b'DC \n\n\n\nA Short History \nof France \n\n\n\nMary Platt Parmele \n\n\n\n\nClass \nBook_ \n\n\n\nBEQUEST OF \nALBERT ADSIT CLEMONS \n(Not available for exchange) \n\n\n\nBY THE SAME AUTHOR \n\n\n\nA SHORT HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES \n\nA SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND \n\nA SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE \n\nA SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY \n\nA SHORT HISTORY OF SPAIN \n\n\n\nEach i2mo, 60 cents net \n\n\n\n7/? -\'/^ f7-rtU\' f \n\n\n\nHISTORY OF FRANCE \n\n\n\nBT \n\n\n\n"TlVt^. MAEY (pLATT) PAEMELE \n\n\n\nXEW YORK \n\nCHAELES SCEIBNEE\'S SONS \n1899 \n\n\n\n^ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n^\' \n\n\n\nCOPYBIGHT, 1894, ET \n\n. WILLIAM BEVERLEY HARISOH \n\n\n\nCopyright, 1898, b\\ \nCHAELE8 SCRIBNER\'S SONS \n\n\n\nBequest \n\nAlbert Adsit Olemons \n\nAug. 24, 1038 \n\n{Not available for excliange) \n\n\n\nTROW DIRECTORY \n\nPRINTING AND BOOKOINDINQ COMPMiy \n\nNEW YORK \n\n\n\nPREFACE. \n\nIn an attempt to tell the story of a great \nnation in about 100 pages, it is needless to \nsay there must be a rigid exclusion of all \nsave essential facts. To those already famil- \niar with the subject, this sketch is offered \nmerely as a reminder of the sequence of \nconditions and events in fche evolution of \nFrance ; while to the student it is presented \nas a framework upon vv\'hich may be placed, \nin orderly and comprehensible fashion, the \nresults of future reading and research. \n\nTo the latter class I would suggest that \na series of papers, written upon the most \nprominent themes found in the Table of \nContents, will bear fruit in knowledge more \nreal and vital than may be obtained from \nthe writings of others, however eloquent \nand vivid the presentation. \n\nM. P. P. \n\nNew York, July 23, 1894. \n\n\n\nCONTENTS. \n\n\n\nChapteb I. \n\nThe Aryan Family of Nations \xe2\x80\x94 Keltic Race \xe2\x80\x94 An- \ncient Gaul \xe2\x80\x94 Gauls in Rome \xe2\x80\x94 Gauls in Greece \nand in Asia Minor 9 \n\nChapter II. \nRoman Conquest of Gaul\xe2\x80\x94 Julius Caesar 18 \n\nChapter III. \n\nBirth of Christianity \xe2\x80\x94 Its Dissemination\xe2\x80\x94 Persecu- \ntion at Lyons by order of Marcus Aurelius \xe2\x80\x94 The \nRoman Empire Espouses Christianity under \nConstantine 23 \n\nChapter IV. \n\nGaul Overrun and Subjugated by Franks\xe2\x80\x94 Clovis \nKing \xe2\x80\x94 Decay of the Merovingian Line \xe2\x80\x94 Maire \ndu PalaisKing de facto \xe2\x80\x94 Charles Martel \xe2\x80\x94 Birth \nof Mohammedanism \xe2\x80\x94 Its Triumphs \xe2\x80\x94 Christen- \ndom Threatened \xe2\x80\x94 Pepin King \xe2\x80\x94 Charlemagne \xe2\x80\x94 \nAlliance with Pope\xe2\x80\x94 France, Italy, and Ger- \nmany Emerge as Separate Nationalities 30 \n\n\n\n6 CONTENTS. \n\nChapter V. \n\nPAGE \n\nThe Northmen\xe2\x80\x94 Beginnings of Feudalism in France \n\xe2\x80\x94 Normandy Bestowed upon the Northmen \xe2\x80\x94 \nConquest of England by William, Duke of Nor- \nmandy \xe2\x80\x94 Albigenses \xe2\x80\x94 Inquisition at Toulouse \xe2\x80\x94 \nThe Crusades 39 \n\nChapter VI. \n\nDecline of Feudalism\xe2\x80\x94 Creation of the Commune \xe2\x80\x94 \nCharles VII. \xe2\x80\x94 Henry V. in France \xe2\x80\x94 Joan of \nArc 47 \n\nChapter VII. \n\nFrancis I.\xe2\x80\x94 Huguenots\xe2\x80\x94 Catharine de\' Medici \xe2\x80\x94 \nFrancis II 54 \n\nChapter VIII. \n\nMassacre of St. Bartholomew\xe2\x80\x94 Henry III.\xe2\x80\x94 Henry \nIV. 63 \n\nChapter IX. \nEdict of Nantes\xe2\x80\x94 Louis XIII. \xe2\x80\x94Richelieu 71 \n\nChapter X. \n\nLouis XrV. \xe2\x80\x94 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes \xe2\x80\x94 \nLouis XV. \xe2\x80\x94 Age of Voltaire and Rousseau \xe2\x80\x94 The \nGathering Storm 77 \n\n\n\nCONTENTS. 7 \n\nChapter XI. \n\nPAGE \n\nLouis XVT. and Marie Antoinette \xe2\x80\x94 Araorican Col- \nouii\'S Arruyod Against England \xe2\x80\x94 French Aid to \nApierica \xe2\x80\x94 Smouldering Fires of Discontent \xe2\x80\x94 \nLouis Convokes States-General \xe2\x80\x94 National As- \nsembly Created by Commons \xe2\x80\x94 Bastille Attacked \n\xe2\x80\x94 Revolutiou\xe2\x80\x94 Execution of King 87 \n\nChapter XII. \n\nNapoleon Bonaparte \xe2\x80\x94 Toulon \xe2\x80\x94 Campaign in Italy \xe2\x80\x94 \nEmpire Established \xe2\x80\x94 Europe Under the Feet of \nthe Great Corsican \xe2\x80\x94 Marie Louise \xe2\x80\x94 Waterloo \xe2\x80\x94 \nLouis XVIII. \xe2\x80\x94 Charles X.\xe2\x80\x94 Louis Philippe \xe2\x80\x94 \nSecond Republic \xe2\x80\x94 Louis Napoleon President \xe2\x80\x94 \nSecond Empire \xe2\x80\x94 Napoleon III. \xe2\x80\x94 Franco-Prus- \nsian War \xe2\x80\x94 Sedan \xe2\x80\x94 Third Republic \xe2\x80\x94 Review of \nPresent Conditions 97 \n\n\n\nA SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE. \n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. \n\nOne of the greatest achievements of mod- \nern i-esearch is the discovery of a key by \nwhich we may determine the kinship of na- \ntions. What we used to conjecture, we now \nknow. An identity in the structural form \nof language establishes with scientific certi- \ntude that however diverse their character \nand civilizations, Russian, German, English- \nman, Frenchman, Spaniard, are all but \nbranches from the same parent stem, are all \nalike children of the Asiatic Aryan. \n\nSo skilful are modern metnods of ques- \ntioning the past, and so determined the effort \nto find out its secrets, we may yet know the \norigin and history of this wonderful Asiatic \npeople, and when and why they left their \nnative continent and colonized upon the \n\n\n\n10 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nnorthern shores of the Mediterranean. Cer- \ntain it is, however, that, more centuries be- \nfore the Christian era than there have been \nsince, they had peopled Western Europe. \n\nThis branch of the Aryan family is known \nas the Keltic, and was older brother to the \nTeuton and Slav, which at a much later \nperiod followed them from the ancestral \nhome, and appropriated the middle and east- \nern portions of the European Continent. \n\nThe name of Gaul was given to the ter- \nritory lying between the Ocean and the \nMediterranean, and the Pyrenees and the \nAlps. And at a later period a portion of \nNorthern Gaul, and the islands lying north \nof it, received from an invading chieftain \nand his tribe the name Brit or Britain (or \nPryd or Prydain). \n\nIf the mind could be carried back on the \ntrack of time, and we could see what we \nnow call France as it existed twenty cen- \nturies before the Christian era, we should \nbehold the same natural features: the same \nmountains rearing their heads; the same \nrivers flowing to the sea; the same plains \nstretching out in the sunlight. But instead \n\n\n\n\' EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, 11 \n\nof vines and flowers and cultivated fields we \nshould behold great herds of wild ox and \nelk. and of swine as fierce as wolves, rang- \ning in a climate as cold as Norway; and \nvast inaccessible forests, the home of beasts \nof prey, which contended with man for \nfood and shelter. \n\nLet us read Guizot\'s description of life in \nGaul five centuries before Christ : \n\n" Here lived six or seven millions of men \na bestial life, in dwellings dark and low, \nbuilt of wood and clay and covered with \nbranches or straw, open to daylight by the \ndoor alone and confusedly heaped together \nbehind a rampart of timber, earth, and \nstone, which enclosed and protected what \nthey were pleased to call \xe2\x80\x94 a toivn.^^ \n\nSuch was the Paris, and such the French- \nmen of the age of Pericles ! And the same \ntides that washed the sands of Southern \nGaul, a few hours later ebbed and flowed \nupon the shores of Greece \xe2\x80\x94 rich in culture, \nwith refinements and subtleties in art which \nare the despair of the world to-day \xe2\x80\x94 with \nan intellectual endowment never since at- \ntained by any people. \n\n\n\n12 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nThe same sun which rose upon temples \nand palaces and life serene and beautiful in \nGreece, an hour later lighted sacrificial altars \nand hideous orgies in the forests of Gaul. \nWhile the Gaul was nailing the heads of \nhuman victims to his door, or hanging \nthem from the bridle of his horse, or burn- \ning or flogging his prisoners to death, the \nGreek, with a literature, an art, and a civil- \nization in ripest perfection, discussed with \nhis friends the deepest problems of life and \ndestiny, which were then baffling human \nintelligence, even as they are with us to- \nday. Truly we of Keltic and Teuton de- \nscent are late-comers upon the stage of \nnational life. \n\nThere was no promise of greatness in an- \ncient Gaul. It was a great unregulated force, \nrushing hither and thither. Impelled by \ninsatiate greed for the possessions of their \nneighbors, there was no permanence in their \nloves or their hatreds. The enemies of to- \nday were the allies of to-morrow. Guided \nentirely by the fleeting desires and passions \nof the moment, with no far-reaching plans \nto restrain, the sixty or more tribes compos- \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 13 \n\ning the Gallic people were in perpetual state \nof feud and anarchy, apparently insensible \nto the ties of brotherhood, which give con- \ncert of action, and stability in form of na- \ntional life. If they overran a neighboring \ncountry, it seemed not so much for perma- \nnent acquisition, as to make it a camping- \nground until its resources were exhausted. \n\nWe read of one Massillia who came with \na colony of Greeks long ages ago, and after \nfounding the city of Marseilles, created a \nnarrow bright border of Greek civilization \nalong the Southern edge of the benighted \nland. It was a brief illumination, lasting \nonly a century or more, and leaving few \ntraces ; but it may account for the superior \nintellectual quality of the southern pro- \nvinces in future France. \n\nIt requires a vast extent of territory to \nsustain a people living by the chase, and \nupon herds and flocks ; hence the area which \nnow amply maintains forty millions of \nFrenchmen was all too small for six or seven \nmillion Gauls ; and they were in perpetual \nstruggle with their neighbors for land \xe2\x80\x94 \nmore land. \n\n\n\n14 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\n"Give US land," they said to the Eo- \nmans, and when land was denied them and \nthe gates of cities disdainfully closed upon \ntheir messengers, not land, but vengeance, \nwas their cry; and hordes of half-naked \nbarbarians trampled down the vineyards, \nand rushed, a tumultuous torrent, upon \nRome. \n\nThe Romans could not stand before this \nnew and strange kind of warfare. The \nGauls streamed over the vanquished legions \ninto the Eternal City, silent and deserted \nsave only by the Senate and a few who re- \nmained intrenched in the Citadel ; and there \nthe barbarians kept them besieged for seven \nmonths, while they made themselves at \nhome amid uncomprehended luxuries. \n\nOf course Roman skill and courage at last \ndislodged and drove them back. But the \nfact remained that the Gaul had been there, \n\xe2\x80\x94 master of Rome ; that the ironclad legions \nhad been no match for his naked force, and \na new sensation thrilled through the length \nand breadth of Gaul. It was the first throb \nof national life. The sixty or more frag- \nments drew closer together into something \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 15 \n\nlike Gallic unity \xe2\x80\x94 with a common danger to \nmeet, a common foe to drive back. \n\nHereafter there was another hunger to be \nappeased besides that for food and land ; a \nhunger for conquest, for vengeance, and for \nglory for the Gallic name. National pride \nwas born. \n\nFor years they hovered like wolves about \nRome. But skill and superior intelligence \ntell in the centuries. It took long \xe2\x80\x94 and cost \nno end of blood and treasure; but two hun- \ndred years from the capture of Rome, the \nGauls were driven out of Italy, and the Alps \npronounced a barrier set by Nature herself \nagainst barbarian encroachments. \n\nItaly was not the only country suffering \nfrom the destroying footsteps of the West- \nern Kelts. There had been long ago an over- \nflow of a tribe in Northern Gaul (the Kym- \nrians), which had hewed and plundered its \nway south and eastward ; until at the time \nof Alexander (340 B.C.) it was knocking at \nthe gates of Macedonia. \n\nStimulated by the success at Rome fifty \nyears earlier, they were, with fresh inso- \nlence, demanding "land," and during the \n\n\n\n16 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\ncenturies which followed, the Gallic name \nacquired no fresh lustre in Greece. Half- \nnaked, gross, ferocious and ignorant, some- \ntimes allies, but always a scourge, they \nfinally crossed the Hellespont (278 B.C.), and \nturned their attention to Asia Minor. And \nthere, at last, we find them settled in a prov- \nince called Gallicia, where they lived with- \nout amalgamating with the people about \nthem; it is said, even as late as 400 j\'-ears \nafter Christ, speaking the language of their \ntribal home (what is now Belgium). And \nthese were the Galatians \xe2\x80\x94 the " foolish Gala- \ntians," to whom Paul addressed his epistle; \nand we have followed up this Gallic thread \nsimply because it mingles with the larger \nstrand of ancient and sacred history with \nwhich we are all so familiar. \n\nIt is not strange that Roman courage be- \ncame a by-word. The fibre of Rome was \ntoughened by perpetual strain of conflict. \nEven while she was struggling with Gaul and \nwhile the echoes of the Hunnish invasion \nwere still resounding through the Continent, \nHannibal, with his hosts, was pouring \n\n\n\nEVOLUTIOX OP AN EMPIRE. 