■-:^;V!:!r^t5« i,-,,fi',.v.wXIU,(k,Ji.4i'vt-"vaH''f ■•' ■ imm mm :|lJi«;«)lk^i;3 A;; ^1*; GREAT NATIONS FRANCE ,?!?.^A>yM' j^^^,fe'. 0^A^ ^ f^^.T^tyrU; Co., Paris. 5. The Iron Crown of Chari^emagne Preserved in the Treasury of Monza Cathedral. With this the Lombard kings, it is said, were crowned at Pavia, their capital, or Milan, or perhaps Monza. It was used by Charles V, who crowned himself with it at Bologna in 1530, and by Napoleon at Milan in 1805 (p. 538)- In 1859 it was carried off by the Austrians, but was restored in 1866. Perhaps the original was a simple iron crown, or possibly only the interior circlet of iron (visible in the picture), which tradition asserted to have been formed of one of the nails of the Cross, brought by Helena from Jerusalem. The golden, jewelled exterior dates perhaps * from about iioo. It is a simpler and apparently later work than the imperial crown figured below. (Condensed from note in Mr H. B. Cotterill's Medieval Italy.) Photo G. Bianchi, Monza. 6. Tim SO-CALLED Crown of Charlemagne " This magnificent crown, surmounted by a cross and arched diadem, is in the Imperial Treasury at Vienna. There is great divergence of opinion as to its date. Some authorities, as Bock — ^with whom I agree — ^believe the crown itself to be early Italian work, and the diadem with the name ' Conrad ' to have been a later addition. In this case there is just a possibility that the crown is ' actually that which was used by Leo III to crown Charles the Great. But some patriotic Teutons . . . assert that both parts were undoubtedly made in Germany, and they insist that the whole cannot be anything but eleventh- century work, and therefore must be an imperial diadem made specially (at Mainz ?) for the coronation of Conrad II and his consort Gisela in 1027. . . . The arched diadem bears, worked in pearls, the words Chuonradus Dei Gratia Imperator Augustus. The crown itself is a mass of precious stones, gold filigree, and pearls. It has three pictures in enamel representing (i) Christ, between two angels, as King of Kings ; (2) David as the King of xiv IG. PA6B LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Manly Courage ; (3) Solomon as the King of Justice and Wisdom ; (4) Hezekiah as the King of Piety." (Mr H. B. Cotterill's note in his Medieval Italy.) Photo by S. Schramm, Vienna, photographer to the Court of Rumania. 7. Facsimii^e of Part of the Strassburg Oaths 48 - The part reproduced gives the oath taken by Ivouis, as pre- served in the unique manuscript of Nithard's Historiarum Libri'IV, Book III, chap, v (Bibliotheque Nationale, MS. 9768, fonds latin). lyouis took the oath in Romance, and Charles repeated it in German. The second oath was taken, in Romance and in German, by the armies of the two Kings. Nithard's manuscript gives the Romance and the German versions of both oaths, and is a document of supreme interest to philologists. (See p. 49.) 8. The CastIvE of Monti^hj^ry 64*^ Of the great castle of Montlh^ry, between Paris and ]^tampes, all that remains to-day is the keep, with the adjoining stair-turret. The substructures of four other towers and of the main walls, and also of the three fortified terraces which separated the castle from the town below, are still plainly discernible, however, and, founding on these, the well-known artist and archaeologist P. Hoffbauer has reconstituted the castle as it appeared in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The original fortress was built in the eleventh century by a younger son of the house of Montmorency. Under Philippe I it was the stronghold and retreat of the brigand Hugues de Cr^cy (see pp. 65, 90). From Larousse, " Histoire de France." 9. A Crusader Knight 74^ Prom a French bronze of the fourteenth century in the National Museum, Florence. Photo Brogi. o. The ChAteau Gaii.i.ard iio ^ Built by Richard I in 1 197 on a height above the village of lyes Andelys to command the navigation of the Seine and protect Normandy against Philippe-Auguste. Owing to its position, its triple lines of outworks, its seventeen towers, and its walls of from 8 to 14 feet in thickness, it was at the time deemed impregnable, yet it was captured by Philippe in 1204 (see p. iii). It was after- ward used as a State prison, and was the scene of the murder of Margaret of Burgundy, wife of Ivouis X, in 1 3 15. Though, except for the donjon, it is now in ruins, it is considered one of the finest specimens of the Norman castle. Our illustration is, of course, reproduced from Turner's well-known picture in the Seine et Loire series. XV HISTORY OF FRANCE 11. Thb Cathedraiv of Notre^-Damb The Cathedral of Notre-Dame is the most imposing thirteenth- century monument in Paris. It was begun in the twelfth century by Bishop Maurice de Sully, on the site of a church dating back to the fourth century, but only the apse and part of the nave were built at this time. The principle fa9ade was begun under Philippe- Auguste, and it was under Louis IX that Jean de Chelles, the only architect of Notre-Dame whose name has come down to us, built in 1257 ^^^ southern fagade and several of the chapels which surround the choir. During the course of the eighteenth century and of the First Empire the appearance of the cathedral was much altered by ill- judged restorations ; it was much neglected and was threatening ruin when in 1845 the great architects Lassus and VioUet-le-Duc undertook to save the monument and restored to it much of its early splendour. X Photo. 12. Portrait of IvOuis IX 124' B. 12 15, d. 1270. From an engraving by Pedretti after the portrait by de Creuse. 13. lyOUIS IX AND Bl^ANCHE OF CaSTII^K I24' i From an ivory medallion in the Cluny Museum. Blanche of Castile was bom in 1188, and y the childishly boastful exclamation wrung from him by he sufferings of his closing hours : " How powerful the King i)f Heaven must be if He can thus kill such great kings ! " ^ pHE Story of Fredegonda and Brunhilda On his death the kingdom was again broken up, and, as it happened, there were again four sons to share it ; and this resh dismemberment initiated a long period of chaos, inter- lecine feuds, treacheries, murders, reconsohdations, and re- livisions. To follow the ceaseless struggles for ascendancy imong successive relays of ambitious and ruthless men whose )assion for conquest was boundless and who stopped at nothing o gain their ends would be both wearisome and profitless. One extract from the tangled story will suffice to illustrate its eneral character. A certain Fredegonda, a woman of low ^irth and the xnost vicious instincts, was for a time the mistress ^f Chilperic, the weak King of Soissons. He put her away vhen he married Galswintha, a daughter of the King of the jpanish Goths, but she soon won back his affections and he 1 Gregory of Tours, op. cit., Lib. IV, cap. xxi. 21 HISTORY OF FRANCE restored her to the Court. This made Galswintha angry, and she threatened to return to her father. Then at the bidding; of Fredegonda Chilperic had her strangled in her bed, afterward i making Fredegonda his wife. This involved them both in ai bitter feud, with Galswintha's sister Brunhilda, a masterfull woman who was the wife of Chilperic's brother Sigebert, King ; of Metz. For upward of forty years wars, plots, counter-^ plots, and assassinations were the result of the rancorous hatred I of these two ambitious and unscrupulous women, who presently,! as regents, sought between them to govern the entire Frankish I race. A veritable I^ady Macbeth, Fredegonda did not scruple | to murder all who stood between her and the realization of I her plans, and though in the face of much evidence to thef contrary it has been stoutly maintained that Brunhilda was? on the whole more sinned against than sinning, the crimes of I which she too stands convicted were still many and grave.! Fredegonda died ("full of days" the chronicler says, and, /by a strange want of dramatic propriety hers would seem to i have been a natural death) before she had fully achieved thej great purpose of her manifold villainies, which was to place|| her son Clotaire on the throne of all the Franks. Brun- hilda outlived her rival sixteen years, during which she exhibited unabated energy and courage in the face of the powerful enemies whom she had raised up against her on; every side. In the end she fell into the hands of Clotaire,^, who in his treatment of her proved himself his mother's son.j Though now nearly eighty, she was cruelly tortured for threes! successive days for the delight of the King's army, after which i she was bound to an untamed horse and dashed to pieces. Beginnings of Differentiation between East AND West The most important fact in the history of this long period ofl chaos is the gradual segregation of the Frankish peoples intd two great groups, the Eastern Franks in their kingdom ol Austrasia, and the Western Franks in their kingdom of Neustria, In the east the Frankish population far outnumbered the Celtic, 22 < M > o W rf'r-H THE MERWING DYNASTY and in consequence Austrasia remained fundamentally Teutonic. In the west the Gallo-Roman population considerably out- numbered the Frankish, and there the I^atin language and the remains of I^aciU culture were destined to exercise a profound influence over the future fortunes of the country. Already, \ therefore, we see foreshadowed the later division between Germany and France. Before long, while the eastern kingdom was known as Oster Ric, the western came to be called Frank Ric, which in the speech of its Gallicized people assumed the form of Francia. The bitter jealousies of these two sections, of which the feuds of Brunhilda and Fredegonda were only a phase, filled the whole land for many years with the tumult of almost incessant civil war, the advantage lying now with one and now with the other side. The final triumph of the Austrasians is connected with a new factor in the history of Frankish civilization. This new factor was the growing power of the so-called Mayors of the Palace of the Merovingian kings. The Mayors of the Palace The M aire du Palais, or Major Domus, appears to have been originally only the chief servant of the royal household, with *! general charge of its management. By little and little, how- ever, the office assumed a political character ; the Mayor, ceasing to be a domestic, became the king's principal man of business, confidential adviser, and presently minister. This transformation of the office was at first due to the increasing power of the king, but later it was accelerated by the decay of that power. After Dagobert I, who was sole King of the Franks from 628 to 638, a rapid moral and physical rot attacked the Merovingian stock. Steeped in debaucheries, and with constitutions wrecked by excesses, king after king sank into an early grave, some, indeed, dying by violence, but others of premature old age ; while if one here and there lived to five-and-twenty, he had neither mental vigour nor strength of will nor bodily energy to make his royalty a real thing. These are the poor, feeble, shadowy rois faineants, the ' do- 23 HISTORY OF FRANCE nothing kings/ of whose meaningless titles history does riot: trouble to take account. Meanwhile the power which these! degenerate children of degenerate fathers still retained ini name passed in fact into the hands of their tuteurs and guar-- dians the Mayors of the Palace, who gradually became the; actual masters of those whom they were supposed to serve..! In the pages of Einhard's biography of Charlemagne we have!: a vivid description of the pitiable state of decrepitude intoi which the Frankish kingship had fallen in the last years of the ! Merovingian dynasty. "There w^as nothing left the king to* do but to be content with his name of king, his flowing hair, and long beard ; to sit on his throne and play the ruler ; to give ear to the ambassadors that came from all quarters, and , to dismiss them, as if on his own responsibility, in words that were in fact suggested to him or even imposed upon him. He had nothing that he could call his own beyond this vain title of king, and the precarious support allowed by the Mayor of the Palace in his discretion, except a single country seat, that ^brought him but a very small income. . . . The Mayor of the Palace took charge of the government and of everything that had to be planned or executed at home or abroad." ^ It is remarkable that in such an age the empty show of royalty should so long have survived its reality. More than a hundred years, however, elapsed between the accession of Dagobert's sons, the first of the 'Do-nothings,' and the actual extinction of the line with Childeric III ; while the failure of an attempt made by a certain Mayor named Grimwald, in 656, to usurp the Austrasian throne shows how tenaciously the Franks still clung to the Merovingian tradition. A quarter of a century later the struggle between Neustria and Austrasia was really a struggle between the two powerful Mayors Hbroin and Pippin of Heristal.^ In 680 Ebroin was victorious and gained the mastery for Neustria. But the success was only for the moment. In the following year he fell at the hand of a private 1 Vita Caroli Magni, trans. Turner, chap. i. 2 So called to distinguish him from his grandfather, who is known as Pippin of Ivanden. 24 /v. M W) O .-V 25 w !? S 00 O — W -"l- *^ Q . Jo o w a OH g H O 00 o « 25 HISTORY OF FRANCE assassin, and in 687 Pippin turned the scales by routing the Neustrian army at Testry, near Peronne. He thus became Mayor, and practical ruler, of all Frankland ; and though the unsubstantial royalty of the Merwings continued for another sixty-four years, it is at this point that the history of the new . dynasty of the Karlings may justly be said to begin. I 26 CHAPTER III THE KARLING OR CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY PIPPIN OF HERISTAlv was the grandson on his mother's side of Pippin, of I^anden, otherwise Pippin the Old, and on his father's of Arnulf, Bishop of Metz. The original Pippin, who was Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia till his death in 639, and Arnulf were fast friends, and as joint counsellors to the King they laboured, according to an anonymous contemporary biography of the former, to rule the land in harmony with the will of God. Both were ulti- mately canonized. Arnulf's son Anseghis married Pippin's daughter Begga. This was the origin of the line which we know as the Karling, from its outstanding representative Karl the Great, or Charlemagne. The office of Mayor, still elective in Neustria, became in Austrasia a family right of these Karlings, who in their vigour, martial ability, and intellectual powers present a remarkable contrast to the decadent Merovingians whom they served. Histor}^ presenting the almost unparal- leled spectacle of five generations of really competent men, for once has to acknowledge a telling argument in favour of the hereditary theory of government. Unfortunately for the credit of that theory, the baton sinister is conspicuous in the Karling genealogical tree. The victory of the Austrasians over the Neustrians achieved by Pippin and completed by his successor may be regarded as one more wave in the Teutonic invasion of Gaul. It meant another triumph of a -strong, fresh race over a population in which signs of rapid social degeneration were everywhere apparent. 27 HISTORY OF FRANCE Though the battle of Testry had made him the real governor of all Frankland, Pippin made no attempt, as his uncle Crim- wald had done, to assume the forms of royalty. Surrounded by a jealous and turbulent aristocracy, who would be quick to resent usurpation, he wisely contented himself with the substance of power, and left the shadow of it to the four successive puppet-kings in whose names he ruled. Yet the transformation of his anomalous position is suggested by the fact that he presently came to be known not only as Mayor of the Palace, but also as Dux Francorum. His headquarters were in his own Austrasia, but he kept his hold upon both Neustria and Burgundy by delegating his authority to care- fully chosen subordinates. His policy throughout was directed to the centralization of government and to the consolidation of the Frankish dominions. When the Neustrians rose in revolt against him he sought to conciliate them by arranging a marriage between his son Drogo and the widow of their last l\iayor ; while in a long series of campaigns he subdued the Frisians, the Alamans, the Thuringians, and the Bavarians, all* of whom had taken advantage of the continued dissensions of their conquerors to repudiate the Frankish yoke. Here again he endeavoured to cement by peaceful alliance the success which he had gained by arms, for he married another son, Grimwald, to the daughter of Ratbod, King of Frisia, not- withstanding the fact that this Ratbod w^as still a heathen. As a result of this the way was opened up for the extension of Christian missionary enterprise among the Frisian people, and some years later the Northumbrian preacher Willibrord founded the -Bishopric of Utrecht. On his death in 714 Pippin left behind him an illegitimate son named Karl, or Charles,^ then twenty-five, and already of tried ^ Though Karl is obviously the correct form, it would savour of pedantry to cling to it, and I therefore adopt the almost universally accepted Charles. In the same way I shall speak of this Karl's grandson, Karl the Great, under the familiar form of Charlemagne. This form has only popular usage to justify it, but after all, as Thomas Hodgkin said, " by its union of the Teutonic Karl with the I^atin Magnus it not inaptly symbolizes the blending of the German and Roman elements in the Frankish empire" {Charles the Great, Preface, p. vi). 28 THE KARLING DYNASTY valour, and three grandsons — the two sons of Drogo, who were then growmg into manhood, and a child of Grimwald, a boy of five. Pippin was guilty of the incredible folly of naming this boy as his successor. This last mad act almost wrecked the work of his life. His widow, Plectrudis, at once assumed the regency and threw Charles into prison. Revolt instantly followed, the old antagonism between Neustria and Austrasia blazed out anew, and the Prankish dominions were once more on the verge of anarchy. But Charles escaped, put himself at the head of the Austrasian army, and after a sharp struggle crushed Neustria and established himself as M^yor of the Palace and Duke of the Franks. The story of Charles' twenty-seven years' tenure of office is little more than the story of his wars, and the extraordinary vigour, courage, and patience which he exhibited in his innu- merable campaigns is well expressed in the name which he presently came to bear — the name of Martel, or ' the Hammer.' He had first to confirm his authority over the Neustrians, among whom discontent still smouldered. Then in turn he fought the Germanic tribes on his eastern borders, the Saxons, the Bavarians, and the Alamans, and reasserted Frankish supremacy over the restless peoples of Aquitaine, Burgundy, and Provence. But all these achievements sink into insignificance beside that crowning triumph by which, as a careful and temperate historian has phrased it, he decided " that not the Koran but the Gospel was to be the guide of the conscience of Europe." ^ Within less than a century after the Prophet's flight to Medina his fanatical successors had overrun Arabia, Syria, Persia, Palestine, Phoenicia, Egypt, Asia Minor, Armenia, portions of India, and Northern Africa as far as the Pillars of Hercules. With their thirst for conquest still unquenched, they then, in 711, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, and in nine years more pushed their way through vSpain into Southern Gaul. Narbonne, Carcassonne, and Nimes fell into their hands ; they besieged Toulouse, almost destroyed Bordeaux, burned the great church of Saint-Hilaire in Poitiers, and, ^ Hodgkin, Charles the Great, p. 43. 29 HISTORY OF FRANCE sweeping on in their unchecked career, reached Burgundy, where they sacked Autun. At this critical moment Charles IVI^rtel appeared on the scene as the champion of menaced Christendom. In October 732 the armies of the Crescent and the Cross came face to face near Poitiers. Seven days passed, each side waiting for the other to open hostilities. At length, early on a Saturday morning, the Arabs began to attack. All day long the turbaned warriors flung themselves upon the Franks ; but '' the northern nations stood immovable as a wall " ^ under their shock. The invaders' losses were enormous, and when the new day dawned it was found that they had fled under the cover of night. The Arabs were not yet, indeed, driven out of Gaul, for they maintained their footing in the south, and, of course, firmly established their power in Spain. But the great victory was none the less decisive in the sense that it made Moslem advance in Northern Europe impossible. ^ Charles Martel died at fifty-two, his iron constitution prema- turely broken by a life of incessant exertion and fatigue. He stands out as a memorable figure against the background of his time. A man, it is clear, of tremendous force of personality, he was especially great as a soldier, using his sword, indeed, as a hammer to beat down all opposition to his will ; and yet, though his chief business was fighting, he was never, so far as the meagre chronicles enable us to judge, either cruel or treacherous. Unfortunately for his memory, however, he offended the clergy by conferring ecclesiastical dignities upon favourites of his own for services rendered or to be rendered to the Crown, and by compelling the Church, the fast-growing wealth of which was exempt- from public burdens, to place some of it at his disposal for the defence of the kingdom. It is for this reason that, notwithstanding the support he gave to missionary enterprise, the churches he founded and endowed, and his splendid victory at Poitiers, he was held up to obloquy by later ecclesiastical writers as a destroyer of monasteries and a despoiler of the things set apart for God. It is instructive to notice the difference, legend for legend, between the case of ^ Isidori Pacensis Chronicon (in Migne, Patrologia Latina, t. xcvi, p. 1271). 30 THE KARLING DYNASTY Clovis and the case of Charles. The brutal and perfidious Merwing enjoyed the particular protection of heaven. Charles, it was alleged, died " a fearful death," and was afterward seen by a saint in a vision writhing in the torments of hell.^ Pippin the Short Charles' great aim was the same as that which had governed his father's policy, namely, the centralization of the Frankish power. On his death, though still only Mayor, he divided the kingdom between his two sons, the elder, Karloman, becoming Mayor in the east, the younger. Pippin, surnamed * the Short,' Mayor in the west. For nearly seven years the brothers co-operated successfully in campaigns against the Aquitanians, Alamans, Bavarians, Saxons, and Slavs. Then, for some personal reason about which it would now be idle to speculate, Karloman gave up his share in the government and turned monk, leaving Pippin Sole Mayor. This was in 747. Secure in his position. Pippin soon determined to make himself King in name as well as in fact. With the consent of his nobles he sent an embassy to Zacharias, Bishop of Rome, desiring to know who should be King of the Franks — he who had the title but not the power, or he who, without the title, was able to make his will prevail. Zacharias replied that '' it seemed better and more expedient to him that he should be called and be King who had power in the kingdom rather than he who was falsely called King." This reply was of course just what was wanted, and it had the merit of being clearer than the answers of the oracles in general. Without delay Childeric III, the last of the Merwings, was shorn of his royal locks and immured in a monastery, and in the autumn of 751 Pippin the Short became King of the Franks. Perhaps to gain the prestige which descent could not give to one who was after all a usurper, he had himself anointed King by Boniface, the Devonshire missionary who was now Archbishop of Mainz. This was an innovation among the Germanic peoples, and it 1 The source of this fable was the Visio S. Eucherii, a forgery of Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims from 845 till his death in 882. 31 HISTORY OF FRANCE symbolizes that increasing closeness of relationship between the Franks and the Church of which it is now necessary to speak. It will be remembered that when in 726 the Emperor I^eo the Isaurian forbade the worship of images he precipitated the great iconoclastic controversy which for a time shook the fabric of the whole Christian world. Pope Gregory II refused to obey the decree, and in this refusal he had the general support of the Western Church. The Imperial deputy in Italy, the Kxarch of Ravenna, did his utmost to compel the Pope, who ruled nominally as the subject of the Greek Emperor, to conform with his master's orders. To the Emperor's claim to be head of the Church Gregory replied that such headship belonged, not to the secular authority, but to the Bishop of Rome, thus for the first time asserting that distinction between Church and State which was later to become so important a conception in European politics. Meanwhile the Lombards, who had steadily been extending their power in Italy, took advantage of the confusion to attack the Exarch, whose city they captured, though they were able to hold it for a short time only. Under Gregory III the struggle between the Bishop at Rome and the Emperor at Constantinople passed into an even acuter phase, but in the end the Bishop triumphed. Scarcely had he done so, however, when he realized that he was threatened by a danger nearer at hand. The lyombards under their king I^iutprand were making efforts to subdue all Italy, and in 739 they marched to the very gates of Rome. Gregory now found himself compelled to seek for help abroad. With the repudiation of the Pope's allegiance to the Emperor Rome had become a sort of republic, with St Peter's Patrimony for domain and the Bishop as ruler. The steps which Gregory now took to safeguard his interests were, as it proved, the first steps toward the establishment of the later Pontificate. He turned to the Franks, both because they were the strongest race in Europe and because he was assured of their Christian sym- pathies. A personal friend of lyiutprand, Charles Martel inter- vened as peacemaker, and the trouble was for a time averted. 32 1 THE KARLING DYNASTY {a) TO CHARLEMAGNE Pippin of I^anden {d. 639) I Amulf, Bishop of Metz {d. 641) Grimwald {d. 656) Begga Anseghis {d. 685) Pippin of Heristal id. 714) Drogo Grimwald Char];es Martei. (689-741) KARIyOMAN (retired to a monastery 747 ; d. 754) CHARIvEMAGNK (742-814) Pippin the Short {d. 768) 1 Kari^man (751-771) 33 HISTORY OF FRANCE But ten years later the new I^ombard king, Aistulf, again overthrew the Exarchate, and again threatened Rome ; and again the Pope — ^now Stephen — appealed to the Franks, cross- ing the Alps in person to lay his case before their king. Pippin was manifestly under obligations to the Roman See. He accordingly marched into Italy, and, having defeated the I^ombards, bestowed certain lands and cities which he had wrested from them upon the Pope, though he himself was recognized as the Pope's overlord, with the title of Patricius. This was the beginning of the Pope's temporal sovereignty, and it marks a further stage in the development and consoli- dation of the connexion between the Papacy and the Franks. Of this connexion and its results there will be much more to say in the sequel. lyike his father and grandfather. Pippin laboured for the unification of the scattered dominions which years of conquest ^had brought under Frankish rule ; and like them he risked the undoing of his life's work by the unwisdom of the plans which l}e made for its continuance ; for on his death-bed, still following the Germanic tradition, he appointed his two sons, Karloman and Karl, jointly his successors. In the division of the terri- tory, which was in due course ratified by a general assembly, the elder brother received, roughly speaking, the southern and the younger the northern part of the kingdom. The integrity which Charles Martel and Pippin himself had struggled to develop would obviously have been imperilled, in the best of circumstances, by such an arrangement. Matters were made worse by the bad blood which existed between the two brothers. For a time the situation was critical. Then the danger was removed by the death of Karloman in 771, by which Karl, whom we know as Charles the Great, or Charle- magne, was left undisputed King of all the Franks. 34 . CHAPTER IV CHARLEMAGNE 771-814 BORN in 742, Charlemagne was now twenty-nine, and as sole King he reigned nearly forty-three years. The fact that during this time he took part, in person or by deputy, in more than fifty campaigns is sufficient to give some measure of the conditions of the age and of his own activities. Of three of his wars — those with the Saxons, the lyombards, and the Saracens — it is now necessary to speak. His struggle with the Saxons lasted for more than thirty years (772-804), and is specially interesting because it was inspired by his militant Christianity. The Saxons were pagans, and Charlemagne was determined to convert them at the point of the sword. It is, I think, a singular detail that the only act of downright barbarity recorded of him was perpe- trated in this religious war ; and this was when, in 782, enraged by the stubbornness and treachery of his enemies, he caused 4500 prisoners to be beheaded in one day at Verden, on the Aller. Again and again (" it would be hard," Kinhard declares, " to say how often " ^) the Saxons were reduced to nominal submission ; and again and again as soon as Charlemagne's back was turned insurrection broke out afresh. Ultimately their most famous leader, the heroic Widukind, surrendered, and consented to baptism ; an incident which naturally became the starting-point for pious legend when a little later nearly everything connected with Charlemagne was overlaid by a wild growth of romantic fable. This at last broke the neck of Saxon revolt, and though much fighting had still to be done, and though many of Widukind's countrymen fled to ^ op. cU., chap. vii. 35 HISTORY OF FRANCE Scandinavia, the Saxon people in the mass were rapidlyj Christianized. Meanwhile Charlemagne's energies were needed beyond the! Alps. Trouble had again broken out between the I^ombards, under their king, Desiderius, and the Pope, and, following the policy of his predecessors, the Pope had called upon the Franks for help. The dynastic relations of Desiderius and Charlemagne were embittered by personal hostility : in particular, the wrath of Desiderius had been aroused when Charlemagne, who had married his daughter, repudiated her after a year of matrimony, while Charlemagne on his part was angry because Desiderius had espoused the cause of Karloman's widow, also a daughter of Desiderius, and her infant children. As one point in the quarrel between Desiderius and the Pope was the former's] demand that the latter, should consecrate Karloman's sons as their father's successors, Charlemagne had an immediate interest i in acceding to the Pope's request. Accordingly he invaded Italy, and, having defeated Desiderius, put an end to the kingdom of the I^ombards (773-774) by placing on his own head the famous Iron Crown (sanctified by a nail out of the Cross) whicli nearly two hundred years before Gregory I had bestowed on the then lyombard king. Again in 776 and 780 Charlemagne had to return to Italy to complete his conquests, and thus he made good his position as Rex Langobardorum as well as Rex Francorum and Patricius Romanorum. But the significance of this achievement is to be sought less in his assumption of lyOmbard sovereignty than in the further conse- quences which it entailed both for the Papacy and for the secular pdwer. Charlemagne gained the Pope's favour by confirming the ' Donation of Pippin,' which he regarded as merely the restoration of certain possessions to their rightful owner. This greatly strengthened the Pope's hands in his struggle for freedom with the Eastern Bmperors. Since the time of the iconoclastic controversy the breach between the Popes and the Emperors had been steadily widening. It! happened that the Byzantine throne was at the moment vacant, for the Italians refused to recognize Irene, who hadj 36 . I 5. The Iron Crown 6. The so-cai,i;ed Crown of CharIvKmagnk 36 ^ CHARLEMAGNE usurped the place of her son, on the ground that Caesar's sceptre could not be wielded by a woman. This gave Pope Leo III the opportunity of making a bold attempt to revive the Empire in the West by transferring the crown from the decadent Greek line to that of the Franks, who were the ascendant race- in Europe, were orthodox Christians, and were, moreover, allies of the Papacy. This purpose was consum- mated when Charlemagne, still in the interests of the Pope, made his fourth expedition into Italy. The anti-papal party in Rome had driven I^eo III from the city on various charges of criminal misconduct. I^eo had appealed in person to the King, who, on satisfying himself of his innocence, restored him to his office. The Pope's gratitude was expressed in dramatic form. On Christmas Day, 800, as the King was kneeling in pra^^er during the solemnities in the great basilica of the Vatican, the Pope approached him from behind, and, placing a gold crown on his head, proclaimed him Emperor and Augustus amid the plaudits of the vast multitude which thronged the church. Einhard distinctly says that Charle- magne knew nothing of this in advance, and himself declared that he would not have set foot in the church that day *' if he could have foreseen the Pope's intention." ^ But if this is to be taken as a plain statement of fact, the fact is one for which no satisfactory explanation appears to be forthcoming. In one sense, of course, this papal donation of the Imperial title, resting as it did on perfectly baseless assumptions of right to give and to receive, was, as Charlemagne himself clearly perceived, nothing but an empty show. Yet, as a modern historian has said, it really laid the foundations of the whole political system of the Middle Ages, and of the great controversy between Pope and Emperor which this involved. ^ 1 op. cit., chap, xxviii. 2 lyavallee, Histoire des FranQais, t. i, pp. 179, 180. Three centuries later, when this great controversy was at its height, it was held by the papal party that Leo had crowned Charlemagne in virtue of the sacred power vested in him as successor of St Peter, while the Imperial party maintained that Charlemagne's right to the crown came directly to him on the strength of his conquests. Cp. Dante's De Monarchia, lyib. III. 37 HISTORY OF FRANCE Charlemagne's third great war was waged against the Saracens. Dissensions had arisen among the followers of the Prophet, and feuds between the Arabs and the Moors, who were divided by racial, political, and religious differences, raged furiously in Spain. In the spring of 777 Charlemagne was invited by the Arabian party to interpose, and, seeing the chance of strengthening his frontiers against the Musstdman, he invaded Spain with two armies early in the following year. Though he added the north-east corner of the peninsula to his empire under the title of the Spanish March, his expedition was otherwise futile. Its interest for us to-day is, indeed, rather legendary than historical. On his return across the Pyrenees the rear-guard of his army was surprised and com- pletely destro3'ed by a horde of "^ild mountaineers who fell upon it in the narrow pass of Roncesvalles. Among the slain was a certain Hroland, who is named as prefect of the Breton Marches. This is the onl}^ historical reference to that Roland or Orlando who was afterw^ard famous as the hero of the vast Charlemagne legend-cycle, and of that fine Chanson de 'Roland in which, with little regard for fact, some unknown poet has made the massacre of Roncesvalles the theme of epic story. Of Charlemagne's many minor wars — and he was almost continually occupied in putting down disturbances on one or another of his frontiers — it is needless here to speak. It is enough to say that their total result was the extension in all directions of the boundaries of his rule. His vast empire finally spread from the Bbro to the Kibe, and included most of Italy, modem France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, and a large part of what is now Austria-Hungary. The Administration of Charlemagne It is, however, rather as an administrator than as a soldier that Charles deser^^es his title of ' the Great.' Relentless and often cruel in war, he was always generous to the vanquished ; as soon as his sword was sheathed his policy was that of conciHation ; and he revealed no little constructive genius 38 39 HISTORY OF FRANCE in his efforts to weld together the heterogeneous elements of his realm. The chief and central feature of his government was the General Assembly, which met twice a year — in spring and in autumn — and which was obviously a survival of the old Teutonic folk-moots described by Tacitus. Nominally, this was an assembly of all the freemen of the Empire ; actually, it was composed of the chief men only, ecclesiastic and lay. Its functions were those of a council ; it deliberated over the important questions of the hour, expressed opinions, and gave the King advice. But it had no executive or legislative powers. It was left to the King to initiate, to decide, and to act, and he was his own lawmaker. Though he thus made a show of governing by popular consent, he was practically an autocrat. Active as he was as a legislator, Charlemagne made little attempt to reduce to order and harmony the diverse and often Qonflicting laws of the different countries under his rule. To each he left its own institutions and customs, only requiring obedience to such general enactments as he deemed necessary for the peace and prosperity of the Empire at large ; and these enactments were often a curious medley of old Germanic, Roman, and Christian elements, the retention of the ancient Frankish method of trial by ordeal showing the tenacity with which he held to the traditions of his race. His most important work as an administrator is to be found in his Capitularies. Strictly speaking, these are not laws ; they are temporary edicts of various kinds, which in many cases may be described as supplementary to the existing laws. But they give us a vivid sense of Charlemagne's activity and earnest desire for the welfare of his people, while the paternal nature of his government is shown by the fact that no line is drawn in them between the legal and the ethical, the civil and the religious, the public and the domestic. We have sixty-five of these Capitularies attributed to Charlemagne, and the contents of their 1151 articles are so miscellaneous that no classification is possible. Almost everything pertaining to the administra- tion of the Empire finds a place in them, with much else that 40 CHARLEMAGNE can hardly be brought under that head. They assign definite penalties for definite crimes, and provide moral maxims for the guidance of Christian folk. They regulate the military service, and the public worship of the Church. Details of farm management, the adjustment of weights, measures, and prices, the suppression of beggary and theft, are alike considered in them. For the purposes of local government Charlemagne divided the Empire into districts, roughly adopting, where possible, the former limits of the Roman municipia ; over each district, or county, he placed a count, or Graf, who was responsible to him for its civil, judicial, and military welfare, while Markgrafen, or Counts of the Marches, were appointed to defend the frontiers. As experience soon proved that these distant officers were apt to abuse their powers, he developed the Merovingian system of missi dominici, or royal envoys, as a check upon them. These special commissioners, chosen by him ^* from among his best," ^ were sent out in pairs— one member being a cleric and the other a layman — at stated intervals and on regular circuits, and it was their duty to inquire into all local conditions, and to report directly to the Emperor concerning taxes, schools, churches, the army, the priesthood, the conduct of the Graf and the minor officials of the district, and, generally, on all other subjects which in their judgment ought to be brought to the Emperor's attention. This system, thoroughly organized, kept the Emperor in personal touch with even the remotest portions of his wide dominions. For a full understanding of Charlemagne's administration it is necessary always to remember that it was for him essen- tially Christian in character. His conception of government combined the theocratic with the imperial. He ruled as God's anointed, and it was therefore his duty not only to safeguard and develop all secular interests, but also, with divine aid, to spread the true faith, convert the heathen, defend the Church against heresies, and ensure by every possible means ^ * " Kx optimatibus suis." See the Capitulary of 802, in which their functions are defined, .