the Roman Catholics themselves. The
theological colleges established in the last reign had much improved the
tone of the clergy. Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, was one of the most noted
preachers who ever existed, and Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, one of
the best of men. A reform of discipline, begun in the convent of Port
Royal, ended by attracting and gathering together some of the most
excellent and able persons in France--among them Blaise Pascal, a man of
marvellous genius and depth of thought, and Racine, the chief French
dramatic poet. Their chief director, the Abbot of St. Cyran, was
however, a pupil of Jansen, a Dutch ecclesiastic, whose views on
abstruse questions of grace were condemned by the Jesuits; and as the
Port-Royalists would not disown the doctrines attributed to him, they
were discouraged and persecuted throughout Louis's reign, more because
he was jealous of what would not bend to his will than for any real want
of conformity. Pascal's famous "Provincial Letters" were put forth
during this controversy; and in fact, the literature of France reached
its Augustan age during this reign, and the language acquired its
standard perfection.
7. War in the Low Countries.--Maria Theresa, the queen of Louis XIV.,
was the child of the first marriage of Philip IV. of Spain; and on her
father's death in 1661, Louis, on pretext of an old law in Brabant,
which gave the daughters of a first marriage the preference over the
sons of a second, claimed the Low Countries from the young Charles II.
of Spain. He thus began a war which was really a continuance of the old
struggle between France and Burgundy, and of the endeavour of France to
stretch her frontier to the Rhine. At first England, Holland, and Sweden
united against him, and obliged him to make the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle
in 1668; but he then succeeded in bribing Charles II. of England to
forsake the cause of the Dutch, and the war was renewed in 1672.
William, Prince of Orange, Louis's most determined enemy through life,
kept up the spirits of the Dutch, and they obtained aid from Germany and
Spain, through a six years' terrible war, in which the great Turenne was
killed at Saltzbach, in Germany. At last, from exhaustion, all parties
were compelled to conclude the peace of Nimeguen in 1678. Taking
advantage of undefined terms in this treaty, Louis seized various cities
belonging to German princes, and likewise the free imperial city of
Strassburg, when all Germany was too much worn out by the long war to
offer resistance. France was full of self-glorification, the king was
viewed almost as a demi-god, and the splendour of his court and of his
buildings, especially the palace at Versailles, with its gardens and
fountains, kept up the delusion of his greatness.
8. Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.--In 1685 Louis supposed that the
Huguenots had been so reduced in numbers that the Edict of Nantes could
be repealed. All freedom of worship was denied them; their ministers
were banished, but their flocks were not allowed to follow them. If
taken while trying to escape, men were sent to the galleys, women to
captivity, and children to convents for education. Dragoons were
quartered on families to torment them into going to mass. A few made
head in the wild moors of the Cevennes under a brave youth named
Cavalier, and others endured severe persecution in the south of France.
Dragoons were quartered on them, who made it their business to torment
and insult them; their marriages were declared invalid, their children
taken from them to be educated in the Roman Catholic faith. A great
number, amounting to at least 100,000, succeeded in escaping, chiefly to
Prussia, Holland, and England, whither they carried many of the
manufactures that Colbert had taken so much pains to establish. Many of
those who settled in England were silk weavers, and a large colony was
thus established at Spitalfields, which long kept up its French
character.
9. The War of the Palatinate.--This brutal act of tyranny was followed
by a fresh attack on Germany. On the plea of a supposed inheritance of
his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Orleans, Louis invaded the Palatinate
on the Rhine, and carried on one of the most ferocious wars in history,
while he was at the same time supporting the cause of his cousin, James
II. of England, after he had fled and abdicated on the arrival of
William of Orange. During this war, however, that generation of able men
who had grown up with Louis began to pass away, and his success was not
so uniform; while, Colbert being dead, taxation began to be more felt by
the exhausted people, and peace was made at Ryswick in 1697.