17 \n\nthrough Gaul and gathering accessions from \nthat people as he swept clown into Italy. \nThen, with the memories of the Carthaginian \nwars still fresh at Rome, the Goths were at \nher gates, \xe2\x80\x94 their blows directed with a solid- \nity superior to that of the barbarians who \nhad preceded them. Where the Gauls had \nknocked, the Goths thundered. \n\nAgain the city was invaded by barbarian \nfeet, and again did superior training and in- \ntelligence drive back the invading torrent \nand triumph over native brute force. \n\nSuch, in brief outline, was the condition \nof the centuries just before the Christian \nera. \n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. \n\nThe making of a nation is not unlike \nbread or cake making. One element is used \nas the basis, to which are added other com- \nponent parts, of varying qualities, and the \nresult we call England, or Germany, or \nFrance. The steps by which it is accom- \nplished, the blending and fusing of the ele- \nments, require centuries, and the process \nmakes what we call \xe2\x80\x94 history. \n\nIt was written in the book of fate that \nGaul should become a great nation ; but not \nuntil fused and interpenetrated with two \nother nationalities. She must first be hu- \nmanized and civilized by the Roman, and \nthen energized and made free from the Ro- \nman by the Teuton. \n\nThe instrument chosen for the former \nwas Julius Csesar, and for the latter \xe2\x80\x94 five \ncenturies later \xe2\x80\x94 Clovis, the Frankish leader. \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 19 \n\nIt is safe to affirm that no man lias ever \nSO clianged the course of liuman events as \ndid Julius Caesar. Napoleon, who strove to \nimitate him 1800 years later, was a cliarla- \ntan in comparison ; a mere scene-shifter on \na great theatrical stage. Few traces of his \nwork remain upon humanity to-day. \n\nCaesar opened up a patliway for the old \ncivilizations of the world to flow into West- \nern Europe, and the sodden mass of barbar- \nism was infused with a life-compelling cur- \nrent. This was not accomplished by placing \nbefore the inferior race a higher ideal of life \nfor imitation, but by a mingling of the blood \nof the nations \xe2\x80\x94 a transfusion into Gallic \nveins of the germs of a higher living and \nthinking\xe2\x80\x94 thus making them heirs to the \ngreat civilizations of antiquity. \n\n"Was any human event ever fraught with \nsuch consequences to the human race as the \nconquest of Gaul by Julius Cjcsar ? \n\nThe Gallic wars had for centuries drained \nthe treasure and taxed the resources of \nRome. Ca3sar conceived the audacious idea \nof stopping them at their source \xe2\x80\x94 in fact, of \nmaking Gaul a lloman province. \n\n\n\n20 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nIt was a marvellous exhibition, not sim- \nply of force, but of force wielded by supreme \nintelligence and craft. He had lived four \nyears among this people and knew their \nsources of weakness, their internal jealousies \nand rivalries, their incohesiveness. When \nthey hurled themselves against Rome, it \nwas as a mass of sharp fragments. When \nthe Goths did the same, it was as one solid, \nindivisible body. Csesar saw that by adroit \nmanagement he could disintegrate this \npeople, even while conquering them. \n\nBy forcibly maintaining in power those \nwho submitted to him, being by turns gen- \ntle and severe, ingratiating here, terrifying \nthere, he established a tremendous personal \nforce; and during nine years carried on \neight campaigns, marvels in the art of war, \nas well as in the subtler methods of negoti- \nation and intrigue. He had successively \ndealt with all the Keltic tribes, even includ- \ning Great Britain, subjugating either \nthrough their own rivalries, or by his invin- \ncible arm. \n\nEqually able to charm and to terrify, he \nhad all the gifts, all the means to success \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 21 \n\nand empire, that cau bo possessed by man. \nGreat in politics as in war, as full of re- \nsource in the forum as on the battle-field, \nhe was by nature called to dominion. \n\nIt was not as a patriot, simply intent upon \nfreeing Rome of an harassing enemy, that \nhe endured those nine years in Gaul \xe2\x80\x94 not \nas a great leader burning with military ar- \ndor that he conducted those eight campaigns. \nThe conquest of Gaul meant the greater \nconquest of Eome. The one was accom- \nplished; he now turned his back upon the \ndevastated country, and prepared to com- \nplete his great project of human ascendency. \n\nRome was mistress of the world; he \xe2\x80\x94 \nwould be master of Rome. \n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. \n\nWhile the Star of Empire was thus mov- \ning toward the West, another and brighter \nstar was about to arise in the East. So ac- \ncustomed are we to the story, that we lose \nall sense of wonder at its recital. \n\nJulius Caesar\'s brief triumph was over. \nMarc Antony had recited his virtues over his \nbier, Eome had wept, and then forgotten \nhim in the absorbing splendors of his nephew \nAugustus. In an obscure village of an ob- \nscure country in Asia Minor, the young wife \nof a peasant finds shelter in a stable, and \ngives birth to a son, who is cradled in the \nstraw of a manger, from which the cattle \nare feeding. \n\nCan the mind conceive of human circum- \nstances more lowly? The child grew to man- \nhood, and in his thirty-three years of life was \nnever lifted above the obscure sphere into \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 23 \n\nwhich he was born; never spoke from the \nvantage-ground of worldly elevation, \xe2\x80\x94 sim- \nply moving among people of his own station \nin life, mechanics, fishermen, and peasants, \nhe told of a religion of love, a gospel of \npeace, for which he was willing to die. \n\nWho would have dreamed that this was \nthe germ of the most potent, the most re- \ngenerative force the world had ever known? \nThat thrones, empires, principalities, and \npowers would melt and crumble before his \nname? Of all miracles, is not this the great- \nest? \n\nThe passionate ardor with which this re- \nligion was propagated in the first two cen- \nturies had no motive but the yearning to \nmake others share in its benefits and hopes ; \nand to this end to accept the belief that Jesus \nChrist had come in fulfilment of the promise \nof a Saviour, \xe2\x80\x94 who should be sent to this \nworld clothed with divine authority to es- \ntablish a s])iritual kingdom, in which he was \nKing of Kings, Lord of Lords, Mediator be- \ntween us and the Father, of whom he was \nthe " only begotten Son." \n\nThe religion in its essence was absolutely \n\n\n\n24 EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\nsimple. Its founder summed it up in two \nsentences, \xe2\x80\x94 expressing the duty of man to \nman, and of man to God, That was all the \nTheology he formulated. \n\nFor two centuries the religion of Christ \nwas an elementary spiritual force. It ap- \npealed only to the highest attributes and \nlongings of the human soul, and under its \nsustaining influence frail women, men, and \neven children were able to endure tortures, \nof which we cannot read even now without \nshuddering horror. \n\nNature\'s method of gardening is very beau- \ntiful. She carefully guards the seed until \nit is ripe, then she bursts the imprisoning \nwalls and gives it to the winds to distribute. \nPrecisely such method was used in dissemi- \nnating Christianity. It was not for one \npeople \xe2\x80\x94 it was for the healing of the nations, \nand its home was wherever man abides. \n\nNearly five decades after Christ\'s death \nupon the cross, Jerusalem was destroyed by \nTitus. The home of Christianity was \neffaced. At just the right moment the en- \nclosing walls had broken, and freed to the \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OK AN EMPIRE. 25 \n\nwinds the germs in all their primitive \npurity. \n\nImperial favor had not tarnished it, hu- \nman ambitions had not employed and de- \ngraded it, nor had it been made into com- \nplex system by ingenious casuists. The pure \nspiritual truth, unsullied as it came from \nthe hand of its founder, was scattered broad- \ncast, as the band of Christians dispersed \nthroughout the Roman Empire, naturally \nforming into communities here and there, \nwhich became the centres of Christian prop- \nagandism. Lyons in Gaul was such a cen- \ntre. \n\nThe fires of persecution had been lighted \nhere and there throughout the Empire, and \nthe Emperor Nero, under whom the Apos- \ntles Peter and Paul are said to have suffered \nmartyrdom, had amused himself by making \ntorches of the Christians at Rome. But un- \ntil 177 A.D. Gaul was exempt from such hor- \nrors. \n\nMarcus Aurelius \xe2\x80\x94 that peerless pagan, \xe2\x80\x94 \nlarge in intelligence, exalted in character, \nand guided by a conscientious rectitude \n\n\n\n26 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nwhich has made his name shine like a star \nin the lurid light of Roman history, still \nfailed utterly to comprehend the significance \nof this spiritual kingdom established by \nChrist on earth. He it was who ordered \nthe first persecution in Gaul. In pursuance \nof his command, horrible tortures were in- \nflicted at Lyons upon those who would not \nabjure the new faith. \n\nA letter, written by an eye-witness, pic- \ntures with terrible vividness the scenes which \nfollowed. Many cases are described with \nharrowing detail, and of one Blandina it is \nsaid : " From morn till eve they put her to \nall manner of torture, marvelling that she \nstill lived with her body pierced through and \nthrough and torn piecemeal by so many \ntortures of which a single one should have \nsufficed to kill her, to which she only replied, \n\' I am a Christian. \' " \n\nThe recital goes on to tell how she was \nthen cast into a dungeon, \xe2\x80\x94 her feet com- \npressed and dragged out to the utmost ten- \nsion of the muscles, \xe2\x80\x94 then left alone in dark- \nness, until new methods of torture could be \ndevised. \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 27 \n\nFinally she was brought, with other Chris- \ntians, into the amphitheatre, hanging from \na cross to which she was tied, and there \nthrown to the beasts. As the beasts refused \nto touch her she was taken back to the dun- \ngeon to be reserved for another occasion, \nbeing brought out daily to witness the fate \nand suffering of her friends and fellow- \nmartyrs ; still answering the oft-rej3eated \nquestion \xe2\x80\x94 "I am a Christian." \n\nThe writer goes on to say, "After she had \nundergone fire, the talons of beasts, and \nevery agony which could be thought of, she \nwas wrapped in a network and thrown to a \nbull, who tossed her in the air" \xe2\x80\x94 and her \nsufferings were ended. \n\nTruly it cost something to say "I am a \nChristian" in those days. \n\nMarcus Aurelius probably gave orders for \nthe persecution at Lyons, with little knowl- \nedge of what would be the nature of those \npersecutions, or of the religion he was trying \nto exterminate. Some of the hours spent \nin writing introspective essays would have \nbeen well employed in studying the period \nin which he lived, and the Empire he ruled. \n\n\n\n28 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nPaganism and Druidism, those twin mon- \nsters, receded before the advancing light of \nChristianity. Neither contained anything \nwhich could nourish the soul of man, and \nboth had become simply badges of national- \nity. \n\nDruidism was the last stronghold of in- \ndependent Gallic life. It was a mixture of \nnorthern myth and oriental dreams of me- \ntempsychosis, coarse, mystical, and cruel. \nThe Roman paganism which was superim- \nposed by the conquering race was the mere \nshell of a once vital religion. Educated men \nhad long ceased to believe in the gods and \ndivinities of Greece, and it is said that the \nRoman augurs, while giving their solemn \nprophetic utterances, could not look at each \nother without laughing. \n\nIn the year 312, alas for Christianity, it \nwas espoused by imperial power. When the \nEmperor Constantino declared himself a \nChristian, there was no doubt rejoicing \namong the saints ; but it was the beginning \nof the degeneracy of the religion of Christ. \nThe faith of the humble was to be raised to \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 2!) \n\na throne; its lowly garb to be exchanged \nfor purple and scarlet, the gospel of peace to \nbe enforced by the sword. \n\nThe Empire was crumbling, and upon its \nruins the race of the future and social con- \nditions of modern times were forming. \nPaganism and Druidism would have been an \nimpossibility. Christianity even with its \nlustre dimmed, its purity tarnished, its sim- \nplicity overlaid with scholasticism, was bet- \nter than these. The miracle had been ac- \ncomplished. The great Eoman Empire had \nsaid: "I am Christian." \n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. \n\nGaul had been Latinized and Christian- \nized. Now one more thing was needed to \nprepare her for a great future. Her fibre \nwas to be toughened by the infusion of a \nstronger race. JuHus Caesar had shaken her \ninto submission, and Rome had chastised \nher into decency of behavior and speech, but \nas her manners improved her native vigor \ndecHned. She took kindly to Roman luxury \nand effeminacy, and could no longer have \nthundered at the gates of her neighbors de- \nmanding " land. " \n\nBut at last the great Roman Empire was \ndying, and even degenerate Gaul was strug- \ngling out of her relaxing grasp. In her ex- \ntremity she called upon the Franks, a pow- \nerful Germanic race, to aid her. This people \nhad long looked with covetous eyes at the \nfair fields stretching beyond the Rhine, and \nlost no time in accepting the invitation. \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 31 \n\nThey overspread the land, and Gaul and \nKoman alike were submerged beneath the \nTeuton flood, while the Frankish Con- \nqueror, Clovis (son of the great Merova^us), \nwas at Paris (or "Lutetia") wearing the \nkingly crown. \n\nSuch was the beginning of independent \nand of dynastic life in France. \n\nKome had found a more powerful ally \nthan she hoped ; and the desire of Gaul was \naccomplished in that she was free from Rome. \nBut the king of whom she had dreamed \nwas of her own race ; not this terrible Frank. \nHad she exchanged one servitude for an- \nother? Had she been,\' not set free, but sim- \nply annexed to the realm of the Barbarian \nacross the Rhine? Let us say rather that it \nwas an espousal. She had brought her \ndowry of beauty and "land, "that most cov- \neted of possessions, and had pledged obedi- \nence, for which she was to be cherished, \nhonored, and protected, and to bear the name \nof her lord. \n\nAncient heroes are said to be seen through \na shadowy lens, which magnifies their stat- \n\n\n\n32 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nure. Let us hope that the crimes of the \nthree or four generations immediately suc- \nceeding Clovis have been in Hke manner \nexpanded ; for it is sickening to read of such \nmonstrous prodigality of wickedness. Whole \nfamilies butchered, husbands, wives, chil- \ndren \xe2\x80\x94 anything obstructing the path to the \nthrone \xe2\x80\x94 with an atrocity which makes Rich- \nard III. seem a mere pigmy in the art of in- \ntrigue and killing. The chapter closes with \nthe daughter and mother of kings (Brune- \nhilde or Brunhaut) naked and tied by one \narm, one leg and her hair to the tail of an \nunbroken horse, and