^t 41 HISTORY OF FRANCE the religious well-being of his realm. ^ He divided his realm into bishoprics, which soon became important centres of civilization, increasing in power as little by little cities grew up about them. He gave much space in his Capitularies to ecclesiastical and theological matters, and by repeated exhorta- tions and remonstrances showed his anxiety that the sanctity of priests and monks should be approved by their conduct, and that all in authority should labour for the good of those entrusted to their care. Yet while he greatly consolidated and strengthened the hierarchy, and gave it a larger place than it had previously occupied in the body politic, he regarded himself as supreme head of the Church no less than of the State. All ecclesiastical matters he kept under his control ; he called councils and presided over them ; he revised canons ; he superintended the appointment of bishops and archbishops. He carried his claim to authority, indeed, so far as to treat eyen the Pope as his subordinate, his view of the relations of Emperor and Pope being that while the Pope was the Patriarch of ^all the Western Churches, he was still a subject of the Emperor, whose rule over all the West was absolute. He therefore did not hesitate on occasion to reject the findings of a council, reprimand the successor of St Peter for meddling with things which did not concern him, take the initiative in controversy, and impose his will in respect of points of doctrine. Anxious for the eternal welfare of his people, Charlemagne was no less anxious for their temporal progress. He sought to promote agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. He regulated weights and measures. He revised the currency. He was also 'a munificent patron of the arts. But the most valuable part of his life-work is to be found in what he did i for education. Keenly alive to the dense ignorance which prevailed even among his clergy, he invited learned men from foreign countries to his Court to aid him in his efforts toward 1 The following passage from a letter which he wrote to lyeo III is signi- ficant : " Nostrum, est secundum auxilium divinae pietatis, sanctam ubique Christi ecclesiam ab incursu paganorum et ab infidelium devastatione armis defendere, foris et intus catholicae fidei agnitione munire," r 42 . I CHARLEMAGNE an intellectual revival. Among these was the famous English- man Alcuin, the greatest scholar of the age, with whose help he organized the Schola Palatina, or Palace School, in which all the members of the Court, from the monarch downward, were pupils. Many other schools were also established through- out his doniains ; especially in connexion with cathedrals, as at Reims and Orleans ; and with monasteries, as at St Gall, Reichenau, Fulda, Corvei, and Hirschau. One of these monas- tery schools — that of Saint-Martin of Tours, of which Alcuin himself was for many years abbot — ^became celebrated among the greatest centres of learning in Europe. In these institutions much attention was given to lyatin studies, and, besides the Vulgate, such classical authors as Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Sallust, Juvenal, and Seneca were read and interpreted. Music, too, was a subject in which Charlemagne was deeply interested, and two establishments expressly devoted to its cultivation were founded by him, one at Soissons, the other at Metz. Nor were his intellectual energies confined to the scholastic field. The revival of learning, which he stimulated by precept and example, led to the multiplication of ancient manuscripts by copyists and to the preservation of lyatin works which would otherwise have perished. A thorough German in character, ideas, policy, tastes, and language — an important fact which the familiar French form of his name tempts us to overlook — he was also concerned about his native tongue, had a grammar of it pre- pared for the use of the clergy, and made a collection of German songs and ballads which most unfortunately, on account of the heathen spirit of its contents, his pious son ordered to be destroyed. It is thus evident that Charlemagne's labours for education and culture are not the least among his many titles to fame. It must, indeed, be remembered that his success was onty local and temporary ; even during his lifetime the intellectual influences which he inspired scarcely spread beyond his Court, and they were soon lost amid the general confusion which followed his death. But credit is due to him none the less for what he tried to accomplish. 43 HISTORY OF FRANCE Judged by the standards not of his own time only but of all time, Charlemagne was so great a man that curiosity regard- ing personal details may in his case be forgiven. Fortunately Einhard has left us a full portrait of his master and friend. He was " large and strong " and " of lofty stature/' though not disproportionately tall ; his head was round, his eyes big and bright, his nose " a little long," his hair fair, his general expression " laughing and merry." His neck was, indeed, rather short and thick, and in middle life he tended to corpulency (" venterque projectior videretur ") ; but his firmness of gait and virile carriage still gave him dignity. Endowed with vigorous health, he enjoyed all manly exercises, especially hunting. He was simple in dress and manner, and temperate in eating and drinking, *' for he abominated drunkenness in anybody, much more in himself and those of his household." Quick in sympathy and of generous disposition, he was specially kind to the poor, while his gifts to the many churches in which he was interested were numerous and costly. Though his domestic relations were irregular^ — he appears to have had two wives and at least half a dozen concubines — he was much attached to his large family. " He was," says Einhard, " so careful of the training of his sons and daughters that he never took his meals without them when he was at home, and never made a journey without them ; his sons would ride at his side and his daughters would follow him, while a number of his bodyguard, detailed for their protection, brought up the rear." The same writer even adds that his curious unwillingness to marry any of his daughters was due to the fact that he " could not dispense with their society." A man of boundless energy, he was as alert and vigorous mentallj^ as he was physically, and his curiosity was unflagging. It was his custom, even while sitting at table, to listen to music or reading, and " the subjects of his readings " were either " the stories and deeds of olden time " or "St Augustine's books," of which '' he was fond " — especially the City of God, which undoubtedly exer- cised a considerable influence over his political ideas. Though, despite the attempts which he made late in life to master the 44 CHARLEMAGNE mysteries of the alphabet, he never himself learned to write,^ he had " the gift of ready and fluent speech," could speak lyatin as well as his native tongue, and had also a fair know- ledge of Greek. Rhetoric, dialectics, and astronomy were among his favourite studies. Such particulars enable us to realize that Charlemagne was not only a great soldier and ruler, but also, like our own Alfred, an enlightened and many-sided man. He died after a week's illness, on January 28, 814, having not quite completed his seventy-second year, and was buried in the basilica which he had himself built at Aachen. It was, of course, impossible that so notable a figure should pass out of the world without some patent sign of the interest of heaven. Accordingly we find that ** very many omens had portended his approaching end." Eclipses of sun and moon were frequent during the last three years of his life ; for sevexi days a black spot remained on the face of the sun ; buildings were struck by lightning and shattered by thunderbolts ; on one occasion a ball of fire rushed suddenly across the sky. But we are told (and the modesty and courage suggested are, in such a super- stitious age, not unworthy of remark) that " Charles despised, or aifected to despise, all these omens, as having no reference whatever to him." 2 * Einhard, chap. xxv. * Ibid., chap, xxxii. 45 CHAPTER V THE LAST OF THE KARLINGS AS a provision for the welfare of his realm after his death, Charlemagne during his lifetime made his three sons kings : lyudwig, or I^ouis, of Aquitaine (including Gascony, Septimania, Provence, and portions of Burgundy) ; Pippin of Italy ; Charles of Neustria, Austrasia, and the remainder of the kingdom. As Pippin and Charles died before their father, these arrangements lapsed ; but Pippin's son, Bernhard, was confirmed in the Kingship of Italy, with results Which will become apparent later. The surviving son, I^ouis, was, however, crowned by Charlemagne himself in 813, in the basilica at Aachen, and the following year he succeeded in due course to his father's undivided imperial power. lyouis I, known as Louis le Pieux, or ' the Pious,' and I^ouis le Debonnaire, was a gentle, unselfish, and thoroughly well- meaning man, but, as he himself admitted, his virtues were better fitted for the cloister than for the throne. Weak in will, he was, like many other weak rulers, autocratic ; and this combination of qualities made him not only impotent for good, but also potent for evil. Efforts have been made to show that his policy was dictated by the best intentions. There is little profit in discussing these. Whatever the motives behind it, the consequences of that policy were disastrous. His drastic attempts at the very opening of his reign to correct the laxity of the Court, to begin with, were ill-advised ; reform was sadly needed, it is true, but save that he stirred up by it the animosity of those about him, his extreme puri- tanism had little practical effect. Swayed by considerations of piety, he feebly acquiesced in the encroachments of the Church upon lay interests and the secular power. He freed 46 THE LAST OF THE KARLINGS most of the monasteries of his realm, now increasing rapidly in wealth, from all public duties except that of praying for the Kmperor and the State. He permitted the monks to close their schools to laymen, thus frustrating his father's intentions of founding a system of public instruction, and making learning the prerogative of the clergy. He did not protest when, on I^eo Ill's death, the Roman people without consulting him elected a new Pope on their own responsibility, and he made a further serious concession to the fast extending papal claims by allowing the Pope to assume that the Imperial designation was invalid until sanctioned by the occupant of St Peter's chair. To conciliate his leudes, or great nobles, whom he frequently estranged, he distributed among them from time to time gifts of royal domains, and he was guilty of the amazing folly of granting them the titles of these in perpetuity. He thus impoverished himself by alienating the estates upon which, in the absence of regular taxation, the King depended, and undermined his supremacy by setting up centres of conflicting power. These were bad blunders. Even worse, at least from the point of view of immediate consequences, were those which he committed in connexion with the partitioning of his realm. In 817, when he had been scarcely three years on the throne, he resolved to delegate a portion of his authority to his three sons. To his eldest, lyothair, then aged nineteen, he granted the kingdom of Italy, at the same time making him his asso- ciate in the Empire ; while for the other two he created subordinate kingdoms — for Pippin, then aged eleven, the kingdom of Aquitaine ; for lyouis, who was eight years of age, that of Bavaria. These were the children of his first wife, Hermengard. On her death he allowed himself to be overruled by his nobles, and instead of entering a monastery, as he desired, he married again in accordance with their wishes. In 823 his second wife, Judith, bore him a son, and for this son, Charles, he conceived so passionate an affection that he presently annulled the constitution of 817 in order to carve out for him, while he was still a mere child, a new kingdom, 47 HISTORY OF FRANCE which he called Allemannia, in the territory between the Jura, the Alps, the Rhone, and the Main. As might have been anticipated, these divisions were the cause of endless trouble. In the first place, lyouis' nephew, Bernhard, whose title to the throne of Italy had been ignored, rose in revolt. An interval of peace ensued upon his downfall and death. But it was a brief interval only. The donation to Charles in turn exasperated his half-brothers I^othair and Pippin, who took up arms against their father, and captured and deposed him. A counter-plot against lyothair soon restored him to the throne ; but a second insurrection broke out in 832, when lyothair and Pippin, again joining forces, had the further support of their brother, lyOuis of Bavaria, and of the Pope. The unfortunate Emperor was now deserted by most of those who professed to be his adherents, and lyothair assumed the Imperial title. This assumption was, however, repudiated by his brothers, and by their exertions the twice deposed monarch was for a third time placed on his throne. But even now I^ouis failed tQ make good his position. A man incapable of learning from experience, he still let himself drift, while his continued infatua- tion for his youngest son led him from mistake to mistake. Jealousies, intrigues, contentions, patched-up truces, fresh divi- sions, renewed misunderstandings and conflicts, thus made up the dismal record of lyOuis' remaining years. By his instability more even than by his downright misrule he had long since forfeited the respect of his subjects, and his two public con- fessions of his sins — one made in 822 of his own free will, and one in 833 under compulsion of lyothair — hopelessly degraded him in their eyes. Yet sentimental regard for the man ulti- mately triumphed over contempt for the ruler, and thus the fatuous and futile lyOuis passed into history as * the Pious King.' The Strassburg Oath and the Treaty of Verdun His death in 840 again let loose the hardly restrained forces of anarchy. lyothair's claim to his full rights as Kmperor was once more contested by I^ouis and Charles ; the son of Pippin, 48 C^l^inC-^^ kjir4ttr ojtxdif't^ |jt*^UA ll ;!-- backed Charles of I^orraine when he contested the election. The war which ensued lasted two and a half years, and ended only when Charles was taken prisoner and confined in the tower of Orleans, where he shortly afterward died. This we may regard as the last effort of the dying house of Charlemagne. After this the country enjoyed comparative peace for the remainder of Hugues' reign. Yet it was a troubled heritage which, dying at fifty, he passed on to his son: He had just contrived to hold his own against his turbulent vassals, but that was all. How little they respected his suzerainty is shown by the fact that when, in the course of a quarrel, he sent a messenger to the Count of Perigord with the question, " Who made you Count ? " the haughty chief retorted : " Who made you King ? " ^ 1 Ad^mar de Chabannis, Chronicon Aquitanicum (in Migne, Patrologia Latina, t. cxli). 60 . FIRST FOUR CAPETIAN KINGS Robert II (*le Pieux') The religious element had been prominent in Hugues Capet's character. It was even more pronounced in that of Robert II (970 ?-i03i), as his surname, * the Pious/ suggests. He gave much of his time to works of charity, often feeding a thousand poor persons a day ; his humility of spirit was such that on Holy Thursday he washed the feet of beggars and served them on his knees ; he was devoted to church music, and was himself a composer of hymns. It is a curious fact, therefore, that the chief feature of his reign was his long and obstinate quarrel with Rome. This quarrel originated in his marriage with his relative Bertha, daughter of the King of Aries and widow of the Count of Blois. To this union Pope Gregory V objected, nominally on the ground of consanguinity, really at the instiga- tion of the Emperor, who for political reasons desired to annul it. Though his devoutness and his placid temper alike prompted him to yield, Robert stood out against the command of Rome even when in 998 that command was reinforced by an edict of excommunication. The whole country was now thrown into a state of panic ; and popular feeling was the more intense because of the widespread belief that with the fatal year 1000, now fast approaching, the world was to come to an end. As a result, the King came to be regarded as a creature accursed ; people fled as he drew near ; the vessels which he touched in eating and drinking had to be purified by fire. Yet despite this general agitation it was not till 1006 that he consented to put away his wife ; upon which, of course, the papal ban w^as withdrawn. His second marriage, with Constance, daughter of the Count of Toulouse, was, however, equally unfortunate, though in a different way ; for Constance was an imperious and unscrupulous woman, who greatly troubled his life, and even stirred up his sons to rebellion against him. One detail connected with this marriage has a certain inde- pendent interest. On her arrival in Paris Constance was accompanied by some troubadours from Aquitaine. The 61 HISTORY OF FRANCE impression which these southerners made on the people of the north was remarkable. Their style of dress and bearing, their luxurious habits, their close-shaved heads, were all severely criticized, and they were adjudged, in the words of a contem- porary chronicler, as vain, light-minded, and dissolute.^ The point of this lies in the evidence it affords of the fundamental antagonism which then existed between the north and the south. It was this antagonism, rather than any real affection for the Carlovingian dynasty, which had inspired the southern nobles to support Charles of Lorraine against Hugues Capet, the Duke of France. The course of time and the progress of events were now tending still further to separate the two peoples, and the evolution of their languages into markedly different dialects — ^the langue d'oc and the langue d'o'il— naturally helped the differentiation. Some of the consequences of this antagonism will become apparent presently. Save for matrimonial troubles, the reign of Robert was generally uneventful. A war of five years put him into possession of the duchy of Burgundy, but that important fief was soon lost to the Crown by his son. A cruel persecution of the Jews in loio and the burning of thirteen heretics at Orleans in 1022 were incidents not without significance in the light of future developments of religious fanaticism. Of another prophetic occurrence — an insurrection of Norman peasantry — we shall have occasion to speak in a later chapter. Henri I As his eldest son died before him and his second was an imbecile, Robert in 1031 was succeeded by his third son, Henri I. His mother, Constance, intrigued to have him set aside in favour of his younger brother Robert, and Henri had to purchase peace by the surrender of the duchy of Burgundy. This was, very obviously, a loss to the Crown. Henri was a brave man, and for thirty years kept up a ceaseless struggle with his great neighbouring vassals, the Counts of ^ Rodulfus Glaber, Chron., T,\h. Ill, cap. ix (in Guizot, Collection des Memoires relatifs h I'Histoire de France, t. vi). 62 FIRST FOUR CAPETIAN KINGS Blois and the Dukes of Normandy ; but the general result of his reign was a marked shrinkage of the royal power. His encounter with Normandy was specially disastrous. Realizing how completely his estates were hemmed in by dangerous rivals, and how effectually Normandy blocked his outlet to the sea, he made a resolute effort to extricate himself from his entanglement by the practical vindication of his authority. But he was twice badly beaten- — at Mortemer in 1054, and at Varaville in 1058 — by Guillaume le Batard, whom we know in English annals as William the Conqueror. From these two blows he never recovered. Meanwhile the whole south seethed in turmoil through the desperate rivalry of Kudes, Count of Blois, and Foulques, Count of Anjou, called ' Nerra,' or ' the Black.' Even against the lurid background of his time the latter 's monstrous figure stands out in high relief. A man of unbridled passions, who knew no fear of God or man when the mood was upon him, he murdered his first wife, and either banished his second or drove her by ill-treatment to leave him, compelled his rebellious son Geoffrey to crave forgiveness with a horse's harness on his back, and on his various military expeditions took a savage delight in devastating the whole country with fire and sword. Yet if his boundless brutality and often grotesque wickedness were characteristic of his age, his feverish fits of piety were no less so. Remorse thrice impelled him to make a pilgrimage to the Holy I^and, and on the last occasion he caused himself to be bound naked to a hurdle and dragged through the streets of Jerusalem, while his servants scourged him with cords. It is related that when he fired the church of Saint-Florent- sur-Iyoire he promised the saint that he would make reparation by building another temple elsewhere in his honour, and that the fulfilment of this vow was the origin of the cathedral of Angers. Philippe I Henri's son Philippe ascended the throne in 1060, when he was only seven, and he was therefore still a mere boy when 63 HISTORY OF FRANCE his vassal William, Duke of Normandy, became King of England. As he grew into manhood he was of course com- pelled to realize the immense additional power which thus accrued to the most dangerous of his great nobles ; but he was too indolent and easy-going to make any definite stand against the new conditions. Instead of open hostility, he had recourse to the shifty methods of intrigue ; in particular supporting the Bretons in their collision with the Normans, and Robert, William's son, when he rose against his father. The latter action, and a ribald jest which he made at William's expense, brought William himself, hot with anger, into the field, swearing vengeance ; but a fatal injury received while he was riding through the burning city of Mantes on his march to Paris removed this most formidable foe. Philippe pursued the same tortuous policy in respect to the Conqueror's two sons, Robert, now Duke of Normandy, and William Rufus, King of England, seeking to weaken them by sowing dissension between them. Indolence was undoubtedly the main cause of Philippe's refusal to join the First Crusade, which threw France into a fever of excitement during his reign. I defer to a later chapter the treatment of this important event ; but it is necessary here to lay stress on the King's apathy in regard to it, because this goes far to explain the extreme animosity of the eccle- siastical chroniclers toward him. That some at least of the numerous crimes with which they charge him are merely the inventions of their own prejudice now seems clear. But his torpor and indifference, in part cause and in part effect of his gluttonous habits, and in later life of his abnormal fatness, are beyond dispute. The Anarchy of Feudalism Such a man, it is evident, was wanting in all the qualities necessary for successful resistance to the fast-growing lawless- ness of the time. In his reign, indeed, the anarchy of feudalism reached its height. Central authority was now a fiction in France. Shut up in his narrow estates, and encompassed by 64 Pi w i-r o to o < a w w FIRST FOUR CAPETIAN KINGS ambitious and disorderly princelings, the monarch maintained his show of royalty only on condition that it should be nothing more than a show. Bven within his own domain the frowning fortresses of insubordinate chiefs — of the lord of Montlhery, for example, between Paris and iStampes, and of the Count of Corbeil, between Paris and Melun — openly defied his arms, and he could not ride beyond the gates of his capital without risk of being captured and held for ransom. The huge and massive castles which had now sprung up all over the land enabled the contumacious barons to do as they liked, and to laugh at the consequences. Many of these feudal chieftains were simply bandits, who terrorized the whole district around them, and enriched themselves by murder and pillage. If a measure of protection could still be found within the closely walled and heavily fortified cities, it was a measure only ; and outside the baronial highwayman, who lay in wait for passing traders and compelled them by imprisonment and torture to give up their wealth, made even the main roads so perilous that national commerce almost disappeared. At the same time the fields were left deserted, for even the peasant had no safety at his plough, and horrible miseries and fre- quent famines were the result. Brute force thus menaced with destruction what little survived of law and order, while the quarrels and jealousies of the greater nobles kept the whole realm in a state of perpetual upheaval. It is true that the Church, materialized and feudalized though it now was, had already realized that something must be done to check the lapse of society into barbarism, and to that end had made a determined attack upon the practice of private war among the nobles. In the south this first took the form of the edict known as the Peace of God ; in the name of God men were commanded as Christians to desist from fighting and violence under penalty of excommunication and future damnation. But the proclamation was but "idle thimder " ; the great nobles loved fighting and violence more than they dreaded the ban of the Church and the torments of hell. Then a compromise was introduced in the Truce of E 65 HISTORY OF FRANCE God (about 1041), according to the terms of which all warfare was to cease from Wednesday or Thursday evening (the edicts differ) till Monday morning, as well as during the principal ecclesiastical festivals, while in regard to churches, cemeteries, women, pilgrims, traders, and labourers the Truce was made perpetual. lyike nearly all the religious reforms of the period, this was a phase of the spiritual movement known as the Cluniac Revival. In the south the Truce was widely observed; in the north it was frequently disregarded. Yet on the whole we may take it, as we may also take the various associations for the maintenance of peace which had meantime grown up independently among the laity, as marking the beginning of a new and better order of things. To such a pass, then, feudalism had brought the realm of France. At this point it will therefore be well for us to pause in our story to consider in such detail as space will permit, dnd our story itself requires, the system which had wrought these deplorable effects. At the same time we shall find it convenient to say something about the closely associated institution of chivalry. 66 CHAPTER II FEUDALISM AND CHIVALRY THE genesis of feudalism has long been the subject of violent controversy, and while the tendency among modern scholars is toward agreement on fundamentals, many important points are still in dispute. Into the question of origins, however, it is not necessary for us here to enter. We are concerned only with the broad aspects of feudalism as it existed in medieval France. The state of things which we find firmly established in the eleventh century arose from the combination of various causes. The weakness of the later Carlovingians had, as we have seen, permitted innumerable encroachments upon their preroga- tives. The grants of land which, under the I^atin name of heneficia, had been made by the king to his personal followers on condition of such and such services to be rendered in return had, to begin with, been grants for life only. Under the name of feuds or fiefs they gradually came to be regarded as perma- nent possessions. The officers appointed by the Crown as its representatives and agents in different parts of the country had, in like manner, by little and little so far forgotten the primary significance of their positions as to treat their authority, not as a delegated function, but as an inalienable right. The result was that what were originally royal commissions gradually assumed the character of territorial and hereditary holdings. Charles le Chauve's capitulary of Kiersy, in 877, specifically recognized the hereditary quality both of heneficia and of public offices, thus giving regal sanction to a revolution which was already in progress. In this way, by concessions and usurpations, the power of the king had been distributed among his subordinates or vassals. Of these the most prominent 67 HISTORY OF FRANCE were the lords of the seven great feudal states, as they are called, the counties of Flanders, Vermandois, and Toulouse, and the duchies of Normandy, Burgundy, Aquitaine, and Gascony.^ But the subdivision of the country by no means ended here, for it is recorded that when Hugues Capet became king there were no fewer than 150 territorial lords who claimed the sovereign rights of coining money, legislating, administering justice, making war, and concluding treaties of peace. Thus, as Guizot says, " the rights of property had become confused with those of sovereignty " ; the administrative hierarchy of Charlemagne had grown into an immense feudal hierarchy of petty rulers, and France had been turned into a congeries of practically independent states. Concurrently the development of feudalism was accelerated by the weakening of the central authority in yet another way. As in the anarchy which followed the dismemberment of Charlemagne's empire it became increasingly obvious that the king himself was unable to maintain general order, nothing was left for the small land proprietor, perpetually threatened by outrage and depredation, but to place himself directly under the protection of some strong noble. It was impossible for the simple freeman to stand alone ; safety then had to be purchased at any cost, even at the cost of some sacrifice of individual independence. This was expressly recognized in another capitulary of Charles le Chauve — that of Mersen, in ^57* by which every freeman was permitted to choose a lord, whether the king or one of his vassals. Thus arose the prac- tice knovv^n as * commendation ' ; a freeman desiring to secure such protection v/as said to commend himself to a lord when he voluntarily yielded up liis land to him, receiving it back in the form of a feudal grant ; which meant that the ownership) of the land was now vested in the lord, that the tenant hence- forth was to enjoy the beneficiary use of it only, and that a relationship entailing various undertakings on both sides was ^ The eighth great state, the duchy of France, belonged to the Capetians themselves and formed the nucleus of the royal domain, Hugues Capet being, as we remember, Duke of France on his accession to the throne. 68 FEUDALISM AND CHIVALRY set up between the said tenant and the lord whose vassal he became. This practice, which was already well known in the time of Charlemagne, became more and more common under the later Karlings, and soon led to the virtual extinction of all allodial land-ownership — ^that is, of absolute ownership, or ownership in fee-simple — ^throughout the north of France. In the second half of the fourteenth century such absolute possession had become so rare that the proprietor of a freehold estate at Yvetot, in Normandy, st^ded himself king because he depended upon no one, and won so great a fame that long afterward his name passed into proverb and popular song. The Institution of Feudalism Disruptive as feudalism was, it none the less involved a chain of reciprocal duties and responsibilities. Its foundation was a particular way of holding land, then the sole basis of property and the one nexus of society. Theoretically, all the soil of the country belonged to the king, who granted it in large parcels to his great vassals, such grants carrying with them the privilege of immmiitas, or freedom from an^^ inter- ference on the king's part with the affairs of the estate of the vassal so long as the vassal faithfully fulfilled his part of the contract. In this way the right to exercise sovereign power within a given territory came to be recognized as an appur- tenance of the land of which such territory was composed. But this direct concession of land and prerogatives by king to personal vassal was only a first step in the feudal process. Subinfeudation was its logical consequence. The great vassals themselves granted estates out of their territories, and their vassals, in turn, estates out of theirs, this subinfeudation often continuing to the third or fourth degree, or even farther. This, taken together with the practice of commendation, accounts for the enormous mtdtiplication of minor fiefs. Each fresh grant habitually implied a certain amount of immunity, and in each case the tie established was between the vassal and the lord from whom he immediately held. The disastrous consequences of these conditions in still further undermining 69 HISTORY OF FRANCE the central power will be apparent. It is noteworthy that, made wise by experience, William the Conqueror took steps to prevent these evils in England by exacting an oath of fealty to himself from all holders of land, whether they held directly from him or from some intermediate lord. The essence of feudal tenure was the relationship between lord and vassal. The tenant held his land on terms of personal service and fidelity. He did homage to his lord for his estate, and by the act of homage, as the word etymologically implies (for it is derived from the I^atin homo), he became his lord's man. The full significance of the connexion was brought out in the solemnity of the formality with which it was initiated. The future vassal knelt, bare-headed and with sword ungirt, and, placing his hands in those of his lord, vowed thenceforth to be his man, and to serve him faithfully even with his life. Then followed the ceremony of investiture, the lord symbolizing the grant of beneficiary rights to the land for which homage had thus been done by giving his vassal a sword, flag, ring, clod of earth, or twig of a tree. The vassal's chief duty was military service ; and feudalism developed in large measure because the granting of fiefs on the terms in question was the only way in which the king, and after him the great vassals, and after them again the smaller vassals, could secure the armed assistance which they needed in an age of perpetual warfare. This military service, which was generally limited to. forty days in the year, did not, however, exhaust the vassal's engagements. His pledge included monetary aids as well, on three occasions in particular : when his lord was taken prisoner and 'had to be ransomed, when his lord's eldest son was made a knight, and when his lord's eldest daughter was married. Moreover, he had to purchase his lord's consent to the marriage of his own daughters and to forfeit considerable sums of money in the event of any one of them marrying without such consent ; and when he died * relief ' was exacted from his heir before he was admitted to liis inherit- ance. On his side the lord undertook in return to defend his vassal against his enemies, help him with counsel, secure 70 FEUDALISM AND CHIVALRY justice for him, and after his death protect his widow and children. The general character of the relationship which constituted the essence of feudal tenure is now clear. In a sense it was entirely personal ; yet it should be observed that the obligations of the fief really appertained to the fief itself, and therefore on alienation, whether by grant or inheritance, passed as a matter of course to the person who came into possession of the land. Though it is a mistake to speak of feudalism as a system, it still bound up the whole of France in a network of extraordinary consistency. The complications to which it gave rise must, however, be noted. The majority of nobles were at once lords and vassals, holding of a superior lord, and having tenants holding of them in turn. It might even be that a lord became in respect of a certain fief the vassal of a man who in respect of another fief was already his own vassal. In other ways anomalies were very apparent. The Duke of Normandy, for example, though King of England, and as such much more powerful than the King of France, was still vassal of the King of France, and owed feudal service to him ; while the King of France himself, as holder of a particular fief which belonged to it, was vassal of the Abbey of Saint-Denis. Moreover, a man might hold lands of different lords who were at enmity, and thereupon find himself committed to divided allegiance. An illustration on a large scale of this kind of confusion is furnished by the case of the Count of Flanders, who held his western estates of the King of France, and the rest of the Bmperor of Germany. The reference just made to the Abbey of Saint-Denis will serve to remind us that the Church too had its place in this feudal network. Church lands, no less than lands in lay hands, carried with them all the rights and prerogatives of lordship, and were at the same time charged with all the obligations involved in the feudal relationship. The problem thus arose as to how these obligations were to be