Evening at Home 74

Evening at Home 74

One evening, his minister, Louvois, came to him and said, “Sire, it is

absolutely necessary to make a desert of the _Palatinate_.”

 

This is a country in Germany, on the banks of the Rhine, one of the most

populous and best-cultivated districts in that empire, filled with towns

and villages, and industrious inhabitants.

 

“I should be sorry to do it,” replied the king, “for you know how much

odium we acquired throughout Europe when a part of it was laid waste

sometime ago, under Marshal Turenne.”

 

“It cannot be helped, sire,” returned Louvois. “All the damage he did

has been repaired, and the country is as flourishing as ever. If we

leave it in its present state it will afford quarters to your majesty’s

enemies, and endanger your conquests. It must be entirely ruined—the

good of the service will not permit it to be otherwise.”

 

“Well, then,” answered Louis, “if it must be so, you are to give orders

accordingly.” So saying, he left the cabinet, and went to assist a

magnificent festival given in honour of his favourite mistress by a

prince of the blood.

 

The pitiless Louvois lost no time; but despatched a courier that very

night, with positive orders to the French generals in the Palatinate to

carry fire and desolation through the whole country—not to leave a house

or a tree standing—and to expel all the inhabitants.

 

It was the midst of a rigorous winter.

 

_Os._ O horrible! but surely the generals would not obey such orders?

 

_Fa._ What, a general disobey the commands of his sovereign!—That would

be contrary to every maxim of the _trade_. Right and wrong are no

considerations to a military man. He is only to do as he is bid. The

French generals who were upon the spot, and must see with their own eyes

all that was done, probably felt somewhat like men on the occasion; but

the sacrifice to their duty as soldiers was so much the greater. The

commands were peremptory, and they were obeyed to a tittle. Towns and

villages were burnt to the ground; vineyards and orchards were cut down

and rooted up; sheep and cattle were killed; all the fair works of ages

were destroyed in a moment; and the smiling face of culture was turned

to a dreary waste.

 

The poor inhabitants were driven from their warm and comfortable

habitations into the open fields, to confront all the inclemencies of

the season. Their furniture was burnt or pillaged, and nothing was left

them but the clothes on their backs, and the few necessaries they could

carry with them. The roads were covered with trembling fugitives, going

they knew not whither, shivering with cold and pinched with hunger. Here

an old man, dropping with fatigue, lay down to die—there a woman with a

new-born infant sunk perishing on the snow, while her husband hung over

them in all the horror of despair.

 

_Os._ O, what a scene! Poor creatures! What became of them at last?

 

_Fa._ Such of them as did not perish on the road got to the neighbouring

towns, where they were received with all the hospitality that such

calamitous times would afford; but they were beggared for life.

Meantime, their country for many a league round displayed no other sight

than that of black smoking ruins in the midst of silence and desolation.

 

_Os._ I hope, however, that such things do not often happen in war.

 

_Fa._ Not often, perhaps, to the same extent: but in some degree they

must take place in every war. A village which would afford a favourable

post to the enemy is always burnt without hesitation. A country which

can no longer be maintained, is cleared of all its provision and forage

before it is abandoned, lest the enemy should have the advantage of

them; and the poor inhabitants are left to subsist as they can. Crops of

corn are trampled down by armies in their march, or devoured while green

as fodder for their horses. Pillage, robbery and murder, are always

going on in the outskirts of the best-disciplined camp. Then consider

what must happen in every siege. On the first approach of the enemy, all

the buildings in the suburbs of a town are demolished, and all the trees

in gardens and public walks are cut down, lest they should afford

shelter to the besiegers. As the siege goes on, bombs, hot balls, and

cannon-shot, are continually flying about; by which the greatest part of

a town is ruined or laid in ashes, and many of the innocent people

killed or maimed. If the resistance is obstinate, famine and pestilence

are sure to take place; and if the garrison holds out to the last, and

the town is taken by storm, it is generally given up to be pillaged by

the enraged and licentious soldiery.

 

It would be easy to bring too many examples of cruelty exercised upon a

conquered country, even in very late times, when war is said to be

carried on with so much humanity; but, indeed, how can it be otherwise?