amid jeers and shouts \ndashed over the stones of Paris (600 a.d.). \n\nBut even the Frank succumbed to the ener- \nvating Gallic influence. The Merovingian \nline commenced by Clovis faded from ferocity \ninto imbecility. Its Kings in less than two \n(Centuries had become mere lay-figures, wear- \ning the symbols of an authority which ex- \nisted nowhere, unless in the Maire du Palais. \n\nThis office from being a sort of royal stew- \nardship had grown to be the governing power \nde facto. While Lothair, the Phantom \nKing, was having his long locks dressed and \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 33 \n\nperfumed, his 3Ia ire (In Palais, Charles, was \nmould iug and welding his kingdom, and at \nthe same time staying the Mohammedan \nflood which was pouring over the Pyrenees ; \nand, hy his final and decisive blow in defence \ntf the Christianity espoused by Clovis, he \nearned the name of Charles Martel (the \nhammer). \n\nLess than one hundred years after the \ndeath of Clovis, there had come out of Asia, \nthat birthplace of religions, a new faith, \nwhich was destined to be for centuries the \nscourge of Christendom, and which to-day \nrules one-third of the human family. Zoroas- \nter, Buddha, Christ, had successively come \nwith saving message to humanity, and now \n(600 A.D.) Mohammed believed himself \ndivinely appointed to drive out of Arabia the \nidolatry of ancient Magianism (the religion \nof Zoroaster). \n\nChristianity had passed through strange \nvicissitudes. Kings, Emperors, Popes, and \nBishops had been terrible custodians of its \ntruths, and while many still held it in its \nprimitive purity, ecclesiastics were fiercely \nfighting over the nature of the Trinity, the \n\n\n\n34r EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\ndivinity of the Virgin Mother, and the \nChurch was shaken to its foundation by fu- \nrious factions. \n\nIn this hour of weakness, the Persians \n(590 A.D.) had conquered Asia Minor, Beth- \nlehem, Gethsemane, and Calvary were pro- \nfaned ; the Holy Sepulchre had been burned, \nand the cross carried off amid shouts of \nlaughter. Magianism had insulted Christi- \nanity, and no miracle had interposed ! The \nheavens did not roll asunder, nor did the \nearth open her abysses to swallow them up. \nThere was consternation and doubt in Chris- \ntendom. \n\nSuch was the state of the Church when \nMohammedanism came into existence. \n" There is but one God, and Mohammed is \nhis Prophet." Such was its battle-cry and \nits creed, and the moral precepts of the Ko- \nran were its gospel. There seems nothing in \nthis to account for the mad enthusiasm and \nthe passion for worship in its followers. But \nin less than a hundred years this lion out of \nArabia had subjected Syria, Mesopotamia, \nEgypt, Northern Africa, and the Spanish \nPeninsula. Now, sword in one hand, and \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 35 \n\nthe Koran in the other, the Mohammedan \nhad crossed the Pyrenees and was in South- \nern Gaul. \n\nUnder the strange magic of this faith, \nthe largest religious empire the world had \nknown had sprung into existence, stretch- \ning from the Chinese Wall to the Atlantic ; \nfrom the Caspian to the Indian Ocean; and \nJerusalem, the metropolis of Christianity \xe2\x80\x94 \nJerusalem, the Mecca of the Christian, was \nlost! The crescent floated over the birth- \nplace of our Lord, and notwithstanding the \ntemporary successes of the Crusades, it does \nto this day. \n\nIf the Pyrenees were passed, the very \nexistence of Christendom was threatened. \nCharles Martel, the grandfather of Charle- \nmagne, averted this danger when he stayed \nthe infidel flood at the battle of Tours, 732 \n\nA.D. \n\nPepin, the son of Charles Martel, who suc- \nceeded him as Maire du Palais, does not \nseem to have had the temper or spirit of an \nusurper, but simply to have been an ener- \ngetic, resolute man who was bored by the \ncircumlocution of governing through a King \n\n\n\n36 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nwho did not exist. He determined to put an \nend to the fiction, and to cut the Gordian \nknot by first cutting the long curls of the \nlast Merovingian, Childeric; and then put- \nting the crown upon his own head, he sent the \nunfortunate phantom of royalty to a mon- \nastery, to reflect upon the uncertainty of \nhuman pleasures and events. By right of \nmanhood and superiority, the Carlovingian \nline had succeeded to the Merovingian. \n\nAgainst the dark background of European \nhistory, and with the broad level of obscur- \nity stretching over the ages at its feet, there \nrises one shining pinnacle. Considered as \nman or sovereign, Charlemagne is one of \nthe most impressive figures in history. His \nseven feet of stature clad in shining steel, \nhis masterful grasp of the forces of his time, \nhis splendid intelligence, instinct even then \nwith the modern spirit, all combine to ele- \nvate him in solitary grandeur. \n\nCharlemagne found France in disorder \nmeasureless, and apparently insurmounta- \nble. Barbarian invasion without, and an- \narchy within ; Saxon paganism pressing in \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRK. 37 \n\nupon the North, and Asiatic Islamism upon \nthe South and West ; a host of forces strug- \nghng for dominion in a nation brutish, ig- \nnorant, and without cohesion. \n\nIt is the attribute of genius to discern op*t \nportunity where others see nothing. Charle-j \nmagna saw rising out of this chaos a great \nresuscitated Roman empire, which should \nbe at the same time a spiritual and Christian \nempire as well. Saxons, Slavs, Huns, \nLombards, Arabs, came under his compell- \ning grasp; these antagonistic races all held \ntogether by the force of one terrible will, in \nunnatural combination with France. No \npolitical liberties, no popular assemblies dis- \ncussing public measures ; it is Charlemagne \nalone who fills the picture; it is absolutism, \n\xe2\x80\x94 marked by prudence, ability, and gran- \ndeur, but still, absolutism. \n\nThe Pope looked approvingly upon this \nson of the Church by whose order 4,500 pa- \ngan heads could be cut off in one day, and \na whole army compelled to baptism in an \nafternoon. Here was a champion to be pro- \npitiated ! Charlemagne, on the other hand, \nsaw in the Church the most compliant and \n\n\n\n38 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\neffective means to empire. In the loving \nalliance formed, he was to be the protector, \nthe Pope the protected. He wore the Church \nas a precious jewel in his crown. \n\nIt was a splendid dream, splendidly real- \nized ; the most imposing of human successes, \nand the most impressive of human failures. \nIt seems designed as a lesson for the human \nrace in the transitory nature o/ power ap- \nplied from without. \n\nThe vast fabric passed with himself ; was \ngone like a shadow when he was gone. The \nunity of the Empire was buried in the grave \nof its founder. In twenty-nine years (by \nthe treaty of Verdun) three kingdoms \nemerged from the crumbling mass. France, \nItaly, Germany, already separated by race \nrepulsions, had taken up each a distinct na- \ntional existence, the Imperial crown re- \nmaining with Germany. \n\nAnd France \xe2\x80\x94 France, the centre of this \ndream of unity, with her native incohesive- \nness, and in the irony of fate, had broken into \nno less than 59 fragments, loosely held to- \ngether by one Carlovingian King. \n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. \n\nI THINK that it was Lincoln who said that \n" the Lord must like common people, because \nhe had made so many of them." The path \nfor the common people in France at this time \nled through heavy shadows. But a darker \ntime was approaching. A system of oppres- \nsion was maturing, which was soon to en- \nvelop them in the obscurity of darkest night. \n\nThose Scandinavian freebooters called \nNorthmen, and later Normans, were the \nscourge of the kingdom. Nothing was safe \nfrom their insolent courage and rapacity. \n\nThe rich could intrench themselves in stone \nfortresses, with moats and drawbridges, and \nbe in comparative security, but the poor \nwere utterly defenceless against this peren- \nnial destroyer. The result was a compact \nbetween the powerful and the weak, which \nwas the beginning of the Feudal System. \n\n\n\n40 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nIt was in effect an exchange of protection \nfor service and fealty. You give us absolute \ncontrol of your persons \xe2\x80\x94 your military ser- \nvice when required, and a portion of your \nsubstance and the fruit of your toil \xe2\x80\x94 and we \nwill in exchange give you our fortified cas- \ntles as a refuge from the Northmen. Such \nwas the offer. It was a choice between vas- \nsalage, serfdom, or destruction outright. \n\nSimple enough in its beginnings, this be- \ncame a ramified system of oppression, a cu- \nrious network of authority, ingeniously con- \ntrolling an entire people. The conditions \nupon which was engrafted this compact were \nof great antiquity, had indeed been brought \nacross the Rhine by their German conquer- \nors; but the Northmen were the impelling \ncause of the swift development of feudalism \nin France. \n\nCharlemagne had felt grave apprehensions \nof evil from these robber incursions, but could \nnot have conceived of a result such as this, \nthe most oppressive system ever fastened \nupon a nation, and one which would at the \nsame time sap the foundations of royalty it- \nself. \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 41 \n\nThe theory was that the King was absolute \nowner of all the territory ; the great lords \nholding their titles from him on condition \nof military service, their vassals pledging \nmilitary service and obedience to them again \non similar terms, and sub-vassals again to \nthem repeating the pledge ; and so on in de- \nscending chain, until at last the serf, that \nwretched being whom none looks up to nor \nfears, is ground to powder beneath the su- \nperimposed mass. No appeal from the au- \nthority, no escape from the caprice or cruelty \nof his feudal lord. Could any scales weigh, \ncould any words measure the suffering which \nmust have been endured ? Is it strange, with \nevery aspiration thwarted, hope stifled, that \nEurope sank into the long sleep of the Mid- \ndle Ages? \n\nIt is easy to conceive that, under such a \nsystem, where all the affairs of the realm \nwere adjusted by individual rulers with \nunlimited power, and where the great bar- \nons could make war upon each other with- \nout authorization from the King, by the \ntime this nominal head of the entire system \n\n\n\n4^ EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nwas reached, there remained nothing for him \nto do. In fact, there was not left one vestige \nof kingly authority, and Carlovingian rulers \nwere almost as insignificant as their Mero- \nvingian predecessors. France had, instead \nof one great sovereign, one hundred and fifty \npetty ones ! \n\nIn 911 A.D. the Northmen were offered \nthe province henceforth known as Nor- \nmandy, upon condition of their acceptance \nof the religion and submission to the laws \nof the realm. EoUo, the disreputable rob- \nber-chief, took the oath of fealty to the King \nof France his Suzerain, and Christian bap- \ntism transformed him into respectable, law- \nabiding Robert, Duke of Normandy. \n\nWith marvellous facility this people took \non the language and manners of their neigh- \nbors, and in a century and a half were pre- \npared to instruct the Britons in a higher \ncivilization . \n\nI think it is one hundred years of respect- \nability that is required by a certain aristo- \ncratic club for admission to its membership. \nThe blood does not acquire the proper shade \nof azure until it has flowed in the full light \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 43 \n\nof day for at least three generations. De- \ncidedly, William the Conqueror, first Nor- \nman King of England, could not have been \nadmitted to this club. \n\nA century before his birth, his ancestors \nhad lived by looting their neighbors. They \nwere highwaymen, robbers, by profession. \nAnd, to increase his ineligibility, his mother, \na pretty Norman peasant girl, daughter of a \ntanner, had ensnared the affections of that \npleasant Duke of Normandy, known as \n"Robert the Devil." \n\nWilliam, the fruit of this unconsecrated \nunion, became in time Duke of Normandy. \nWith that reversion to ancestral types to \nwhich scientists tell us we are all liable, he \nseems to have looked across the Channel \ntoward England, with an awakening of his \nrobber-instincts. In a few weeks, Harold, \nthe last King of the Saxons, lay dead at his \nfeet, and William, Duke of Normandy, was \nWilliam I., King of England. \n\nThen was presented the curious anomaly \nof an English sovereign who was also ruler \nof a French province ; an English king who \nwas vassal to the King of France. A door \n\n\n\n44 EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\nwas thus opened (1066 A. d.) through which \nentered entangling comphcations and count- \nless woes in the future. \n\nIf Charlemagne had worn the Church as a \nprecious jewel in his crown in the ninth cen- \ntury, the Church now in the eleventh century \nwore all the European states, a tiara of jewels \nin her mitre. When Henry TV. prostrated \nhimself barefooted before Gregory VII. at \nCanossa in 1072, the centre of dominion \nhad passed from the Empire of Germany to \nRome. \n\nThe Church then was at its zenith. As a \npolitical system it was unrivalled ; but its tri- \numphs brought little joy to the earnest \nsouls still clinging to the ideals of primitive \nChristianity. But what availed it for Abe- \nlard to lead an intellectual revolt against \ncorrupted beliefs in the North, or the Albi- \nigenses a spiritual one in the South? He \nwas silenced and immured for life, while \nthe unhappy inhabitants of Languedoc were \nmassacred and almost exterminated, and an \ninquisition, established at Toulouse, made \nsure that heretical germs should not again \nspread from that infected centre. \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. 