fulfilled, since even in that warlike age (though the higher ecclesiastics were 71 HISTORY OF FRANCE often to be found actively engaged on the battlefield) the Church could hardly undertake to provide its quota of fighting men. This problem was solved by the practice of subinfeuda- tion. Monasteries and bishoprics granted their lands to nobles who, becoming their vassals, made themselves responsible for military service on the usual terms of feudal tenure. It should be added that the principle of immunitas was most broadly applied to the estates of bishops and religious houses. The feudal aristocracy was relatively very large, and it contained many grades, from the great dukes, marquises, counts, and viscounts at one end of the scale, through barons and simple knights, down to the mere landless squires in whom the series ended. But high and low, rich and poor, all these were regarded as nobles ; they bore arms ; they had nothing to do with the vulgar concerns of labour and trade ; and as even the humblest of them lived, not by his own toil but on the toil of others, he was ranked as a gentleman. Hence the chasm which separated the feudal aristocracy from the two other classes of contemporary society (the clerks or eccle- siastics being for the moment omitted) — the burgher class in the towns, and the peasants in the country. The burghers, or citizens, together with the artisans beneath them, represented industry and commerce ; and though the towns themselves formed an organic element in the feudal plexus, their position and wealth gave them a certain independence. The progress of the towns and the burghers, as we shall see later, was a most important factor in the decline of feudalism from the eleventh century onward. The peasantry, as the tillers of the soil, were, on the other hand, in the closest connexion with the territorial aristocracy, and it was upon them that the conditions of feudalism bore most heavily. They may be divided roughly into two classes — the free villeins, or rofuriers, and the serfs. The villeins paid for their land in money, in labour, and in kind, and though in theory they received an adequate return in the lord's protection (which was indeed a matter of supreme value in such a time of violence), in practice the lord was able 72 FEUDALISM AND CHIVALRY to get by far the best of the bargain. Countless ways were open to him in which he could despoil his tenant. He administered justice on his estates, and his right to impose fines at discretion for all sorts of offences was a source of considerable income to him at the tenant's expense. Bvery kind of privilege had to be purchased by the tenant — ^the privilege of pasturing flocks, obtaining wood from forests, hunting, fording a stream, fishing in it. A tax was imposed on each head of stock owned by the tenant. The lord was further entitled to demand maintenance for himself and his retinue in time of peace, and for his army in time of war, when they passed through the tenant's lands. The tenant was also obliged to provide him with a certain amount of service in the management of his castle and estates. As the lord had a free hand, and was generally quite unscrupulous, in the exercise of these and other rights, monopolies, extortions, and despotism of a peculiarly exasperating character were the inevitable result. Theoretically, indeed, there was always the privilege of appeal to the king. But the king was difficult of access, and it was obviously unwise to incur the anger of the lord who was near at hand ; for which reasons the abstract right possessed but little practical value. Hard as was the lot of the roturier, that of the serf was even harder. He was attached to the soil, and could neither leave it of his own accord nor be driven from it by his master, though there were recognized ways in which he might acquire his freedom. His master's power over him was in effect unlimited, for it was expressly stated that in this matter the master was responsible to God alone. He was forced to give to his master so many da3^s' labour in each week upon the seigniorial demesne, and so heavy were the demands thus made that only the very narrowest margin was left for the cultivation of his own holding. While the master thus flourished upon his servile labour, he himself was generally able to wring only a miserable living from the soil to which he was bound. His master had a first right on the produce of his land, and could seize what he chose, paying for it when and as little as he saw fit. The custom 73 HISTORY OF FRANCE of banalities was also a grievous burden : the serf was com- pelled to grind his corn in his master's mill, to bake his bread in his master's oven, to press his grapes in his master's wine- press, and to pay well for conveniences which he was obliged to use. Such in broad outline were the outstanding features of feudal society. With the moral side of feudalism it is unnecessary to deal at length. It was at bottom the product of anarchy, and though it proved of immense service as a temporary measure against anarchy, it bore the evil marks of its origin. It throve upon war, and helped to keep the war spirit alive. Small and great, the nobles, as I have said, despised work and held all peaceful interests in contempt. Their sole occupation was fighting ; their huge, gloomy, powerful castles, which sprang up all over the country, were, fortresses rather than homes ; and their leisure was devoted entirely to the mimic battle of joust and tournament, and such sports as hunting and hawking. Chivalry Closely connected with feudalism, and in large measure an outgrowth from it, was the institution of chivalry, of which France was the cradle. This reached its maturity about the eleventh century, by which time the order of knighthood was so well established that all the sons of the nobility, even of those too poor to hold fiefs, passed into it as a matter of course, save those who were destined to swell the ranks of the other aristocracy — that of the Church. It had then also definitely assumed its specifically religious character. The influence of the Church had grafted the ideals of Christianity, as Christianity was then understood, upon the military forms and principles of feudalism. Discipline for knighthood was long and arduous. At the age of seven the boy was taken from the care of women and placed in the household of some wealthy noble, whom he served as damoiseau, or page, and by whom he was trained in sport and manly exercise, while the ladies of the family attended to his education in religion and etiquette. At 74 t 9. A Crusadkr Knight 74 FEUDALISM AND CHIVALRY fourteen or fifteen he became an ecuyer, or squire, and as body-servant now accompanied his lord to battle, carrying his arms, caring for his horse, and on occasion even taking part in the fight. At twenty-one he was ready for the coveted honour of knighthood. Into this he was initiated by a solemn and impressive religious ceremony. First came the symbolic bath ; then fast, vigil, and confession ; then a sermon on the duties which he was about to undertake. He was then led to the altar by two knights who were to be his sponsors ; his sword was blessed by the priest ; and the lord by whom the dignity of knighthood was to be conferred struck him on the shoulder with his sword, as he knelt humbly before him, saying : " In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost *' (or alternatively, '' of God, of St Michael, and of St George ") '' I dub thee knight. " The neoph3rte then took the vow of chivalry, swearing to be loyal and brave, to maintain the right, to succour the distressed, and to defend God, the Church, and the ladies. Of the influences of chivalry for good and for evil it is difficult to speak in brief, in part because there is so much to be said on the one and the other side, and in part because the facts of the subject have been so much confused by the glozings of romance. That in practice the chivalrous ideal was rarely realized — that, as we shall soon have occasion to learn as we continue our story, the pure and disinterested impulses upon which the knight was supposed to act were habitually blended with, and often wholly submerged by, personal ambi- tions, rude desires, and the sordid passion for gain — that, as one writer has put it, '' deeds that would disgrace a thief, and acts of cruelty that would have disgusted a Hellenic tyrant or a Roman emperor, were common things with knights of the highest lineage " — all this is only what on general principles we should expect. It is more to the point, therefore, to insist that even at their best the ethics of chivalry were those of the age, and the virtues which it inculcated and fostered the natural results of militarism touched by religion. Hence its codes of morality and etiquette, while containing much that we are bound to regard as intrinsically and permanently 75 HISTORY OF FRANCE admirable, were narrow, incomplete, and conspicuously one- sided. The worst feature of chivalry was its exclusiveness. Springing from militarism, it was inevitably aristocratic. Its finest ideals had little play beyond the hard-drawn boundaries of the knightly caste. Duty toward inferiors and dependents was not included in its scheme ; no dim conception of the brotherhood of man ever entered into its range of thought ; it did nothing to restrain, even if it did not positively encourage, injustice and brutality toward the lower orders. The courtes3^ practised by the knights among themselves had no counterpart in their dealings with the peasantry, whose homes were burned and whose fields were destroyed without compunction. Even chivalry's boasted devotion to womanhood in the abstract had for its concrete object only the woman of noble birth and gentle breeding. Thus there is justification for Dr Arnold's indignant outburst : " If I were called upon to name what spirit of evil predominant^ deser\^ed the name of Antichrist, I should name the Spirit of Chivalr^^" Yet obviously it would be inexcusable in an historian to leave unrecognized the other side of the picture. We have only to place the institution of chivalrj^ back in the setting of its age to perceive that along with its many imperfections there was much good in it too. On the whole it exercised a profoundly refining influence upon those portions of society which were directly affected by it. It helped greatly to raise the status of women, and though the fantastic sex- worship — " the super- stition all awry " — which it bred was itself pregnant of countless evils, this is an important fact to be set down to its credit. The ideal of character which it helped to create was also in many essential respects markedly superior to anything which had previously been accepted as a general standard of manhood. Attention must furthermore be directed to another aspect of its usefulness which is commonly overlooked. It mediated between the Church and the world. The logical tendency of ecclesiastical ethics was toward asceticism and the development of the monkish type. Chivalry did much to adsipt Christian idealism to the practical demands of the secular life. 76 CHAPTER III THE FIRST CRUSADE FRENCH historians have called attention to the fact that France was the cradle and the centre of the whole Crusading movement, and that a paramount part was played in it throughout by French leaders and French arms. None the less the Crusades properly belong to the general history of Europe rather than to the special history of France, and we must therefore deal only with such aspects of them here as have an immediate connexion with the matter of our own narrative. The series of religious wars, great and small, which inter- mittently for more than a hundred and fifty years Europe waged in the East must on a broad view be considered as an important new phase of the struggle which had already been going on for four centuries between Christianity and Islam, though the scene of activity was now changed. Their primary cause has, however, to be sought in the curious religious senti- ments of the Middle Ages. The superstitious veneration with which men had come to regard every sacred spot early led to those devotional expeditions which we know as pilgrimages, and which filled so large a place in the life of medieval society. For obvious reasons a pilgrimage to the Holy I,and was deemed in the highest possible degree meritorious, and strange notions grew up about its spiritual value. Prayers uttered amid the scenes made blessed by Christ's ministry and death, for instance, were held to possess a peculiar efficacy ; the waters of Jordan had miraculous properties ; and even the shirt worn by the pilgrim on entering Jerusalem, if afterward used as a winding- sheet, would ensure his instant admission to paradise. Under the influence of such crude ideas pilgrimages to Palestine had 77 /■ HISTORY OF FRANCE begun almost as soon as Christianity had established itself in the West, and generation by generation they were under- taken by ever increasing numbers of men and women, who thus sought to expiate their sins and gain the special blessing of heaven. The fresh religious enthusiasm which followed the Cluniac Revival naturally gave an additional impulse to the pilgrimage spirit, and immense companies of persons — on one occasion 7000 are mentioned — often set out together for the Holy lyand. Thus far the sacred spots had been in friendly hands ; for the Saracen caliphs, though fierce, were generous ; they respected the religion of the Christians even to the extent of allowing them to build a hospital and a church at Jerusalem ; they even, for commercial reasons, encouraged the pilgrims. But a great change took place before the eleventh century was over. The S-eljuk Turks from the Caucasus cap- tured Jerusalem in 1076, and overran Asia Minor. Newly converted to Mohammedanism and still wholly ignorant of the real teachings of their religion, these barbarians were none th© less filled with proselytizing zeal, which they exhibited by the desecration of all the spots sacred to Christian feehng and the ill-treatment of the Christians themselves. Europe was soon shocked by the reports of returning travellers con- cerning these things. A strong martial spirit pervaded the Church at the time. The cry of Christian sufferers for protec- tion and vengeance thus fell upon ready ears. The idea of a great mihtary enterprise to rescue Christ's sepulchre from the infidel began to displace that of the peaceful journey under- taken for the soul's salvation. The pilgrim's staff became the Crusader's sword. The general inspiration of the Crusades was, therefore, provided by religion, as reHgion was then understood. The epidemic enthusiasm out of which they arose and by which they were fed cannot, however, be explained by reference to such large and disinterested motives only. The temper of the time and the state of society must also be taken into account. A spirit of unrest was abroad in Europe, especially among the Normans, in whom the old Viking blood was still 78 THE FIRST CRUSADE strong ; a craving for excitement and adventure marked all classes ; the love of fighting for its own sake was almost universal. Such being the mood of the age, men would have given an eager welcome to the proposal for a crusade had it been urged upon them merely on secular grounds. The fact that such an enterprise turned the satisfaction of their lust for violence and bloodshed into a religious duty and an act meritorious even unto salvation made its appeal irresistible. Even as religious enterprises, therefore, the Crusades, while to a certain extent legitimate in purpose and generous in principle, are still to be interpreted as in large measure the products of the turbulent passions, the gross superstitions, and the debasing moral theories of the Middle Ages. It must further be remembered, however, that thousands of those who took the vow did so without the slightest show of religion. This is admitted even by the old chroniclers, like William of Tyre. The Crusaders were, indeed, a motley crowd. Restless spirits joined the army of the Cross out of mere desire for change ; traders in the expectation of profit ; married men because they were tired of the responsibilities of wife and children ; debtors to evade their debts ; criminals to avoid punishment for their crimes ; serfs to escape from oppression which had become intolerable ; while most of the great nobles who started with large contingents under their leadership were prompted by pure ambition and the hope of conquest and personal aggrandizement. The First Crusade From these general considerations we must now pass to the history of the First Crusade, which alone is our immediate concern. The Byzantine rulers naturally took alarm when the Turks in their career of conquest established themselves at Nicaea, only seventy miles from Constantinople, and an urgent appeal was sent to Gregory VII, who then sat in St Peter's Chair. That astute and ambitious man instantly saw the opportunity of carrying a step farther toward realization his grandiose 79 HISTORY OF FRANCE scheme for the universal empire of the Church, and at once began to devise means for an organized invasion of the Kast. For various reasons, however, he was obHged to abandon his plan, and it was reserved for Urban II, some ten years later, to carry it out. To him the Emperor Alexius Comnenus sent letters describing the immediate danger of Eastern Christendom and imploring his help. Urban called a council at Piacenza in 1095 to consider the situation, and as no definite results appear to have been reached, in the autumn of the same year he crossed the Alps and convened another council at Clermont- Ferrand, in the territory of the Count of Auvergne. It is here that the close connexion of France with the First Crusade becomes apparent ; as Voltaire put it, Italy had wept, but France armed. On November 24, at the end of eight days of deliberation, the Pope delivered an address in the open air to the vast crowds which gathered about the high scaffold frdm which he spoke. Three versions of this address exist,^ and though they differ much in details they agree in substance. The orator described in vivid terms the terrible condition of the Holy City, the atrocities perpetrated by the infidels, the trials of the pilgrims and the sufferings of their Christian brethren in the East ; dwelt upon the dangers which menaced Christendom, and made an impassioned appeal to all those who were able to bear arms to give up their private fighting and join in a concerted effort in the name and for the glory of Christ. His words were spark to gunpowder. There was in all that throng, a contemporary poem tells us, not a dry eye or a heart unstirred. That address was the real origin of the First Crusade. As the Pope finished, a great cry of " Dieu le volt ! " ('* God wills it ! ") went up from the frenzied multitude. Thousands pressed forward to take the vow of service and afterward to have its sign — ^the cross of red cloth — fastened across their breasts. Urban solemnly reaffirmed the Truce of God, put the families and property of the Crusaders under the protection of the Church, proclaimed salvation for * In the Historia of William of Tyre, in the Gesta of William of Malmesbury, and in a manuscript in the Vatican. 80 THE FIRST CRUSADE all who died upon the coming expedition, and commanded the clergy to preach the Crusade throughout France. An immense wave of enthusiasm thereupon swept over France and Southern Italy. The time had now come of which it had been written that men should take up the cross of Christ and be His disciples. In such a mood people looked for supernatural signs of God's approval, and supernatural signs were not, of course, wanting. Fire fell in showers of stars from heaven ; earthquakes suddenly ceased ; the earth gave promise of marvellous fertility. Among those who threw themselves with special ardour into the work of propagandism was the famous Peter of Amiens, better known as Peter the Hermit. The popular story runs that Peter had himself been an eye-witness of the sufferings of the faithful in the Holy I^and, that, moved to indignation, he had hurried to Rome and had laid their hard case before the Pope, and that it was with the Pope's permission and approval that he set forth to fire the masses of the people with zeal for the sacred cause. All this is as legendary as the more obviously fabulous story that his inspiration had come directly from Christ, who had appeared to him in a vision in the church at Jerusalem. It was Urban himself and not Peter who was the originator of the First Crusade. Peter's alleged pilgrimage to the Holy I^and is apparently an invention of the chroniclers. There is no evidence that he ever spoke with the Pope, and it is certain that his preaching began, not before, but after and as a result of the Council of Clermont. Yet even when accretions of myth have been brushed aside Peter's part in the early drama of the First Crusade remains conspicuous. During the winter of 1095-96 he traversed Auvergne, Berry, the royal domains, and I^orraine, and everywhere he went he evoked the wildest enthusiasm. Small, thin, dark-skinned, with long, tangled hair and beard, his costume a hermit's cloak of coarse stuff girt with a cord, his hands and feet bare, he presented a strange figure as he rode on his mule from town to town and from village to village, haranguing the populace from pulpit or roadside or market-place, and by F 81 HISTORY OF FRANCE his inflammatory eloquence stirring their passions to fever- heat. "Something divine," says a chronicler, "was felt in his slightest movements, and people tore the hairs from his mule to preserve them as relics." ^ When he reached Cologne he had a following of 15,000 persons. At Cologne his numbers doubled. This enormous army, if army it can be called, was recruited almost entirely from the lowest classes, and was largely composed of peasants, beggars, and adventurers, while women and children further swelled its ranks. Unprovisioned, poorly equipped, insufficiently armed, wholly undisciplined, and hopelessly ignorant of the dangers and hardships of the journey before them, these straggling multitudes, led by Peter himself, a certain knight from Burgundy named Gautier sans Avoir, or Walter the Penniless, and other men of less note, made their way through Germany and Hungary, and thence along the Danube toward Constantinople, robbing, plundering, persecuting the Jews, and in general by their disorderly conduct arousing such animosity that many were slain by the inhabi- tants of the districts through which they passed. Those who reached Constantinople were received by the Emperor, who none the less deemed it wise to send them forward as quickly as possible into Asia Minor. There the Turks soon annihilated the poor remnant which had managed to survive hunger, thirst, exposure, and the ravages of disease. Thus ends the grotesquely tragic story of the Peasants' Crusade. Peter himself, though guilty of cowardice in action, was prominent among the Crusaders till the fall of Jerusalem, some time after which he, returned to Europe, dying in 11 15 in a monastery of his own foundation at Huy, in the lyOw Countries. While Peter's rabble was marching through crime and misery to destruction, preparations for the real Crusade were advancing slowly. Urban, himself a Frenchman, appointed Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, his legate and representative ; while among the French nobles who were specially active in raising forces were the King's brother, Hugues, Count of Vermandois, ^ Guibert de Nogent, Gesta Dei per Francos (in Recueil des Historians des Croisades : Historiens occidentaux, t. iv). 82 ^ THE FIRST CRUSADE Robert, Count of Flanders, the hot-headed Robert Courte- Heuse, Duke of Normandy, who mortgaged all his lands to provide the sinews of war, the vain and untrustworthy iStienne, Count of Blois, and the crafty but daring Raymond of Toulouse, the leader of the south. When at length the immense army, or collection of armies, was ready to start, necessity obliged the different chiefs to take different routes to Constantinople, where a general meeting was planned. Six divisions accordingly set out at considerable intervals of time, one following the peasants through Germany and Hungary, a second taking a more southerly course through Dalmatia, while the remainder went by way of the Alps, and, crossing the Adriatic, completed the journey by land.^ By the end of 1096 the entire force was gathered beneath the walls of the Eastern capital. Realizing that his own interests were seriously imperilled by the character and proportions which the expedition had assumed, the Emperor Alexius determined to exact from its leaders an oath that they would deliver all conquered territory to him, receiving it back, if they wished, as a fief. This gave rise to trouble, but finally, by means of flattery and bribes, the Emperor secured the homage of nearly all the chiefs. It was not till May 1097 that the real business of the Crusade began with the siege of Nicaea, which on June 19, as a result of secret negotiations, surrendered, not to the Crusaders, but to the Emperor. As the Crusaders had counted on the rich booty of the conquered city, they were furious at being thus cheated of what they regarded as their rights, and though they were compelled to accept the Emperor's terms of indemnity the incident deepened their antipathy toward him. In the long and painful march through Asia Minor their ranks were greatly thinned by fatigue and famine, and the quarrels of their leaders still further menaced their cause. But in October 1097 they reached Antioch, which they at once invested. ^ It is impossible to speak with, certainty regarding the numbers of the army. The chroniclers themselves generally employ vague terms only, and when definite figures are given they are obviously little more than guess- work. Modern experts incline to believe that more than 600,000 men perished in the expedition. See I^avisse, Histoire de France, t. ii, 2e Partie, p. 233. 83 HISTORY OF FRANCE The tedium and disappointments of a siege conducted amid the heavy rains of winter, which turned their camp into a swamp, famine, and pestilential diseases so demoralized the Christian army that many deserted ; among them the poor Hermit, whose fanatical piety was no proof against the pangs of hunger; and who, captured in full flight, had to undergo the humiliation of a public reprimand. At the end of seven months, however, treachery delivered the city into the Crusaders' hands. At daybreak on June 3, 1098, the victors poured through the open gates, with wild cries of '' Dieu le volt ! " and slaughtered 10,000 of the inhabitants without respect of age or sex — ^thus giving to the infidels a fine example of Christian chivalry. Then, their thirst for blood for the moment slaked, they ceased their carnage to indulge in a fierce orgy of plunder and debauchery.- Scarcely, however, had they taken possession of the city when they found themselves in turn besieged by a huge Mos- lem army which had marched to its relief. Before long they were reduced to the last extremity of starvation, and those who only recently had been glorifying God for their successes now cursed Him for forsaking them. Again desertions were numerous ; many let themselves over the walls with ropes and made good their escape to the coast — among them one of their leaders, Stephen of Blois ; some even went over to the enemy. A pious fraud, the miraculous finding of the lance with which the side of Jesus had been pierced (though the trickery was so palpable that many of the Crusaders openly scoffed at it), served its purpose by putting fresh heart into them, and in the great battle of Antioch (June 28, 1098) — the piece of old iron representing the Holy lyance carried with them as their standard — ^they scattered the enemy with terrific and of course indiscriminate slaughter. The way to Jerusalem was now open. But instead of pushing forward to the accom- plishment of the final purpose of all their exertions they wasted nearly twelve months in Northern Syria, while their leaders quarrelled among themselves and engaged in the congenial occupation of conquering fiefs on their own account. It was 84 THE FIRST CRUSADE on a bright June morning in 1099 that the remnant of the mighty host which had left Constantinople some two years before — now perhaps not more than 25,000 fighting men in all — at length came in sight of the sacred city. A frenzy of devotion at once seized upon them. A great shout went up from their" ranks — " Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! " Tears of joy ran down their cheeks ; they fell on their knees to kiss the ground on which they stood ; and then, putting off their armour, they advanced, with heads and feet bare, toward the spot hallowed by the Saviour's sufferings and death. Five weeks later — on July 15, 1099 — the great object of the expe- dition was attained, and the Holy Sepulchre delivered from the enemies of Christ. What followed upon the capture of Jerusalem was only a repetition, on a larger scale and with details of even greater atrocity, of what had occurred at Antioch. The religious fury of the victors knew no bounds, and their greed was equal to their brutality. The blood of the infidel ran in streams. The Jews were burned alive in their synagogue. Christian knights rode through the streets, their horses splashed with gore, hacking and hewing the bodies alike of the living and the dead. Meanwhile the praises of God resounded through the city along with the hoarse shouts of soldiers drunk with violence and the groans of the mangled and the dying ; a reign of universal plunder prevailed ; and in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a kneeling host, worn out with massacre and looting, lifting up their bloody hands, offered their thanks to God in a mood of exaltation compounded of blood-madness and mystical religious ecstasy. The next day the butchery was renewed, now in the form of a deliberate and systematic slaughter, and though it is true that a few young men and women were spared, it was not from pity, but with an eye to the money they would fetch in the slave-market. The conquest of Jerusalem was completed by the sensational victory of a small band of Christians over an immense Moham- medan host on the plains of Ascalon. Though further expeditions to the Holy lyand were inspired by news of the success which had been achieved, the real work 8s HISTORY OF FRANCE of the First Crusade was now over. A lyatin kingdom was founded at Jerusalem, on the model of a feudal state, under the headship of Godfrey of Bouillon, who, refusing the name of king, assumed the title of Baron and Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. Two other principalities — one at Antioch, the other at Hdessa — had already been established under Christian chiefs. A European colony was thus formed in Palestine, which during the next fifty years continued to increase in size, wealth, and power. But with its further history we are not for the moment concerned. The Influence of the Crusades I have dealt with this first of the Crusades in some detail, both because it was by far the most important of all, and because it may be taken in a broad way as typical. The other organized expeditions to the Hast will be treated as episodes in ^our story only. This will be the most convenient place, therefore, to consider, even at some risk of anticipation, the effect of the Crusades in general. It has been said, and there seems little exaggeration in the statement, that the Crusades may be regarded as the first of three great movements of advance in European history, the other two being the Reformation and the French Revolu- tion. Yet their influence, profound and far-reaching though it was, has to be sought, not along the line of their avowed purposes, but in the vast and various changes which inci- dentally they helped to bring about. Save that they certainly did secure Europe against Mohammedan invasion, they failed in their immediate object. The results which they actually achieved were for the most part such as were very remote indeed from the imaginations and desires of their promoters. Their damaging effect upon feudalism has first to be noted, for this was especially conspicuous in France. Many of the nobles who went to the Holy I^and never returned, and their estates escheated to the Crown, while many more were impoverished by the drain upon their resources which so large an enterprise entailed. By thus reducing in number 86 THE FIRST CRUSADE and weakening in influence the great territorial chiefs, the Crusades in the long run materially helped the king in the establishment of the royal central authority. Meanwhile, if the king gained on the one side at the expense of the feudal aristocracy, the burghers gained equally on the other. Ready money was mainly in their hands ; it was to them that knights and nobles in need of loans had to turn ; and as the merchants and traders thus enriched themselves land fell in value. The towns in particular were greatly benefited by these changing conditions ; in return for contributions and accommodations they often received charters granting special privileges from their overlords, against whose tyrannous exactions they were now able to make increasingly successful stands. Industry developed, the number of artisans increased rapidly owing to the urgent demand for arms and equipment, and the demand for labour tended toward the liberation of the lowest class from the condition of serfdom. All this meant the rise of the power of money and the decline of the power of land. Nor was this the only way in which commerce was encouraged by the Crusades. It received an immense stimulus from the widening of the area of operation, the extension of trading relationships, the growth of fresh tastes and the introduction of fresh com- modities, when, as a natural result of these martial enterprises, the Bast was opened up to Western trade. From the conse- quent increase of financial prosperity the commercial classes were the principal gainers. As we shall see later, the emergence of these commercial classes was to prove a powerful support to the royal authority in its further efforts to subdue the lawlessness of feudalism. At the same time it must not be forgotten that another danger to such authority was now to become increasingly apparent. Papacy and Church grew enormously in prestige and influence through the Crusades. The prominent part which the Pope played in an enterprise which was not national, but European, confirmed his position as supreme head of Christendom. The establishment of the religious-military orders of the Hospitallers and the Templars enhanced his power. Prelates and monastic 87 HISTORY OF FRANCE houses meanwhile amassed wealth by the purchase at almost nominal prices of the lands of those who were eager to get money for the wars, and by the falling in of mortgages on estates encumbered for the same purpose, while the stimulation of pious ardour characteristic of the time led to an immense increase in the number and value of gifts and testamentary bequests. Such rapid growth of ecclesiastical power was to prove a source of grave political difficulty in times to come. More important, however, than these practical results, if less easy to analyse and appraise, were the effects produced by the Crusades in the intellectual sphere. The whole horizon of the medieval man was expanded, his imagination quickened and dilated, by contact with new peoples, new things, and new ideas, whether that contact was direct, as with the Crusader himself, or indirect, as with those who stayed at home and learned merely by report of what was to be seen and experienced beyond the seas. A current of feeling was set going which in the end was certain to do much to under- mine the dogmatic edifice of medieval theology. Inspired by religious fanaticism, ignorant, superstitious, and bigoted, the Christian warrior set out for the Holy lyand filled with the bitterest hatred toward foes whom he had been taught to regard as scarcely human, and it often happened that through personal intercourse alike with Jew and Saracen he learned his first lessons in tolerance and charity. Eastern civilization and culture, in many ways superior to their own, had also much to teach the men of the West, and vast stores of fresh materials were brought home b}^ them which the thought of Europe proceeded by little and little to assimilate. So potent were the influences which they thus exerted that the Crusades may legitimately be classed among the remote causes of the Renaissance. But of their further significance from this point of view I shall have something more to say when I come to deal later with the literature and art of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Meanwhile we may lay stress on the self- destructive character of the Crusades. The spirit which they helped to create was in the long run fatal to their continuance. 