10. The War of the Succession in Spain.--The last of the four great
wars of Louis's reign was far more unfortunate. Charles II. of Spain
died childless, naming as his successor a French prince, Philip, Duke of
Anjou, the second son of the only son of Charles's eldest sister, the
queen of Louis XIV. But the Powers of Europe, at the Peace of Ryswick,
had agreed that the crown of Spain should go to Charles of Austria,
second son of the Emperor Leopold, who was the descendant of younger
sisters of the royal Spanish line, but did not excite the fear and
jealousy of Europe, as did a scion of the already overweening house of
Bourbon. This led to the War of the Spanish Succession, England and
Holland supporting Charles, and fighting with Louis in Spain, Savoy, and
the Low Countries. In Spain Louis was ultimately successful, and his
grandson Philip V. retained the throne; but the troops which his ally,
the Elector of Bavaria, introduced into Germany were totally overthrown
at Blenheim by the English army under the Duke of Marlborough, and the
Austrian under Prince Eugene, a son of a younger branch of the house of
Savoy. Eugene had been bred up in France, but, having bitterly offended
Louis by calling him a stage king for show and a chess king for use, had
entered the Emperor's service, and was one of his chief enemies. He
aided his cousin, Duke Victor Amadeus of Savoy, in repulsing the French
attacks in that quarter, gained a great victory at Turin, and advanced
into Provence. Marlborough was likewise in full career of victory in the
Low Countries, and gained there the battle of Ramillies.
11. Peace of Utrecht.--Louis had outlived his good fortune. His great
generals and statesmen had passed away. The country was exhausted,
famine was preying on the wretched peasantry, supplies could not be
found, and one city after another, of those Louis had seized, was
retaken. New victories at Oudenarde and Malplaquet were gained over the
French armies; and, though Louis was as resolute and undaunted as ever,
his affairs were in a desperate state, when he was saved by a sudden
change of policy on the part of Queen Anne of England, who recalled her
army and left her allies to continue the contest alone. Eugene was not a
match for France without Marlborough, and the Archduke Charles, having
succeeded his brother the Emperor, gave up his pretensions to the crown
of Spain, so that it became possible to conclude a general peace at
Utrecht in 1713. By this time Louis was seventy-five years of age, and
had suffered grievous family losses--first by the death of his only son,
and then of his eldest grandson, a young man of much promise of
excellence, who, with his wife died of malignant measles, probably from
ignorant medical treatment, since their infant, whose illness was
concealed by his nurses, was the only one of the family who survived.
The old king, in spite of sorrow and reverse, toiled with indomitable
energy to the end of his reign, the longest on record, having lasted
seventy-two years, when he died in 1715. He had raised the French crown
to its greatest splendour, but had sacrificed the country to himself and
his false notions of greatness.
12. The Regency.--The crown now descended to _Louis XV._, a weakly
child of four years old. His great-grandfather had tried to provide for
his good by leaving the chief seat in the council of regency to his own
illegitimate son, the Duke of Maine, the most honest and conscientious
man then in the family, but, though clever, unwise and very unpopular.
His birth caused the appointment to be viewed as an outrage by the
nobility, and the king's will was set aside. The first prince of the
blood royal, Philip, Duke of Orleans, the late king's nephew, became
sole regent--a man of good ability, but of easy, indolent nature; and
who, in the enforced idleness of his life, had become dissipated and
vicious beyond all imagination or description. He was kindly and
gracious, and his mother said of him that he was like the prince in a
fable whom all the fairies had endowed with gifts, except one malignant
sprite who had prevented any favour being of use to him. In the general
exhaustion produced by the wars of Louis XIV., a Scotchman named James
Law began the great system of hollow speculation which has continued
ever since to tempt people to their ruin. He tried raising sums of money
on national credit, and also devised a company who were to lend money to
found a great settlement on the Mississippi, the returns from which were
to be enormous. Every one speculated in shares, and the wildest
excitement prevailed. Law's house was mobbed by people seeking
interviews with him, and nobles disguised themselves in liveries to get
access to him. Fortunes were made one week and lost the next, and
finally the whole plan proved to have been a mere baseless scheme; ruin
followed, and the misery of the country increased. The Duke of Orleans
died suddenly in 1723. The king was now legally of age; but he was dull
and backward, and little fitted for government, and the country was
really ruled by the Duke of Bourbon, and after him by Cardinal Fleury,
an aged statesman, but filled with the same schemes of ambition as
Richelieu or Mazarin.