45 \n\nBut however imperfect the religious senti- \nment of the time, however it may have \ndeparted from the simple precepts of its \nfounder, its power to sway the hearts and \nlives of the people may be judged from the \n\'extraordinary movement started in France in \nthe twelfth century. \n\nHow inconceivable, in this practical age, \nthat Europe should three times have emptied \nher choicest and best into Asia for a senti- \nment ! Business suspended, private interests \nsacrificed or forgotten, life, treasure, all \neagerly given \xe2\x80\x94 for what? That a small bit \nof territory, a thousand miles away, be torn \nfrom profaning infidels, because of its sacred \nassociations, because it was the birthplace \nof a religion\' whose meaning seems to have \nescaped them \xe2\x80\x94 a religion which they wore \non their battle-flags, but not in their hearts. \nHow would a barefooted, rope-girdled monk, \nhowever inspired and eloquent, fare to-day \nin New York, or London, or Paris? \n\nHistory has no stranger chapter than that \nof the Crusades. When Peter the Hermit \npictured the desecration of the Holy Land \nby Mohammedans, all classes in France, \n\n\n\n46 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nfrom King to serf, were for the first time \nmoved by a common sentiment, and poured \nlife and treasure with passionate zeal into \nthose streams which three times inundated \nPalestine. \n\nThe order of Knights Templar had been \ncreated, and a splendid ideal of manhood \nheld up before the French nation, and now \nthe knightly ideal, side by side with the \nChristian and the romantic ideal, entered \ninto the life of the people. Komance, song, \npoetry, eloquence came into being from a \nsort of spiritual baptism, and France began \nto wear the mantle of beauty which was to \nbe her chief glory in the future. But future \nFrance was not clad in coat of mail in the \ntwelfth century. She was lying helpless, be- \nneath the mass of feudal trappings. And \nfor many centuries she was going to lie mute \nand helpless. But when that wise, cunning \nand unscrupulous King, Philip Augustus, \nbrought the feudal barons into partial sub- \njection to the Crown, and better still, when \nhis heavenly-minded grandson, Louis IX., \nheld up a new and shining ideal of mrtue, \nas higher than knightly qualities, and greater \nthan kingship, then, the day was beginning \nto dawn. \n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. \n\nLike all oppressive systems, feudalism bore \nwithin itself the seeds of its own destruction. \nWhen the King, shorn of prerogative and of \ndignity, made alliance with the people lying \nin helpless misery beneath the mailed sur- \nface, the system was rudely shaken. When \nartisans flocked to the free cities enjoying \nespecial immunities and privileges from the \nKing, and by skill and industry amassed \nfortunes, the commune and the bourgeoisie \nwere created, and feudalism was stricken to \nits centre. When spendthrift nobles and \nneedy barons mortgaged their estates to \nthis thrifty but ignoble class, the end was \nnot far off. And when in 1302 the ^\'- tiers \nHat\'\'\' entered the States-General as a legit- \nimate order of the Government, the very \n\n\n\n48 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nfoundations were crumbling, and it need- \ned but the final cowp de grace given by \nCharles VII. in the fifteenth century, when \nhe established a standing army under the \ncontrol of the King. When this was done, \nthe feudal system had no longer an excuse \nfor being. It existed thenceforth as a relio \nwaiting to be dismantled by time. \n\nFr.om the moment when a French province \nwas attached to the crown of England, the \ndream of that nation was the conquest of \nFrance. Generations came and went, one \ndynasty replaced another, and still the \nstruggle continued ; France sometimes seem- \ning near to dominion over England, and \nEngland always believing it was her destiny \nto bring France under the rule of an English \nsovereign. \n\nA glamour of romance is thrown over \nthe somewhat dreary pages of history \nby the royal marriages which occur in \ndazzling profusion. It seems to have been \nthe custom, whenever a peace was con- \ncluded in Europe, to cement it with a royal \nmarriage, and to throw in a princess as a \nsacrifice, \xe2\x80\x94 one of the conditions of almost \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 49 \n\nevery treaty being that a royal daughter, \nor sister, or niece, should be tossed across \nthe Channel, or into Germany, or Italy, or \nSpain, an unwilling bride thrown into the \narms of a reluctant bridegroom; with the \nresult that in the succeeding generation \nthere was a plentiful sprinkling of heirs with \nclaims, more or less shadowy, to the neigh- \nboring thrones. This was the source, or \nrather pretext, for most of the wars be- \ntween France and England for four hundred \nyears. \n\nIn the early part of the fifteenth century \nthe great crisis arrived. With that lack of \nunity which seemed a fatal Gallic inheri- \ntance, France broke into civil war, while an \ninvading English army was in the heart of \nher kingdom. England\'s dream was near \nrealization. \n\nAn insane King, a vicious intriguing \nQueen-Regent, the Duke of Burgundy madly \njealous of the Duke of Orleans, and both \nready to sacrifice France in the rage of dis- \nappointed ambition, \xe2\x80\x94 such were the ele- \nments. England\'s opportunity had come. \n\nThe depraved Queen Isabella, acting for \n\n\n\n50 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nher insane husband, held conference with \nHenry V., and actually concluded a treaty \nbestowing the regency upon the English \nKing. There was the usual douceur of a \nprincess thrown in, and Katharine, the \ndaughter of Isabella, and sister to the Dau- \nphin (the future King Charles VII.), was \nespoused by King Henry V. of England, who \nset up a royal court at Vincennes. \n\nThe fortunes of the kingdom had never \nbeen so desperate. The people saw in these \ninsolent traitorous dukes their natural \nenemy; in the King, their friend and pro- \ntector. Had not monarchy given them life \nand hope? It was to them sacred next to \nHeaven. They rose in an outburst of patri- \notism. The young Dauphin was hastily and \ninformally crowned, and thousands flocked to \nhis standard. It was the King and the peo-/ \npie against the great vassals, the last strug- \ngle of an expiring feudalism. Desperation \nlent fury to the conflict which was, upon \nboth sides, a fight for existence; the Queen - \nmother in unnatural alliance with the Duke \nof Burgundy, who was resolved to rule or \nruin. \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OB" AN EMPIRE. 51 \n\nHe soon saw that defeat was inevitable, \nand, preferring infamy, threw himself into \nthe hands of the English, offering to turn \nthe kingdom over to the infant King Henry \nVI. (Henry V. having died). \n\nCharles abandoned hope; how could he \nstruggle against such a combination? He \nwas considering whether he should find \nrefuge in Spain or in Scotland, when the \ntide of events was turned by the strangest \nromance in history. \n\nIt must ever remain a mystery that a \npeasant girl, a child in years and in experi- \nence, should have believed herself called to \nsuch a mission ; that conferring only with \nher heavenly guides or "voices," she should \nhave sought the King, inspired him with \nfaith in her, and in himself and his cause, re- \nanimated the courage of the army, and led it \nherself to victory absolute and complete ; and \nthen, have compelled the half-reluctant, half- \ndoubting Charles to go with her to Rlieims, \nthere to be anointed and consecrated ; this \nsimple child in that day bestowing upon him \na kingdom, and upon France a King I \n\n\n\n62 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nWas there ever a stranger chapter in \nhistory ! Alas, if it could have ended here, \nand she could have gone back to her \nmother and her spinning and her simple \npleasures, as she was always longing to do \nwhen her work should be done. But no! \nwe see her falling into the hands of the de- \nfeated and revengeful English \xe2\x80\x94 this child, \nwho had wrested from them a kingdom al- \nready in their grasp. She was turned over \nto the French ecclesiastical court to be tried. \nA sorceress and a blasphemer they pro- \nnounce her, and pass her on to the secular \nauthorities, and her sentence is \xe2\x80\x94 death. \n\nWe see the poor defenceless girl, bewil- \ndered, terrified, wringing her hands and de- \nclaring her innocence as she rides to execu- \ntion. God and man had abandoned her. No \nheavenly voice spoke, no miracle intervened \nas her young limbs were tied to the stake and \nthe fagots and straw piled up about her. \nThe torch was applied, and her pure soul \nmounted heavenward in a column of flames. \n\nEugged men wept. A Burgundian gen- \neral said, as he turned gloomily away, " We \nhave murdered a saint." \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OP AN EMPmE. 53 \n\nAnd Charles, sitting upon tho throne she \nhad rescued for him, what was he doing \nto save her? Nothing \xe2\x80\x94 to his everlasting \nshame be it said, nothing. He might not \nhave succeeded ; the effort at rescue, or to \nstay the event, might have been unavailing. \nBut where was his knighthood, where his \nmanhood, that he did not try, or utter pas- \nsionate protest against her fate? \n\nTwenty-five years later we see him erect- \ning statues to her memory, and " rehabilitat- \ning" her desecrated name. And to-day, the \nChurch which condemned her for blasphemy \nis placing her upon the calendar of saints. \nCharles VII. in creating a standing army, \nstruck feudalism a deadly blow. Ilis son, \nLouis XL, with cold-blooded brutality fin- \nished the work. This man\'s powerful and \ncrafty intelligence saw in an alliance with the \ncommon people, a means of absorbing to him- \nself supreme power. Not since Tiberius had \nthere been a more blood-thirsty monster on \na throne. But he demolished the political \nstructure of medievalism in his kingdom ; \nand when his cruel reign was ended, tlie Mid- \ndle Ages had passed away, and modern life \nhad begun in France. \n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIL \n\nThe early part of the sixteenth century \nmust ever be memorable in the history of \nEurope. Ferdinand and Isabella had given \nto the human race a new world. Luther had \nhurled his defiance at Eome \xe2\x80\x94 had arraigned \nLeo X. for blasphemy and corrupt practices. \nCharles V., grandson of Ferdinand and \nIsabella (and nephew of Katherine, wife of \nHenry VIII.) was Emperor of Germany. \nAstute and powerful though he was, he had \nbeen unable to stay the Protestant flood. \nHis empire, apparently hungering for the \nnew heresy, was divided already into States \nProtestant and States Catholic. England \nwas Protestant. The conversion of her \nKing, because the Pope refused to annul his \nmarriage with Katharine, was not one of \nthe proudest triumphs of the new faith, but \none of the most important. Had Katha- \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 55 \n\nFine\'s charms been fresher, or Anno Boleyn\'s \nless alluring, the course of history might \nhave been strangely changed. Henry VIII. \nas persecutor of heretics would have found \ncongenial occupation for his ferocious in- \nstincts, and Protestantism would have been \nlong delayed. Spain was unchangeably Cath- \nolic, while France offered congenial soil for \nthe new faith. The germs of heresy, long \nslumbering, were everywhere stirred into life. \n\nFrancis I. was King ; sumptuous in tastes, \nsuave and elegant in manners, as handsome \nas an Apollo, gay, pleasure-loving, as vicious \nas he was false, and if need be with a \ncruelty which matched his ambition, such \nwas the man who held the destinies of \nFrance at this time. \n\nA rival claimant for the throne of Ger- \nmany, he was destined to spend his life in \nfruitless contest with the more able, wily, \nand astute Charles V. , the possession of that \nEmpire the ignis-fatuus ever luring him on ; \nan end to which all other ends were simply \nthe means. The religious question upon \nwhich Europe was divided meant nothing to \nhim, except as he could use it in his duel \n\n\n\n56 EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\nwith the Emperor. He was in turn the ally \nof Henry VIII. or the willing tool of Charles \nV. If he needed the English King\'s friend- \nship, the Protestants had protection. If he \ndesired to placate Charles V. , the roastings \nand torturings commenced again. \n\nIn 1547 Francis and Henry VIII. each \nwent to his reward, and a few years later \nCharles V. had laid down his crown and \ncarried his weary, unsatisfied heart to St. \nYuste. The brilliant pageant was over; \nbut Protestantism was expanding. \n\nThe question at issue was deeper than \nany one knew. Neither Luther nor Leo X. \nunderstood the revolution they had precipi- \ntated. Protestants and Papists alike failed \nto comprehend the true nature of the strug- \ngle, which was not for supremacy of Roman- \nist or Protestant; not whether this dogma \nor that was true, and should prevail; but \nan assertion of the right of every human \nsoul to choose its own faith and form of \nworship. The great battle for human lib- \nerty had commenced; the struggle for \nreligious liberty was but the prelude to what \nwas to follow. There was abundant proof \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 57 \n\nlater that Protestants no less than Papists \nneeded only opportunity and power to be as \ncruel and intolerant as their persecutors had \nbeen. Before the Reformation was fifty \nyears old, Servetus, one of the greatest men \nof his age, a scholar, philosopher, and man \nof irreproachable character, was burned at \nGeneva for heretical views concerning the \nnatui\'e of the Trinity ; Calvin, the great \norganizer of Protestant theology giving, if \nnot the order for this odious crime, at least \nthe nod of approval for its cwnmission. \n\nHuguenot, that name of tragic associa- \ntion, was a corruption of the German Eid- \ngenossen \xe2\x80\x94 meaning associates. By the way \nof Switzerland it came into France as Egue- \nnots, and the transition to its present form \nwas simple. The Huguenots were no longer \na timorous band hiding in darkness as in the \ntime of Francis I. A party with such lead- \ners as Anthony de Bourbon, Prince of Conde \n(his brother), and xVdmiral Coligny, was not \nto be put down by a few roastings and \nstranglings here and there. Anthony de \nBourbon (King of Navarre) was next in \n\n\n\n58 EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\nsuccession should the House of Valois be- \ncome extinct, with a young son valiant as \nhimself (the future Henry IV.) pressing on \ntoward manhood. \n\nCatholic France needed plenty of comfort \nfrom Rome and Madrid in dealing with this \nformidable body of heretics which had fast- \nened upon her vitals, and which was in turn \nreceiving aid and comfort from the young \nProtestant Queen across the Channel. \n\nWhen that fair princess Catharine de\' \nMedici became the wife of Henry, second \nson of Francis I., no one suspected the tre- \nmendous import of the event. Powerless to \nwin