88 CHAPTER IV LOUIS VI ('LE GROS') II08-II37 WB have seen that in the reign of Philippe I the anarchy of f eudaHsm was at its height. The reign of his son and successor, I^ouis VI, or ' the Fat ' (' le Gros '), marks the first stage in the long history of the growth and consolidation of the central power. Though, like his father, a huge feeder, and at forty-six so unwieldy that he was no longer able to mount a horse, L/Ouis was an energetic as well as a capable man. Good-natured and affable, he had the happy faculty of making friends, and he was upright and open-minded as well as shrewd and courageous. The chief fault with which his contemporaries charged him was avarice, but this may in part at least be explained by his pressing need of money in the carrying out of his plans. He had a clear conception of the responsibilities and functions of his position. He held it to be ** the duty of kings to repress with a strong hand, and by the original right of their office, the audacity of the great, who rend the State with their ceaseless wars, vex the poor, and destroy the churches." These words of his confidential adviser, Suger, the Abbot of Saint-Denis,^ express the principles which governed his policy, and by steady adherence to which he began the transformation of French monarchy from a form of territorial possession into a real national power. As a result of his determination to prove, as Suger puts it, '* that the efficacy of the royal virtue is not confined within the limits of certain places," ^ lyouis was engaged in almost incessant petty warfare with his vassals. His most substantial * In his Vie de Louis le Gros. * Ibid, HISTORY OF FRANCE successes were achieved over his immediate neighbours, the smaller barons, whose estates surrounded his own, and who yet had long pillaged and plundered all about them, in defiance even of his protection and safe-conduct. With great deter- mination and patience he persisted in his efforts to stamp out their pestilential power, burning or razing their castles, Hberating towns and abbeys from their tyranny, righting the wrongs of those who had suffered at their hands, and estab- lishing security for the merchant, the pilgrim, and the labourer on highway and in field. This useful police work he carried on for many years, and by the gradual destruction of such dangerous foes of public peace as, for example, the haughty lord of Montlhery he laid the foundations of law and order where hitherto chaos had prevailed. The cases of Hugues du Puiset and Thomas de Marie may be cited as illustrations of the difficulties with which he had to contend. On the fertile plains of Beauce, Hugues, as Suger puts it, " devoured all the Church lands in the district," made his mere name a terror for miles around his fortress, and openly jeered at secular force and ecclesiastical denunciation. Three times his castle was besieged, taken, and burned by troops sent by the King in response to the appeals of his victims, and three times he rebuilt it and began his depredations afresh ; at length ending a life of sustained atrocity on a pious pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre. Thomas de Marie was an even more appalling product of triumphant feudalism. His cruelty was such as to amaze even his contemporaries, who were scarcely sensitive about such matters ; he took a fiendish delight in devising new tortures for the unfortunate creatures who fell into his clutches ; '' No one can reckon," a chronicler tells us, '' the number of those who died of hunger, maltreatment, and filth in his dungeons." For fifteen years, despite repeated attempts to overcome him, this desperate villain had his way ; but at last he was mortally wounded in a skirmish and carried a prisoner to I^aon, where he died. It is a certain satisfaction to know that he at least fell at the hands of human justice, and was not allowed, like so many diabolical scoundrels of 90 • LOUIS VI the time, to make his peace with God by a journey to Jerusalem for his soul's salvation. Though much of his energy was thus taken up with matters near at home, lyouis also attempted to bring to submission some of his greater vassals, who meanwhile continued to rule independently in other parts of France. Much to the surprise of the local powers, he interfered with some effect in the affairs of Auvergne and Aquitaine, making the royal authority for the first time a real thing in the south. But otherwise this larger task proved be3^ond his capacity. His conflict with both Normandy and Flanders ended, indeed, in his discom- fiture. The special difiiculties with which he had to cope in his relations with Normandy had originated some j^ears before his reign began. Henry Beauclerk, the Conqueror's youngest son, had succeeded William Rufus on the English throne in 1 100, and six years later he had defeated his elder brother, Robert, in a bloody engagement at Tinchebrai. Robert was thereupon confined in Cardiff Castle, where as a prisoner he spent the remaining twenty-seven years of his life. Thus the duchy of Normandy was again united to the Crown of England, and Henry '' governed these two states with wisdom and enjoyed constant prosperity." ^ lyOuis, of course, perceived the danger to himself of this combination of power in the hands of a man who, vicious and cruel though he was, had plenty of strength and ability to back up his ambition. He therefore resolved to pursue his father Philippe's policy of weakening his enemy by creating or fomenting family dissen- sions. His immediate purpose being to separate Normandy from England, he espoused the cause of William Clito, Robert's son, who now came forward to claim the duchy in his own behalf. After a struggle of some years lyOuis was defeated, first at Brenneville and then at Breteuil. On this he appealed to the council which had just then met at Reims under the presidency of Calixtus II, and was led to hope that the Pope would intervene in his interests. In this, however, he was 1 Ordericns Vitalis, Histovia Ecclesiastica. 91 HISTORY OF FRANCE disappointed ; nothing practical came of his representations, and through the Pope's intermediation a peace was patched up. The terrible disaster of the White Ship, in the wreck of which in 1 120 Henry's only son was drowned, seemed for the moment like the interference of fate in Louis' behalf at a juncture in which neither arms nor diplomacy had availed. But the advantage soon passed. Henry induced the Witan to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor, and in 1128 married her to Geoffrey, son of Foulques V, now Count of Anjou, and known as Plantagenet from the sprig of broom {planta genista) which he wore in his bonnet. This marriage meant checkmate to Louis' policy. Hitherto he had received the support of Anjou in his conflict with Normandy. Now Nor- mandy and Anjou were allied against him ; while notwith- standing the fact that on Henry's sudden death Stephen of Blois seized the English crown and Matilda's claims were set aside, the Anglo-Norman power was immensely extended on French soil. The marriage of Louis' son and heir to Alienor, the tiaughter of the Count of Aquitaine, proved no offset to this, since, as we shall see presently, the new possession was soon lost to the Crown. In the case of Flanders Louis received an equally bad rebuff. A party rising, the murder of the Count, Charles le Bon, and the disturbances which followed, gave him as suzerain an excuse to intervene. But this attempt to force William Clito on the Flemings, though successful for the moment, failed; war broke out between William and the rival claimant to the Countship, William was killed in battle, and the independence of Flanders remained unshaken. The Beginnings of the Communal Movement We are now in a position to realize to what extent the disruptive forces of feudalism were checked by Louis le Gros' policy. That policy was meanwhile reinforced from another side by the anti-feudal revolt of the towns. What is known as the communal movement first becomes prominent during his reign. 92 LOUIS VI Signs of unrest in many parts of the country had already shown that the miseries arising from chronic war, famines, pestilences, and the despotic exactions of their lords were little by little goading the masses of the people to despair. In a I^atin poem addressed to Robert le Pieux, Bishop Adalbero had divided society into two classes — ^those above, who prayed like the priests or fought like the nobles (praying and fighting being the only gentlemanly occupations), and those below, the serfs and labourers, who worked but did not count in the State. Yet even this self-satisfied theorist perceived with alarm that disturbances were threatening to interfere with this divinely arranged system of things, and in the true spirit of obstinate conservatism he deplored in advance the change of manners and the collapse of the social order. ^ He was right at least in believing that the system he loved could not continue unchallenged. An attempt at a general rising by the villeins of Normandy in 997 may be regarded as the first blow in a great battle which was destined to last many hundreds of years. The plot, however, miscarried ; its leaders were cap- tured by the Count of S^vreux, uncle of the reigning Duke of Normandy ; some were put to death with atrocious tortures ; others, with eyes gouged out and hands and feet cut off, were sent home as an object-lesson and a warning to their fellows. A little later, in 1024, a revolt of Breton peasants was also put down with barbarous cruelty. It was much too early as yet for any effective agrarian rising. Conditions were far more favourable in the towns, and it was there that the popular demand for justice and liberty first met with a measure of success. It would be impossible within the limits of this narrative to trace the progress of the French towns from the downfall of the Western Empire through the confusion which followed the barbarian invasions. It must sufiice to say in general terms that in the absence of any strong central control they suffered as much as the country districts from the growing evils of feudalism, and were so completely at the mercy of * Poime sur le Rigne de Robert. 93 HISTORY OF FRANCE their lord that they could claim no rights of self-government, and had no power of appeal against him when, as often happened, his exactions became unreasonable and excessive. The increasing prosperity of the towns which came with the development of industry and commerce naturally made them more tempting as prey to their rapacious masters, who were in chronic need of money, and who had come to consider it as their special privilege to batten on the toil of others (the people v/ho did not count), while they devoted themselves exclusively to the noble business of fighting and plundering. But it was out of this increasing prosperity that opposition to them ultimately sprang. As the burgher class grew in wealth they came more and more to realize their importance and power, and resistance to their lord, at first ill-defined, soon took the practical form of specific claims for rights and privileges in respect of civic self-government, personal liberty, the guaranteeing of safety for the conduct of business, and fixed arrangements for taxes and impositions. Hence the comfnunal movement, which reached its height during the twelfth century. This movement was not concerted ; it v/as general simply because the same causes w^ere everywhere at work, producing the same results ; though it came to a head earlier in the south than in the north because in the south some traditions had survived of the Roman municipia, which had tended to keep the civic spirit alive. The charters which formed the basis of the new relations between town and lord were obtained in different ways. Sometimes they were wrung from thje lord by force ; sometimes they were secured by purchase ; very rarely they were conceded of the lord's free will. But in any event, where they were obtained at all they assured, not, indeed, the complete freedom of the town from its suzerain, but at least the regulation of the reciprocal rights and duties, together with a certain amount of autonomy. That the communes should be bitterly opposed by the feudal nobility in general was of course inevitable. Vested interests are quick to scent danger, and they properly saw in them a menace to their own power. To more impartial observers 94 LOUIS VI of the conservative sort they seemed equally objectionable ; as to Guibert de Nogent, for example, who denounced the very word commune as '' new and detestable." ^ Yet in course of time some of the nobility found it to their advantage not only to grant charters, but even to establish new towns, publishing a charter and making known the privileges which would be enjoyed by those who joined the undertaking. In general the attitude of the Church was also one of oppo- sition. It is true that in the opinion of some historians the Church supported the movement of emancipation, and that those who hold this view are able to adduce instances in point. But the fact seems to be that the clergy made common cause with the people against the nobles only when the suzerainty -was in lay hands and they themselves were sufferers from it. When, on the contrary, the suzerainty was itself ecclesiastical, the Church showed itself the fiercest foe of the communal movement, while in all other cases in which their own interests were not involved the clergy attacked the communes as un- scriptural and uncanonical. According to their lights, they, no less than the feudal nobles, were perfectly right in so doing, for the spirit of self-assertion and independence was later to prove a powerful enemy of sacerdotalism and its assumptions. The policy of the King is less easy to describe in brief, because it was dictated rather by considerations of immediate personal advantage than by settled principle, and varied, therefore, at different times and places. On the whole, however, he favoured the communes because they helped him directly or indirectly in his struggles with the nobility. But he must not be regarded as supporting the burghers as burghers against the barons as barons. He did not aim at the destruction of feudalism ; he sought only to correct its abuses and to bring it into sub- mission to himself ; and when he interfered in the quarrels between towns and their lords he did so in part in the interests of law and order, and in part from a sense of the benefits which would accrue to himself. It is also to be remembered that though he emancipated his serfs he did not permit the ^ De Vita Sua (in Guizot, Collection des Mimoires, t. x). 95 HISTORY OF FRANCE establishment of any communal government within his own domains, preferring to hold the reins of power firmly in his own hands. His successors, however, saw more clearly than he had done how much the royal authority stood to gain by fostering the communal movement. lyouis himself conferred eight charters. His son conferred twenty-five. The communal movement was unfortunately attended here and there by those outbursts of violence which are generally inseparable from a great popular upheaval. The most famous of these occasional riots — that which occurred at I^aon — shows, however, that while deeply to be regretted they were not without excuse. Certain concessions were granted to that city by its bishop, Gaudry, who, presently regretting what he had done, induced the King by promises of money to cancel them. News of this treachery got abroad ; the episcopal palace was fired by an angry crowd ; the Bishop himself was kilied by a blow with a hatchet ; while in the general tumult the women of the people seized all the noble dames they could find* beat them, and tore their clothes. As for lyouis himself, whose part in the drama was neither wise nor heroic, he made good his safety by flight. We are concerned here only with the beginnings of the communal movement. Its further developments will be noted in later stages of our story. 96 CHAPTER V LOUIS VII ('LE JEUNE') II37-II80 LOUIS VII, who is distinguished among the many lyouis of French history as ' the Young/ was a man of very > different character from his father, whom he succeeded in 1 137, for he was superstitious, credulous, and rather weak. None the less he followed the general lines of his father's policy, protecting the Church, fighting against rebellious vassals, and seeking to bring the forces of anarchy into submission to the royal power. On the whole, too, as we have seen, he favoured the emancipation of the towns. The continued progress of commerce and industry, and the consequent growth of the towns both in number and in population, made the communal movement increasingly important ; and lyOuis clearly perceived this, and acted accordingly ; though, like his father, he was guided by personal interest rather than by principle. In particiilar, he confirmed to the Hanse or Gviild of Paris mer- chants the monopolies which they had gradually assumed. Their armorial device — a ship with the legend Fluctuat nee mergitur — afterward became that of the city itself. Despite his piety, I^ouis' relations with the Church were disturbed for some years by his quarrel with Pope Innocent II over the appointment of the Archbishop of Bourges. This led not only to the King's excommunication, but indirectly to another result of infinitely greater moment both to him and to his realm. During an invasion of Champagne, which he had undertaken because the Count, Thibaut, had given asylum to the Pope's nominee, he set fire to the church at Vitry, and burned to death some 1300 people who had sought refuge in it. This crime weighed heavily upon his mind, and G 97 HISTORY OF FRANCE to expiate it he resolved, against tlie advice of his old tutor and sagacious counsellor Suger, to join the new expedition to the Holy I^and for which Kurope was now busily preparing. The Second Crusade This Second Crusade was inspired by the perilous position of the Christians in the East. Under Godfrey of Bouillon and his successors the two Baldwins, the I^atin kingdom of Jeru- salem had continued to expand. But soon after the death of Baldwin II dissensions arose among the Christian leaders themselves which seriously jeopardized their common interests ; and when in 1144 the capture of Edessa by the Sultan of Aleppo was followed by the steady advance of the Turkish army things began to look very black indeed for the I^atin power in Syria and Palestine. Messengers were despatched post- haste to Europe with appeals for immediate help, and the Western Church was thrown into consternation by the thought that everything which had been gained in the First Crusade at the price of so much money and blood was now likely to be lost. ' Decisive action was necessary to avert such a disaster. Such was the situation when the. Church met in council at Easter 1146 in the little mountain town of Vezelay, and there the cause of Christ in the Holy I^and found its spokesman in the celebrated Bernard of Clairvaux. A man of extra- ordinary personal magnetism and an orator of marvellous power, this Cistercian monk possessed in a supreme degree the special gifts which ensure success in popular leadership, while the fame of his sanctity, his intellectual endowments, and his masterful spirit lent him an equal authority among the statesmen of his age. Upon the multitudes which had gathered at Vezelay his burning words produced an instantaneous effect ; hardly had he finished speaking when, as with a single voice, they cried aloud for a new Crusade. Then under commission from the Pope he set forth to stir the enthusiasm of the masses through France and Germany. He found the task more difficult than his precursor, the Hermit, had done, for the temper of the people was already changing. But his impas- 98 LOUIS VII sioned eloquence none the less triumphed over all obstacles, and such vast numbers flocked to the standard of the Cross that in some districts fields, castles, and towns were almost deserted. Notwithstanding this success, however, the new enterprise, even in its inception, was far from popular in France. A general tax imposed upon all classes to meet its expenses aroused great discontent, and when in 1147 the King rode out of his capital it was, a chronicler tells us, amid the imprecations of his people. lyouis had a royal colleague in the enterprise in the Bmperor Conrad III of Germany, and the strength of their united armies has been variously estimated at from 900,000 to 1,200,000 fighting men. Yet despite such a splendid parade of power this Second Crusade v/as destined to be a lamentable failure from first to last. When, on the heels of the Germans, who without waiting for their allies had already hurried forward, the French reached Constantinople, such violent hostility instantly broke out between them and the Greeks that for the moment the expedition to the Holy I^and threatened to turn into an organized attack upon the Eastern Empire. Alive to his danger, the Emperor Manuel Comnenus cleverly circulated reports of immense booty already captured by the German army. The cupidity of these soldiers of Christ was at once aroused ; they forgot their designs upon Constantinople in their feverish anxiety to hasten on and share the spoils. It was not long, however, before they discovered the trick which had been played upon them, for, meeting a remnant of the German army in disorderly retreat, they learned that the main body of that army had been cut to pieces by the Seljuk Turks in the mountains near I^aodicea. Warned by their fate, the French took a more southerly route ; unwisely, as it proved ; for it was a route beset with so many dangers and difficulties that many perished by the way, while those who survived were exhausted and demoraHzed. At length they reached Adalia, on the southern coast of Asia Minor. There fresh trouble awaited them. The ships placed at their disposal by the Greeks proving insufiicient for transport, I^ouis, his nobles, 99 HISTORY OF FRANCE and the flower of the army monopolized them, leaving the rank and file to shift for themselves. Thus basely abandoned by their leaders, the disorganized rabble attempted to reach Syria by following the line of the coast ; but they were practically annihilated by the enemy. When at length the French and the Germans joined forces in Palestine only a few thousands w^ere left of the mighty host which had passed through Constan- tinople less than a year before. Even now the promises of the expedition might have been redeemed, in part at least, by strength, decision, and unity. Weakness, stupidity, and disagreements completed its failure. At a council of war held at Akka it was resolved to open the campaign by laying siege to Damascus. This to begin with was a blunder, for the Emir of Damascus was favourably disposed toward the Christians, and would willingly have entered into an alliance with them against their common en^my, Nureddin, now master of Edessa. But Damascus was a rich city, and the chance of booty was allowed to outweigh all other considerations. The investment therefore began ; and such was their assurance of success that the chiefs neglected their military duties to quarrel with one another about the distribution of the spoils. Discords, jealousies, whispers of treachery, charges and counter-charges of bad faith, gradually took all the heart out of the invading army and paralysed their efforts ; and it was almost a relief to them, therefore, when news of the approach of a great Mussulman host com- pelled their leaders to raise the siege. It was then proposed to make an attack upon Ascalon, but the ever-growing hostility between the 'French and the Germans rendered any further concerted action impossible. Conrad in disgust left Palestine in September 1148. lyouis remained as a pilgrim in Jerusalem till the spring of the next year. The utter failure of this Crusade caused great dissatisfaction throughout Europe, and its effect upon popular sentiment is shown by the complete collapse of Bernard's efforts to muster a second army to repair the fortunes of the first. His own reputation suffered much from the fiasco. Not content with 100 LOUIS VII being an apostle, he had also assumed the role of a prophet, confidently predicting God's blessing upon the expedition and its glorious success. He was now forced to acknowledge his confusion over the actual results, which he could explain only by reference to the sins of the Crusaders themselves, whom he did not hesitate to liken to the Jews of old. The Rise of the English Power in France Though in the meantime Suger had governed the realm so admirably that he had won for himself the title of Solomon, lyouis' long absence from his country was a great mistake, for it meant loss of personal influence and prestige. On his return he was guilty of what, from a purely political point of view, was a far more serious blunder. His marriage, during his father's lifetime, to Alienor of Aquitaine, or Guyenne, has already been referred to. This promised much for the expansion of the royal power. It was by this time firmly established that women could inherit fiefs and exercise all the feudal rights appertaining to them. This principle, we may note in passing, proved in the long run one cause of the extinction of the great feudal families, for as many men were killed in war fiefs con- tinually passed into the hands of women, who by marriage often merged them with other fiefs. Alienor was heiress of the duchy of Guyenne, which included, along with other vassal states, the counties of Poitou and Perigord and the duchy of Gascony, and thus she brought to her husband a territory covering about one-half of Southern France. The consequent accession in strength which this ensured to the Crown is obvious. Unfortunately, however, misunderstandings arose between lyouis and his wife. She made no secret of the fact that she cor- dially detested him ; he on his part was bitterly annoyed by her light behaviour, and rightly or wrongly believed that during his absence she had been faithless to him. Suger did his best to prevent the trouble from coming to a head ; but his death in 1152 removed the only restraining influence, and two months later — ^in the March of that same year — at the request of both parties, the marriage was annulled by the lOI HISTORY OF FRANCE Council of Beaugency. Almost immediately after this Alienor married again, her second husband being Henry Plantagenet, the son of Geoffrey and Matilda. Now Henry was already Count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, and Duke of Normandy, and his wife's possessions being added to his own, he became master of all the v/est of France, from the Norman coast to the Pyrenees. Thus when he ascended the English throne in 1 154 as Henry II, the first of the Angevin, line, the French territories of the English King formed a compact state as great in extent and power as that directly ruled by his nominal suzerain, the King of France, himself. It was fortunate for Louis that Henry, through his quarrel with the Church, his troubles with Becket, and the intrigues of his rebellious sons, was too much entangled in domestic affairs to pay any close attention to things in France. Indeed, the murder of Becket wa^ distinctly to lyouis' advantage, for it gave him the oppor- tunity to appeal to the Pope against Henry, with results familiar to every reader of English history. But the anomaly of tiie situation thus created v/as pregnant of danger for time to come. Here we have the real beginning of that long and bitter struggle between the French and English dynasties v/hich will fill a considerable space in future chapters of this story. 102 CHAPTER VI PHILIPPE II (' PHILIPPE-AUGUSTE ') I 180-1223 LOUIS VIII ('LE LION') I223-1226 THE reign of Philippe II, called ' Auguste/ from the month of his birth, covers an important period in the history both of the French monarchy and of French civilization. In the struggle between the central authority and disintegrating forces of feudalism a decisive victory was at length gained by the former. The great nobles had now for the first time to recognize the supremacy of the King of France as the sole administrator and legislator of the realm. This consolidation of the royal power was accompanied by a steady growth in unity among the long-scattered elements of the French people. Those sectional differences by which the country had hitherto been broken up into fragments began to disappear, and with the amalgamation which attended increasing coherence the French nation came into existence. These momentous changes were, of course, largely the result of the many general forces — ^industrial, religious, social, poli- tical — ^which were at work at the time. But the personal part of the King himself in them must still be emphasized. A man of great ability, clear-sighted, cool, calculating, firm, entirely unscrupulous, yet public-spirited enough to be genuinely interested in the welfare and progress of his subjects, Philippe was just the ruler to make capital out of the weakness of his enemies and to turn the complexities of the hour to the best account. He had the advantage, too, of knowing his own mind. From first to last his policy was consistently governed 103 HISTORY OF FRANCE by one aim — ^the increase of his power at the expense of his nobility. To this object he bent all his energies, and the success which crowned his efforts constitutes the central interest of his reign. The sonof Louis VII by his second wife, Alix of Champagne, Philippe succeeded his father when he was only fifteen. His youth and inexperience gave the feudal nobility, as they themselves were quick to perceive, an opportunity to regain a portion at least of the ground they had lost under the late King. But Philippe soon showed that he was not to be played with. He had not been long on the throne when he was involved in a quarrel with one of his most powerful vassals, the Count of Flanders, over certain rights in respect of the counties of Vermandois, Valois, and Amiens. The Count had the support of the northern barons. Yet Philippe beat him ; reduced him to ^submission ; and forced him to cede Amiens and a portion of Vermandois to the Crown (1185). This was a remarkable achievement for a youth of twenty ; and the new possessions thus obtained, together with the county of Artois, which formed the dowry of his first wife, Isabelle of Hainaut, whom he married in 1191, greatly extended his domains on the north. Already he took up a strong position regarding the rights of kingship. The lord of the county of Amiens was the bishop of that city ; and the bishop demanded that Philippe should do homage to him for it in accordance with feudal custom. But Philippe threw feudal custom to the winds. " We neither can nor ought to render homage to any one," was his reply. This was a new conception of the place and prerogatives of royalty. Philippe's assertion meant that the Crown was now . lifted above the feudal plexus, and that henceforth the king was to be regarded as something more than a feudal chief. Philippe's Struggle with England Such internal disputes were, however, insignificant compared with the great conflict with the English King which occupied Philippe till almost the end of his life, and which he carried on with untiring energy and persistency because he realized 104 PHILIPPE II that the power of the BngHsh Crown in France was the most formidable rival of his own. One fixed purpose with him, therefore, was to dislodge the English from their possessions in his realm. Henry ir, now growing old and weary, was no longer able to cope with his rebellious sons, among whom, soon after Philippe ascended the throne, fierce dissensions broke out concerning their rights or claims in France. The family war was carried into Guyenne, which was ravaged without mercy by the opposing armies. Then Henry, the eldest, and Geoffrey, the second son, died, the former without issue ; while the wife of the latter, Constance, Duchess of Brittany, shortly after- ward gave birth to a boy whom she named Arthur. Philippe, who, following his father's policy, had vigilantly watched for every chance to turn these English troubles to his own profit, now sided with Henry's third son, Richard, when in 1189 that turbulent and intractable young prince took arms against his father, Richard acknowledging the French King's aid by consenting to do homage to him for his fiefs. Shattered in health and spirit, Henry was no match for the forces arrayed against him ; and, having lost the chief castles in Maine and the city of I/C Mans, he agreed to a humiliating treaty of peace in which he expressly recognized Philippe as his liege lord, and the terms of which further included an indemnity to all Richard's followers, the cession of the territory of Issoudun, and the renunciation of all claims to suzerainty over the county of Auvergne. The discovery of the name of his youngest and favourite son, John, in the list of his enemies came as a fatal shock, and, broken-hearted, Henry died suddenly at Chinon, on July 6 of that same year. The Third Crusade Two years before this Europe had been surprised and horrified by the news that Jerusalem had been captured by the Sultan of Syria and Egypt, Salah-ed din, famous in history and romance as Saladin. The effect of this intelligence was, indeed, so great that Philippe and Henry paused in their struggle and 105 HISTORY OF FRANCE met at Gisors to discuss the question of peace and the possi- biHty of joining forces in the common cause of Christendom. The two kings even embraced and assumed the Cross ; but despite their pious vows, their agreement, as we have seen, came to nothing. Meanwhile, the call for a new Crusade had gone forth, and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, after some hesitation, had undertaken to lead a German army in person, while the Dukes of Austria, Swabia, and Moravia had also promised their support. The excellent understanding which for the moment existed between Philippe and Richard, now King of England, made the way clear for their co-operation in the enterprise. Richard accordingly hurried to England, and, the coronation ceremonies over, proceeded to raise money for the holy expedi- tion by the cruel persecution and robbery of the Jews, the imposition of a special tax called the Saladin Tithe, and the sale oi all the offices, dignities, and royal lands for which he could find a purchaser. Then, hastening back to France, he met Philippe at Vezelay. There the two kings entered into a solemn undertaking, exchanging guarantees of mutual support against all who should trouble the peace of either realm during their absence, and swearing each one to defend the other's rights as if they were his own. To what extent either party to this contract was actually in earnest at the time it was made we do not know. But we do know that these royal vows were soon to be proved as valueless as dicers' oaths. Taught by the disasters which had overtaken the former two expeditions, the leaders of this Third Crusade laid their plans with the greatest care and paid infinite attention to even the minutest details. In particular, the composition of the forces was regulated with extreme severity. The vagabonds, adventurers, and scoundrels who had swollen the ranks of the earlier armies and had done them so much damage were now entirely eliminated ; only actual combatants were enrolled ; and special precautions were taken to ensure order and thorough military discipline. The German army took the lead, and on April 23, 1188, 106 PHILIPPE II more than 100,000 men, under Frederick's command, marched out of Regensburg. They followed the overland route through Constantinople, Mysia, and Phrygia, and for a time all went well with them ; for they took Iconium by storm, and crossing the Taurus made their way, though amid many difficulties, to the coast. Then their misfortunes began. In tr3dng to cross a small stream near Seleucia Frederick was drowned. This tragedy deeply affected the spirit of the soldiers, already much worn by fatigue ; famine and the repeated attacks of the enemy played havoc with them ; disease set in, and general demoralization followed in its train. Many of them at once returned to Europe, and, desertions being now added to deaths, it was but a small remnant of Frederick's vast army that the Duke of Swabia ultimately led forward into Palestine. There they were presently joined by several minor bands of Germans who had come independently, and, later, by the armies of Richard and Philippe, which had taken the sea route : the former sailing from Marseille, the latter from Genoa. A general reunion of the Christian forces took place before the walls of Akka, the siege of which b3^ the Germans had already lasted nearly two years when Philippe and Richard arrived. Bitter animosity at once declared itself between the two royal chiefs. This was not the beginning of trouble. The alliance had been rudely disturbed by various feuds on the way. Richard's turbulent spirit chafed under the restraints imposed by his relations with Philippe as vassal with lord, and the smouldering fires of discord were read}^ at any moment to burst out into flame. At Messina, where the fleets wintered, Richard repu- diated his engagement to marry Philippe's sister, and the quarrel which ensued almost led to an actual rupture. Peace was restored for the time, but the condition was still one of unstable equilibrium, and almost from the hour of their arrival at Akka their rivalries and contentions kept the Christian army in a state of perpetual agitation. TheKnglish chroniclers lay all the blame on Philippe's shoulders ; they declare that he was jealous of Richard's manifest superiority in the field, and was bitterly aggrieved because (as one writer puts it) he was 107 HISTORY OF FRANCE obscured by Richard as the moon's light is obscured by the sun's. There is doubtless a measure of truth in this view. But on the other hand the French chroniclers are unques- tionably right in their opinion that one chief source, if not the chief source, of difficulty was Richard's own character. Arro- gant, hot-headed, fierce-tempered, self-willed, hectoring and perfidious, the English King was an impossible man to get on with, and if Philippe had personal reasons to dread and distrust Richard, Richard's conduct throughout was certainly calculated to deepen his feelings of animosity into the fiercest hatred. Notwithstanding these unfortunate dissensions, however, and other bickerings among the leaders of the Christian army which do not belong to our present story, the siege was finally success- ful, and in 1191 Akka was forced to capitulate.^ Upon this the Crusaders should of course have pressed on without delay to Jerusalem, the recovery of which was the main object of their expedition. Instead, their chiefs wasted their time and strength in incessant wrangling. Then, in 1192, Philippe, assigning the charge of the French army to the Duke of Bur- gundy, returned to Paris, which he reached after an absence of eighteen months. The reason alleged by Philippe himself for this abandonment of the Crusade was ill-health, though it was very commonly supposed that he had become disgusted with the secondary rSle he had to play beside his domineering vassal.^ The real reason, however, was his anxiety to steal a march upon him. He saw the chance, while Richard was preoccupied in the Bast, to undermine his power in France. Richard was now left in undivided chief command of the Christian forces, and soon proved himself totally unfitted for the position. He was capable, indeed, of performing prodigies of personal valour which aroused the admiration even of the Saracens, and such was his reckless daring that, fighting " almost single-handed," he would bring back the heads of ^ The city was then handed over to the Knights of St John ; whence its new name of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, by which it has since been known in French history. ^ Michaud, Histoire des Croisades (1841), t. i, p. 131. 