The art of war is essentially that of destruction, and it is impossible

there should be a mild and merciful way of murdering and ruining one’s

fellow-creatures. Soldiers, as men, are often humane; but war must ever

be cruel. Though Homer has filled his Iliad with the exploits of

fighting heroes, yet he makes Jupiter address Mars, the god of War, in

terms of the utmost abhorrence:—

 

“Of all the gods who tread the spangled skies,

Thou most unjust, most odious in our eyes;

In human discord is thy dire delight,

The waste of slaughter, and the rage of fight:

No bound, no law, thy fiery temper quells.”—POPE.

 

_Os._ Surely, as war is so bad a thing, there might be some way of

preventing it.

 

_Fa._ Alas! I fear mankind have been too long accustomed to it, and it

is too agreeable to their bad passions, easily to be laid aside,

whatever miseries it may bring upon them. But, in the meantime, let us

correct our own ideas of the matter, and no longer lavish admiration

upon such a pest of the human race as a _Conqueror_, how brilliant

soever his qualities may be; nor ever think that a profession which

binds a man to be the servile instrument of cruelty and injustice is an

_honourable_ calling.

 

[Illustration:

 

The Gain of a Loss, p. 344.

 

EVENING XXVIII.

]

 

 

 

 

GREAT MEN.

 

 

“I will show you a _great man_,” said Mr. C. one day to his son, at the

time the duke of Bridgewater’s canal was making. He accordingly took him

to a place where several workmen were employed in raising a prodigious

mound, on the top of which the canal was to be carried across a deep

valley. In the midst of them was a very plain-dressed man, awkward in

his gestures, uncouth in his appearance, and rather heavy in his

countenance—in short, a mere countryman like the rest. He had a plan in

his hand and was giving directions to the people around him, and

surveying the whole labour with profound attention. “This, Arthur,” said

Mr. C., “is the _great Mr. Brindley_.”

 

“What,” cried Arthur in surprise, “is that a _great man_?”

 

_Mr. C._ Yes, a very great man. Why are you surprised?

 

_Ar._ I don’t know, but I should have expected a great man to have

looked very differently.

 

_Mr. C._ It matters little how a man looks, if he can perform great

things. That person, without any advantages of education, has become, by

the force of his own genius, the first engineer of the age. He is doing

things that were never done or even thought of in this country before.

He pierces hills, makes bridges over valleys, and aqueducts across

navigable rivers, and, in short, is likely to change the whole face of

the country, and to introduce improvements the value of which cannot be

calculated. When at a loss how to bring about any of his designs, he

does not go to other people for assistance, but he consults the

wonderful faculties of his own mind, and finds a way to overcome his

difficulties. He looks like a rustic it is true, but he has a soul of

the first order, such as is not granted to one out of millions of the

human race.

 

_Ar._ But are all men of extraordinary abilities properly _great men_?

 

_Mr. C._ The word has been variously used; but I would call every one a

great man _who does great things by means of his own powers_. Great

abilities are often employed about trifles, or indolently wasted without

any considerable exertion at all. To make a great man, the object

pursued should be large and important, and vigour and perseverance

should be employed in the pursuit.

 

_Ar._ All the great men I remember to have read about were kings, or

generals, or prime ministers, or in some high station or other.

 

_Mr. C._ It is natural they should stand foremost in the list of great

men, because the sphere in which they act is an extensive one, and what

they do has a powerful influence over numbers of mankind. Yet those that

invent useful arts, or discover important truths which may promote the

comfort and happiness of unborn generations in the most distant parts of

the world, act a still more important part; and their claim to merit is

generally more undoubted than that of the former, because what they do

is more certainly their own.

 

In order to estimate the real share a man in a high station has had in

the great events which have been attributed to him, strip him in your

imagination of all the external advantages of rank and power, and see

what a figure he would have made without them; or fancy a common man put

in his place, and judge whether affairs would have gone on in the same

track. Augustus Cesar, and Louis XIV. of France, have both been called

great princes; but deprive them of their crown, and they will both

dwindle into obscure and trivial characters. But no change of

circumstanc