the affection or even confidence of her \nhusband, she remained during his reign \nalmost unobserved, but, as the event proved, \nnot unobservant. Her alert faculties were \nnot idle, and when upon the death of Henry \nII. she found herself Queen-Regent, with \nonly a frail boy of sixteen to obstruct her \nwill, she quickly gathered the threads she \nalready knew so well, and her supple hand \nclosed upon them with a grasp not to be \nrelinquished while she lived. \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 59 \n\nAnother young Princess liad been tossed \nacross the Channel. Tliis time it was her \nmost serene little highness, Marie Stuart, \nQueen of Scotland, intended for the dauphin, \nwho was to be Francis II. \n\nIn order to be prepared for this high des- \ntiny, the little maid was brought when only \nsix years old to the Court of France to be \ntrained under the direct supervision of her \nfuture mother-in-law, Catharine de\' Medici. \nPoor little Mary Stuart \xe2\x80\x94 predestined to sin \nand to tragedy ! Could any woman be good, \nwith the blood of the Guises in her veins, and \nwith Catharine de\' Medici as preceptress ? \n\nThis marriage was planned before Catha- \nrine\'s advent to power, or it would never \nhave been. Mary was the niece of the Duke \nof Guise, and the central thought of Catha- \nrine\'s policy was the exclusion of this am- \nbitious, intriguing family from every avenue \nto power in the state. Now, Mary would \nbe Queen, and who so natural advisers as \nher uncles of the house of Lorraine ? \n\nThe marriage of the two children had \ntaken place \xe2\x80\x94 the sickly boy with only a mod- \nest portion of intelligence was Francis II. \n\n\n\n60 EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\nMary, his Queen, whom he adored, controlled \nhim utterly, and was in turn controlled by \nher uncles, the Guises. The wily Catharine \nsaw herself defeated by a beautiful girl of \nsixteen. \n\nThe family of Guise was the self-appointed \nhead of the Catholic party in France and \nrepresented the most extreme views regard- \ning the treatment of heretics. So the \nstrange result was, that Catharine, if she \nlooked for any allies in her fight with the \nhouse of Lorraine, of which the Duke of \nGuise was the head, must make common \ncause with the Protestants, whom she hated \na little less than she did the uncles of Mary \nStuart. But events were soon to change the \nsituation. Did she hasten them? Such a \nsuspicion may never have existed. But may \none not suspect anything of a woman capa- \nble of a St. Bartholomew? \n\nFrancis II. was dead. Mary Stuart had \npassed out of French history. The fates \nwere fighting on the side of Catharine, who \nwasted no regrets upon the death of a son, \nwhich made her Queen -Eegent during the \nminority of her second son Charles. She \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 61 \n\nentered upon her fight with the Guises with \nrenewed energy, and hecame to some extent \nprotector of the Protestants. Realizing that \nher time was brief, she prepared Charles for \nthe position he would soon hold. \n\nWhat can be said of a mother who seeks \nto exterminate every germ of truth or virtue \nin her son \xe2\x80\x94 who immerses him in degrading \nvices in order to deaden his too sensitive \nconscience and make him a willing tool for \nher purposes? Inheriting the splendid in- \ntelligence as well as genius for statecraft \nof the Medici, nourished from her infancy \nupon Machiavellian principles, cold and cruel \nby nature, this Florentine woman has writ- \nten her name in blood across the pages of \nFrench history. \n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. \n\nThere is not time to tell the story of the \nevents leading up to that fateful night, \nAugust 24, 1572. Impelled always by her \nfear and dread of the Guises, Catharine had \nbeen vacillating in her policy with the Hu- \nguenots. Charles IX. was now King: im- \npressible, easily influenced, yet stubborn, \nintractable, incoherent, passionate, and un- \nreliable ; sometimes inclining to the Guises, \nsometimes to Coligny and the Huguenots, \nand always submitting at last after vain \nstruggle to his imperious mother\'s will, in \nher efforts to free him from both. We see \nin him a weak character, not naturally bad, \ntorn to distraction by the cruel forces about \nhim, who when compelled to yield, as he \nalways did in the end, to that terrible wo- \nman, would give way to fits of impotent \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 63 \n\nrage against the fate which allowed him no \npeace. \n\nA time arrived when Catharine feared the \ninfluence of the Protestant Coligny more \nthan the Guises. Brave, patriotic, magnetic, \nhe had succeeded in winning Charles\' con- \nsent to declare war against Spain. Philip \nTI. of Spain was Catharine\'s son-in-law and \nclosest ally. Her entire policy would be \nundermined. At all hazards Coligny must \nbe gotten rid of. The young King of Na- \nvarre, adored leader of the Protestants, was \na constant menace ; he too must in some way \nbe disposed of. \n\nThere were sinister conferences with Philip \nof Spain and with his Minister, that incar- \nnation of cruelty and of the Inquisition, the \nDuke of Alva. \n\nGod knows France was not guiltless in \nwhat followed; but the initiative, the in- \nception of the horrid deed, was not French. \nIt was conceived in the brain of either this \nItalian woman or her Spanish adviser and \nco-con jpirator, tlie Duke of Alva. We shall \nnever know the inside liistor}- of the massa- \ncre of St. Bartholomew. It must ever i-e- \n\n\n\n64 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nmain a matter of conjecture just how and \nwhen it was planned, but the probabilities \npoint strongly one way. \n\nCharles was to be gradually prepared for \nit by his mother. By working upon his \nfears, his suspicions, by stories of plottinga \nagainst his life and his kingdom, she was \nto infuriate him ; and then, while his rage \nwas at its height, the opportunity for \naction must be at hand. The marriage of \nCharles\' sister Margaret with the young \nProtestant leader Henry of Navarre, with \nits promise of future protection to the Hu- \nguenots, was part of the plot. It would lure \nall the leaders of the cause to Paris. Co- \nligny, Conde, all the heads of the party \nwere urgently invited to attend the marriage- \nfeast which was to inaugurate an era of \npeace. \n\nAdmiral Coligny was requested by Catha- \nrine, simply as a measure of protection to \nthe Protestants, to have an additional regi- \nment of guards in Paris, to act in case of \nany unforeseen violence. \n\nTwo days after the marriage and while \nthe festivities were at their height, an at- \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. C5 \n\ntempt upon the life of the old Admiral \nawoke suspicion and alarm. But Catharine \nand her son went immediately in person to \nsee the wounded old man, and to express \ntheir grief and horror at the event. They \ncommanded that a careful list of the names \nand abode of every Protestant in Paris be \nmade, in order, as they said, " to take them \nunder their own immediate protection." \n"My dear father," said the King, "the hurt \nis yours, the grief is mine." \n\nAt that moment, the knives were already \nsharpened, every man instructed in his part \nin the hideous drama, and the signal for its \ncommencement determined upon. Charles \ndid not know it, but his mother did. She \nwent to her son\'s room that night, artfully \nand eloquently pictured the danger he was \nin, confessed to him that she had authorized \nthe attempt upon Coligny, but that it was \ndone because of the Admiral\'s plottings \nagainst him, which she had discovered. But \nthe Guises \xe2\x80\x94 her enemies and his \xe2\x80\x94 they \nknew it, and would denounce her and the \nKing! The onl)\'\' thing now is to finish the \nwork. He must die. \n\n\n\n66 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nCharles was in frightful agitation and \nstubbornly refused. Finally with an air of \noffended dignity she bowed coldly and said \nto her son, " Sir, will you permit me to with- \ndraw with my daughter from your king- \ndom?" The wretched Charles was con- \nquered. In a sort of insane fury he \nexclaimed, " Well, let them kill him, and all \nthe rest of the Huguenots too. See that not \none remains to reproach me." \n\nThis was more than she had hoped. All \nwas easy now. So eager was she to give the \norder before a change of mood, that she flew \nherself to give the signal, fully two hours \nearlier than was expected. At midnight \nthe tocsin rang out upon the night, and the \nhorror began. \n\nLulled to a feeling of security by artfully \ncontrived circumstances, husbands, wives, \nsons, daughters, peacefully sleeping, were \nawakened to see each other hideously slaugh- \ntered. \n\nThe stars have looked down upon some \nterrible scenes in Paris, her stones are not \nunacquainted with the taste of human blood, \nbut never had there been anything like this. \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 67 \n\nThe carnage of battle is merciful compared \nwith it. Shrieking women and children, \nhalf-clothed, fleeing from knives already \ndripping with human blood; frantic mothers \nshielding the bodies of their children, and \nwives pleading for the lives of husbands; \nthe living hiding beneath the bodies of the \ndead. \n\nThe cry that ascended to Heaven from \nParis that night was the most awful and \ndespairing in the world\'s history. It was \ncenturies of cruelty crowded into a few \nhours. \n\nThe number slain can never be accurately \nstated ; but it was thousands. Human blood \nis intoxicating. An orgie set in which \nlaughed at orders to cease. Seven days it \ncontinued and then died out for lack of \nmaterial. The provinces had caught the \ncontagion, and orders to slay were received \nand obeyed in all except two, the Gov- \nernor of Bayonne, to his honor be it told, \nwriting to the King in reply: "Your Maj- \nesty has many faithful subjects in Bayonne, \nbut not one executioner." \n\nAnd where was " His Majesty" while this \n\n\n\n68 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nwork was being done ? How was it with \nCatharine ? She was possibly seeing to the \nembalming of Coligny\' s head, which we are \ntold she sent as a present to the Pope. \nWe hear of no regrets, no misgivings, that \nshe was calm, collected, suave and un- \nfathomable as ever, but that Charles in a \nstrange, half-frenzied state was amusing \nhimself by firing from the windows of the \npalace at the fleeing Huguenots. Had he \nkilled himself in remorse, would it not have \nbeen better, instead of lingering two \nwretched years, a prey to mental tortures \nand an inscrutable malady, before he died? \n\nEurope was shocked. Christendom averted \nher face in horror. But at Madrid and \nRome there was satisfaction. \n\nCatharine and the Duke of Alva had done \ntheir work skilfully, but the result surprised \nand disappointed them. Tens of thousands \nof Huguenots were slain, which was well; \nbut many times that number remained, with \nspirit unbroken, which was not well. \n\nThey had been too merciful ! Why had \nHenry of Navarre been spared? Had not \nAlva said, " Take the big fish and let the \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION 01\'^ AN EMPIRE. fit) \n\nsmall fry go. One salmon is worth more \nthan a thousand frogs." \n\nBut Charles considered the matter settled \nwhen he uttered those swelling words to \nHenry of Navarre the day after the massa- \ncre : "I mean in future to have one religion \nin my kingdom. It is mass or death." \n\nCatharine\'s third son now wore the crown \nof France. In Henry III. she had as pliant \nan instrument for her will as in the two \nbrothers preceding him; and, like them, his \nreign was spent in alternating conflict with \nthe Protestants and the Duke de Guise. At \nlast, wearied and exasperated, this half -Ital- \nian and altogether conscienceless King \nquite naturally thought of the stiletto. The \nold Duke, as he entered the King\'s apart- \nment by invitation, was stricken down by \nassassins hidden for that purpose. \n\nHenry had not counted on the rebound \nfrom that l^low. Catholic France was excited \nto such popular fury against him that he \nthrew himself into the arms of the Protes- \ntants, imploring their aid in keeping his \ncrown and his kingdom ; and when himself \n\n\n\nTo EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\nassassinated, a year later, in the absence of \na son he named Henry, King of Navarre, his \nsuccessor. A Protestant and a Huguenot \nwas King of France. \n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. \n\nAfter long wandering in strange seas, \nwe come in view of familiar lights and \nheadlands. With the advent of the house \nof Bourbon, we have grasped a thread which \nleads directly down to our own time. \n\nThe accession of a Protestant King was \nhailed with delirious joy by the Huguenots, \nand with corresponding rage by Catholic \nFrance. The one looked forward to redress- \ning of wrongs and avenging of injuries; and \nthe other flatly refused submission unless \nHenry should recant his heresy, and be- \ncome a convert to the true faith. \n\nThe new King saw there was no bed of \nroses preparing for him. After four years \nof effort to reconcile the irreconcilable, he \ndecided upon his course. He was not called \nto the throne to rule over Protestant France, \n\n\n\n72 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nnor to be an instrument of vengeance for \nthe Huguenots. He saw that the highest \ngood of the kingdom required, not that he \nshould impose upon it either form of behef \nor worship, but give equal opportunity andf \nprivilege to both. \n\nTo the consternation of the Huguenots he \nannounced himself ready to listen to the \narguments in favor of the religion of Eome ; \nand it took just five hours of deliberation to \nconvince him of its truth. He announced \nhimself ready to abjure his old faith. Bit- \nter reproaches on the one side and rejoic- \nings on the other greeted this decision. It \nwas not heroic. But many even among the \nProtestants acknowledged it to be an act of \nsupreme political wisdom. \n\nPeace was restored, and the *\' Edict of \nNantes," which quickly followed, proved to. \nhis old friends, the Huguenots, that they \nwere not forgotten. The Protestants, with \ndisabilities removed, shared equal privileges \nwith the Catholics throughout the kingdom ; \nand the first victory for religious liberty was \nsplendidly won. \n\nAn era of unexampled prosperity dawned. \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION" OF AN EMPIRE. 