13. War of the Austrian Succession.--Thus France plunged into new
wars. Louis XV. married the daughter of Stanislas Lecksinsky, a Polish
noble, who, after being raised to the throne, was expelled by Austrian
intrigues and violence. Louis was obliged to take up arms on behalf of
his father-in-law, but was bought off by a gift from the Emperor Charles
VI. of the duchy of Lorraine to Stanislas, to revert to his daughter
after his death and thus become united to France. Lorraine belonged to
Duke Francis, the husband of Maria Theresa, eldest daughter to the
Emperor, and Francis received instead the duchy of Tuscany; while all
the chief Powers in Europe agreed to the so-called Pragmatic Sanction,
by which Charles decreed that Maria Theresa should inherit Austria and
Hungary and the other hereditary states on her father's death, to the
exclusion of the daughters of his elder brother, Joseph. When Charles
VI. died, however, in 1740, a great European war began on this matter.
Frederick II. of Prussia would neither allow Maria Theresa's claim to
the hereditary states, nor join in electing her husband to the Empire;
and France took part against her, sending Marshal Belleisle to support
the Elector of Bavaria, who had been chosen Emperor. George II. of
England held with Maria Theresa, and gained a victory over the French at
Dettingen, in 1744. Louis XV. then joined his army, and the battle of
Fontenoy, in 1745, was one of the rare victories of France over England.
Another victory followed at Laufeldt, but elsewhere France had had heavy
losses, and in 1748, after the death of Charles VII., peace was made at
Aix-la-Chapelle.
14. The Seven Years' War.--Louis, dull and selfish by nature, had been
absolutely led into vice by his courtiers, especially the Duke of
Bourbon, who feared his becoming active in public affairs. He had no
sense of duty to his people; and whereas his great-grandfather had
sought display and so-called glory, he cared solely for pleasure, and
that of the grossest and most sensual order, so that his court was a
hotbed of shameless vice. All that could be wrung from the impoverished
country was lavished on the overgrown establishments of every member of
the royal family, in pensions to nobles, and in shameful amusements of
the king. In 1756 another war broke out, in consequence of the hatreds
left between Prussia and Austria by the former struggle. Maria Theresa
had, by flatteries she ought to have disdained, gained over France to
take part with her, and England was allied with Frederick II. In this
war France and England chiefly fought in their distant possessions,
where the English were uniformly successful; and after seven years
another peace followed, leaving the boundaries of the German states just
where they were before, after a frightful amount of bloodshed. But
France had had terrible losses. She was driven from India, and lost all
her settlements in America and Canada.
15. France under Louis XV.--Meantime the gross vice and licentiousness
of the king was beyond description, and the nobility retained about the
court by the system established by Louis XIV. were, if not his equals in
crime, equally callous to the suffering caused by the reckless
expensiveness of the court, the whole cost of which was defrayed by the
burghers and peasants. No taxes were asked from clergy or nobles, and
this latter term included all sprung of a noble line to the utmost
generation. The owner of an estate had no means of benefiting his
tenants, even if he wished it; for all matters, even of local
government, depended on the crown. All he could do was to draw his
income from them, and he was often forced, either by poverty or by his
expensive life, to strain to the utmost the old feudal system. If he
lived at court, his expenses were heavy, and only partly met by his
pension, likewise raised from the taxes paid by the poor farmer; if he
lived in the country, he was a still greater tyrant, and was called by
the people a _hobereau_, or kite. No career was open to his younger
sons, except in the court, the Church, or the army, and here they
monopolized the prizes, obtaining all the richer dioceses and abbeys,
and all the promotion in the army. The magistracies were almost all
hereditary among lawyers, who had bought them for their families from
the crown, and paid for the appointment of each son. The officials
attached to each member of the royal family were almost incredible in
number, and all paid by the taxes. The old _gabelle_, or salt-tax, had
gone on ever since the English wars, and every member of a family had to
pay it, not according to what they used, but what they were supposed to
need. Every pig was rated at what he ought to require for salting. Every
cow, sheep, or hen had a toll to pay to king, lord, bishop--sometimes
also to priest and abbey. The peasant was called off from his own work
to give the dues of labour to the roads or to his lord. He might not
spread manure that could interfere with the game, nor drive away the
partridges that ate his corn. So scanty were his crops that famines
slaying thousands passed unnoticed, and even if, by any wonder,
prosperity smiled on the peasant, he durst not live in any kind of
comfort, lest the stewards of his lord or of Government should pounce on
his wealth.