108 PHILIPPE II his foes, " sometimes ten in a day, sometimes twelve, or twenty, or thirty, as they happened to fall in his way." ^ But he was wholly wanting in the elements of generalship. His impetuosity was fatal ; he knew and cared nothing for method and strategy ; and he thought far less of the object of the holy war and the success of the Christian arms than of his own individual glory and the gratification of his passion for fighting. Misguided and mismanaged by this lion-hearted but hare-brained hero, the Crusaders wasted valuable time in absurd or useless adventures and neglected every opportunity for steady advance. Twice undertaken, the march to Jeru- salem was twice abandoned without justification. Discontent, disease, and treason spread through the host. Then, learning that his brother John was plotting against him with Philippe, Richard resolved to throw up the enterprise, and in hot haste signed a treaty with Saladin which secured to the Christians as the only substantial gain of all their efforts the privilege of free access, as unarmed pilgrims, to all holy places for a period of three years three months and three days. It is not surprising that this pitiful conclusion of a great war was received with a storm of curses by the Christians through- out Palestine, who held that the selfish King had betrayed their cause. Richard, however, recked little of their feelings. Without waiting for his army or fleet, he sailed alone for Europe on October 25, 1192 ; was shipwrecked near Venice ; and started to make the journey in disguise through the dominions of his bitter enemy, the Duke of Austria. But he was recognized, seized, and handed over to Henry VI of Germany, who, flouting all considerations of justice and decency, threw him into prison and demanded a heavy ransom for his release. He was not set at liberty till March 1194. Philippe's Struggle with England Renewed These eighteen months furnished Philippe with the oppor- tunity for which he had been waiting, and it must be admitted ^ Geoffrey de Vinsauf, liinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi, I^ib. Ill, c. xxix. 109 HISTORY OF FRANCE that in availing himself of it he acted very badly. Before leaving Saint-Jean-d'Acre he had solemnly renewed his engage- ments with Richard, but during his stay in Rome on his homeward w^ay he had tried to induce the Pope, Celestine III, to absolve him from his vows. Failing in this, he proceeded to set these vows aside on his own account. John was now busily intriguing to get possession of the English crown, and in his anxiety to obtain Philippe's help went so far as to engage to do homage to him not only for his French fiefs, but even for England itself. Philippe saw that he could use John as a tool. He therefore invaded Normandy in his behalf, seized E^vreux, and laid siege to Rouen. But the ransom of Richard deranged all his plans, and for a time fortune turned against him ; for Richard arrived in Normandy at the head of a strong army, defeated the French at Freteval (1194) and Vernon (1198), and built near I^es Andelys the mighty fortress called the Chateau Gaillard, to command the Seine and block the Norman frontier. These successes made him for the moment master of the situation. But shortly afterward, while besieging the castle of Chains in a foolish quarrel with his insubordinate vassal, the Viscount of lyimoges, he was fatally wounded by a chance shot of an archer. Richard's death was followed by an immediate change in Philippe's policy, and John, on ascending the throne, found an implacable enemy in the man who had hitherto posed as his friend. The dissensions in the Plantagenet family greatly favoured the French King's ambitions. John's nephew, Arthur, had inherited his father's estates in France, and in right of his mother he was also heir to the duchy of Brittany. John, on the other hand, claimed the duchy of Normandy as an inheritance from William the Conqueror, and various other states — among them Poitou and Guyenne — through his mother Alienor, lyouis VII's divorced wife. In this compli- cated condition of things Philippe perceived that his interest lay in the espousal of Arthur's cause. John's atrocious beha- viour, first in the abduction of Isabelle Taillefer of Angouleme, and afterward in the murder of Arthur, arousing as it did a no Q Pi < i-r O P ported her, was subjected in endless cross-examinations of learned theologians and casuists to every refinement of mental and* moral torture which their erudition and subtlety could devise. Bewildered, exhausted, almost maddened by the pro- tracted strain, Jeanne at length, in order to escape the penalty of death by fire of which she was found worthy, blindly con- sented to yield at all points to her judges' demands. She therefore made public recantation of all her pretensions to a divine mission and sought peace with the Church ; and this done, she was sentenced to be imprisoned for life and fed on bread and water. But the implacable English were not yet satisfied. They were determined that the girl should be sent to her death. That this purpose might be compassed, however, it was necessary that some capital charge should be proved against her. Such a charge was devised by a piece of diabolical trickery. The woman's raiment which she had resumed was taken from her and her male attire was left in its place ; and when, in order to defend herself from the insults of the five Englishmen who had been set to guard and spy upon her, she was compelled to adopt the discarded costume, she ^ See Petit de JuUeville's Joan of A re (English trans.), in " The Saints " series, pp. 59, 60, 87-90. 180 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR was accused of relapse. So her enemies triumphed ; the capital sentence was pronounced ; and on May 30, 143 1, she was burned to death in the market-place at Rouen. A grim detail may be added to close this pitiful story. Twenty-five years later, the iniquitous proceedings which had sent her to the stake having been ' revised ' by a commission appointed for the purpose, a judgment was delivered which absolutely annulled all the findings of the Bishop of Beauvais' tribunal, cancelled the sentence pronounced upon her, and rehabilitated her memory. A tardy reparation, surely ! No authentic portrait of Jeanne Dare exists, and such verbal descriptions as have reached us are vague and often contra- dictory. But it seems that we are safe in picturing her as a simple peasant girl, in whom the natural strength and the homely virtues of her stock were conspicuous. Of one thing at least we may be certain. Hers was an essentially womanly character. There was nothing masculine about her ; in all her tastes and sympathies she was as far as possible removed from the conventional idea of the Amazon. She had no love of adventure or the chase ; her disposition was the reverse of martial ; and so tender was her heart that in the thick of a battle she would pause to tend a fallen foe. She did what she did without a single thought of self or personal glory, because, as she believed, it was God's purpose that France should be saved through her. It is possible that her romantic story, the glamour of her personality, and her brilliant immediate successes may lead us to over-estimate the actual importance of her work. It must not be forgotten that an English rally followed her death and that the war continued for more than twenty years. At the same time it does not seem extravagant to say that, all reaction notwithstanding, what she achieved exercised a permanent influence over the fortunes of her country. In making this statement I am not, of course, thinking mainly of the relief of Orleans and the coronation of Charles. These were only incidents. I am thinking of the moral effect pro- duced by her — of the revival of patriotism which was brought 181 HISTORY OF FRANCE about by her appearance, and of the marvellous way in which she transmitted to the French people the high faith and enthusiasm with which she was herself inspired. It was in part at least the strength of the popular sentiment which she both elicited and directed that made the English dream of supremacy on French soil henceforth impossible. The End of the Hundred Years' War ' There is little of interest in the story of the closing stages of the long war. Young Henry was crowned at Paris on December i6, 143 1 ; but how little this meant as a counter- blast to the coronation of Charles at Reims is shown by the fact that the ceremony was performed by an English prelate and that not a single French .prince lent his presence. Several important cities, including Chartres, fell to the French during the -^ following year; but the English sustained a far more severe blow by the rupture of their alliance with Burgundy, and the Duke's reconciliation with the King of France (1435). The restoration of friendly relations between the two long hostile parties whose quarrels had filled the country with civil war meant the ruin of English interests. A fortnight after the ratification of the Treaty of Arras, by which this peace was formally secured, the Duke of Bedford died, his end being undoubtedly hastened by vexation at the miscarriage of his plans. Divided councils at home delayed the appoint- ment of his successor to the French Regency, and in the mean- time the French captured Paris (1436). The new Regents — first Richard, Duke of York, then the Earl of Warwick, and then the Duke of York again — found themselves compelled to act wholly on the defensive. The English themselves]J|had by this time Jgr own thoroughly weary of the spirited foreign policy initiated by Henry V for purposes of his own, and domestic troubles made them anxious for peace. But they still obstinately refused to abate their claims by acknowledging Charles as King. Thus things remained for a time at a stand- still. Then a crisis was precipitated by the pillage by an English force of the rich manufacturing town of Fougeres, in 182 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR Brittany (1449). Charles and the Duke of Brittany proceeded to reprisals, and it was soon open war again between the two countries. Rouen was taken ; Fougeres recovered ; by the end of the year nearly the whole of Normandy was in the power of the French ; in the August of the year following Cherbourg, the last BngUsh stronghold in the duchy, sur- rendered. The loss of Normandy was quickly followed by that of Guyenne and Gascony ; and when on October 19, 1453, Charles VII made a triumphant entry into Bordeaux the Hundred Years' War was practically over, though it was not till 1492 that the Treaty of Staples definitely established peace. Of all their great possessions in France of only thirty years before, Calais now alone remained in English hands. 183 '))t f^.- CHAPTER V FRANCE DURING THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR IT would be difficult to paint in colours too dark the con- dition of France during the greater portion of the period now under review. The unhappy country was shaken to its foundations by repeated shocks of disaster, and from time to time it seemed as if- no earthly power could save it from utter collapse. Foreign armies again and again swept over^ it, intent on conquest and plunder. Twice it was dis- membered by shameful treaties of peace and some of its fairest provinces were given over to alien rule. The fierce feuds of rival factions, often blazing out into open war, still further intensified the general confusion and misery. To all these evils, moreover, have to be added those arising from the disorders bred by the long war. French and English sol- diers were alike guilty of license and brutality, and it mattered little to the wretched peasantry whom they robbed and mal- treated whether their sufferings were caused by professed friends or avowed foes. With every fresh truce immense numbers of mercenaries of many nationalities, their occupation gone, were let loose upon the land to wreck and riot as they chose ; their ranks were swollen by thousands of adventurers and camp-followers of the lowest kinds ; while many nobles joined their companies, lured by the love of booty and by the attractions of a life which to their turbulent spirits seemed " bonne et belle." ^ Neither person nor property was safe ; robberies, outrages, murders were things of daily occurrence ; the very churches were turned into fortresses, and on their 1 This is the phrase which Froissart puts into the mouth of one of the most notorious captains of these grandes compagnies. 184 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR towers sentinels were posted to watch for approaching enemies or marauders. Far and wide the land was waste ; at one time, it was said, a man might travel from the sea-coast to the borders of I^orraine and find nothing but burnt homes and desolate fields ; night by night the wolves came and ravaged even the outskirts of Paris itself. Meanwhile, the Treasury being everlastingly drained dry by the demands of war and the prodigalities of improvident rulers, desperate remedies were resorted to, with results which only blind unwisdom could have failed to foresee. Thus, to cite a single case only, Philippe VI, to meet an immediate emergency, established a Government monopoly in salt — an expedient which led Edward III to call him punningly the real rot salique. This gabelle, as it was called,^ was meant at first to be only temporary, but it was declared a permanent impost by Charles V ; and here we have the beginning of that hated tax which was to be an instrument of tyranny down to the time of the Revolution. Such being the social conditions of the period, it is not surprising that the country seethed in unrest. Toward the end of the reign of Philippe VI a fearful pestilence known as the Black Death, which carried off, it is estimated, a full third of the entire population, led to an outburst of religious fanaticism strangely symptomatic of the state of the popular mind. Bands of flagellants marched through France, lashing their naked bodies with heavy scourges and crying aloud that their blood would mingle with that of Christ for the salvation of the world. At the same time the despair of the ignorant and superstitious masses found vent in wild accusations against the Jews of poisoning the wells and thus spreading the plague, and ruthless massacres in many districts were the result. Popular Risings against. the Government Ten years later, while Jean le Bon was a prisoner of war in England and Charles the Dauphin was ruling in his stead, * From the I^ow lyatin gabulum, a gift. i8s HISTORY OF FRANCE Paris became the centre of serious political trouble. The populace, already driven to desperation by ever-increasing burdens of taxation and by the misgovernment which left them defenceless victims of the general anarchy, now broke into open violence. They found an energetic and capable leader in the provost of the city ifttienne Marcel, who had previously made himself prominent in various movements for reform. He began by calling together an army representing all the various interests of the capital, and at the head of this he went straight to the Dauphin's palace, penetrated into his private apartments, and roundly demanded of him that he should fulfil his duty as the protector of the people. Angry words passed, inflamed by which Marcel's followers threw themselves upon the two principal advisers of the Dauphin and murdered them where they stood. Then, hastening to the Hotel de Ville, Marcel reported what had happened to an excited multitude which was there awaiting his return. Insur- rection now gathered to a head, and the situation was rendered more dangerous by a rising of the wretched peasantry, who more than any other class of the community groaned beneath the unchecked evils of the time. This Jacquerie,^ as it was called, spread rapidly from the Ile-de-France, where it origi- nated, north and east ; and the fast-gathering crowds, hungry, ragged, reckless, and armed with such weapons as they could lay their hands on — ^knives, scythes, sticks, stones — attacked the castles of the nobility, and slew without pity or discrimina- tion of age or, sex. The nobles, thoroughly alarmed, thereupon formed a powerful combination, and, meeting the forces of the Jacquerie at Meaux, routed them with tremendous slaughter, afterward destroying their villages with fire and sword. A little later, intriguing with Charles of Navarre to put him on the throne of France, fitienne Marcel was caught in the trap of a counterplot and slain. Another popular rising in 1382, known as the revolt of the * From ' Jacques Bonhomme/ the popular name for the French peasant. It appears first, it would seem, in the chronicles of the fourteenth- century writer Jean de Venette. 186 **^ ' -tut Wr '*^-' '1 " ■ '-^ ,.'• /ift'O' '.'S^T' .--**^^?t. "f". ^iS'-a . 20. The Pi,ace de Gr§;ve in the Fifteenth Century 186 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR Maillotins,^ showed that, though sheer force might triumph for a time over an ill-organized democracy, popular discontent continued unabated. Beginning in Paris, this too soon swept to other cities — ^to Chalons, Reims, Sens, Troyes, Orleans — while concurrently disturbances of artisans and peasants broke out in the south. Some years later — ^in 1413 — the capital was again the theatre of an outburst of mob-violence, which was in part connected with the feud of the Burgundians and the Armagnacs. A band composed of the lowest dregs of the populace, and known as the Cabochiens, from their ring- leader, one Caboche, a flayer of slaughtered animals, held the city for a time under a reign of terror. Scenes of shocking brutality were enacted daily ; the insurgents seized the Bastille, forced themselves into the King's presence, compelled him to adopt their badge — the white scarf — ^imprisoned unpopular princes and ministers of State. The disturbance was finally quelled by the joint efforts of the Armagnacs and the University of Paris, and order was restored under the Duke of Orleans. Efforts toward Reform In the social history of France during the Hundred Years* War a large place is thus filled by the widespread misery of the people and the dangerous paroxysms of passion which were the inevitable result. In the meantime such practical attempts as were made to grapple with consequences by getting down to their causes were chiefly connected with the activity of the States-General and the influence of the middle classes. The broad lines of the movement for reform may here be just indicated by reference to a few of its principal phases. Thus, for example, in 1338 an assembly decreed that the King should impose no extraordinary taxes without the consent of the three Estates ; a provision which Philippe and sifterward Jean le Bon managed by subterfuge to turn into a dead letter. In 135 1, during a season of great financial ^ From the maillets, or mallets, which had been stored up in the H6tel de Ville against a possible attack from the i^nglish, and with which the rioters armed themselves. 187 HISTORY OF FRANCE distress, the States-General lodged various complaints against the King and extracted various promises from him of imme- diate amendment in administration ; but these promises were never redeemed. Then, in 1356 and 1357 far stronger pro- tests were made against waste and misgovernment, demands were formulated for a fixed standard of currency ; and while the assembly engaged to provide the King with funds neces- sary for the defence of the realm, it insisted also that the moneys now to be raised should be entrusted to specially nominated receivers. At this time, moreover, a commission was appointed to draw up a programme of reform, and requisi- tions were made that several of the King's officers should be brought to trial, that deputies (reformateurs) should be sent out to inquire into administrative abuses in the provinces, and that a permanent Grand Council should be created, consisting of four prelates, twelve nobles, and twelve members of the Third Estate, to assist in the government of the country. The , Dauphin, who on his father's capture at Poitiers had assumed the title of I^ieutenant and the headship of affairs, took alarm at these radical proposals, and at once dissolved the gathering. But in the March of the following year — 1357 — a new assembly was convened, one of the moving forces in which was fitienne Marcel ; and now a great ordinance was prepared and presented, the sixty-one articles of which included fundamental reforms in finance, the executive, the army, justice, and general administration. This ordinance was accepted by the Dauphin, only to be revoked the next year, when he announced his intention of ruling independently and according to his own discretion. An edict which he issued at the same time for another alteration in the value of the currency was a chief cause of the rising in Paris under Marcel of which I have already spoken. The struggle of the Dauphin with Marcel to some extent epitomizes the struggle which was now in progress between the royal power and the demo- cracy; and though Marcel's downfall was due immediately to intrigue, it is well to emphasize the fact that his ideas of popu- lar government were several centuries in advance of the time. 188 HISTORY OF FRANCE Charles' policy then and later was largely shaped, under the influence of the legists, against the States-General, of whose encroaching claims he was suspicious. But the menace of feudalism was still strong enough to make the Crown anxious for the support of the country at large ; and under Charles' successors the States-General and the States-Provincial (or local, assemblies) continued active in their efforts for reform. The Influence of the Middle Classes In other ways the increasing power of the middle classes was manifest. As soon as he had freed himself from the tutelage of his uncles, whom the people hated, Charles VI gathered about him a number of sound business men of humble origin — Bureau de la Riviere, Pierre de Vilaines, Jean de Noviant, Jean de Montaigu, Jouvenel des Ursins — who adidressed themselves resolutely to the task of bringing order out of the chaos of the country. The nobles, who were of course jealous of their supremacy in the King's councils, sneeringly called them the Marmousets ; but we have already noted in passing that under these ' Monkeys ' France enjoyed for the first time for many years a short period of internal peace. Unfortunately, the collapse of the King's mind brought that period to a sudden close ; the princes recovered their power, the Marmousets were overthrown, and the land was soon torn by the strife of Burgundian and Armagnac. But Charles VII in his turn was shrewd enough to select his chief counsellors from the ranks of the prominent commoners, and it was through their instrumentality that the legal, financial, and administrative reforms which give importance to his reign were brought about. Noteworthy in particular among these men of the time was Jacques Coeur, the great merchant of Bourges, whose ambition it was to develop the foreign commerce of France and to break down the monopoly of Venice in the East. Charles made him his Treasurer, and in that capacity he did excellent service, not only administering the finances of the realm with much sagacity, but also putting his own vast wealth at the King's disposal at times of urgent 190 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR need. His riches and his power naturally aroused the envy of the great nobles of the Court. He had, it is true, a powerful friend in the King's wise and beautiful mistress, Agn^s Sorel, and so long as she lived his position was secure. But her sudden death in 1450 removed his main defence against the machinations of his enemies, the dastardly King abandoning him to his fate as he had already abandoned Jeanne Dare. By plots and concocted charges his ruin was accomplished ; his property was confiscated and he was thrown into prison. Through the Pope's intervention, however, his life was spared, and he was ultimately permitted to find an asylum beyond the borders of the country he had served only too well. Nor was this the only way in which the selfish nobility showed their disapproval of the new influences in the politics of the time, which, as they perceived, were bound to work to their dis- advantage. Their futile revolt, the so-called ' Praguerie,' ^ had already (1440) given proof of the tenacity with which they still clung to the traditions of their power. The Decline of the Feudal Nobility The steady waning of that power was none the less one of the principal features of the period of the Hundred Years' War. That war itself directly hastened the decay of the feudal aristocracy. Their immense losses at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, where the very flower of their chivalry was destroyed, greatly affected both their numerical strength and their prestige. The old military basis of their supremacy was also undermined by the new methods of fighting which now began to determine the issue of the field. The splendid victories of Kdward III, the Black Prince, and Henry V were essentially victories of English bowmen over French knight- hood ; the common foot-soldier, first with his bow, afterward with his gun, showed himself more than a match for the mail- clad noble with his lance and battle-axe. Indirectly, too, the spread of the spirit of nationality, which the Maid of * The excitement caused by the case of Huss at Prague explains why any kind of revolt was, for the moment, called a ' Praguerie.* 191 HISTORY OF FRANCE Orleans had helped to awaken and to which she had appealed, was fatal to the continuance of the separatist claims of the great territorial princes, who more and more came to be recognized as refractory forces in the gradual welding together of the realm. The transformation of the army from a hetero- geneous mass made up of bodies of fighting men, each under its own leader, into a compact, homogeneous whole depending immediately upon the king is also a fact of capital importance in the history of the decay of feudalism. This transformation was accomplished by a long series of changes and reforms, and it would take too much space to follow it here in detail ; but, speaking in very general terms, it may be said that the experiment of Charles V in 1374 in the creation of a standing army was completed by Charles VII in 1445 when he established his fifteen companies of ordnance. In other ways the power of the feudal nobles was gradually broken and their former prerogatives gathered up by the royal authority. The right of coining money was taken from them by Philippe VI and Jean le Bon ; the right of raising troops and waging private war by Charles VII ; the right of independent taxation and the administration of justice by the same King. Even their castles were attacked by a decree of Charles V, who ordered the demolition of such as were not necessary for the defence of the realm. The extension to the middle classes of various privileges — such as that of wearing gold spurs — of which they had hitherto enjoyed the monopoly, and the granting by Charles V of patents of nobility to men of importance in civic affairs, may also be mentioned among the many signs of the passing of the old feudal order of French society. From the point of view of royalty itself the period of the Hundred Years' War was one of loss followed by recovery. Under the first Valois the Crown shared in the general decadence of the country, and its very existence was imperilled during the protracted insanity of Charles VI. But in the later years of Charles VII the long-interrupted progress was resumed. The royal domain also increased rapidly through confiscations, 192 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR purchases, escheats, and inheritances, and at length, of course, by the wresting from the KngHsh of the large territories which they had formerly possessed on French soil. One acquisition is specially interesting^ — that of Dauphine, in the region of the lyOwer Rhone, which was bought by Phihppe VI for 120,000 florins. Dauphine was so named from the dolphin which figured on its crest, whence also the lord was himself called the Dauphin ; and it was one of the conditions of the transfer to the Crown that the eldest son of the reigning king should henceforth be known by this title. The royal authority, while thus steadily gaining over the power of the old nobility, also asserted itself against that of the Papacy. By the Pragmatic Sanction of 1438 Charles VII strongly maintained the inde- pendent rights of the Gallican Church against the universal ecclesiastical sovereignty claimed by Rome. Here we perceive the working of the spirit of nationalism under another form. In general, then, it may be said that the period of the Hundred Years' War, despite the anarchy by which it was largely charac- terized, was one of importance in the evolution of the French monarchy and of the French people. New conditions were now emerging, the full significance of which will become increasingly apparent in the sequel. N 193 CHAPTER VI LOUIS XI I461-I483 THE last years of Charles VII's reign were embittered by the unfilial conduct of his eldest son. Alread}^ as a youth of seventeen I^ouis had taken part in the Praguerie, and though, when this was .crushed, he craved and received his father's pardon, his turbulent spirit made lasting harmony impossible. For a time, indeed, a safety-valve for his feverish energy was provided by expeditions against the Armagnacs and the Swiss, in which he acquitted himself with great vigour and courage. But fresh troubles soon arose. On the death of his first wife, the gentle Margaret of Scotland — '' Une prin- cesse," says Monstrelet, " parfaicte aux beautes de I'ame et du corps '* — he angered his father by marrying, without even asking his consent, the daughter of the Duke of Savoy. He also intrigued against the King's ministers, flouted the royal authority whenever it conflicted with his own will, and added to his offences by his discourteous behaviour toward the royal favourite, Agnes Sorel. His relations with his father being thus strained to breaking-point, lyOtds retired to Dauphine, with the government of which he had been entrusted, and there assumed all the rights of an independent sovereign : coining money, levying taxes, receiving embassies, concluding treaties, and on his own initiative founding a university at Valence and a Parliament at Grenoble. The party of his enemies, with the Count of Dammartin, the King's favourite adviser, at their head, was strong at Court, and Charles was urged to punish his son's insubordination. On pretext that the Dauphinois had appealed to him against excessive taxa- tion, he accordingly sent a peremptory message requiring lyouis 194 LOUIS XI to appear in person before him. Well aware of the danger of his position, and warned by the recent downfall of Jacques Coeur, who had been his very good friend, I^ouis not unnatu- rally refused. Upon this Charles despatched a large army to Dauphine under Dammartin's command, and lyouis was driven to flight (1456). Writing to his father that he proposed to join a crusade against the Turks, he actually sought refuge with Philip, Duke of Burgundy (called Philip the Good), who received him with the most marked demonstrations of friend- ship, gave him the castle of Genappe, near Brussels, for his residence, and bestowed upon him for his maintenance a pension of 30,000 crowns. " Our brother Philip has taken home a fox who will eat his chickens," was the King's caustic commentary upon these events. Safe at Genappe, I^ouis busied himself with intrigues which kept the Court in a state of perpetual apprehension and unrest. Dreading treachery, even among those who stood nearest to him, and suspecting poison in every dish, the miserable King, in whom a trace of his father's madness seems by this time to have appeared, refused all food. When at length his obstinacy was overcome starvation had completed the ruin of a constitution already enfeebled by sensual excess, and in July 1461 he died of an abscess in the throat. Such was the wretched end of a monarch who figures in history as Charles the Victorious. During his reign of thirty-nine years France, as we have seen, recovered in some measure from the disastrous consequences of the Hundred Years' War. But little of the credit of such recovery can be given to the indolent and pleasure- loving King. Anxious to pose as the friend and protector of the new sovereign, Philip the Good accompanied lyouis to Reims with an immense and splendidly equipped retinue of knights, pages, and men-at-arms, and it was from his hands at the ceremony of coronation that lyouis actually received the crown. King and Duke also entered Paris together in a stately proces- sion, in which, it was remarked, the Duke made by far the more imposing display. During the month's festivities which 19s HISTORY OF FRANCE followed, his magnificence and lavish hospitality created wonder and enthusiasm among the populace of the city. Always indifferent to dress and ceremonial, lyOuis meanwhile showed no resentment at being thus effaced. He was for the moment willing enough to conciliate his powerful vassal, whose various requests he granted without demur. But when Philip and his followers returned home they soon realized that they had been cajoled by promises which were little more than empty words. Having secured his place on the throne, and being determined to be King in reality as well as in name, I^ouis now entered upon a course of policy which was shortly to bring him into conflict not only with the Duke of Burgundy, but also with the other great nobles who looked upon the Duke as in some sort their head. - Lcyuis XI AND THE Feudal Nobility The difficulties which I^ouis had to face at the opening of his seign were enormous. So far as external relations were concerned, indeed, the times were favourable, for France had little to fear from foreign Powers, since Italy had long been impotent, Spain was a house divided against itself, Germany was in a state bordering upon anarchy, and — most important of all — England was distracted by civil war. But conditions at home called for a clear head and a strong hand. The chief danger lay in the still formidable feudal aristocracy, the leaders of which were ambitious of regaining their former ascendancy in the land. Remembering I^ouis* antagonism to his father and his long association with Philip the Good, they saw in him at first a possible ally. But they were soon undeceived. The King, it is true, behaved with marked consideration to some of the most prominent among them — ^to the Count of Foix, for example, the most powerful noble in the south, and to the families of Burgundy and Brittany. But none the less he asserted his royal authority in many unexpected ways ; and when he called upon the nobles at large to pay their feudal dues and bear their part in the general taxation, and even, for the protection of agriculture, deprived them 196 LOUIS XI of the privilege of hunting, except by royal licence, they resented his encroachment upon what they regarded as their immemorial rights ; and before long their irritation broke out into open revolt. The League of Public Welfare Unfortunately, lyouis at the same time weakened his position by hasty and ill-advised measures which spread discontent among all classes throughout the country. Some decrease in taxation had been confidently expected from him. His pressing need of money compelled him, on the contrary, to raise the taille perpetuelle from 1,200,000 to 3,000,000 livres. Insurrections followed in Rouen, Alen9on, Aurillac, and Reims, the leaders of which were punished by hanging or mutilation. Believing that it gave too much power to the clergy, and indirectly to the aristocracy, he revoked the Pragmatic Sanction in defiance of the remonstrances of the Parliament of Paris. He also demanded of the clergy a full statement of all their possessions and of the titles by which they were held. He forbade the University of Paris to interfere in the affairs of the kingdom and the city. He curtailed the jurisdiction of the Parliaments of Paris and Toulouse by establishing another Parliament at Bordeaux. By such despotic acts he contrived within four years to put almost the whole of France — ^the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, the clergy, the men of learning, and the principal lawyers — against him. This universal dis- satisfaction gave the nobles their opportunity. A coalition of malcontents was formed which called itself the Ligue du Bien Public, and proclaimed that its object was to compel the King to redress the grievances of the country. As lyOuis veiy properly pointed out in letters which he caused to be published throughout the land, the members of the I^eague had never shown much concern for the public welfare. The title and ostensible purpose were of course only a thin disguise. Yet it was a sign of political progress that this self-seeking feudal organization felt it necessary to justify its existence by a show of patriotism. 197 HISTORY OF FRANCE The actual trouble began with Burgundy. In a personal interview Louis induced Philip, whose powers were now failing and who was as usual in want of money, to restore to him on payment ,of 400,000 crowns a number of towns along the Somme which Charles VII had ceded to Burgundy under the Treaty of Arras. Philip's headstrong son, Charles, Count of Charolais, was furious when he learned of this arrangement, and at once began to stir up the discontented nobles. He found a ready ally in Frangois II, Duke of Brittany, who, like the Duke of Burgundy, was practically an independent sovereign, and who, with other grievances against the King, was specially annoyed because lyouis had forced him to permit appeals from his own Parliament to that of Paris. Other nobles hastened to join the alliance, which soon numbered muore than five hundred princes and barons. Chief among these, besides the Count of Charolais and the Duke of Brittany, were the Duke of Bourbon and the King's vain and foolish young brother, Charles, Duke of Berry. At the outset I^ouis tried to throw oil on the troubled waters. He convoked at Rouen an assembly of the deputies of the northern cities, and explained to them at length the grounds and objects of his policy. He afterward called a conference of the nobility at Tours, and in an eloquent speech set forth what he had done to improve the condition of the country and insisted upon the need of union between the aristocracy and the Crown. Those who heard him were loud in their protestations of loyalty. But scarcely had the gathering dissolved before the lycague was under arms. , The King's position was now critical, for the total strength of the confederates was great, and treason was soon busy among those of his following in whom he had believed that implicit confidence might be placed. Realizing, however, that scattered forces and divided counsels would be likely to impede his enemies* effective action, he hastened to take the initiative in the hostilities, his plan being to destroy the I^eague in the south before the northern leaders were ready to take the field. His promptness and vigour gave him at first a substantial 198 LOUIS XI advantage. But meanwhile the Count of Charolais made a rapid and triumphant march upon Paris, before the walls of of which he was presently joined by the combined armies of the Dukes of Brittany and Berry. Failing in his attempt to reach the capital before the allies, I^ouis found his way blocked, and against his wishes was thus driven to risk a general engage- ment. On July i6, 1465, a battle was fought at Montlhery, on the plain of I^ongjumeau, which ended at nightfall with no decisive result. But lyouis gained this much, that, the road being cleared, he was two days later able to enter Paris. On August 10 he left for Normandy to collect reinforcements, returning on the 28th with 12,000 men, artillery, munitions, and an ample supply of flour. Notwithstanding this accession of strength, however, his case became more and more precarious. News came that first Pontoise, then Rouen, then ifivreux and Caen, had opened their gates to the enemy. In Paris itself the I^eague had many adherents ; signs of disloyalty became increasingly manifest ; the King no longer knew whom he could trust. His only hope lay in the condition of the allies, among whom the inevitable dissensions had already appeared, and who were, moreover, beginning to suffer from lack of provisions. Perceiving the growing weakness of his enemies, lyouis accordingly opened up negotiations with the Count of Charolais. Two months were spent in pourparlers and skir- mishes. But in the end the King had to yield. A truce was proclaimed at Conflans on October 2 ; a definite treaty was signed on the 29th at Saint-Maur-les-Fosses. By this treaty — " the most humiliating that ever King of France entered into with his subjects " ^ — all the original demands of the princes, formerly rejected as exorbitant, were granted, the insurgent chiefs being, as it would seem, richly rewarded for their dis- loyalty. To name the most important of the provisions only, the Count of Charolais recovered the towns on the Somme which had been ceded by his father ; the Duke of Brittany received the counties of Btampes and Montfort, and was granted the sovereign rights which he had claimed, including 1 I/avallee, Histoire des Frangais, t. ii, p. 193. 