73 \n\nNever had the kingdom been so wisely and \nbeneficently governed. Sincerity, simplic- \nity, and sympathy had taken the place of \ndissimulation, craft, and cruelty. Uplifting \nagencies were everywhere at work, reaching \neven to the peasantry, that forgotten ele- \nment in the nation. \n\nThe reign of the Bourbon dynasty had \nopened auspiciously. Henry IV. was the \nidol of the people. His loveless \' marriage \nwith Margaret de Valois had been annulled, \nand he had espoused Maria de\' Medici. The \nblood from that poisoned stream was again \nto be intermingled with the blood of the \nfuture Kings of France. \n\nAfter a reign of twenty-one years, the saga- \ncious ruler who had done more than any \nother to make the country great and happy \nwas stricken down by the hand of an assas- \nsin, and a cry of grief arose alike from Cath- \nolic and Protestant throughout the kingdom. \n\nPoor France was again at the mercy of a \nwoman with the corrupt instincts of the \nMedici. The widow of Henry IV., who was \nRegent during the infancy of her son Louis, \n\n\n\nT4: EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nwas intriguing, vulgar, and without the \nabiHty of the great Catharine. The king- \ndom was rent by cabals of aspiring favorites \nand ambitious nobles, until the reign of \nLouis XIII. , or rather of Cardinal Eichelieu, \nbegan. \n\nThe foundations of this man\'s policy lay \ndeep, out of sight of all save his own far- \nreaching intelligence. Pitiless as an ice- \nberg, he crushed every obstacle to his pur- \npose. Impartial as fate, with no loves, no \nhatreds. Catholics, Protestants, nobles. Par- \nliaments, one after another were borne down \nbefore his determination to make the King, \nwhat he had not been since Charlemagne, \nsupreme in France. \n\nThe will of the great minister mowed \ndown like a scythe. The power of the gran- \ndees, that last remnant of feudalism, and a \nperpetual menace to monarchy, was swept \naway. One great noble after another was \nhumiliated and shorn of his privileges, if \nnot of his head. \n\nThe Huguenots, being first shaken into \nsubmission, saw their political liberties torn \nfrom them by the stroke of a pen, and even \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 75 \n\nwhile the Catholics were making merry over \nthis discomfiture, the minister was planning \nto send Henrietta, sister of the King, across \nthe Channel to become Queen of Protestant \nEngland, as wife of Charles I. But the \nact of supreme audacity was to come. This \nhigh prelate of the church, this cardinal \nminister, formed alliance with Gustavus \nAdolphus, the great leader of the Protes- \ntants in the war upon the Emperor and the \nPope! \n\nHe allowed no religion, no class, to sway \nor to hold him. He was for France; and \nher greatness and glory augmented under \nhis ruthless dominion. By his extraordinary \ngenius he made the reign of a commonplace \nKing one of dazzling splendor; and while \ngratifying his own colossal ambition he so \nstrengthened the foundations of the mon- \narchy that princes of the blood themselves \ncould not shake it. \n\nIt was great \xe2\x80\x94 it was dazzling, but of all \nhis work there is but one thing which revo- \nlutions and time have not swept away. The \n"French Academy" alone survives as his \nmonument. Out of a gathering of literary \n\n\n\n76 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nfriends lie created a national institution, its \nobject the establishing a court of last appeal \nin all that makes for eloquence in speaking \nor writing the French language. In a coun- \ntry where few things endure this has re- \nmained unchanged for two hundred and \nthirty years. \n\nBut this master of statecraft, this creator \nof despotic monarchy, had one unsatisfied \nambition. He would have exchanged all \nhis honors for the ability to write one play \nlike those of Corneille. Hungering for liter- \nary distinction, he could not have gotten into \nhis own Academy had he not created it. \nAnd jealous of his laurels, he hated Cor- \nneille as much as he did the enemies of \nFrance. \n\n\n\nCHAPTER X. \n\nAgain do we recognize the fine Italian \nhand in French pohtics. Cardinal Mazarin \nwas Minister during the regency of Anne of \nAustria, directing and controlling the affairs \nof the Kingdom, less intent upon the great- \nness of France than the greatness and mag- \nnificence of her Prime Minister. At last \nthe wily Italian was gone, and Louis XIV. \nsettled himself upon the throne which Rich- \nelieu had rendered so exalted and immovable. \n\nCardinal Mazarin had said of the young \nLouis that "there was enough in him to \nmake four Kings, and one honest man." \nHis greatness consisted more in amplitude \nthan in kind. Nature made him in prodigal \nmood. He was an average man of colossal \nproportions. His ability, courage, dignity, \nindustry, greed for power and possessions, \nwere all on a magnificent scale, and so were \n\n\n\n78 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nhis vanity, his loves, his cruelties, his pleas- \nures, his triumphs, and his disappointments. \n\nNo King more wickedly oppressed France, \nand none made her more glorious. He \nmade her feared abroad and magnificent at \nhome, but he desolated her, and drained her \nresources with ambitious wars. He crowned \nher with imperishable laurels in literature, \nart, and every manifestation of genius, but \nhe signed the " Revocation of the Edict of \nNantes," and drove out of his kingdom \n500,000 of the best of his subjects. \n\nIf the names of Marlborough and Main- \ntenon could have been stricken out of his life, \nthe story might have had a different ending. \nFrom the moment the great Duke checked \nhis victorious army, his sun began to go \ndown; but it was Maintenon who most \nobscured its setting. \n\nHis unloved Queen, the Spanish Marie \nTherese, had borne his mad infatuation for \nLouise la Valliere ; la Valliere had carried \nher broken heart to a convent, and been \nsuperseded by de Montespan, and de Mon- \ntespan had invited her own destruction by \nbringing into her household Madame de \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMriRE. 79 \n\nMaintenon, thepions widow of the poet Scar- \nron, in order tliat the austere virtues of that \nlady might be engrafted upon the children \nof the royal houseliold. Grave, ambitious, \ntalented, the governess of de Montespan\'s \nchildren was not too much absorbed in her \nduties to find ways of establishing an in- \nfluence over the King. \n\nThis man who had absorbed into himself \nall the functions of the Government, who \nwas Ministers, Magistrates, Parliaments, all \nin one, this central sun of whom Corneille, \nMoliere, Racine were but single rays, was \ndestined to be enslaved in bis old age by a \ndesigning adventuress; her will his law. \nThe hey-day of youth having passed, he \nwas beginning to be anxious about his soul. \nShe artfully pricked his conscience, and de \nMontespan was sent away, but de Maintenon \nremained. \n\nShe next convinced him that the only fit- \nting atonement for his sins was to drive \nheresy out of his kingdom, and re-establish \nthe true faith. At her bidding he undid \nthe glorious work of Henry IV., signed the \n"Revocation of the Edict of Nantes," and \nbrutally stamped out Protestantism. \n\n\n\n80 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nA part of the scheme of penitence seems \nto have been that on the death of poor Marie \nTherese, he should make her (de Maintenon) \nhis lawful wife, which he did privately ; and \nhis sun went down obscured by crushing \n\xe2\x80\xa2griefs and disappointments. His children \nswept away, the prestige of success tar- \nnished, this demigod was taken to pieces by \ntime\'s destroying fingers, quite as uncere- \nmoniously as are the rest of us, hiding \nfinally behind the bed-curtains while a \nkneeling courtier passed to him his wig on \nthe end of a stick, and at last lying down \nlike any other old dying sinner, overwhelmed \nwith the vanity of earthly things and with \nthe vastness of eternity. \n\nStill more would the dying moments of \nthe Grand Monarque have been embittered \ncould he have foreseen into what hands his \ngreat inheritance was passing. \n\nUpon Louis XV. more than any other \nrests the responsibility of the crisis which \nwas approaching. \n\nA heartless sybarite, depraved in tastes, \nwithout sense of responsibility or compre- \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 81 \n\nhension of his times, a brutalized voluptuary \ngoverned by a succession of designing wo- \nmen, regardless of national i)Overty, indulg- \ning in wildest extravagance, \xe2\x80\x94 such was the \nman in whom was vested the authority ren- \ndered SO absolute by Richelieu, \xe2\x80\x94 such the \nman who opened up a pathway for the \nstorm. \n\nAs for the nobility, their degradation may \nbe imagined when it is said there was as \nbitter rivalry between titled and illustrious \nfathers to secure for their daughters the \ncoveted position held by Madame do Pompa- \ndour, as for the highest offices of State. \n\nCould the upper ranks fall lower than \nthis? Had not the kingdom reached its \nlowest depths, where its foreign policy was \ndetermined by the amount of consideration \nshown to Madame de Pompadour? But this \nwoman, whose friendship was artfully sought \nby the great Empress Maria Theresa, was \nsuperseded, and the fresher charms of Ma- \ndame du Barri enslaved the King. The \ndeposed favorite could not survive her fall, \nand died of a broken heart. It is said that \nas Louis, looking from an upper window of \n\n\n\n82 EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\nhis palace, saw the coffin borne out in a \ndrenching rain, he smiled and said: "Ah, \nthe Marquise has a bad day for her journey." \nIt may be imagined that the man who could \nbe so pitiless to the woman he had loved \nwould feel little pity for the people whom> \nhe had not loved, but whom he knew only \nas a remote, obscure something, which held \nup the weight of his glory. \n\nBut this " obscure something" was under- \ngoing strange transformation. The greater \nlight at the surface had sent some glimmer- \ning rays down into the mass below, which \nbegan to awaken and to think. Misery, \nhopeless and abject, was changing into \nrage and thirst for vengeance. \n\nA new class had come into existence \nwhich was not noble, but with highly trained \nintelligence it looked with contemjDt and \nloathing upon the frivolous, half-educated \nnobles. Scorn was added to the ferment of \nhuman passions beneath the surface, and \nwhen Voltaire had spoken, and the re- \nstraints of religion were loosened, no living \nhand, not that of a Richelieu nor a Louis \nXIV., could have averted the coming doom. \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. 83 \n\nBut \xe2\x80\x94 no one seems to have suspected what \nwas a]iproaching. \n\nA wonderful literature had come into ex- \nistence \xe2\x80\x94 not stately and classic as in the \nage preceding,\xe2\x80\x94 but instinct with a new \nsort of life. The profoundest themes which \ncan occupy the mind of man were handled \nwith marvellous lightness of touch and \nclothed with prismatic brilliancy of speech ; \nbut all was negation. Xone tried to build ; \nall to demolish. The black-winged angel of \nDestruction was hovering over the land. \n\nThen Rousseau tossed his dreamy ab- \nstractions into the quivering air, and the \nformula, "Liberty, Equality, and Frater- \nnity," was caught up by the titled aristocracy \nas a charming idyllic toy, while Princes, \nDukes, and Marquises amused themselves \n^with a dream of Arcadian simplicity, to be \nattained in some indefinite way in some \nremote and equally indefinite future. It \nwas all a masquerade. No reality, no sin- \ncerity, no convictions, good or evil. The \nonly thing that was real was that an over- \ntaxed, impoverished people was exasperated \nand \xe2\x80\x94 hungry. \n\n\n\n84 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nDid the King need new supplies for his \nunimaginable luxuries, they were taxed. \nWas it necessary to have new accessions to \nFrench " glory, " in order to allay popular \nclamor or discontent, they must supply the \nmen to fight the glorious battles, and the \nmeans with which to pay them. Every \nburden fell at last upon this lowest stratum \nof the State, the nobility and clergy, while \nowning two-thirds of the land, being nearly \nexempt from taxation. \n\nAnd yet the King and nobility of France, \nin love with Eousseau\'s theories, were airily \ndiscussing the "rights of man." Wolves \nand foxes coming together to talk over the \nsacredness of the rights of property \xe2\x80\x94 or the \noccupants of murderers\' row growing elo- \nquent over the sanctity of human life ! How \nincomprehensible that among those quick- \nwitted Frenchmen there seems not one to \nhave realized that the logical sequence of \nthe formula, "Liberty, Equality, and Fra- \nternity," must be, " Down with the Aris- \ntocrats ! " \n\nAnd so the surface which Richelieu had \nconverted into adamant grew thinner and \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 85 \n\nthinner each day, until King and Court \ndanced upon a mere gilded crust, uncon- \nscious of the abysmal fires beneath. Some \nof those powdered heads fell into the execu- \ntioner\'s basket twenty -five years later. Did \nthey recall this time? Did Madame du \nBarri think of it, did she exult at her tri- \numph over de Pompadour, when she was \ndragged shrieking and struggling to the \nguillotine? \n\nAnd while France was thus weaving her \nfuture, what were the other nations doing? \nEngland, sane, practical, with little time \nfor abstractions, and little said about \n"glory," was importing turnii^s, converting \nagriculture into a science, and under the \ninstruction of exiled Huguenots, establish- \ning marvellous industries. In the new \nkingdom of Prussia, a half-savage, half- \ninspired King had been importing artisans \nand skill of all sorts, reclaiming waste lands. \nLiving like a miser, he had indulged in but \none luxury : an army, which should be the \nbest in the world. There was no powder, \nno patches at his Court ; where he thrashed \n\n\n\n86 EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\nwith his own royal hands male and female \ncourtiers, starved, imprisoned, and cudgelled \nhis son and heir to his throne for playing on \nthe violin; and, it is said, so terrified and \nscarified his grenadiers with canes and cats \nthat not one of them would not have pre- \nferred facing the enemy to meeting his en- \nraged sovereign, had he done wrong, \n\nFrederick was not a pleasant barbarian. \nBut there is at least a ring of sincerity about \nall this, which it is refreshing to recall after \nthe tinsel