16. Reaction.--Meantime there was a strong feeling that change must
come. Classical literature was studied, and Greek and Roman manners and
institutions were thought ideal perfection. There was great disgust at
the fetters of a highly artificial life in which every one was bound,
and at the institutions which had been so misused. Writers arose, among
whom Voltaire and Rousseau were the most eminent, who aimed at the
overthrow of all the ideas which had come to be thus abused. The one by
his caustic wit, the other by his enthusiastic simplicity, gained
willing ears, and, the writers in a great Encyclopædia then in course of
publication, contrived to attack most of the notions which had been
hitherto taken for granted, and were closely connected with faith and
with government. The king himself was dully aware that he was living on
the crust of a volcano, but he said it would last his time; and so it
did. Louis XV. died of smallpox in 1774, leaving his grandsons to reap
the harvest that generations had been sowing.
CHAPTER VII.
THE REVOLUTION.
1. Attempts at Reform.--It was evident that a change must be made.
_Louis XVI._ himself knew it, and slurred over the words in his
coronation oath that bound him to extirpate heresy; but he was a slow,
dull man, and affairs had come to such a pass that a far abler man than
he could hardly have dealt with the dead-lock above, without causing a
frightful outbreak of the pent-up masses below. His queen, Marie
Antoinette, was hated for being of Austrian birth, and, though a
spotless and noble woman, her most trivial actions gave occasion to
calumnies founded on the crimes of the last generation. Unfortunately,
the king, though an honest and well-intentioned man, was totally unfit
to guide a country through a dangerous crisis. His courage was passive,
his manners were heavy, dull, and shy, and, though steadily industrious,
he was slow of comprehension and unready in action; and reformation was
the more difficult because to abolish the useless court offices would
have been utter starvation to many of their holders, who had nothing but
their pensions to live upon. Yet there was a general passion for reform;
all ranks alike looked to some change to free them from the dead-lock
which made improvement impossible. The Government was bankrupt, while
the taxes were intolerable, and the first years of the reign were spent
in experiments. Necker, a Swiss banker, was invited to take the charge
of the finances, and large loans were made to Government, for which he
contrived to pay interest regularly; some reduction was made in the
expenditure; but the king's old minister, Maurepas, grew jealous of his
popularity, and obtained his dismissal. The French took the part of the
American colonies in their revolt from England, and the war thus
occasioned brought on an increase of the load of debt, the general
distress increased, and it became necessary to devise some mode of
taxing which might divide the burthens between the whole nation, instead
of making the peasants pay all and the nobles and clergy nothing. Louis
decided on calling together the Notables, or higher nobility; but they
were by no means disposed to tax themselves, and only abused his
ministers. He then resolved on convoking the whole States-General of the
kingdom, which had never met since the reign of Louis XIII.