199 HISTORY OF FRANCE exemption from appeal to the Parliament of Paris ; the Duke of Berry was made Duke of Normandy, with a sovereign court at Rouen ; the Duke of Orleans was appointed to the govern- ment of Guyenne, and obtained a share in the royal taxes levied in his domains ; the Duke of Nemours became Governor of Paris and the Ile-de-France. Thus, as Comines puts it, " les princes butin^rent le monarque et le mirent au pillage." Other leaders obtained concessions of territory, of privileges, of money, while the late King's ministers, whom lyouis had dismissed, including his old enemy, the Count of Dammartin, who had been active in the insurgent cause, were either reinstated or placated with gifts and pensions. To make good the idea of ' public welfare,' for which the I^eague had osten- sibly been organized, a clause was also inserted in the treaty that a commission of thirty-six notables — ^twelve knights, twelve prelates, and twelve judges of the Supreme Court — should be instituted to inquire into and remedy the abuses of which popular complaint had been made. How little the lycague troubled about this part of the treaty was, however, shown by the fact that the appointment of the members of the commission was left to the King himself. The first struggle of I^ouis with the feudal nobility thus ended in a very complete victory for the nobility, and for the moment the progress of the monarchy suffered a serious check. But lyouis was not the man to regard engagements as binding beyond the point at which they could be practically enforced. After signing the Treaty of Saint-Maur he made a great show of friendship toward those who had wrung it from him, even offering the Count of Charolais the hand of his daughter Anne, then three years old. But he did not in the least intend that his defeat should be final, and if he appeared to accept it in good part he was only waiting his time. Conditions, as he was quick to perceive, were after all in his favour. At once greedy and stupid, his enemies had no settled policy to oppose to his own. As Henri Martin has pointed out, while the barons of England, after their victory over the Crown, had become a definite aristocracy and a coherent political organization, 200 i-r o W w W W a ^r>^ LOUIS XI the French princes cared only for their independent power, and save in their opposition to the throne had few interests in common.^ This want of union was a radical weakness, and it was the more dangerous to them because their determination to remain petty sovereigns was in obvious antagonism to that growing sense of nationality which, as we have seen, had been greatly fostered by the Hundred Years' War. Louis' Struggle with Charles the Bold The Ivcague dissolved, it was lyouis' policy to prevent its re-formation. He therefore sought to secure the allegiance of some of its most formidable members by secret gifts and favours. At the same time he did all in his power to win over the middle classes of the towns, and especially those of Paris. His first great object, however, was the recovery of Normandy, a province of the utmost importance to the Crown both because it was a connecting link between the domains of Burgundy and Brittany, and because it might at any moment lay France open to the English. Opportunity soon offered. While the Count of Charolais' hands were tied by insurrections in I/iege, Dinant, and Ghent, he purchased the Duke of Brittany's neu- trality for a sum of 120,000 crowns, and entered Normandy, which in a few weeks submitted entirely to his authority. This violation of the Treaty of Saint-Maur caused some commotion among the nobles, and the Count of Charolais, now Duke of Burgundy, and known as Charles le Terrible or le Temeraire (' the Bold '), formed a new coalition against the King (1468), finding a willing supporter in the Duke of Brittany, who had taken alarm at lyouis' success in Normandy, and an ally in Edward IV of England. Upon this Louis convened the States- General at Tours (taking care that the deputies chosen should be all on his side), and asked their counsel on three questions, namely, Did the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany owe alle- giance to the Crown like other vassals, or were they permitted to make alliances on their own account with foreigners ? Could Normandy be alienated from the Crown ? and Had the * Histoire de France, t. vi, p. 571. 201 HISTORY OF FRANCE King provided sufficiently for his brother Charles by granting him a pension of 60,000 livres a year ? The States-General decided all these questions in the King's favour. This made Charles the Bold very angry ; but it suited his purpose to remain quiet until his marriage with the sister of the English King. Meanwhile I^ouis compelled the Duke of Brittany to sign a treaty in which he engaged to relinquish all alliances save that with the King of France. Then in October lyouis met Charles the Bold in a personal interview at Peronne. The meeting was most friendly, and negotiations began under favourable auspices. Unfortunately, however, news just then came of a fresh revolt in lyiege. Charles fell into a violent passion, openly accused the King of treacher^^ and, on pretext that he wished to prevent the escape of a thief who had stolen a ^casket of jewels, ordered the gates of the city and castle to be shut. lyouis thus found himself a prisoner in the power of his most deadly enemy. Every reader is familiar with the vivid description of this dramatic situation in the pages of Quentin Durward, and will remember that even Scott, whose antipathy to the King is sufficiently pronounced, admits that he did not lose his courage or presence of mind. For two days his fate trembled in the balance. Then Charles was persuaded by his council that he would lose rather than gain by the King's death. He therefore turned his advantage to account by extracting a treaty by which that of Saint-Maur was ratified in all that concerned the house of Burgundy, while the King's brother was to receive as his appanage the province of Cham- pagne, which, lying between Burgundy and Flanders, would serve to connect the two most important portions of Charles' dominions. lyouis also engaged to accompany Charles to lyiege, and was actually present at the capture and sack of a city which had been his faithful ally. Ivouis thus suffered a second rebuff at the hands of his powerful and ambitious vassal. But he was soon able to retrieve one of his mistakes. At their parting he had entrapped the Duke into an admission of his willingness that, if Charles of Berry would not accept Champagne, the matter might be 202 LOUIS XI settled in any other way that would be satisfactory to the young Prince. I^ouis thus regarded himself as relieved from the solemn oath which he had sworn to fulfil the treaty, and contrived to obtain his brother's consent to take Guyenne in place of Champagne. This, and the reconciliation of the brothers, which followed, were a severe blow to Charles the Bold. By supporting the Earl of Warwick in his intrigues against Edward IV, lyouis also sought to nullify Charles' English alliance. The submission of the Duke of Nemours, and the overthrow and flight of the Count of Armagnac, still further increased the isolation of Burgundy. A third coalition against I^ouis was formed in 147 1. A son had been born to him the year before, and Charles of Berry, now Duke of Guyenne, no longer heir to the throne, again went over to his brother's enemies. The ever restless Duke of Burgundy was only too glad to make capital out of his dis- content, and to cement their union offered him his only daughter in marriage. This would have meant the ultimate consolida- tion of Burgundy and Guyenne into a single dominion exceeding in extent, population, and wealth that of the King himself, and lyouis was naturally alarmed. Charles the Bold also sought the support of Edward IV, now firmly seated on the English throne, and of the King of Aragon. The discordant interests and cross-intrigues of the confederates, however, made joint action very difficult, and Charles in his embarrass- ment was wilHng to listen to overtures from lyouis for an alliance against the Dukes of Brittany and Guyenne, though he secretly assured both of them that as soon as his immediate objects were compassed he would repudiate his engagements with the King. But the death of the Duke of Guyenne still further dislocated his plans. The young Prince had been ill for some months, but his end was sudden, and there were rumours that he had been poisoned by his almoner. Furious at the miscarriage of his hopes, Charles thereupon issued a manifesto in which he accused the King of instigating the alleged crime, and, without waiting for the expiration of the truce between them,^marched through Picardy, ruthlessly 203 HISTORY OF FRANCE burning and ravaging as he went. The little town of Nesle was the first to fall into his hands ; he ordered a general slaughter ; even the women and children who had taken refuge in the church were put to the sword ; and when he rode in, the blood flowing about his horse's fetlocks, he crossed himself and exclaimed : " This is a fine sight ! I have good butchers with me ! " Roye and Montdidier, yielded to him without resistance ; but Beauvais, though poorly fortified and ill-manned, unexpectedly blocked his way. Fired by the example of the captain of the garrison, lyouis de Balagny, the inhabitants armed in haste, and held the enemy at bay till relief came up, and much to his chagrin Charles was forced to raise the siege. In this heroic episode the women of the city played a prominent part ; one Jeanne I^aisne, called ' Hachette ' from the weapon which she carried, specially distinguishing herself by her courage and activity. lyouis showed his admira- tion and gratitude by instituting an annual procession in which the women were to have precedence of the men, and by marrying Jeanne to one of his officers ; in addition he exempted Beauvais from taxation. Charles the Bold continued his bloody march into Normandy, but, failing to join forces with the Duke of Brittany, then hard pressed by the King, was compelled to turn back. His turbulence, obstinacy, and cruelty were now beginning to disgust some of his most valuable adherents, several of whom, perceiving that his recklessness could end only in final disaster, forsook him and transferred their allegiance to the King. Among these was the famous chronicler Philippe de Comines, who had been his chamberlain, and was henceforth one of lyouis' most trusted advisers. I^ouis now concluded an advantageous peace with Brittany, and a truce was arranged with Charles the Bold. Charles' policy at this point underwent a significant change. Thus far he had been the leader of the malcontent French nobles in their struggle against the supremacy of the Crown. Notwithstanding temporary successes, it was now becoming increasingly evident that the Crown was too strong for them. He therefore directed his energies into another channel. He 204 LOUIS XI resolved by acquisition and consolidation to create a separate kingdom, and to rule over this as an independent king. Had his design prospered, it may be noted in passing, it would have meant the practical restoration of the old ' Middle Kingdom ' of lyotharingia between France and Germany. Parts of his vast but scattered dominions, it will be remembered, he held nominally as fiefs of the King of France, and other parts as fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire. He now turned to the Emperor Frederick III, proposing that he should receive the kingly crown at the Emperor's hands in exchange for a marriage between his daughter and the Emperor's son, Maximilian. Duke and Emperor met to discuss the matter at Treves (1473), but the Emperor was unwilling to accede, and the conference, which lasted for five weeks, ended without result, though the Duke had been so certain of success that he had made elaborate preparations for his coronation. Thwarted in his purpose, and angry at being exposed to the ridicule of Europe, Charles was further irritated by news that a league, composed of the Archduke Sigismund, the Rhenish towns, the Swiss, and the King of France, was being formed against him (1474-75). Once more he sought the aid of England, and, prompted by him, in the summer of 1475, Edward IV, with a magnificent army, descended upon France. But I^ouis, though, as usual, unwilHng to fight, met the crisis with the diplomatic cleverness of which he was so great a master. He had little difficulty in convincing Edward that Charles was using him for his own private ends and was powerless to render him any effective help in the prosecution of the English claims ; after which he bought off the invader with an indemnity of 75,000 crowns, and the promise of an annual payment (which the French called pension and the English tribute) of 50,000 livres. This method of securing peace was both unheroic and costly. But Ivouis cared nothing either for the humihation or for the cost. He was satisfied with his success on one essential point. The EngUsh had come with formal demands, first for the whole of France as their rightful possession, and then for the restitu- tion of Normandy and Guyenne, and they had left the country 205 HISTORY OF FRANCE without receiving an inch of French territory. Charles, who had tried in vain to interrupt the negotiations, then consented to make peace with I^ouis in order to be free to pursue his objects elsewhere. He overran Lorraine (1475) and invaded Switzerland (1476), crossing the Jura unopposed with an army of 20,000 well-equipped troops. His capture of Granson was accompanied by a signal act of perfidy : , he induced the garrison to surrender by promising them their lives, and then hanged them to a man. But his baseness was quickly punished. Two days later — on March 2 — ^the united forces of the Swiss reached the town ; Charles* army was saved from destruction only by flight, and all the wonderful treasures of plate and jewellery with which he travelled were carried away by the foe. An even more disastrous defeat awaited him a little lat^r at Morat, where it is estimated that he lost at least two- thirds of his men. This catastrophe paralysed his energies, and he retired to his castle near Pontarlier, where he spent two mon£hs savagely brooding over his own desperate case. Then news came that the young Duke of I^orraine, whose territory he had annexed, had laid siege to Nancy. This aroused him from his lethargy. Gathering together the wrecks of his army, he hurriedly marched to the relief of the city. He arrived to find that three days before it had capitulated to the enemy. The odds were now fatally against him, but, notwithstanding the entreaties of his few faithful advisers and the defection of his Italian mercenaries, he persisted in acting on the offensive. On Sunday, January 5, 1477, a battle was fought near Nancy which in a few hours ended in his utter rout. His own fate was for the moment a mystery. He had last been seen in the thick of the conflict fighting with reckless courage and inspiring his followers with word and example. At first it seemed possible that he was among the handful who had escaped slaughter or capture. But two days later his naked body, mangled almost beyond recognition, was discovered in the mud on the bank of a frozen brook. By the Duke of lyorraine's orders an honourable burial was given to his remains. 206 LOUIS XI So closed the stormy career of a man who may justly be described as the last great representative and defender of the old feudalism. Charles the Bold ^ was not without his good qualities. He was energetic and courageous ; he was sober and chaste ; he could upon occasion be both just and generous ; he had some taste for serious things. But he was passionate, violent, headstrong, brutal, and altogether untrustworthy. Even in the boasted ethics of chivalry he fell short, for he was treacherous, vindictive, and implacable. Relying wholly on brute force, he failed as a soldier because, despite his great personal prowess, he lacked the intellectual and moral qualities necessary for success in the art of war ; and his ultimate ruin was in large measure due to his reckless disregard for the elementary principles of generalship. Even more conspicuous was his incapacity as a statesman. His diplomacy was futile ; his policy, at once aggressive and vacillating, alienated even those whose interests he might have made his own ; and he showed no concern for his subjects and no genius for construc- tive rule. His fiery imagination was filled with grandiose dreams of wealth and power, but his vision went no farther than conquest and territorial aggrandizement, and he did nothing toward the creation of a coherent kingdom out of the patchwork of miscellaneous states over which he actually held sway. His downfall was thus symbolical of the final collapse not only of feudalism, but also of that entire conception of government of which feudalism had been the foundation and stay. I^ouis had apparently been a mere spectator of Charles' ruin. In reality he had done much to bring it about, for it was largely through his secret machinations that Charles had been entangled in his disputes with the Flemish towns and in the fatal quarrel with the Swiss. He did not attempt to hide his delight when he heard of the Duke's death, which not only freed him from his most persistent and dangerous enemy, but ^ I follow accepted English usage in calling him Charles the Bold ; but the more correct translation of the French Temiraire, and a far more fitting sur- name, would of course be ' Rash.' 207 HISTORY OF FRANCE also cleared the way for a further development of his territorial schemes. For the male line of Burgundy was now extinct, and Charles' only daughter, Marie, a girl of twenty, found herself, as ,a result of her father's violent and foolhardy policy, without an army, without resources, and practically without support. Kven during Charles' lifetime his heterogeneous domains had scarcely held together. Now the inevitable tendency toward disintegration was obvious. l/ouis at once proceeded to turn the situation to his own account. He announced his title to the fiefs which Charles had held of the Crown of France : to the duchy and county of Burgundy on the ground that they were male fiefs over which he was now called upon to exercise the right of feudal guardian- ship ; to Picardy under the Treaty of Arras ; to Artois as forfeit to him by reason of Charles* ' felony.' On various pretexts he even laid claim to Franche-Comte and Hainaut, though these were fiefs of the Empire. The duchy of Burgundy was induced without much difficulty to accept what was nominally the royal protection ; Franche-Comte yielded after a brief but lively resistance ; Picardy, always French in senti- ment, soon submitted ; but Artois held out obstinately against the royal arms. Arras in particular gave the King a great deal of trouble, and his consequent resentment was so strong that when at length it fell into his hands (June 1479) he ordered that its fortifications should be destroyed, its very name changed, and its inhabitants driven out in the mass, their places being taken by artisans and tradesmen chosen by lot from various other towns.^ After this his career of conquest in the county was checked only by Saint-Omer, which re- mained impregnable. But his cruelty and treachery had badly damaged his cause, and though Artois was reduced to subjec- tion its hostility was unbroken. The war of devastation which a little later he waged in Hainaut had much the same result. * Louis naturally failed in this attempt to transform the population of the city. Before he died he permitted its former inhabitants to return to their old homes. But the industries which had made Arras prosperous were seriously injured. 208 LOUIS XI Meanwhile lyOuis was looking with jealous eyes upon Flanders and was busy with intrigues by which he hoped to get posses- sion of that rich and thriving territory. The Flemings were not, however, easily entrapped. Then through his agents he endeavouredr to incite the feelings of the principal Flemish towns against Marie, his design being of course to profit by her embarrassment. In this emergency Marie was guilty of some double-dealing in her relations on the one hand with her counsellors and on the other with the King, and at the right moment I^ouis produced a secret letter from her in which her duplicity was revealed. By this singularly base action he aimed to increase the animosity of her Flemish subjects to such an extent that she would be forced to purchase his protection by the acceptance of any conditions he might see fit to impose. But here the wily King in fact over- reached himself. Marie's anger was aroused by the troubles and humiliation which he brought upon her, and the Flemings, who would on no account have him for master, were ready to pardon her indiscretion when in 1477 she gave her hand to young MaximiHan of Austria, the son of the German Kmperor. This union laid the foundations of the greatness of the house of Austria, and created for France a dangerous rivalry which was to last for more than two hundred years. I^ouis had had other plans for Marie's future, and this marriage sadly disturbed his calculations. War with Bur- gundy followed, and on August 7, 1479, ^ bloody battle was fought at Guinegatte (now Knguinegatte, in the Pas-de-Calais) without decisive issue. Three years later Marie died from injuries received in an accident while hawking, leaving two children, a son, PhiHppe, and a daughter, Marguerite. Maxi- milian soon embroiled himself with his subjects, and was glad to make peace with the King. On the 23rd of December of that same year a treaty was signed at Arras by which Marguerite was affianced to the Dauphin, to whom she was to bring in dowry Franche-Comte and the county of Artois. Nothing was said about Picardy or the duchy of Burgundy, which were thus tacitly allowed to remain in I^ouis' hands. o 209 HISTORY OF FRANCE Consolidation of the Monarchy under Louis XI A good half of Charles the Bold's dominions were thus definitely merged in the kingdom of France. This, however, represents only a part of the substantial successes which I^ouis achieved on behalf of the monarchy. " While Charles was too much preoccupied with his own wild schemes to interfere, lyouis contrived, now by one method and now by another, to ruin the great houses of Alen9on (1473-74), Armagnac (1475), Saint-Pol (1475), and Nemours (1477) • Twice condemned to death for ' felony * and twice pardoned, John, the old Duke of Alen9on, was sent to prison for the rest of his life, and his domains of Alengon and Perche were confiscated by the Crown. John V, Count of Armagnac, a man of scandalous life and a persistent rebel against the throne, was slain. His cousin Jacques, Duke of Nemours, and lyouis de lyuxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol, were both executed for high treason. I^ouis thus disembarrassed himself of some of the chief disturbers of the peace and security of his realm. In other cases he sought not to destroy but to conciliate the great nobles whose power was still a menace to his own; as when he gave his daughters in marriage, the elder, Anne, to the Count of Beaujeu, the heir to the duchy of Bourbon (1473), the younger, Jeanne, to lyOuis, Duke of Orleans, the future Louis XII (1466). The death of his brother enabled him to reabsorb Guyenne and Berry. Anjou reverted to the Crown as a male fief. Maine and Provence came to him under testamentary bequest from Charles of Maine. As a result of Louis' intervention in the affairs of Spain, Roussillon and Cerdana were also added to France, but these were not permanent acquisitions, for they were restored by Charles VIII a few years later to Ferdinand and Isabella. Altogether the reign of Louis XI was signalized by an enormous increase in the royal territory and by a corre- sponding increase in royal power and prestige. France as he left it was almost the France that we know to-day, for at his death only one great feudal house — ^that of Brittany — still claimed complete independence. Nor was the gain territorial 210 LOUIS XI only. Out of a congeries of petty states l/ouis made an organic kingdom. l/ouis did not long survive the triumph of Arras. He had been struck by paralysis in 1480 and again in 1481, and at the time of the signing of the treaty he was seriously ill. His intellectual vigour remained, indeed, unabated, but sickness made him increasingly suspicious of all who came near him, even of his nearest relatives, and his cruelty and vindictiveness grew to such a pitch that he punished even the most trifling offences with the most barbaric severity. He had now shut himself up in the gloomy castle of Plessis-les-Tours, which was in fact more like a prison than a castle, for its windows were protected with iron bars (*' bons, grands, et epais," says Comines), the walls bristled with iron spikes, and day and night archers kept watch on the battlements and in the ditches. Here he lingered on, tortured incessantly by fear of death. Grossly superstitious and credulous, notwithstanding his astuteness and cynicism, he surrounded himself with relics and images borrowed from innumerable shrines ; with the Pope's special permission he ordered the sacred ampulla to be brought from Reims with the design of having his entire body anointed with its miraculous oil ; he made large donations to monasteries and churches to secure their prayers, and votive offerings to obtain the intercession of the saints ; he paid enormous sums to astrologers and charlatans for their prognos- tications and nostrums ; he sent all the way to Calabria for the famous hermit Francis of Paola, and implored him on his knees to use his favour with God for the prolongation of his days. His physician, the coarse and avaricious Jacques Coictier, became his tyrant, and during the last five months of his life extorted from him upward of 50,000 crowns, besides various privileges for himself and his family. His only other attendants were a few men of the lower bourgeoisie whom he felt he could trust because, wholly dependent as they were upon him, their interest lay in keeping him alive. '* I^es hauts seigneurs, dit-il, n'auront qu'a gagner a ma mort ; mais les pauvres sires seront desappointes de tout, peut-etre meme 211 HISTORY OF FRANCE pendus." ^ As the sands thus slowly ran out he found amid all his fears and agitations a certain satisfaction in the thought of what he had accomplished for France : " Nous n'avons rien perdu de la couronne, mais icelle augmentee et accrue." His conscience never seems to have been troubled about the tortuous and often perfidious methods, the false dealing, the cold-blooded cruelty, by which his objects had been attained. On August 24, 1483, he suffered a third stroke of paralysis, and though he slowly recovered his faculties he knew that the end was at hand. ''II en est faict de vous," his physician curtly told him. Upon this his attitude toward death under- went a curious change. He lost all fear of it. " J'espere que Dieu m' aider a," he said simply. His mind was still wonderfully clear, and he. passed his few remaining days in religious exercises and in the discussion of pubHc affairs with his son-in-law, the Count of Beaujeu, for whom he had sent. He died on August 30, his last words being, '' I^ord, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded." He was five months past his sixtieth birthday, and had reigned for twenty-three years. The Character and Policy of Louis XI It has been said of lyouis XI that he was one of the most unkingly men who ever sat on a throne. Unostentatious in public, parsimonious in private life, he made no attempt to support the dignity of his station. For the reality of power he had the keenest sense ; for its outward forms and sym- bols he cared nothing. His appearance was insignificant, his manners plain, his dress mean and even slovenly. Partly by policy but partly by natural preference, he posed as the roturier king, adopting the style and tone of the middle classes in deliberate contrast with those of the aristocracy. Partly by policy but partly by natural preference, too, he indulged in familiar intercourse with the bourgeoisie, cultivated the friend- ship of petites gens, and chose for his advisers such men as Tristan THermite (whom he called his compere), Olivier le Daim (originally his barber), Jean de Doyat, and Jean Balue, who * Comines, Memoires, t. ii, p. 481. 212 LOUIS XI were of low birth and little breeding. To these he gave his confidence so far as he gave it to any one at all ; but he was so sly and secretive that there is much point in Jacques de Breze's remark that his horse alone carried his counsels. He had, indeed, a cynical unbelief in human nature, and laid it down as his favourite maxim that " He who does not know how to dissimulate does not know how to rule." Keen of intelligence, fertile in resource, alert, restless, slippery, he was endowed with a real genius for politics. He loved to pit his cunning against the brute force of his opponents ; he had a rare faculty for turning their weaknesses to his own advantage and for extricating himself from a difficult situation ; and he spun such a web of intrigue about him that he came to be known as the " universal spider" (universelle aragne). In carr^dng out his plans he was, as we have seen, neither guided nor checked by the commonest considerations of morality. The elementary distinctions of right and wrong did not exist for him when he had a particular purpose in view. The success which he achieved by it was for him a complete justifi- cation of the basest action, and he was absolutely callous to the suffering which he caused in carrying out a scheme or in satisfying his thirst for vengeance. Religious he certainly was in a way ; but his was the kind of religion which merely drugs the conscience and has no relation with conduct and no hold upon life. It is, indeed, one of the strangest facts about this strange nature that the grossest superstitions should have exercised a tyrannous power over so strong and positive a mind. Be our judgments of the man and his methods what they may, however, we have still to recognize the importance of his place in the history of France. He has justly been called the real founder of the French monarchy. His one great object from the beginning of his reign to its close was the consolidation of the nation and the firm establishment of the authority of the Crown. That object he achieved. With him the period of medieval feudalism in France comes to an end. Yet we must be on our guard lest we read back into his policy a spirit which was entirely foreign to it. A little too 213 HISTORY OF FRANCE much has sometimes been made of I^ouis' bourgeois procHvi- ties. These were not in the least indicative of democratic sympathies. If he made it his business to break the back of feudalism, and as an aid to this encouraged the burgher classes, he had not the slightest intention of transferring to the latter the powers of which the former had been deprived. He greatly favoured, it is true, the new aristocracy of industry and wealth which was now emerging into prominence under the changing conditions of the towns ; he loaded its repre- sentatives with privileges ; he granted them titles of nobility with a lavish hand. But he was at the same time careful to destroy the popular and democratic character of the communes, to reduce their administrative liberties, and to gather them securely under the rule of the Crown. Thus, while he made a great show of friendship toward the towns, he racked them with heavy taxation, and did not scruple to override their will wh,enever he saw fit. At bottom he was no more the friend of the Third Estate than he was of the nobility. Though his ambition was to subordinate particular interests to general, his government was entirely personal, his rule arbitrary. He held, as Comines says, that the power granted to him by heaven should be exercised for the public good ; but he himself was the only judge of what constituted the public good, and of the means by which it might best be compassed. He was in fact a despot, and if the history of French feudalism ends with him, with him also begins the history of French autocracy. It is from 'this standpoint that all his policy must be studied if we would understand it aright. Thus he created Parlia- ments at Bordeaux and Dijon as agencies of the royal authority in provinces now added to the Crown ; but he deprived the Parliament of Paris of the political powers which it was be- ginning to exercise and reduced its functions to those of a judicial tribunal. He eliminated from his Council all men who carried real weight, and surrounded himself with advisers devoted to his interests and subservient to his will. At times, for political purposes, he substituted extraordinary commissions for the regular legal machinery. He convoked the States- 214 LOUIS XI General once only, and that was in 1468, in the circumstances already described. lyOtiis' work for the welfare of his country is not, however, summed up in what he did for it politically. He encouraged commerce, industry, and mining, initiated a system of posts, and endeavoured to foster national trade by prohibiting the importation of merchandise into France except in French ships. He was also a patron of learning and letters. He received with favour a number of Greek scholars who had fled from Constantinople on the capture of that city by the Turks. He founded three universities. He extended the scope of the University of Paris, and created a separate school of -medicine in connexion with it. He reorganized the library established by Charles V. He protected the first printers when they set up their presses in the capital. He took an active interest in literature, and it was under his supervision that the collection of gross, but often amusing, stories was made which we know as the Cent Nouvelles nouvelles. Yet, notwithstanding the substantial benefits which in many ways lyouis undoubtedly conferred upon the French people, he was throughout, and particularly toward the end of his life, extremely unpopular among them. Himself genuinely solicitous, according to his lights, for the national welfare, he was one of the best hated of kings. The enormous expense of his government was undoubtedly a chief cause of this. Personally stingy, he spent money without pausing to count when political occasion demanded ; and political occasion often did demand, for his great instrument was always money instead of the sword. The taille perpetuelle was almost quad- rupled during his reign, for it went up to 4,600,000 livres in 1481, and though after the Treaty of Arras it sank again a little, it was only to 3,900,000 livres. This taxation, *' tres excessive et cruelle," as a chronicler puts it, was a grievous burden upon the masses of the King's subjects, and served to make them indifferent to what he had accomplished in their behalf. To the majority of them, indeed, his death came, not as a sorrow, but as a relief. 215 CHAPTER VII CHARLES VIII ■ 1483-1498 LOUIS XII 1498-1515 LOUIS XI left two daughters and a son. His elder daughter, Anne, now twenty-one, was, it will be remembered, the wife of Pierre de Beaujeu, brother of the Duke of Bourbon ; his younger, Jeanne, had married the Duke of Orleans, her cousin, and the first prince of the blood. Born in 1470, his son, Charles, had only just turned thirteen at the time of his father's death. Technically he was indeed of age to reign in his own right, for the law had fixed the royal majority at thirteen. But his total inability to assume the responsibilities of government was patent to all, for he was poor in health and weak in character, and his education had been so shamefully neglected that at the time he could neither write nor read. Realizing the boy's incapacity, lyouis on his death-bed had expressed the wish that Anne of Beaujeu should act as his guardian. In her he had great confidence ; " she is," he once said, " the least foolish of all women — ^for wise there is none." Nor was she unworthy of his regard. She was plentifully endowed with energy, decision, and courage, and together with his love of power and his unscrupulousness she had a measure also of her father's intellectual qualities. The Regency of Anne of Beaujeu The commonly accepted idea that Anne undertook her task single-handed appears, indeed, to be unsound. On the con- trary, she acted throughout on the advice and with the support 216 CHARLES VIII 'of her husband, a man of forty-four, and his part in her policy seems to have been so important that to him should properly be given much of the credit for the regime which is popularly associated with her name.^ But it was she who was always to the front, as the current phrase, " the government of Madame,'* testifies. The situation in France was thus very similar to that which had arisen on the accession of lyouis IX, when, it will be recalled, a woman had become the effective ruler of the country in the name of a boy-king. Out of a similar situation similar results seemed likely to ensue. The weakening of the royal authority had offered to the rebellious nobility of the thirteenth century a good chance to regain the power which they had lost under Philippe- Auguste . The restless nobility of the fifteenth century, crushed by lyouis XI, now believed that his death had cleared the way for one more effort for the recovery of their former prerogatives and prestige. Hence the aristocratic reaction which disturbed the early years of the new reign, and the leaders of which were the pleasure-loving young Duke of Orleans, himself indifferent to politics, but egged on by others, the Counts of Angouleme and Dunois, the Duke of Lorraine, and the old Duke of Bourbon. On one point Anne yielded readity to the cabal. The late King's favourites were dismissed and punished : Olivier le Daim was hanged on the gibbet of Montfaucon ; Jean de Doyat had his tongue pierced and his ears cut off ; Coictier was forced to disgorge his 50,000 crowns. She even consented to the disbanding of the 6000 Swiss soldiers whom Louis had had in his service. But to the further demands of the princes for the restitution of lands and rights she refused to give ear. On the question of the regency and of the guardianship of the King she also remained firm, though an attempt was made to transfer her power to the Duke of Bourbon. In the end it was proposed that the States-General should be convened 1 Petit-Dutaillis, in lyavisse, Histoire de Franca, t. iv, 2e Partie, p. 422. This view appears to be sound, though it is directly at variance with Brantome's statement that Beaujeu's wife " ne le consultait guere." 