and depraved refinements of \nFrance under Louis XV. , and something too \nwhich gives promise, in spite of its brutality, \nof a stalwart future. \n\nFive years before the close of this miser- \nable reign, an event occurred seemingly of \nsmall importance to Europe. A child was \nborn in an obscure Italian household. His \nname was Napoleon Bonaparte. His birth- \nplace, the island of Corsica, had only two \nmonths before been incorporated with France. \nThe fates even then were watching over this \nchild of destiny who might, by a slight turn \nof events, then imminent, have been born a \nsubject of George III. of England. \n\n\n\nCHAPTER XL \n\nLouis XV. was dead, and two children, \nwith the Hght-heartedness of youth and in- \nexperience, stepped upon the throne which \nwas to be a scaffold \xe2\x80\x94 Louis XVL, only- \ntwenty, and Marie Antoinette, his wife, \nnineteen. He, amiable, kind, full of gener- \nous intentions ; she, beautiful, simple, child- \nlike and lovely. Instead of a debauched old \nKing with depraved surroundings, here were \na Prince and Princess out of a fairy-tale. \nThe air was filled with indefinite promise of \na new era for mankind to be inaugurated \nby this amiable young king, whose kindness \nof heart shone forth in his first speech, \n\'\' We will have no more loans, no credit, no \nfresh burdens on the people;" then, leaving \nhis ministers to devise ways of paying the \nenormous salaries of officials out of an \nempty treasury, and to arrange the financial \n\n\n\n88 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\ndetails of his benevolent scheme of govern- \nment, he proceeded with his gay and bril- \nliant young wife to Rheims, there to be \ncrowned with a magnificence undreamed of \nby Louis XIV. \n\nIn the midst of these rejoicings over the \nnew reign, and of speculative dreams of \nuniversal freedom, there was wafted across \nthe Atlantic news of a handful of patriots \narrayed against the tyranny of the British \nCrown. Here were the theories of the new \nphilosophy translated into the reality of \nactual experience. "No taxation without \nrepresentation," "No privileged class," "No \ngovernment without the consent of the gov- \nerned." Was this not an embodiment of \ntheir dreams? Nor did it detract from the \ninterest in the conflict that England \xe2\x80\x94 Eng- \nland, the hated rival of France, was defied \nby an indignant people of her own race. \nThere was not a young noble in the land \nwho would not have rushed if he could to \nthe defence of the outraged colonies. \n\nThe King, half doubting, and vaguely \nfearing, was swept into the current, and the \narmies and the courage of the Americans \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. 89 \n\nwere splendidly reinforced by generous, en- \nthusiastic France. \n\nWhy should the simple-hearted Louis see \nwhat no one else seemed to see : that victory \nor failure were alike full of peril for France? \nIf the colonies were conquered, France would \nfeel the vengeance of England ; if they were \nfreed and self-governing, the principle of \nMonarchy had a staggering blow. \n\nIn the mean time, as the American Eevo- \nlution moved on toward success, there was \ntalk in the cabin as well as the chateau of \nthe "rights of man." In shops and barns, \nas well as in clubs and drawing-rooms, there \nwas a glimmering of the coming day. \n\n"What is true upon one continent is \ntrue upon another," say they. "If it is \ncowardly to submit to tyranny in America, \nwhat is it in France ?" " If Englishmen may \nrevolt against oppression, why may not \nFrenchmen?" "No government without \nthe consent of the governed, eh? When \nhas our consent been asked, the consent of \ntwenty-five million people? Are we sheep, \nthat we have let a few thousands govern us \nfor a thousand years, ivithout our consent?" \n\n\n\n90 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nPoverty and hunger gave force and ur- \ngency to these questions. The people hegan \nto clamor more boldly for the good time \nwhich had been promised by the kind-hearted \nKing, The murmur swelled to an ominous \nroar. Thousands were at his very palace \ngates, telling him in no unmistakable \nterms that they were tired of smooth words \nand fair promises. What they wanted was \na new constitution and \xe2\x80\x94 bread. \n\nPoor Louis ! the one could be made with \npen and paper ; but by what miracle could \nhe produce the other? How gladly would \nhe have given them anything. But what \ncould he do? There was not enough money \nto pay the salaries of his officials, nor for \nhis gay young Queen\'s fetes and balls! The \nold way would have been to impose new \ntaxes. But how could he tax a people cry- \ning at his gates for bread? He made more \npromises which he could not keep; yielded, \none after another, concessions of authority \nand dignity; then vacillated, and tried to \nreturn over the slippery path, only to be \ndragged on again by an irresistible fate. \n\nWhen Louis XVI. convoked the States- \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 91 \n\nGeneral, he made his last concession to the \ndemands of his subjects. \n\nThat almost -forgotten body had not been \nBeen since Richelieu effaced all the auxiliary \nfunctions of government. Nobles, ecclesi- \nastics, and tiers etat (or commons) found \nthemselves face to face once more. The \nhandsome contemptuous nobles, the princely \necclesiastics were unchanged \xe2\x80\x94 but there was \na new expression in the pale faces of the \ncommons. There was a look of calm defi- \nance as they met the disdainful gaze of the \naristocrats across the gulf of two centuries. \n\nThe two superior bodies absolutely refused \nto sit in the same room with the commons. \nThey might under the same roof, but in the \nsame room \xe2\x80\x94 never. \n\nNo outburst met this insult. With mar- \nvellous self-control and dignity, and with an \nominous calm, the commons constituted \nthemselves into the "National Assembly." \n\nAristocratic France had committed its \nconcluding act of arrogance and folly. And \nwhen poor distracted Louis gave impotent \norder for the Assembly to disperse, he com- \nmitted suicide. Louis the man lived on to \n\n\n\n92 EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\nbe slain by the people three years later, but \nLouis the King died at that moment. \n\nWhen the Assembly defied his authority \nand continued to solemnly act as if he had \nnot spoken, the power had passed to the \npeople. They were sovereign. \n\nParis was in wild excitement; and a \nrumor that troops were marching upon the \nAssembly to disperse it converted excitement \ninto madness. The populace marched to- \nward the Bastille, and in another hour the \nheads of the Governor and his officials were \nbeing carried on pikes through the streets of \nParis. \n\nThe horrible drama had opened, and events \ndeveloped with the swiftness of a falling \navalanche. Louis might have followed his \nfleeing nobles. But always vacillating, and \n"letting I dare not wait upon I would," \nthe opportunity was lost. He and his family \nwere prisoners in the " Temple, " while an \nawful travesty upon a court of justice was \nsending out death-warrants for his friends \nand adherents faster than the guillotine \ncould devour them. \n\nMore and more furious swept the torrent, \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 93 \n\ngathering to itself all that was vile and \noutcast. Where were the pale-faced, deter- \nmined patriots who sat in the "National As- \nsembly"? Some of them riding with Dukes \nand Marquises to the guillotine. Was this \nthe equality they expected when they cried \n" Down with the Aristocrats " ? \n\nDid they think they could guide the whirl- \nwind after raising it? As well whisper to \nthe cyclone to level only the tall trees, or to \nthe conflagration to burn only the temples \nand palaces. \n\nWith restraining agencies removed, relig- \nion, government, King, all swept away, that \nhideous brood born of vice, poverty, hatred, \nand despair came out from dark hiding- \nplaces ; and what had commenced as a patri- \notic revolt had become a wild orgie of \nbloodthirsty demons, led by three master- \ndemons, Robespierre, Marat, and Danton, \nvying with each other in ferocity. \n\nThen we see that simple girl thinking by \none supreme act of heroism and sacrifice, \nlike Joan of Arc, to save her country. Fool- \nish child ! Did she think to slay the monster \ndevouring Paris by cutting off one of his \n\n\n\n94 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nheads? The death of Marat only added to \nthe fury of the tempest ; and the f alHng of \nCharlotte Corday\'s head was not more \nnoticed than the falling of a leaf in the \nforest. \n\nOn the 21st of January, 1793, Louis XVI. \nembraced for the last time his adored wife \nand children; then, with every possible \nindignity, was strapped to a plank and shoved \nunder the guillotine. \n\nThe kindest-hearted, most inoffensive gen- \ntleman in Europe had expiated the crimes \nof his ancestors. \n\nA few months later, Marie Antoinette, \ndaughter of the proud Empress Maria The- \nresa, and child of the Caesars, was borne along \nthe same road. And how bravely she met \nher awful fate ! We forget her follies, her \nreckless grasping after pleasures, in view of \nher horrible sufferings and in admiration of \nher courage as she rides to her death ; sitting \nin that hideous tumbril, head erect, pale, \nproud, defiant, as if upon a throne. \n\nWith the death of the King and Queen \nthe madness had reached its height, and a \nrevulsion of feeling set in. There was a \n\n\n\nKVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 95 \n\nsurfeit of Mood, and an awaken ii:p^ sense of \nhorror, which turned upon the instigators. \nDanton fell, and finally, when amid cries of \n"Death to the tyrant!" Robespierre was \ndragged wounded and shivering to the fate \nhe had brought upon so many thousands, the \ndrama which had opened at the Bastille was \nfittingly closed. \n\nThe great battle for human liberty had \nbeen fought and won. Religious freedom \nand political freedom were identical in prin- \nciple. The right of the human conscience \nproclaimed by Luther in 1517 had in 1703 \nonly expanded into the large conception of \nall the inherent rights of the individual. \n\nIt had taken centuries for English persist- \nence to accomplish what France, with such \nappalling violence, had done in as many \nyears. It had been a furious outburst of pent- \nup force ; but the work had been thorough. \nNot a germ of tyranny remained. The in- \ncrustations of a thousand years were not \nalone broken, but pulverized ; the privileged \nclasses were swept away, and their vast \nestates, two-thirds of the territory of France, \nready to be distributed among the rightful \n\n\n\n96 EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\nowners of the soil, those who by toil and \nindustry could win them. France was as \nnew as if she had no history. There was \nample opportunity for her people now. \nWhat would they do with it? \n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII. \n\nIt is strange to read that the armies went \non fighting battles automatically, even while \nthere was no central head to direct them. \nWhile the ghastly scenes were enacting in \nParis, and while Josejjhine de Beauharnais \nwas at the Conciergerie listening with \nblanched face to the call of her husband\'s \nname on the death-roll for the day, a young \nlieutenant of artillery, only twenty-four \nyears old, was at Toulon, winning his first \nmilitary honors. He would have been \nthought a strange prophet who had said \nthat in less than ten years the young Cor- \nsican lieutenant would be Emperor, and the \nprisoner at the Conciergerie Empress of the \nFrench! Nor did M. de Beauharnais, as he \nrode to execution, dream that forty-five \nyears later his grandson would over the \nsame stones be borne to his coronation. \n\n\n\n98 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nIn the anarchy which prevailed after the \nKevolution, the young hero of Toulon was \ncalled upon to quell a riot in Paris. The \npeople realized they had met a master. For \ntwenty-five years from that day, the history \nof France, and indeed of Europe, was that \nof one man, Napoleon Bonaparte. Com- \nmander-in-chief of the Army, then First \nConsul of the Kepublic, then Emperor \xe2\x80\x94 the \nsteps in his ascent were as rapid and as be- \nwildering as the movements in one of his \nown campaigns. France, groping about \nhelplessly among the wreckage of the past, \nbelieved what she most desired was liberty \nand self-government. \n\nThis Italian, who was a French citizen \neven only by merest accident, knew her \nbetter than she did herself, and that what \nshe really wanted was a fresh mantle of \nglory to cover her humiliation, and \xe2\x80\x94 a \nmaster. \n\nLeading a broken, unpaid, half-clothed \narmy into Italy, he electrified France and \nall Europe. Before the world had really \nfound out who he was, and whence he had \ncome, he had conquered all of Northern \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 99 \n\nItaly, part of Austria and Belgium, had \ncreated a Cisalpine Republic out of the frag- \nments, and was making treaties and dictat- \ning terms to kings and princes. \n\nFrance, discredited and almost disgraced \namong the monarchies of Europe, found \nherself suddenly feared and glorious. Napo- \nleon had captured the most imaginative and \nmilitary people in Europe. The rest of the \nway was easy. Prudent, discreet, knowing \nwhen to wait, and when to come down like \nan avalanche, this marvellous man held \nFrance in his hands, and placed Europe \nunder his feet. \n\nThe people which had exerted such super- \nhuman effort for freedom were held by a \nhand more despotic than Richelieu\'s, more \ndestructive to popular freedom than that of \nLouis XIV. ; and the more absolute his rule, \nthe more overpowering his authority, the \nbetter pleased they seemed to be. \n\nBut, was there not equal opportunity for \nevery man in the Empire? Every soldier\'s \nknapsack, might it not hold a Marshal\'s \nbaton? Was not the Emperor himself a \nliving illustration of what a man from the \n\n\n\n100 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\npeople might become? And then what did \nit mean to Frenchmen to be suddenly lifted \nto dazzling ascendancy in Europe? Who \nwould not willingly serve a master who \ncould bring Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, Ro- \nmanoff, Bourbon, crouching at his feet \xe2\x80\x94 \nwho could tear down states, and set them \nup, and if an extra throne were needed for \na retainer, could carve a new state from ter- \nritory of friend and foe alike, and place a \ndiadem upon every head in his domestic or \nmilitary household? It was the most stu- \npendous display of personal power ever be- \nheld, England alone standing upright in \nhis presence, and in the end accomplishing \nhis ruin. \n\nWhen Austria with a reluctant shudder \nbestowed her princess upon the invincible \nparvenu, and when France with regretful \npity saw the adored Josephine set aside for \nthat disdainful royal maiden, Marie Louise, \nat that moment Napoleon passed the merid- \nian of his greatness. \n\nIt had taken just fifteen years to make \nthe most astonishing and dazzling chapter \nin French history; and then came " Moscow" \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION 01^ AX EMPIRE. 