2. The States-General.--No one exactly knew the limits of the powers
of the States-General when it met in 1789. Nobles, clergy, and the
deputies who represented the commonalty, all formed the assembly at
Versailles; and though the king would have kept apart these last, who
were called the _Tiers Etat_, or third estate, they refused to withdraw
from the great hall of Versailles. The Count of Mirabeau, the younger
son of a noble family, who sat as a deputy, declared that nothing short
of bayonets should drive out those who sat by the will of the people,
and Louis yielded. Thenceforth the votes of a noble, a bishop, or a
deputy all counted alike. The party names of democrat for those who
wanted to exalt the power of the people, and of aristocrat for those who
maintained the privileges of the nobles, came into use, and the most
extreme democrats were called Jacobins, from an old convent of Jacobin
friars, where they used to meet. The mob of Paris, always eager, fickle,
and often blood-thirsty, were excited to the last degree by the debates;
and, full of the remembrance of the insolence and cruelty of the nobles,
sometimes rose and hunted down persons whom they deemed aristocrats,
hanging them to the iron rods by which lamps were suspended over the
streets. The king in alarm drew the army nearer, and it was supposed
that he was going to prevent all change by force of arms. Thereupon the
citizens enrolled themselves as a National Guard, wearing cockades of
red, blue, and white, and commanded by La Fayette, a noble of democratic
opinions, who had run away at seventeen to serve in the American War. On
a report that the cannon of the Bastille had been pointed upon Paris,
the mob rose in a frenzy, rushed upon it, hanged the guard, and
absolutely tore down the old castle to its foundations, though they did
not find a single prisoner in it. "This is a revolt," said Louis, when
he heard of it. "Sire, it is a revolution," was the answer.
3. The New Constitution.--The mob had found out its power. The
fishwomen of the markets, always a peculiar and privileged class, were
frantically excited, and were sure to be foremost in all the
demonstrations stirred up by Jacobins. There was a great scarcity of
provisions in Paris, and this, together with the continual dread that
reforms would be checked by violence, maddened the people. On a report
that the Guards had shown enthusiasm for the king, the whole populace
came pouring out of Paris to Versailles, and, after threatening the life
of the queen, brought the family back with them to Paris, and kept them
almost as prisoners while the Assembly, which followed them to Paris,
debated on the new constitution. The nobles were viewed as the worst
enemies of the nation, and all over the country there were risings of
the peasants, headed by democrats from the towns, who sacked their
castles, and often seized their persons. Many fled to England and
Germany, and the dread that these would unite and return to bring back
the old system continually increased the fury of the people. The
Assembly, now known as the Constituent Assembly, swept away all titles
and privileges, and no one was henceforth to bear any prefix to his name
but citizen; while at the same time the clergy were to renounce all the
property of the Church, and to swear that their office and commission
was derived from the will of the people alone, and that they owed no
obedience save to the State. The estates thus yielded up were supposed
to be enough to supply all State expenses without taxes; but as they
could not at once be turned into money, promissory notes, or assignats,
were issued. But, as coin was scarce, these were not worth nearly their
professed value, and the general distress was thus much increased. The
other oath the great body of the clergy utterly refused, and they were
therefore driven out of their benefices, and became objects of great
suspicion to the democrats. All the old boundaries and other
distinctions between the provinces were destroyed, and France was
divided into departments, each of which was to elect deputies, in whose
assembly all power was to be vested, except that the king retained a
right of veto, _i.e._, of refusing his sanction to any measure. He swore
on the 13th of August, 1791, to observe this new constitution.