217 HISTORY OF FRANCE to settle the difficulty. On this point agreement was easy, because each party confidently expected that the sentiment of the nation would be in its favour. The States-General of 1484 The States-General which met at Tours on January 7, 1484, and sat till March 14 consisted of 246 members. There were as yet no fixed regulations for elections, which were conducted in all sorts of different ways, and in some parts of the country were not held at all. In the strict acceptation of the term, therefore, this could not be called a properly constituted, representative assembly. Yet it was the first really national assembly in the sense that it was the first to which deputies were sent by provinces lying outside the royal domains. Here was an unmistakable sign of the unification of the kingdom achieved by lyouis XI. For purposes of voting division was made, not by orders, but by territorial sections, of which there were six — France, Burgundy, Normandy, Guyenne, I^anguedoc, and Provence. That Brittany was still unrepre- sented is a point to be noted. The King opened the session in person. On the fundamental question of government the States were at first divided. Conservative members held that it was a question which in fact lay beyond their competence ; their contention being that the royal power inhered in the royal family, and that if the king himself was unable to exercise it, it passed automatically into the hands of the princes of the blood. But there were others who repudiated this view and took a bold stand on the rights of the nation. Prominent among these was Philippe Pot, Seigneur de la Roche, the deputy of the nobility of Burgundy. " From the beginning," this orator declared, '* the sovereign people have created kings by their suffrage. Princes exist, not to enrich themselves at the expense of the people, but, forgetting their own interests, to enrich and advance the people's welfare. It is only flatterers who attribute to a prince that sovereignty which really exists only in the people. The public interest is the interest of the 218 CHARLES VIII people ; they confide it to the king. Those who have gained possession of it in any other manner can be regarded only as tyrants and usurpers. It is evident that our King cannot himself govern the commonwealth. Government should not therefore devolve upon the princes. It belongs to all. It is to the people who have granted it that the commonwealth should return ; and by the people I mean not simply the subjects of this kingdom, but men of all classes, even the princes." ^ These words seem curiously prophetic of the far-off Revolutionary age. It has, indeed, been pointed out that they are less remarkable in fact than in appearance, since Pot's theories about the supremacy of the people and the elective nature of the monarchy were simply commonplaces of the schools at the time.^ Yet even so his oration remains noteworthy in one respect : it boldly carried the abstractions of academic discussion over into the sphere of practical politics. The debate was heated, but little was accomplished by it. In the upshot the formation of a Council of State was left to the King, though the assembly recommended that twelve of the councillors should be chosen from its own body, and that in the absence of the King himself the presidency should devolve first on the Duke of Orleans, then on the Duke of Bourbon, and after him on the Sire de Beaujeu. The edu- cation and guardianship of the King were entrusted to his sister Anne. The assembly then turned to the discussion of the reforms which were to be referred to the Council. The nobility claimed the restitution of various seigniorial rights. The clergy de- manded the revival of the Pragmatic Sanction. The cahier of the Third Estate set forth the miseries of the people, '^ jadis nomme franc, et ors de pire condition que le serf," and urged that measures should be taken to stop the brigandage of the soldiers, that the military forces of the country should be reduced, that the pensions granted to the great lords should be 1 Jehan Masselin, Journal des Etats-Generaux de France tenus a Tours en 1484, ed. Bernier, p. 146. 2 Petit-Dutaillis, in op. cit., t. iv, 2e Partie, p. 425. 219 HISTORY OF FRANCE abolished, that taxes upon goods passing from one province to another should be suppressed, and that sundrj^ other specified abuses should be corrected. A requisition was also made that the States-General should be convened every other year, and that no fresh taxation should be imposed without its sanction. Unfortunately the division of the assembly by provinces now proved to be a great mistake, for local jealousies and the rivalries of the different parts of the country continually cut across all attempts at reform. On the financial question, however, some concerted representations were made. But the accounts which the deputies obtained with difficulty from the Council were so obviously falsified that they were quite useless for discussion. Finally a grant was made to the King of 1,200,000 livres a year for the next two years. Then sectional hatreds broke out anew over the problem of the equitable distribution of the taxes by which this sum was to be raised. When, after unseemly wrangles, the assembly at lerigth dissolved, to the immense relief of the princes, little had been actually done by it for the better government of the realm. ^ The ' Foolish War ' of 1486-88 While nominally the predominant power in the Council was in the hands of the Orleanist rather than of the Beaujeu party, the fact that Anne of Beaujeu was officially the guardian of the King, was thus always with him, could bring her influence to bear constantly upon him, and was able even to make him the mouthpiece of her own will, gave her an enormous advan- tage which, as her father's daughter, she was not slow to turn to account. Before long the rival princes began to realize that their interests were seriously jeopardized by her ascen- dancy. The Duke of Orleans accordingly made common cause with the Duke of Bourbon, and with the Counts of Angouleme and Dunois, formed alliances with FrauQois of Brittany and Maximilian of Austria, and even sought the support of Richard III of England. But Anne checkmated him at all points. By backing the designs of Henry Tudor against 220 CHARLES VIII Richard, she deprived him at the outset of all hope of English help ; by intriguing with the domestic enemies of Francois and Maximilian she crippled the resources of both of his allies. Then, having weakened him by her plottings, she sent her armies into" the field. Maximilian was defeated in Artois (1487) ; the young King had little difficulty in subduing the south ; in Jtily 1488 I^a Tremouille routed a Breton force at Saint -Aubin-du- Cormier, taking the Duke of Orleans prisoner ; and the ' Guerre folle,' as it was called, came to an end. By the Treaty of Sable Francois of Brittany engaged himself thereafter to give no asylum to the King's enemies, and not to marry either of his daughters without the King's consent. A few weeks later he died, leaving the duchy to the elder of these, Anne, then only twelve. Child as she was, however, the little Duchess had a will of her own. She resolved both to preserve the independence of Brittany and to arrange her own destiny as she saw fit. I^ooking back we must admire her courage. But we cannot be astonished that events proved too strong for her. Her marriage now became the most urgent question in French — we might almost go so far as to say in European — politics, for on it hinged the future relations of France and Brittany. This the King's enemies perceived as clearly as did Anne of Beaujeu, now, since the death of the old Duke, Duchess of Bourbon. One of the most active of these, Maxi- milian of Austria, for whom the Treaty of Arras had been only so much waste-paper, and who was resolved if possible to win back the whole of Charles the Bold's heritage, saw in a union with Brittany the first step toward his success. He therefore became a suitor for the Duchess's hand. The rivalries and contentions of her counsellors and the unsettled state of her dominion made her position both difficult and perilous, and in Maximilian's proposal lay, it would seem, her only chance of safety. It was a proposal, too, which appealed to her ambitions, for Maximilian was now King of the Romans and would in due time become Emperor. She therefore con- sented, and actually went through the ceremony of marriage 221 HISTORY OF FRANCE by proxy, Maximilian himself being at the moment busy with a war in Hungary. The Beaujeus could not, of course, be blind to the menace of such a union. They therefore determined to act before it was too late. Brittany was invaded by a royal army under I^a Tremouille ; a large portion of the duchy was occupied ; and in August 149 1 Anne found herself besieged in Rennes. Two months later the King himself arrived upon the scene ; Anne was notified that, since it was contracted in defiance of the Treaty of Sable, her marriage with Maximilian was null and void ; and negotiations ensued which ended in her betrothal to Charles. In December 1491 the Duchess of Brittany thus became the Queen of France. The fact that this marriage in turn was a contravention of the Treaty of Arras could not of course be overlooked. But a fresh treaty, signed at Senlis in May 1493, got over the difficulty. Ivittle Marguerite of Burgundy, who had been brought to France in order to be educated for her marriage with the King, was sent home, and the counties of Artois and Burgundy, which she was to have brought as her dowry, were relinquished. This meant the loss of a portion of the territory which I^ouis XI's diplomacy had secured. But such loss was trivial in comparison with the immense gain which accrued in the union of Brittany with the French Crown. The last of the great fiefs— the last real stronghold of feudalism — ^was destroyed, and the royal authority was assured over the entire kingdom. Such danger? as meanwhile had threatened France from other quarters were happily averted. The new King of England, Henry VII, and Ferdinand the Catholic of Aragon had both thought to make capital out of the disturbed condi- tion of France. But Henry was bought off with a promise of 745,000 crowns, while Ferdinand's energies were absorbed by his troubles with the Moors. The difficulties which he had to encounter in Flanders and Hungary similarly prevented Maximilian from giving practical effect to his anger at the Breton settlement. 222 CHARLES VIII The Reign of Charles VIII This settlement was the closing act of the regency of the Beaujeus. Already Charles had been freeing himself, by little and little, from their influence, and now he began to rule entirely on his own account. His policy toward the nobility was one of conciliation^ To those who had recently been prominent in the reaction against the throne he behaved with marked generosity. He released the imprisoned Duke of Orleans and pardoned the Count of Dunois. He also restored the confiscated estates of the family of Nemours. In character the very opposite of his father, he moreover gained the sympathy of the aristocracy as a whole — whose feudal tastes remained unchanged though their feudal power had gone — by his chivalrous spirit, his carelessness, and his love of pleasure and display. The strongly romantic bias of his nature had been intensified by much reading of books of chivalry, which had in fact turned his brains a little, as a century later they were to turn the brains of the famous knight of I^a Mancha. Puny in body and weak in mind as he was, he had none the less come to believe that the role he was called upon to fill was that of Charlemagne — the Charle- magne of romance — ^whom he had taken as his model. His imagination teemed with extravagant fancies. One of these took definite shape in the field of foreign politics. He nourished the dream of making France instead of Germany the centre of world-empire. This was the origin of his invasion of Italy — a task lightly undertaken in a mood of uncalculating temerity and absurd self-confidence, but destined to have remarkable and far-reaching results alike for France and for Europe. Invasion of Italy As a beginning he put forth a claim to the kingdom of Naples — a claim which he traced back to Charles I of Anjou (brother of I^ouis IX), who had received both Naples and Sicily as a fief from the Pope.^ The appeal for aid made to him by ^ Sicily had passed to the King of Aragon in 1282, after the native rising against the French and the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers. See ante, p. 147 . 223 HISTORY OF FRANCE several petty Italian rulers gave him a further excuse for action. The conquest of Naples was, however, only the first step. His ultimate aim was to retake Jerusalem and to estab- lish again the Empire of the Bast. Such a grandiose scheme was well calculated to fascinate the nobility, whose pent up energies craved for outlet. Their enthusiasm made him indif- ferent to the warnings of his wiser counsellors — of Comines, for example, and Anne of Bourbon. The proposed expedition would give ample opportunity for adventure ; glory was to be gained in it ; and the prize was great. Charles accordingly gathered an army of 50,000 men and crossed the Alps ; and it is worth while to note in passing that despite the activity of the nobles this army was mainly com- posed of mercenaries, instead of feudal retainers. This shows that the military organization of feudalism was now rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Thus began the Italian wars in which France was to be engaged for more than sixty years, and, which were to interfere — as the Hundred Years' War had interfered — ^with the normal internal progress of the kingdom. Charles had made his plans hurriedly, and they were so incomplete that at the very beginning want of money com- pelled him to borrow a large sum at a ruinous rate of interest. Fortune, however, seemed to smile upon him. The people of Italy were seized with panic at his approach. His march through the country was a mere * promenade.' Florence, just then stirred to feverish excitement by the preaching of Savo- narola, opened its gates to him ; Rome did the same ; without having to strike a blow he entered Naples in triumph (February 1495) ; and there, amid splendid festivities, he had himself solemnly crowned King of Naples, Emperor of the East, and King of Jerusalem. His brilliant success was, however, short- lived. While he was amusing himself and the Neapolitans with tournaments and magnificent processions news came that a formidable alliance, composed of I^udovico il Moro of Milan, Pope Alexander VI, Maximilian (now Emperor), Ferdi- nand of Aragon, and the republic of Venice, had been formed 224 LOUIS XII against him. At first he refused to realize the imminent danger of his position ; but finally he was persuaded by Comines to lead the main body of his forces back to France while the route was still clear. lycaving armies of occupation at Naples, Pisa, and other places on the seaboard, he thereupon set out from Naples (May 20, 1495) with 10,000 men and all his artillery. In Northern Italy he found his way blocked by an army of the allies outnumbering his own by three to one. But he managed to push through, though at the sacrifice of a large portion of his men, and with the remnant made good his retreat into France. The forces he had left in Italy were soon driven out, and his chimerical dream of conquest came to an end. This disastrous collapse of all his high-flown hopes seems to have exercised a tempering influence upon his giddy mind, for according to Comines he now set himself to live according to the commandments of God and for the better government of his realm. lyittle time, however, was left him to prove the depth of his new desires. On April 7, 1498, while walking through a dark passage in his castle of Amboise, he struck his head so violently against the top of a doorway that he died from concussion within a few hours. He was only twenty- seven, Louis XII Charles left no children, and with him closed the direct line of the Valois. The crown now passed to the heir-presumptive, the Duke of Orleans, whose complete reconciliation with the King had been shown by the active part he had taken in the Neapolitan campaign. He ascended the throne as I^ouis XII. A good-natured man, though of no great intellectual parts, the new King at once made it clear that he purposed to follow his predecessor's policy in burying the hatchet. All his ancient enmities were forthwith forgotten by him. " It would not," he said, " be fitting for the King of France to avenge the quarrels of the Duke of Burgundy." One special danger faced him at the opening of his reign. P 225 HISTORY OF FRANCE Charles' widow had now retired to her own duchy, and as she was still a young woman, and a very independent young woman, there was at least a possibility that, notwithstanding her engagement in her contract with Charles, she might marry some foreign prince, and that Brittany might thus again be lost to France. There seemed to be only one way of obviating this danger, and that was by marrying Anne himself. That he was already married to the late King's second sister, Jeanne, was a fact which was not allowed to count in his political schemes. There had never been any pretence of affection between him and his poor, pious, deformed wife, and she had borne him no children. He did not hesitate, therefore, to appeal to Rome for permission to annul the marriage. This was obtained without difficulty from the Pope, Alexander VI, whose conscience in such a matter was not exactly sensitive, and for a second time Anne of Brittany became Queen of France (1499). Louis' Italian Wars Unfortunately lyouis was perfectly willing to accept the heritage of Charles' unrealized Italian ambitions, and, not satisfied with reasserting the old shadowy title to the kingdom of Naples, he added on his own account a further claim, which he derived from his grandmother, Valentina Visconti,^ to the duchy of Milan, from which the Viscontis had recently (1450) been expelled by the Sforzas. By gifts and promises he secured the friendship of the Venetians and the Pope, and then, assured' that no outside obstacle would be thrown in his way, he despatched an army to Milan, which capitulated on October 6, 1499. This easy success, which gained him the support of several Italian potentates, led him to turn his attention at once to Naples. But here he made a grave mistake. In the hope of thereby securing himself against possible interference from Ferdinand the Catholic (whose dynastic interests in Sicily might appear to be threatened by this French invasion), he entered into a compact with that astute and unscrupulous politician by which he agreed to * Who had married I^ouis, Duke of Orleans, in 1389. 226 LOUIS XII share with him the kingdom of Naples as soon as it should be conquered. Frederick III of Naples had lately called in the Spaniards to aid him against the French ; but Ferdinand, without the_ slightest regard to his engagements, at once betrayed him to the enemy. Naples thus fell into l/ouis' hands, as it had previously fallen into Charles', without the firing of a single shot. But now came the iquestion of partition, and with it the beginning of fresh trouble. French and Spanish were soon engaged in hostilities (1502), and though lyouis called army after army across the Alps to retrieve repeated disasters, he had at length to abandon Naples to the enemy (1503). One figure stands out, rich with all the colours of romance, in the miserable story of this Franco-Spanish war. It is that of the Chevalier Bayard, the knight '' sans peur et sans reproche." Many are the wonderful deeds of courage recorded of him. Perhaps the most wonderful was that which he performed at the battle of Garigliano, when, single- handed, he held a bridge against the foe. Distressed in mind, sick in body, and now seriously threatened by Maximilian, who was preparing to assert his imperial rights over Italy, I^ouis was glad to obtain peace at any cost. This he did by signing three separate treaties at Blois (1504) with the Kmperor and Ferdinand the Catholic. By these he obtained the Kmperor' s recognition of his claim to Milan by undertaking to support him against the Venetians ; Ferdinand was confirmed in the Kingship of Naples ; and it was agreed that the grandson of Maximilian and Ferdinand, Charles of Austria,^ should marry lyouis' daughter Claude, who should carry with her as dowry not only the duchy of Milan, but also Burgundy, Brittany, and Blois. These treaties were in the last degree disadvantageous to France, for Milan was the only gain secured by them, while on the other hand they involved a fresh dismemberment of the kingdom and an enormous addition to the future power of Charles of Austria, who was already heir to the Netherlands, Austria, Castile, and Aragon, * Charles was the son of Philip, Archduke of Austria, the son of Maximilian and Marie of Burgundy, and of Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. 227 HISTORY OF FRANCE By a fourth treaty, the following year, I^ouis re-ceded his Neapolitan rights to Ferdinand on condition that Ferdinand, now a widower, should marry his niece Germaine de Foix. Having made these great mistakes, lyouis resolved to consult the nation as to the best means of undoing them. The States- General which met at Tours in 1506 declared that the treaties were null since the territory of the kingdom was inalienable. They also urged the King to marry his daughter to his heir- presumptive, Frangois of Angouleme. Neither Maximilian nor Ferdinand was in a position at the moment to protest, and lyouis thus made good his escape from the consequences of his injudicious action. The conquest of Genoa, the next year, signalized the revival of his Italian policy. He then joined the Pope, Julius II, Ferdinand, and Maximilian in the I^eague of Cambrai against Venice (1508), and won a striking victory over the republic at Agnadello (1509). But as soon as he had gained his ends the Pope 'turned against France, and, finding himself on the verge of defeat, called upon the Catholic princes of Europe for help. A Holy lycague was then formed against I^ouis, the principal members of which were Julius, Maximilian, Ferdinand, the Venetian Republic, and Henry VIII of England. I^ouis was excommunicated ; and despite the splendid generalship and prowess of young Gaston de Foix, the French were driven out of Italy (15 12, 15 13). Nor was this the full tale of disaster. France was invaded. The Spanish seized Navarre. The English descended upon the northern coast, and at Guinegatte won the Battle of the Spurs — so called because the French, attacked by sudden panic, " made more use of their spurs than of their lances." lyouis was again forced to sue for peace. He propitiated I^eo X, Julius' successor in the pontifical chair. He recognized Maximilian as the Duke of Milan. Treaties of peace were signed at Dijon with the Swiss, at Orleans with Germany, at lyondon with England. The last-named was ratified by lyouis' marriage with Henry VIII's sister, Mary (1514).^ lyouis, who had for some time been in poor health, did not ^ Anne of Brittany had died in the January of that year. 228 LOUIS XII long survive these events. He died on January i, 1515, in his fifty-third year. The Internal Administration of Louis XII Louis was guilty of extreme folly in foreign affairs. But he made ample amends at home, and notwithstanding the humiliation which he brought upon his country he was greatly beloved by all classes of his subjects. ' lyC Pere du peuple ' — such was the surname which the States-General conferred upon him ; " the most sacred name," he himself declared, ** that can ever be given to a prince." He was, indeed, sincerely interested in the welfare of France, which during his reign, it was commonly said, was happier and more pros- perous than it had been for the past three hundred years. The expansion of agriculture and commerce was in particular very marked. His military activity was not allowed to impose any fresh burdens upon his people, for he made Italy pay the cost of its invasions ; while as his practice was to meet personal expenses out of the products of his own domains, he was even able to reduce general taxation by something like 200,000 livres a year. His economy, indeed, called forth some adverse criticism ; but to this his reply was : ''I would rather see the courtiers laughing at my avarice than the people weeping over my prodigality." In various ways he laboured for the public benefit. He put a stop to the brigandage of the soldiers, of which the common people had long had cause to complain. He carried forward the useful legislative work initiated by Charles VIII in the editing and publication of the customary laws of the different provinces, thus helping to guard against abuse ; he sought to diminish the extortions often practised in the courts ; he substituted French for I^atin in criminal trials ; and he instituted other important changes in the administration of the law. Such reforms give a real glory to his reign. It must, however, be added that much of the credit of them belongs to his favourite minister and confidential friend, Georges d'Amboise, Cardinal and Archbishop of Rouen, whose name history associates closely with his own. 229 CHAPTER VIII FRANCOIS I 1515-1547 HENRI II 1547-1559 LOUIS XII left only daughters, and the Orleans branch of the Valois dynasty ended, as it had begun, with him. He was succeeded by his nephew and son-in-law, Fran9ois of Angouleme, the great-grandson of lyouis, Duke of Orleans, the brother of Charles VI. ^ Yoilng (he was not yet twenty-one), high-spirited and romantic, swayed rather by the impulse of the moment than by any thought of future consequences, and caring far less about questions of national policy than about the excitement of personal adventure, Fran9ois had scarcely ascended the throne before he resolved upon the renewal of the irrational war with Italy. His first enterprise was the reconquest of Milan. He lost no time in concluding a treaty with Charles of Austria, by which, it should be remarked, Charles agreed to do homage for Flanders, Artois, and Charolais, and, leaving his mother, lyouise of Savoy, as regent, crossed the Alps by an unguarded pass, and on September 13 and 14, 15 15, at M?irignano (now Melignano), twelve miles from Milan, com- pletely routed a large army composed of the Swiss mercenaries of the duchy. The victory was brilliant, but it was costly, for he lost some 20,000 men killed and wounded. The severity of the fighting may be gauged by the remark of the old Marechal de Trivulce : *' I have taken part in eighteen battles, but they were merely child's-play ; Marignano was a battle of giants," '* See ante, p. 2?3 , 230 FRANCOIS I It is an illustration of one side — the highly developed romantic side — of Fran9ois' character that at his own request he received knighthood on the field at the hands of the Chevalier Bayard. Fran9ois was now master of Milan, but he was not satisfied with compelling the Kmperor to acknowledge his claims. He turned his commanding position to account by making friends with the Swiss and with the Pope. With the Swiss, whose fighting capacity was just then one of the capital facts in the military situation in Europe, he formed an alliance by the terms of which he obtained the right to levy troops among them. This treaty was called * la Paix Perpetuelle,' and it did in fact endure as long as the French monarchy. With the Pope he signed a Concordat (December 15 16), which involved the complete abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1438 and the destruction of the rights of the Gallican Church there- by secured. This agreement, which at first aroused intense indignation throughout the country, has great importance in history because it governed the relations of France and the Papacy till the time of the Revolution. It should be noted that one effect of it was to strengthen the royal authority, for the appointment of all ecclesiastical dignitaries was now left to the Crown, whose selections were subject only to the nominal approval of the Pope. FRAN901S' Struggle with Charles V : First Stage These early successes greatly flattered the King's abundant vanity and whetted his appetite for further glory and power, and thus when in January 15 19 Maximilian died he put himself forward as one of several candidates for the Imperial crown. Here, however, he suffered rebuff. The choice fell on Charles of Austria, also King of Spain, and henceforth known as Charles V, who was now beyond comparison the most power- ful potentate in Europe. Frangois was angry at being thus thwarted in his ambitions. He saw, too, that the progress, if not the very existence, of France was imperilled by the new conditions which Charles' election had created. Pique and patriotism were in accord ; he determined to enter into a trial 231 HISTORY OF FRANCE of strength with his formidable rival, and at once sought grounds for a quarrel with him. The history of Europe during the next quarter-century is largely the history of the struggle between Fran9ois and Charles, with the two other chief Powers, England and Rome, standing by, and from time to time, as their interests at the moment seemed to dictate, favouring now one side and now the other. Both the opponents at the beginning of the conflict were very young men, for Fran9ois was still only four-and-twenty, while Charles was hardly more than nineteen. Save, however, for their youth, their ambition, and their unscrupulousness, they had practically nothing in common ; indeed, the contrast between them was as striking as any to be found among the elaborately balanced character-studies of the Shakespearean drama. Though not lacking in a certain dignity and grace, Charles was poor in physique and of fragile health ; he was gloomy in temper and deeply religious ; tenacious of purpose, he pursued his ends with dogged perseverance ; his life was orderly and simple, his personal morals, considering the age in which he lived, singularly pure. Frangois, on the contrary, was strong and handsome ; he was buoyant and debonair ; he loved sports and excelled in all manly exercises ; he was passionately addicted to pomp and display ; he was impetuous, unstable, and licentious. Nor were their differences those of personal character only. Seen in retrospect, their rivalry resolves itself into one of opposed principles. Charles stood for the medieval conception of universal empire, and his attempt to restore this — an attempt in which, though he was checked by Fran9ois, he was really foiled by lyUther — ^was, as I have elsewhere said, the last dream of the Middle Ages in politics. Fran9ois, albeit unconsciously, represented the rising power of nationalities, and with it that new idea of balanced equilibrium among them which was henceforth to be a vital factor in the evolution of the European peoples. There were points enough in dispute to provide Fran9ois with his warrant for instant action. Charles laid claim to Burgundy on the score that it had been unjustly annexed 232 23- Francois I 232 FRANCOIS I by Ivouis XI, and to the duchy of Milan as a fief of the Empire. Fran9ois maintained his title to these dominions, demanded that Charles should do homage for Flanders and Artois, in accordance with his undertaking of some years before, and further objected because Spain had taken possession of Navarre. The issues involved in the quarrel were, as will be seen, widely scattered ; but unhappy Italy was still destined to be the chief theatre of war. Fran9ois' first step was an attempt to win over Henry VIII. The two young monarchs (for Henry too was still under thirty) met by arrangement near Guines, in the Pas-de-Calais, in a spot w^hich, by reason of the lavish magnificence in which each party sought to outdo the other, was known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The utmost ardour of friendship was exhibited on both sides ; Frangois even going so far, after the crazy fashion of the chivalry which he loved, as to visit the English King's tent in the early morning unattended, and to offer to act as his valet. But all the ridiculous waste of money, the vulgar ostentation, the repeated professions of brotherly affection, came to nothing. It is a commonplace of history that great results sometimes spring from the most trivial causes. There were tourneys and trials of skill at Guines to enliven the dullness of diplomatic discussion, in one of which the agile French King had the misfortune to over- throw his heavier antagonist ; and it is said that Henry's sensitive vanity was so outraged by this humiliation that his attitude toward Fran9ois instantly changed. Be this as it may, cordiality had certainly given place to irritation before the conference closed. Then on his homeward way Henry was met by Charles at Wael, near Gravelines, and though there was now no gorgeous ceremonial to tickle the fancy, a good deal of business was very quickly done. By the promise to Wolsey of a pension at once and of the papal tiara in the near future, the Emperor without difficulty obtained the support of the English King. The campaign which followed was very disastrous to Frangois. The Imperial troops drove the French out of Italy, invaded 233 HISTORY OF FRANCE Provence, and laid siege to Marseille ; Navarre had to be abandoned ; the armies of Charles and Henry even threatened France in the north. There was also treachery at home to contend with, for the Duke of Bourbon, the Constable of France, who had specially distinguished himself at Marignano, deserted to the enemy. It is to be hoped that that turbulent noble felt the full force of the rebuke administered to him at the battle of Rebecco, in 1524. Mortally wounded, Bayard kissed the cross of his sword-hilt, and had himself laid beneath a tree with his face to the enemy. '* I have never yet turned my back to a foe," said the dying man, " and I am not going to begin to do so now." There, as it happened, he was found by the Duke of Bourbon, in hot pursuit of the French. The Duke, leaning over, spoke -some words of pity to him. " I am not to be pitied," was the Chevalier's reply, "for I die as an^ honest man. It is rather you who should be pitied, who have taken up arms against your King, your country, and youf vows." Amid these reverses FrauQois kept up a gallant struggle. But the cup of disaster was not yet full. In 1524 he once more led in person a large army across the Alps against the forces of the Emperor, and laid siege to Pavia. This was in October. On the 24th of February following a great battle was fought outside the city, and Fran9ois was defeated and taken prisoner. After some time in Italy he was carried to Spain, and lodged in the castle of Madrid, where he spent his time in reading, turn and turn about, Paul's Epistles and his favourite romance, Amadis de Gaule. Confinement, anxiety, and want of exercise told seriously upon his health and spirits, and in the end he was glad to buy liberty by a general sub- mission to all the Emperor's demands. By the Treaty of Madrid (January 1526) he gave up all his Italian possessions, renounced the suzerainty of Flanders and Artois, ceded Bur- gundy as a fief, undertook to restore the Duke of Bourbon to all his former dignities, abandoned Navarre, and engaged to marry Charles' sister, the Dowager-Queen of Portugal, and to surrender his two sons as hostages, FRANCOIS I This inglorious treaty marks the close of the first stage in the struggle between the King and the Emperor. The Second Stage Secure once more in his own domains, Fran9ois soon made it clear that he did not intend to be bound by his engagements. The Treaty of Madrid, he declared, had been wrung from him by force, and he therefore refused to regard it as sacred. Conditions had now^ changed in his favour. Rome, England, Venice, Florence, and Genoa were all growing alarmed at Charles* steadily increasing power. They perceived that it was now to their interest to espouse the cause of France. A Holy lycague was thereupon formed against the Emperor by Pope Clement VII, who had already cleared the way by absolving Fran9ois of his oath at Madrid. England was the more willing to enter into this league because Wolsey, having been dis- appointed in his hopes of the tiara, was at the moment ill- disposed toward Charles. War in Italy began again in 1527, when a mixed army of Spanish and German mercenaries under the Duke of Bourbon (now Duke of Milan and Spanish commander in Northern Italy) laid siege to Rome. In the fierce struggle which raged before the fortifications were carried Bourbon himself was mortally wounded — struck down by a chance bullet which Benvenuto Cellini afterward asserted had been shot by him. But the city was captured, and the Imperial ruffians avenged their leader's death by a three days' riot of butchery, outrage, and pillage, while Clement remained shut up in the Castle of St Angelo. The news of the sack of Rome and of the Pope's imprisonment sent a thrill of horror throughout Catholic Europe. But though Charles disclaimed all responsibility and loudly expressed his regret for what had happened, he did nothing to save the Pope, in whom he saw merely the most active and dangerous of all his foes. Francois and Henry then determined to move in concert for the deliverance of Italy, each having his own selfish objects in view. But Francois' fresh attempt to conquer Naples failed, and again he was 23s HISTORY OF FRANCE forced to come to terms for a cessation of hostilities. By the Peace of Cambrai (1529) — ' le Traite des Dames/ as it was called, from the part played by Margaret of Austria and l/ouise of Savoy in bringing it about — the Treaty of Madrid was confirmed with modifications. Francois lost Flanders and Artois and renounced all his Italian pretensions ; but he was allowed to regain possession of Burgundy. His two children were now restored to him, while his marriage with Kleanor of Portugal was solemnized the next year. The Closing Stage This treaty marks the close of the second stage of the struggle between FrauQois and Charles. In the seven years of peace which followed, while Charles was mainly occupied with the religious troubles in Germany and with the defence of Christen- dom against the Turks, Frangois busied himself in strengthening his position by entering into all sorts of alliances. Never, as has 'been said, has any ruler shown himself so eclectic in his friendships. To please Henry VIII he favoured that King's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. At the same time he negotiated the marriage of James V of Scotland with Marie of I/orraine. He gained the support of the Pope (Clement VII) by proposing a marriage between the Pope's cousin, Catherine de' Medici,^ and his son Henri, and by undertaking to stop the spread of heresy in his kingdom. But he none the less made overtures to the Protestant princes of Germany, then in league against the Catholic Charles. To the great indigna- tion of Christian Europe, he even entered into an agreement with the Turks. Such were his preparations for a renewal of his conflict with his rival. His thirst for adventure was still unslaked. His ambition for foreign conquest was as strong as ever. He had learned nothing from the disasters of his previous campaigns. He was now only waiting for an opportunity for further action. The execution at the instigation of the Emperor of the * Catherine was not Clement's niece, as is commonly said, but his second cousin once removed. ^ 236 FRANCOIS I secret agent of France at Milan, and the death shortly after- ward, without heirs, of Francesco Sforza, the Duke, gave him the pretext for which he was in search. Once again he revived his claim to the duchy (1536), and seized Savoy and Piedmont. Charles replied by invading Provence, but the Constable Montmorency turned the country before him into a desert, and, decimated by famine and dysentery, the Imperial army had to retreat. Then Pope Paul III intervened and the third stage of the long and aimless rivalry was brought to an end by a ten years' truce, signed at Nice, June 18, 1538, each party retaining the possessions then in his hands. It now, indeed, seemed as if the ancient enmity between Fran9ois and Charles had at length burned itself out. When the next year Charles was called to the I^ow Countries to stamp out rebellion at Ghent, Frangois not only permitted him to cross his kingdom, but even entertained him at Paris with all the lavish prodigality which he loved. But the recon- ciliation was of short duration. There was no sincerity on either side. Frangois was annoyed because he failed to come to any practical understanding with his politic guest about the duchy of Milan, for which he still hankered ; and the murder of two of his emissaries on their way to the Sultan of the Turks gave him an excuse for drawing the sword at the oppo- tune moment when Charles' ill-fated expedition against Algiers (1541) had just ended in a sensational failure. Three more years of war followed. Francois sent out five separate armies against the Emperor, and won a brilliant victory over the Spaniards at Cerisola, in Piedmont (April 14, 1544). But Charles, with Henry now once more his ally, planned a double invasion of France, and the Imperial forces, marching through Champagne, actually came within twenty-four leagues of the capital. Frangois was, indeed, saved from an overwhelming catastrophe only through the inability of his two enemies to work together. This fourth war was then closed by the Treaty of Crespy (1544), which in effect left matters pretty much as they were before hostilities began. Thus ended Fran9ois' twenty-five years of struggle with the 237 HISTORY OF FRANCE Emperor. On the face of it he had gained nothing. He had rather wasted his substance and his energies in the pursuit of a chimerical dream, and the final peace, which at length gave his country rest, was a peace without honour. Yet, severely as we must condemn his amazing folly, history has to recognize that there was another side to his visionary enterprise. Though he could not conquer Charles, he had, as I have said, checked him. The far-reaching importance of that fact it would perhaps be difficult to exaggerate. He kept his country intact against the most formidable coalition of foreign Powers by which it had ever been threatened, and he stood between Europe and the enormous imperial ambitions of the house of Austria. Last Years : Character- and Influence Francois' reign, which had opened so brilliantly, closed aniid ever deepening gloom. At fifty the once gay, witty, genial King was already an irritable, morose, and suspicious old 'man. Painful disease and premature decay were the penalties he had to pay for a profligate life. Even his hand- some person was disfigured by monstrous swellings and chronic abscesses ; his mind lost much of its vigour and clearness ; his ready speech grew halting. He died at the castle of Rambouillet on March 31, 1547 — "^^o months after our own Henry VIII. In his last hours he made a great profession of religious faith, kissing the cross which he held in his arms and whispering the name of Jesus. But, as a recent writer has well said,^ ''It is hard to know how much of this was sincere, how much a death-bed repentance. The monarchs of those days extended the divine right of kings beyond the grave and demanded a State entry into heaven. The cere- monies and pieties of dying sovereigns were part of their proper preparation for the celestial pageants, and Fran9ois, in this respect, was every inch a king." ^ Kingly we must certainly call him, if we think only of the externals of kingship. His were essentially the qualities which enabled him to play his part effectively as one of the out- * l^dith Sichel, Women and Men of the French Renaissance, p. 355. 