101 \n\nand "Elba," to be quickly followed by \n"Waterloo" and "St. Helena." And then \nfor France \xe2\x80\x94 most incomprehensible of all \xe2\x80\x94 a \nreturn to the Bourbons ! It had required the \ngreatest tragedy of modern times to get rid \nof them, and here they were again, Louis \nXVIII. and Charles X., as overbearing and \nas arrogant as if their brother\'s head had \nnot dropped into a basket in 1793. When \nsomebody said of the Bourbons "they learn \nnothing and forget nothing," he was inaccu- \nrate. They had certainly forgotten the \nFrench Eevolution. \n\nBut death removed the first, and popular \nsentiment the second, of these relics of an \nobsolete past. And a new experiment was \ntried. This time it was the son of Philippe \nEgalite, that wickedest of all the regicides, \nwho came smiling and bowing before the \npeople as a popular sovereign, who would \nbeneficently rule under a liberal constitu- \ntion. Whatever his father had been, Louis \nPhilippe was far from being a wicked man. \nWhether teaching school in Switzerland, \nor giving French lessons in America, or \nwearing the kingly crown in France, he was \n\n\n\n102 EVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. \n\nthe kindest hearted, most inoffensive of \ngentlemen. \n\nWhen in the pre-revolutionary days we \nread of France making war, it means that \nthe King, or his minister, with more or less \ndeference to the will of a few thousand \nnobles, did so. They are the France referred \nto. The real France was not consulted and \nhad nothing to do with it, unless it were to \nfill the ranks with fathers, sons, and hus- \nbands, and then pay the taxes imposed to \nsupport them. But times were changed. \nUnder a constitutional monarchy, the King \ndoes not govern ; he reigns. Louis Philippe \nwas King of the French, \xe2\x80\x94 not of France. \nHe was chosen by the people as their orna- \nmental figurehead. But what if he ceased \nto be ornamental? What was the use of a \nKing who in eighteen years had added not a \nsingle ray of glory to the national name, \nbut who was using his high position to in- \ncrease his enormous private fortune, and \nincessantly begging an impoverished coun- \ntry for benefits and emoluments for five \nsons? \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 103 \n\nAn excellont father, truly, though a short- \nsighted one. His power had no roots. The \ncutting from the Orleans tree had never \ntaken hold upon the soil, and toppled over \nat the sound of Lamartine\'s voice proclaim- \ning a Republic from the balcony of the \n"Hotel deVille." \n\nWhen invited to step down from his royal \nthrone, he did so on the instant. Never did \nKing succumb with such alacrity, and never \ndid retiring royalty look less imposing, than \nwhen Louis Philippe was in hiding at Havre \nunder the name of "William Smith," wait- \ning for safe convoy to England, without- \nhaving struck one blow in defence of his \nthrone. \n\nBut three terrible words had floated into \nthe open windows of the Tuileries. With \nthe echoes of 1792 still sounding in his ears, \n"Liberty," "Equality," and "Fraternity," \nshouted in the streets of Paris, had not a \npleasant sound ! \n\nEepublicanism was an abiding sentiment \nin France, even while two dull Bourbon \nKings were stupidly trying to turn back \n\n\n\n104 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nthe hands on the dial of time, and while an \nOrleans, with more supple neck, was posing \nas a popular sovereign. During all this tire- \nsome interlude, the real fact was developing. \nA Republican sentiment which had existed \nvaguely in the air was materializing, con- \nsolidating, into a more and more tangible \nreality in the minds of thinking men and \npatriots. \n\nThe ablest men in the country stood with \nplans matured, ready to meet this crisis. A \nRepublic was proclaimed ; M. de Lamartine, \nLedru-Rollin, General Cavaignac, M. Ras- \npail, and Louis Napoleon were rival candi- \ndates for the office of President. \n\nThe nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, and \nson of Hortense, was only known as the \nperpetrator of two very absurd attempts \nto overthrow the monarchy under Louis \nPhilippe. But since the remains of the \ngreat Emperor had been returned to France \nby England, and the splendors of the past \nplaced in striking contrast with a dull, lustre- \nless present, there had been a revival of Na- \npoleonic memories and enthusiasm. Here \nwas an opportunity to unite two powerful \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 105 \n\nsentiments in one man \xe2\x80\x94 a Napoleon at the \nbead of Republican France would express \nthe glory of the past and the hope of the \nfuture. \n\nThe magic of the name was irresistible. \nLouis Napoleon was elected President of the \nsecond Republic, and history prepared to re- \npeat itself. What sort of a ruler would he \nbe \xe2\x80\x94 this dark, mysterious, unmagneticman? \nEven should he not turn out well, no great \nharm could be done. It was only for four \nyears. His hand had not the steely fineness \nof touch of his great uncle\'s, but it was \nstrong, and guided, they soon found, by a \nsubtle intelligence. \n\nThe overthrow of Monarchy in France \nhad set fire to Republicanism in Europe, \nKossuth with transcendent eloquence lead- \ning a revolution in Hungary, and Garibaldi \nand Mazzini with pen and sword in Ital}^ \nEurope was in a blaze of revolt. The first \ngreat military exploit of Napoleon Bona- \nparte had been in Italy, and so was his \nnephew\'s, but with this difference \xe2\x80\x94 the ob- \nject of the one was to build up Republics on \nthe other side of the Alps, and of the other to \n\n\n\n106 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\npull them down. Garibaldi and Mazzini \nwere driven out of Italy by French bayonets, \nwhich also propped up the pontifical throne \nfor the fugitive Pope. \n\nThe Assembly soon realized that in this \nPrince-President it had no automaton to \ndeal with. A deep antagonism grew, and \nthe cunningly devised issue could not fail to \nsecure popular support to Louis Napoleon. \nWhen an Assembly is at war with the Pres- \nident because it desires to restrict the suf- \nfrage, and he to make it universal, can \nany one doubt the result? He was safe in \nappealing to the people on such an issue, and \nsure of being sustained in his Proclamation \ndissolving the Assembly. He was gathering \nthe reins into his hands with the astute cour- \nage of his uncle. Moving on almost identi- \ncal lines with his great original, the nephew \nset his face toward the same goal. \n\nThe French people must have realized they \nwere being betrayed. They must have seen \nthat this ambitious plotter was slipping the \nold fetters of arbitrary power into position. \nBut, under the powerful spell of the Napole- \nonic name, lulled to tranquillity by the gift \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OP AN EMPIRE. 107 \n\nof suffr\xc2\xabigo, and fascinated by tlie growing \nsplendors of an ingenious reproduction of \nthe most brilliant chapter in French history, \nthey were unresistingly drawn into the Im- \nperial net. \n\nFrance was for the second time an Em- \npire, and Napoleon III. was Emperor of the \nFrench. \n\nHis Mephistophelian face did not look as \nclassic under the laurel wreath as had his \nuncle\'s, nor had his work the blinding splen- \ndor nor the fineness of texture of his great \nmodel. But then, an imitation never has. \nIt was a marble masterpiece, done in plas- \nter ! But what a clever reproduction it was ! \nAnd how, by sheer audacity, it compelled \nrecognition and homage, and at last even \nadulation in Europe! \xe2\x80\x94 and what a clever \nstroke it was, for this heavy, unsympathetic \nman to bring up to his throne from the peo- \nple a radiant Empress, who would capture \nromantic and .Tsthetic France ! \n\nIt was a far cry from cheap lodgings in \nNew York to a seat upon the Imperial \nthrone of France ; but human ambition \nis not easily satisfied. A Pelion always \n\n\n\n108 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nrises beyond an Ossa. It was not enough to \nfeel that he had re-estabhshed the prosperity \nand prestige of France, that fresh glory had \nbeen added to the Napoleonic name. Was \nthere not after all a certain irritating reserve \nin the homage paid him, was there not a \ntouch of condescension in the friendship of \nhis royal neighbors? And had he not always \na Mordecai at his gate \xe2\x80\x94 while the Faubourg \nSt. Germain stood aloof and disdainful, smil- \ning at his brand-new aristocracy ? \n\nWar is the thing to give solidity to em- \npire and to reputation ! Neither France nor \nEurope can withstand the magic of military \nrenown. And so, upon a quickly improvised \npretext, the French Emperor started, amid \nthe booming of cannon and the wild accla- \nmations of a delighted people, upon a new \ncareer of conquest. The insolent Prussians \nwere to be chastised ; and, incidentally, Eu- \nrope was to be made to tremble ! \n\nIn a few months the bubble was pricked. \nThe glittering French army proved to be a \nthing of tinsel and fustian. With no reality, \nno power to stand before the solid German \nbattalions, it melted like hoar-frost. Napo- \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 109 \n\nleon TIT. was prisoner of war at Sedan, and \nIving William, Unser Fritz, and Von Moltke \nwere at Versailles. \n\nMoved by his colossal misfortunes, and \n^perhaps partly in displeasure at having a \n-French Republic once more at her door, Eng- \nland offered asylum to the deposed Emperor. \nThere, from the seclusion of "Chiselhurst," \nhe and his still beautiful Eugenie watched \nthe Republic weathering the first days of \nstorm and stress, and coming out at last \nstable and triumphant. \n\nThe weary exile felt that not in his day \nwould the reaction come. But his son \nwould jet wear the Imperial crown which \nwas liis birthright. Futile dream! The boy was \ndestined to cruel fate\xe2\x80\x94 to be slain by Zulu \nassegai, while fighting the battles of England, \n\xe2\x80\x94 an England still glorying in the name of \nWaterloo! Strange ending for the heir to \nthe name of Napoleon Bonaparte. \n\nBut the reaction Louis Napoleon so confi- \ndently hoped for did not come. With mili- \ntary pride humbled in the dust, national \npride wounded by the loss of two provinces, \nloaded down with an immense war indem- \n\n\n\n110 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nnity, the people set about the task of rehabil- \nitation ; in an incredibly short time, the gall- \ning debt was paid, financial prosperity and \npolitical strength restored, and with mili- \ntary organization second to none in Europe, \nFrance, with revengeful eyes fastened on \nGermany, waits for the day of reckoning. \n\nFor twenty-four years the Eepublic has \nexisted. Communistic fires always smoulder- \ning have again and again burst forth \xe2\x80\x94 \ndemagogues, fanatics, and those creatures \nfor whom there is no place in organized \nsociety, whose element is chaos, standing \nready to fan the fires of revolt ; while Orlean- \nist, Bonapartist, Bourbon, are ever on the \nalert, watching for opportunity to slip in \nthrough the open door of Kevolution. \n\nEngland in conscious superiority smiles at \na nation which has had seven political revo- \nlutions in a hundred years. Republic, then \nEmpire, then a return to the Bourbons, then \na limited Monarchy under Louis Philippe, \nthen Republic, followed by Empire again, \nand now for the third time a Republic ! \n\nBut France, complex, mobile, changeful \nas the sea, in riotous enjoyment of her new- \n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF AN EMPIKE. Ill \n\nfound liberties, casts off a form of govern- \nment as she would an ill-litting garment. \nShe knows the value of tranquillity \xe2\x80\x94 she \nhad it for one thousand years ! The people^ \nwhich have only breathed the upper air for a \na century \xe2\x80\x94 the people, who were stifled under \nfeudalism, stamped upon by Valois Kings, \nriveted down by Richelieu, then prodded, \noutraged, and starved by Bourbons, have be- \ncome a great nation. Many-sided, resource- \nful, gifted, it matters not whether they have \ncalled the head of their government Con- \nsul, Emperor, King, or President. They are \na race of freemen, who can never again be \nenslaved by tyrannous system. \n\nIt was a bright day for France when that \nambitious young Emperor of Germany sent \nhis great Chancellor into retirement; and \nanother bright day when, taking offence at \nscant courtesy at the hands of the Czar, he \nleft ajar the back door to his dominions. An \nalliance between despotic Russia thirsting \nfor the waters of the Mediterranean, and Re- \npublican France thirsting for revenge, is the \ndarkest cloud on the German horizon to-day. \n\n\n\n112 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. \n\nThere is no longer thought of conflict be- \ntween any two nations of Europe. The next \nwar is to be one of tremendous combinations. \nNational alliances are shifting and uncertain. \nBut at the time this is written (1894) Ger- \nmany, Austria, and Italy are drawn together \nin one hostile camp, while France and Russia, \nin loving embrace, stand in the other; and \nEngland, aloof and suspicious, holds herself \nready to hurl her weight against whichever \none obstructs her path to India. \n\nFor France there may be in store new \nrevolutions, and fresh overturnings. Not \nanchored as is England, in an historic past \nwhich she reverences, and with a singular- \nly gifted and emotional people who are the \nsport of the current of the hour, who can \npredict her future ! But whatever that \nfuture may be, no American can be indiffer- \nent to the fate of a nation to whom we owe \nso much. Nor can we ever forget that in the \nhour of our direst extremity, and regardless \nof cost to herself, she helped us to establish \nour liberties, and to take our place among \nthe great nations of the earth. \n\n\n\n'