4. The Republic.--The Constituent Assembly now dissolved itself, and a
fresh Assembly, called the Legislative, took its place. For a time
things went on more peacefully. Distrust was, however, deeply sown. The
king was closely watched as an enemy; and those of the nobles who had
emigrated began to form armies, aided by the Germans, on the frontier
for his rescue. This enraged the people, who expected that their newly
won liberties would be overthrown. The first time the king exercised his
right of _veto_ the mob rose in fury; and though they then did no more
than threaten, on the advance of the emigrant army on the 10th of
August, 1792, a more terrible rising took place. The Tuilleries was
sacked, the guards slaughtered, the unresisting king and his family
deposed and imprisoned in the tower of the Temple. In terror lest the
nobles in the prisons should unite with the emigrants, they were
massacred by wholesale; while, with a vigour born of the excitement, the
emigrant armies were repulsed and beaten. The monarchy came to an end;
and France became a Republic, in which the National Convention, which
followed the Legislative Assembly, was supreme. The more moderate
members of this were called Girondins from the Gironde, the estuary of
the Garonne, from the neighbourhood of which many of them came. They
were able men, scholars and philosophers, full of schemes for reviving
classical times, but wishing to stop short of the plans of the
Jacobins, of whom the chief was Robespierre, a lawyer from Artois,
filled with fanatical notions of the rights of man. He, with a party of
other violent republicans, called the Mountain, of whom Danton and Marat
were most noted, set to work to destroy all that interfered with their
plans of general equality. The guillotine, a recently invented machine
for beheading, was set in all the chief market-places, and hundreds were
put to death on the charge of "conspiring against the nation." Louis
XVI. was executed early in 1793; and it was enough to have any sort of
birthright to be thought dangerous and put to death.
5. The Reign of Terror.--Horror at the bloodshed perpetrated by the
Mountain led a young girl, named Charlotte Corday, to assassinate Marat,
whom she supposed to be the chief cause of the cruelties that were
taking place; but his death only added to the dread of reaction. A
Committee of Public Safety was appointed by the Convention, and
endeavoured to sweep away every being who either seemed adverse to
equality, or who might inherit any claim to rank. The queen was put to
death nine months after her husband; and the Girondins, who had begun to
try to stem the tide of slaughter, soon fell under the denunciation of
the more violent. To be accused of "conspiring against the State" was
instantly fatal, and no one's life was safe. Danton was denounced by
Robespierre, and perished; and for three whole years the Reign of Terror
lasted. The emigrants, by forming an army and advancing on France,
assisted by the forces of Germany, only made matters worse. There was
such a dread of the old oppressions coming back, that the peasants were
ready to fight to the death against the return of the nobles. The army,
where promotion used to go by rank instead of merit, were so glad of the
change, that they were full of fresh spirit, and repulsed the army of
Germans and emigrants all along the frontier. The city of Lyons, which
had tried to resist the changes, was taken, and frightfully used by
Collot d'Herbois, a member of the Committee of Public Safety. The
guillotine was too slow for him, and he had the people mown down with
grape-shot, declaring that of this great city nothing should be left but
a monument inscribed, "Lyons resisted liberty--Lyons is no more!" In La
Vendee--a district of Anjou, where the peasants were much attached to
their clergy and nobles--they rose and gained such successes, that they
dreamt for a little while of rescuing and restoring the little captive
son of Louis XVI.; but they were defeated and put down by fire and
sword, and at Nantes an immense number of executions took place, chiefly
by drowning. It was reckoned that no less than 18,600 persons were
guillotined in the three years between 1790 and 1794, besides those who
died by other means. Everything was changed. Religion was to be done
away with; the churches were closed; the tenth instead of the seventh
day appointed for rest. "Death is an eternal sleep" was inscribed on the
schools; and Reason, represented by a classically dressed woman, was
enthroned in the cathedral of Notre Dame. At the same time a new era was
invented, the 22nd of September, 1792; the months had new names, and the
decimal measures of length, weight, and capacity, which are based on the
proportions of the earth, were planned. All this time Robespierre really
seems to have thought himself the benefactor of the human race; but at
last the other members of the Convention took courage to denounce him,
and he, with five more, was arrested and sent to the guillotine. The
bloodthirsty fever was over, the Committee of Public Safety was
overthrown, and people breathed again.
6. The Directory.--The chief executive power was placed in the hands
of a Directory, consisting of more moderate men, and a time of much
prosperity set in. Already in the new vigour born of the strong emotions
of the country the armies won great victories, not only repelling the
Germans and the emigrants, but uniting Holland to France. Napoleon
Buonaparte, a Corsican officer, who was called on to protect the
Directory from being again overawed by the mob, became the leading
spirit in France, through his Italian victories. He conquered Lombardy
and Tuscany, and forced the Emperor to let them become republics under
French protection, also to resign Flanders to France by the Treaty of
Campo Formio. Buonaparte then made a descent on Egypt, hoping to attack
India from that side, but he was foiled by Nelson, who destroyed his
fleet in the battle of the Nile, and Sir Sydney Smith, who held out Acre
against him. He hurried home to France on finding that the Directory had
begun a fresh European war, seizing Switzerland, and forcing it to give
up its treasures and become a republic on their model, and carrying the
Pope off into captivity. All the European Powers had united against
them, and Lombardy had been recovered chiefly by Russian aid; so that
Buonaparte, on the ground that a nation at war needed a less cumbrous
government than a Directory, contrived to get himself chosen First
Consul, with two inferiors, in 1799.
7. The Consulate.--A great course of victories followed in Italy,
where Buonaparte commanded in person, and in Germany under Moreau.
Austria and Russia were forced to make peace, and England was the only
country that still resisted him, till a general peace was made at Amiens
in 1803; but it only lasted for a year, for the French failed to
perform the conditions, and began the war afresh. In the mean time
Buonaparte had restored religion and order, and so entirely mastered
France that, in 1804, he was able to form the republic into an empire,
and affecting to be another Charles the Great, he caused the Pope to say
mass at his coronation, though he put the crown on his own head. A
concordat with the Pope reinstated the clergy, but altered the division
of the dioceses, and put the bishops and priests in the pay of the
State.
8. The Empire.--The union of Italy to this new French Empire caused a
fresh war with all Europe. The Austrian army, however, was defeated at
Ulm and Austerlitz, the Prussians were entirely crushed at Jena, and the
Russians fought two terrible but almost drawn battles at Eylau and
Friedland. Peace was then made with all three at Tilsit, in 1807, the
terms pressing exceedingly hard upon Prussia. Schemes of invading
England were entertained by the Emperor, but were disconcerted by the
destruction of the French and Spanish fleets by Nelson at Trafalgar.
Spain was then in alliance with France; but Napoleon, treacherously
getting the royal family into his hands, seized their kingdom, making
his brother Joseph its king. But the Spaniards would not submit, and
called in the English to their aid. The Peninsular War resulted in a
series of victories on the part of the English under Wellington, while
Austria, beginning another war, was again so crushed that the Emperor
durst not refuse to give his daughter in marriage to Napoleon. However,
in 1812, the conquest of Russia proved an exploit beyond Napoleon's
powers. He reached Moscow with his Grand Army, but the city was burnt
down immediately after his arrival, and he had no shelter or means of
support. He was forced to retreat, through a fearful winter, without
provisions and harassed by the Cossacks, who hung on the rear and cut
off the stragglers, so that his whole splendid army had become a mere
miserable, broken, straggling remnant by the time the survivors reached
the Prussian frontier. He himself had hurried back to Paris as soon as
he found their case hopeless, to arrange his resistance to all
Europe--for every country rose against him on his first disaster--and
the next year was spent in a series of desperate battles in Germany
between him and the Allied Powers. Lutzen and Bautzen were doubtful, but
the two days' battle of Leipzic was a terrible defeat. In the year 1814,
four armies--those of Austria, Russia, England, and Prussia--entered
France at once; and though Napoleon resisted, stood bravely and
skilfully, and gained single battles against Austria and Prussia, he
could not stand against all Europe. In April the Allies entered Paris,
and he was forced to abdicate, being sent under a strong guard to the
little Mediterranean isle of Elba. He had drained France of men by his
constant call for soldiers, who were drawn by conscription from the
whole country, till there were not enough to do the work in the fields,
and foreign prisoners had to be employed; but he had conferred on her one great benefit in the great code of laws called the "_Code Napoleon_," which has ever since continued in force. |
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