238 FRANCOIS I standing figures on the stage of his time. He was a man of fine presence and imposing personaHty ; his manners were engaging, his conversation full of vivacity and charm. Restless of temper and alert of mind, he had an extraordinary range of interests "and a remarkable general knowledge of- many things. This versatility served to keep him in touch with nearly all the varied movements of the new age, and, himself a lover of beauty and a dabbler in learning, he was throughout a munificent patron of art and letters. It is thus that the Renaissance in France has come to be so intimately associated with his name. But he was wholly wanting in depth and sincerity, and, despite the superficial brilliancy of his mind, he had nearly all the faults of a thoroughly selfish aM unstable nature. His finer qualities were, indeed, hardly more than skin-deep. At bottom he was inordinately vain, frivolous, capricious, licentious, and untrustworthy. His romantic bias prompted him to resuscitate the manners of chivalry ; but it was only the pomp and splendour of chivalry, its gallantry, its adventurous spirit, that appealed to him ; with its strenuous moral purposes he had neither sympathy nor concern. His radical want of balance was shown even in those elements of his character which we may most admire, for his generosity ran into the wildest extravagances and his courage to the extreme of temerity. He gave a great part of his life to magnificent schemes of foreign conquest, but he had nothing of the real statesman's large vision or steady insight ; he acted on impulse, and his policy was guided by no definite or consistent aims. His attitude toward the religious problems of his time enables us to realize very clearly his inconstancy, his funda- mental want of earnestness, and, notwithstanding his auto- cratic temper, his susceptibility to outside influences. In early life, led by his sister Marguerite of Angouleme, he favoured the movement for the purification of the Church, and so long as the war with Charles continued he did all he could to stand well with the party of Reform. But this was a matter of selfish calculation only. He had no real interest in the questions at 239 HISTORY OF FRANCE issue, and for toleration as toleration he cared nothing. The moment he saw that it would be to his advantage to placate the Pope he changed without hesitation from a friend into a foe of the Reformers, and by the advice of his eviL counsellors was easily persuaded to become their bitter and systematic oppressor. A resolute attempt to stamp out heresy by perse- cution thus became a feature of the closing years of his reign. In particular we have to recall the brutal attack upon the innocent Waldenses of Provence in 1545. This crusade of infamy, in which twenty-two villages were burned and 4000 persons massacred, has left a dark stain on his memory, which not all the glory that redounds to him as the central figure in the French Renaissance will ever suffice to efface. Of his part in the Renaissance I shall have occasion to speak in the next chapter. One fact, not altogether unconnected with this more general subject, may, however, be mentioned here. It is with him that the French Court, in the strict sense of the term, may properly be said to begin. His predecessors had lived, very much after the fashion of the great feudal chiefs, surrounded by their counsellors and their men-at-arms ; women had been in the background ; and all those complex conditions which emerge from the free and constant inter- course of the sexes in a world of wealth and leisure were as yet lacking. The transformation of the king's entourage began, but it only began, with Anne of Brittany, as the Queen first of Charles VIII and then of lyouis XII. It was completed by Fran9ois I, and its completion was due in part to that King's own tastes and in part to the changing conditions of the age. Frangois gathered about him a multitude of cour- tiers ; noble ladies who had hitherto spent their lives in the gloomy solitudes of remote feudal castles now basked in the sunshine of the royal presence and competed with one another in beauty, wit, and grace. Wherever the King went, even though it might be on a mission of State, he was attended by an immense retinue of lords and dames ; sports, hunting parties, festivals, masquerades were things of daily occurrence ; the most lavish display was encouraged; manners became at 240 FRANCOIS I once more refined and more artificial ; gallantry and intrigue followed as a matter of course. With this rise of the Court we may note, too, the rise of the influence — generally perni- cious — of women as an almost permanent factor in political affairs. In addition to his mother, lyouise of Savoy, who exerted great power over him while he was still a very young man, two women, both famous for beauty and intelligence, were specially prominent during his reign. One of these was Frangoise de Foix, Countess of Chateaubriant, the other Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess of Btampes. But other women figured also, if in a smaller degree, in Frangois' life, for he was a light lover and had many mistresses. Regarding the political evolution of France under his rule a few words will suffice. The chief fact to be emphasized is the enormous development of the royal authority. The King was now an absolute monarch ; his will, as a Venetian ambas- sador of the time declared, was supreme in everything ; he stood, according to the express statement of the Parliament of Paris, above the law. The ancient nobility retained their titles and their revenues, but they no longer enjoyed — as indeed they no longer claimed — any sovereign rights, and their subor- dination to the King and dependence upon him were complete. The clergy, as we have seen, were also subjected to the Crown. The Third Kstate, though increasing rapidly in wealth, had lost its old communal liberties and had gained nothing other- wise in political power. Frangois never once convened the States-General, and thus never even made a show of consulting the nation, while by forbidding the Parliament of Paris to meddle with political affairs and by depriving it of its former right to withhold the registration of royal edicts — without which registration it had hitherto been held that no edict had the force of law — ^he destroyed the last safeguard against the despotism of the throne. The unification of the kingdom had been achieved, but at the price of autocracy. A large standing army, composed in the main of foreign mercenaries, helped to make the theory of absolutism a practical reality. That the financial administration of the country under Q 241 HISTORY OF FRANCE Francois I was of a reckless character will be readily under- stood. The King needed enormous sums of money for his foreign wars, for the upkeep of his army and navy, and for the maintenance of his prodigal magnificence at Court. Taxes had therefore to be increased and levies made, offices were sold, and a royal lottery was established. But as even these measures were inadequate he also had to borrow, and his borrowings initiated the public debt of France. Henri II The twelve years' reign (1547-59) of Frangois' son and successor, Henri II, added little of importance to history. Henri followed his father's foreign policy, and after a prelimi- nary conflict with England, in which Boulogne was captured by the English and later restored to France, he embarked upon a^ fresh struggle with Charles V. While he ruthlessly perse- cuted the Reformers at home, he allied himself with the German Protestants against the Emperor, and fortune so far favoured him that he was able to make himself master of the Trois- Bveches — ^Metz, Toul, and Verdun — ^which had strategical value in the defence of the eastern frontier of the kingdom. Then came (1556) the abdication of Charles, who, broken in health and weary of the burden of empire, retired to the monastery of Yuste, in Estremadura, leaving the crown of Spain, together with the Netherlands and Italy, to his only son, Philip II, who two years earlier had contracted a political marriage with Queen Mary of England. Henri thereupon entered into an alliance with the Pope (Paul IV) for the deliverance of Italy from the Spaniards ; but the French invasion of Italy came to nothing through the inability of the commander, the Duke of Guise, to contend against the superior generalship of the famous Duke of Alva. The Spaniards at the same time invaded Picardy, under Duke Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, and at Saint-Quentin gained a decisive victory over the French under Montmorency. Meanwhile Henri had formed an alliance with Scotland against England, and was once more engaged in an English war. This 242 Ti- a w M CO w w to o M HENRI n ended in 1558 with the capture of Calais by the Duke of Cuise. Calais had been in the hands of the English for 210 years, and as it was still regarded by them as a key to France, its loss was considered as nothing less than a national disaster. Kvery one is familiar with the words of the dying Mary, that the name of Calais would be found imprinted upon her heart. By this time the callous, bigoted, and fanatical Spanish King was ready to come to terms with France. He was the bitter foe of Protestantism, and had resolved upon forcing the countries which had embraced it back into the fold of the Church under compulsion of the sword. In this gigantic scheme he needed the support of Catholic France. Hostilities were accordingly closed with the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559, by which France was allowed to retain the Trois-fiveches and Calais, while she relinquished Milan, Bresse, I^e Bugey, and Savoy. With this treaty ends the long story of France's futile effort to establish a footing in Italy. To cement the peace two marriages were arranged, that of Philip to a daughter and that of Kmmanuel Philibert to a sister of the French King. Brilliant festivities were held in Paris to celebrate this agree- ment ; but these came to a tragic end, for while taking part in a tournament Henri was struck in the eye by the broken lance of the Count of Montgomery (a Scotch nobleman and the captain of his guard), and died eleven days later at the age of forty. Henri resembled his father in his ambition, his prodigality, his licentiousness, and his devotion to manly exercises ; but he had few of his better qualities ; for whereas Frangois, with all his vices, had been attractive and intelligent, he, on the contrary, was heavy and dull. He quickly squandered the large sums which Frangois had gathered against a German war, and was henceforth driven to negotiate loans at ruinous rates of interest, thus adding greatly to the national debt. Offices, dignities, and favours he scattered among his courtiers with an equally lavish hand. His ignorance and moral weak- ness made him an easy prey to the stronger natures about him, and throughout his reign he was governed by favourites, whom he allowed to displace the tried ministers whose counsels 243 HISTORY OF FRANCE his father had specially recommended him to follow. The regular administration of the country he confided almost entirely to the Duke of Montmorency, who had been banished from Fran9ois' Court in disgrace, and was now recalled, and Jacques de Saint- Andre, whom he made Marshal of France. But an even more powerful personal influence was exerted upon him by his mistress Diane of Poitiers, ^ and by the rising family of Guise. Though nineteen years his senior, Diane had gained his affections while he was still Dauphin, and after- ward exercised an almost absolute sway over his judgment and tastes. The Guises were hardly less potent in his counsels. Proud, ambitious, determined, this cadet branch of the house of lyorraine was now pushing its way to the front, and three of its members — Frangois' le Balafre, lyieutenant- General of the kingdom, who had defended Metz against Charles and had taken Calais ; his brother, Charles the Cardinal ; and his son Henri — played the chief part, as we shall see directly, in the Wars of Religion as the leaders of Catholicism against the Huguenots.^ ^ The founder of the family was Claude of lyorraine, who won distinction in Italy, and was made Duke of Guise by Fran9ois I in 1527. His daughter married James V of Scotland, and was the mother of Mary Queen of Scots. Fran9ois le Balafr^ (so called from the severe wound on his face, which he received at the siege of Boulogne) and Charles the Cardinal were his sons. His grandson Henri, the third Duke, was also nicknamed ' le Balafre,' from a scar on his cheek. 244 X CHAPTER IX THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE I HAVE said that the Renaissance in France has come to be intimately connected with the name of Frangois I. So close, indeed, is the association that the beginning of the great intellectual and aesthetic revival is very commonly assigned to the year of his accession. This is of course in a sense a matter of convenience only. Yet it is not without justification on historical grounds, for the impulses behind the new movement, though they did not actually arise, first became paramount in the early part of his reign. From the personal point of view, moreover, his direct influence upon them has to be recognized. A man of sumptuous nature and many-sided interests, he had, with all his vices, abundant curiosity and a genuine love of beautiful things, and even if vanity and the mania for display had not a little to do with his munificent patronage of scholars and artists, his encouragement and example counted much in the spread of the new ideas and tastes. We have now, therefore, reached the point where we may fittingly interrupt our narrative to give a brief account of the Renaissance in France. One word of explanation is requisite before we proceed. The original movement of the Renaissance may be said to have lasted till about the close of the sixteenth century — that is, to the end of the Valois dynasty ; by which time, as Brunetiere has said, the surviving traditions of the Middle Ages had practically disappeared.^ As we are here to be concerned with the period as a whole, this chapter will necessarily carry us beyond the chronological limits reached in the actual progress of our story. 1 Mi^nuel de I'Histoire de la Litterature franfaise, p. 47. 245 HISTORY OF FRANCE We have already seen ^ that what we definitely call the Renaissance had been anticipated some two hundred years before, and at the very time when the great medieval order was at its height. It was then said, however, that the season of brilliant promise which came with the thirteenth century was destined to be followed by a long period of decline, and the causes of that decline are now sufficiently clear. The terrible strain of the Hundred Years' War and the universal anarchy which resulted were obviously fatal to intellectual progress, and it was not until the monarchy had been consoli- dated by lyouis XI and the material prosperity of the country restored under lyouis XII that conditions favourable to such progress were once more established in France. But meanwhile south of the Alps the great- revival of letters and art had gone on unchecked, and what in France was an age of dissolution aild reaction was in Italy an age of triumphant humanism. The development of civilization in France during the later fifteenth century itself pre]3ared the soil ; but it was from Italy that the first seeds of the Renaissance now came. For some sixty years before Francois I ascended the throne the influence of the new Italian culture had been making itself increasingly felt. This is shown in particular in the Greek revival, one of the most important phases of the history of humanism. As far back as 1458 one of those wandering Italian scholars who early began to carry the torch of learning into Northern Europe — Gregorio Tifernas by name — arrived in Paris, and for a short time taught Greek at the university. He was followed a little later by a native Greek, Georgius Hermonymus of Sparta, who, though an utterly incompetent teacher, did something to keep the flickering flame of Hellenism alive. I^ittle or no progress, however, was made for many years in this or in any connected line of study, for the university authorities were for the most part suspicious of the new learning, in which they scented heresy, and certainly did not encourage it, even when they did not throw positive obstacles in its way, while in the wider field of literature and art scarcely ^ See ante, Book II, chap. viii. 246 '^^''^f / \ , 25. The Pai,ais Ducai,, Nancy J 246 THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE any sign of the approaching change had yet appeared. Then came what from the standpoint, not of politics, as we have seen, but of culture, must be regarded as an epoch-making event — Charles VIII's ' holiday excursion ' into Italy — ^his ** voyage de Naples '' as Comines called it. This led, in Michelet's characteristically rhetorical phrase, to the French /* discovery of Italy." The weeks or months, as the case might be, which Charles' army spent— in a military sense, wasted — ^in the great centres of humanism and art — ^Naples, Rome, Florence, Siena, Pisa, Piacenza — ^produced a profound effect on the minds of some at least of his followers, whose enthusiasm for Italian culture was aroused by this direct contact with it, and even the King himself, ignorant and narrow-minded as he was, had his ambition stirred, and freely invited both scholars and artists to his capital and Court. The intellectual intercourse between the two countries thus opened up proved immensely fruitful to France for nearly a century, and it is from its commencement that we may date the great transformation which culminated under Fran9ois I. The Revival of Learning In the new age of classical scholarship in France now initiated — ^the age which saw the study of lyatin antiquity liberated from the trammels of medieval theology and scholasticism and revitalized,! and that of Greek antiquity firmly established —the lead was still taken by foreign pioneers : notably by the Greek Janus Lascaris, who had been in the service of Ivorenzo the Magnificent, and was one of those who accepted Charles VIII's invitation to Paris ; |the young|Italian Girolamo Aleandro (Hieronymus Aleander), who later became prominent ^ Ivatin authors had been studied throughout the Middle Ages in the schools of France as in those of other countries, but in a mystical and allegorizing spirit which made all real apprehension of their meaning impossible. As Brunetiere has well said, " lya difference est en effet profonde entre la dis- position d' esprit qui consiste a chercher, dans les Tusculanes ou dans le sixidme chant de Vl&niide, les signes avant-coureurs du christianisme d^ja prochain, et celle qui consiste a n'y vouloir uniquement saisir, pour en jouir, que les t^moignages du genie m^lancolique de Virgile ou de 1' eloquence de Cic^ron" {op. cit., p. 42). 247 HISTORY OF FRANCE as the bitter opponent of I^uther at Worms and a persecutor of the Protestants in the I^ow Countries ; and the great cosmo- poHtan missionary of humanism, Erasmus, who exercised an enormous influence in France, as he did in England, Switzer- land, and Italy itself. But before long native French scholars came to the fore ; among them the famous Guillaume Bude, or Budaeus, theologian, legist, historian, mathematician, and above all Hellenist ; Jacques I^efevre d'Btaples, whose name we shall meet again among those of the early religious reformers ; Btienne Dolet, who in 1532 returned from a six years' sojourn in Italy filled with the new spirit, and was burned at the stake in 1546 on charges of heresy ; the younger Scaliger, who even at that time of encyclopaedic erudition was regarded as a prodigy of learning ; and Robert and Henri Bstienne, who may be mentioned as representatives of the large number of sch'olar-printers who did for France what Aldo Manuzio and his successors had done and were doing for Italy. The labours of these men, and of many others whom we need not now pause to catalogue, placed France during the sixteenth century in the front rank of European scholarship. The mention just made of the Estiennes will serve to remind us how much the progress of humanism and the dissemination of its influence depended in France as in other countries upon the agency of that '' most formidable instrument of the modern reason," the printing-press. Into the much-discussed question of the origin of the art of printing by movable types it is not necessary that, we should now enter. In the matter of begin- nings it is enough for us to note that the first press in France was set up at the Sorbonne in 1470, and that only three years later a rival firm was already busy in Paris. Owing to the slow progress of the new learning, the books printed in France down to nearly the close of the fifteenth century were not, as in Italy, editions of the classics or commentaries upon them, but in the main romances in the vernacular, volumes of devotion, and manuals of philosophy in the old scholastic style. ^ But here again we have to emphasize the significance of 1 Tilley, Literature of the French Renaissance, p. 158. THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE Charles VIII's expedition into Italy, for from 1495 onward the issue of classical books, both reprints and dissertations, showed a steady increase. The use of types for Creek works was not, however, introduced till 1507. As we have spoken of the personal influence of Fran9ois I in the French Renaissance, it may be well to observe in passing^ that though he was chiefly interested in literature and art, he did something also to foster classical scholarship. For example, he appointed I^efevre d'fitaples as tutor to one of his sons, and gave Bude a position at his Court as valet de chambre with a pension of 240 livres a year. In other more important ways, too, humanism profited by his patronage. When in 1533 the bigoted authorities of the Sorbonne, alarmed at the progress of the new learning, which they early perceived to be hostile to the entire order of thought of which they were the great pillars, agitated for the prohibition of printing, Frangois rejected their petition. On the initiative of Bude he founded the College de France expressly for the promotion of classical studies along the new lines, and though, after his volatile fashion, he soon ceased to give much attention to it, the institution was henceforth a centre of enlightenment and a bulwark against obscurantist reaction. He also established at Fontainebleau a depository for the collection of manuscripts and books which was the germ of the later Biblioth^que Royale, and of which Bude was the first keeper, though the charge soon passed into the hands of a less eminent scholar, Pierre Gilles. From the point of view of general culture and civilization, which is the only aspect of it which concerns us here, the importance of the revival of classical learning and of the whole movement which we epitomize under the term humanism is to be sought in their far-reaching influence upon life. The word Renaissance meant, to begin with, the rebirth of pagan antiquity in art and letters, and in the strict sense this of course is still its primary significance. Yet more broadly we may take it to describe that entire intellectual rebirth which contact witji the rediscovered world of Greece and Rome was H9 HISTORY OF FRANCE largely instrumental in bringing about. As I have elsewhere written, " In classical literature a generation of men who were still haunted by the cramping traditions of medievalism read the watchword of emancipation. They found in it an emphatic assertion of the long-neglected claims of nature and the dignity and value of the earthly life. The world into which it introduced them was a larger and niore varied world than they had hitherto known. It suggested possibilities of experience of which they had never dreamed. They breathed in it an atmosphere charged with new and intoxicating emotions. The type of character which it presented to them was very different from the pinched and starved humanity which eccle- siastical other-worldliness and the superstition of asceticism had long held up as the highest standard of spiritual attain- ment. To men who had come into contact with the great literary masterpieces of Greece and Rome, things about them and their own lives could never be the same again. Out of the long forgotten pagan past a generous and inspiring influence swept in among the dry conventions and the blighting formulas of their theology. Their thoughts were liberalized, their feelings quickened and expanded. Human nature seemed to renew its dignity. The world was filled with beauty and fresh meaning." ^ The Literature of the French Renaissance The period of the Renaissance, therefore, was a period of fundamental change in life and thought, and as in this great transformation the rebirth of pagan antiquity was thus a chief factor, it is important to note that in France, as in England, its influences were soon carried far beyond the narrower circle of scholarship by the literature which it inspired. At this point the value of the work done by numerous translators, who became as it were the interpreters of antiquity to the larger public, must be fully recognized. Dolet's version of some of the Platonic dialogues and of the Tusculans of Cicero, Jamyn's of the Iliad and of portions of the Odyssey, Amyot's 1 The Story of the Renaissance, pp. 73, 74. 250 o < h-T W < THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE of the biographical and ethical writings of Plutarch,^ to name only a few, put some of the treasures of Greek and Latin literature into the possession of many readers for whom the originals would have remained sealed books. Such work helped to charge the general atmosphere of the time with the spirit of the new learning. A taste for intellectual things was thus aroused among the wealthier classes, who hitherto had been almost wholly indifferent to them. The old chivalrous conception of manhood began to disappear, and a very different conception of the ' gentleman ' — a conception which embraced interests and accomplishments altogether out of harmony with the ideals of feudal times — arose to take its place. A love of knowledge, long treated with contempt as the sign of the mere ' clerk,* now came to be regarded as " a true and powerful ornament " in life, and not only those connected with the capital and Court, but even provincial gentlemen, whose horizon had hitherto been bounded by the chase, were concerned to give their sons the advantages of a humanistic education. The literature which arose in France under the stimulus of the revival of learning marks the beginning of that classic movement which was to continue through the following century and to reach its culmination in the * great age ' of lyouis XIII and lyOuis XIV. Not so slavishly as in Italy, but far more closely than in England, the men of the Renaissance in France followed the lines which had been laid down — once and for all, as their superstitious veneration led them to believe — ^by the Greek and I^atin masters. The first poet of any note in the new age, Clement Marot, who was one of the many writers whom P rangois I's sister Marguerite of Navarre gathered about her at her Court, remained, indeed, faithful on the whole (as did Marguerite herself in her own verse) to the traditions of the older French poetry. It is true that he ^ Amyot's Vies des Hommes illustres (1558) was the most famous and widely read work of the kind at the time, and still retains its place among the French classics. It has also a special interest for the student of our own literature, because it was in turn ' Englished ' by Sir Thomas North, whose translation provided Shakespeare with the materials for his Roman plays. 251 HISTORY OF FRANCE made some translations from Vergil and Ovid, but except in his Eclogues he did not imitate the ancients, and his original work shows that the bent of his genius was decidedly against classicism. But though only a youth of nineteen when Fran9ois came to the throne, Marot really belongs to the outgoing generation. The strength of the classic current which had now set in was attested soon after his death in exile at Turin in 1544, by the formation of the famous Pleiade. Organized in 1548, this association was composed, as its name implies, of seven members — all save one young, and all enthusiastic lovers of poetry and antiquity — Ronsard, du Bellay, Thyard, Baif, Belleau, Jodelle, and Dorat. Its object was the regenera- tion of French literature on the basis of the classics, and its manifesto was contained in du Bellay 's Deffense et Illustration de la Langue frangoyse, published in 1549. '^^^ fundamental argliment of this remarkable treatise is that all the great types of ancient literature — epic, tragedy, comedy (as contrasted with 'the current sottie and farce), ode, satire, pastoral, epistle- should be resuscitated and naturalized on French soil, and that the ancients themselves should be everywhere followed implicitly as guides. At the same time a strong plea is made for the native tongue. In Italy the tendency had been to despise the vernacular as unworthy of the attention of scholars. Du Bellay's ideal, on the contrary — and in this, as in all other matters, he speaks for his colleagues as well as for himself — is a new French literature reproducing what was greatest in the literatures of antiquity, but having, not Latin, but French as its medium. The importance of this point is obvious ; it shows us that, unlike their Italian forerunners, the pioneers of classicism in France were not seduced by their admiration of the past into the absurd notion that a living literature can be produced in a dead language. None the less, the Pleiads were firmly convinced that, with all its possibilities, French as it existed was too poor for the purposes of great poetry, and they therefore argued that it should be enriched by a plentiful admixture of words and idioms from various other sources^ and especially from the classig 252 THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE tongues. The result, as may be anticipated, was an extra- ordinary development of pedantry, from which French poetry continued to suffer till a reform was effected by Mialherbe early in the century following. As Boileau said of Ronsard, by far the greatest of the Pleiade, and a poet of real genius, his French muse spoke in I^atin and Greek. True to their programme, the members of the brotherhood made an heroic attempt to create a new poetry by the revival of the principal classic types. Ronsard himself, for example, cultivated the ode, taking the Greek ode as his model, and boldly essayed, though without success, the regular epic in his unfinished La Franciade. The satire and the pastoral were forms also employed by independent writers, while the Protestant du Bartas, turning classic art to religious themes, offered other sustained examples of poetry in the ' grand style ' in Judith, Le Triomphe de Foi, and the fragmentary epic of creation La Sepmaine {Semaine). But much the most impor- tant historically of all these experiments in transplanting antique forms was that made in the drama. In his Cleopatre and Dido se Sacrifiant Jodelle introduced that Senecan type of tragedy which, with slight modifications, was to flourish in France unchallenged till the far-off days of Dumas and Victor Hugo. Meanwhile prose developed more independently and along many different lines, with results which are more important to us to-day than those attained in verse. It was during the sixteenth century, indeed, that the foundations of modern French prose literature were firmly laid. The French had already shown remarkable aptitude for memoir-writing, and this kind of work, together with the kindred form of biography, became immensely popular at a time when people everywhere were keenly interested in public events and in the personalities conspicuously connected with them. Some of these memoirs were written by the actors themselves, as in the case of the so-called Commentaires of the ferocious soldier of fortune Blaise de Montluc, and of the Discours politiques et militaires of the Huguenot I^a Noue ; others were the compositions of 253 HISTORY OF FRANCE those who stood very near to the men whose deeds were recorded in them, Hke the Vie de Bayard by ' I^e lyoyal Servi- teur ' (said to be the Chevalier's secretary, one Jacques de Mailles) ; others, again, were compiled by outsiders, like the Vie des Hommes illustres and Vie des Dames galantes of that famous gossip and snapper-up of unconsidered trifles Brantome. Regular history also felt the impulse of the same conditions and began to outgrow the methods of the formless old chronicle (as, e.g., in Pasquier's Recherches de la France), though nothing in this field was yet produced even approxi- mating to the high standard set up in Jean Bodin's Methodus ad facilem Historiarum Cognitionem — a work which in its singularly modern conception of the philosophy of history was distinctly in advance* of its time. In the domain of theology Calvin's Institution cJiretienne, the French translation made by the author himself from the I^atin in which the book was first published, is, apart from all question of matter, rega'rded as one of the monuments of the new prose. The bitter struggles of the age in religion and politics were naturally productive of a vast amount of literature, and while most of this was merely ephemeral, a few works here and there still retain their vitality. Specially noteworthy among these is La Satire Menippde, a plea for pacification published after Henri IV's coronation by a group of writers belonging to the party of the politiques, or moderate men.^ The stir of new thought is also to be felt in widespread speculations regard- ing the principles underlying the current controversies. From this point of view some significance attaches to Bodin's De la Repuhliqtie as a philosophical inquiry into the foundations of monarchy and a qualified defence of absolutism. But much •—more remarkable, of course, are the books which represent the radical side. In certain ' advanced ' circles there had long been much talk about the popular basis of government, ^ * For the politiques see next chapter. The title of the satire — which is the j5rst political satire in the language on a large scale — was derived from the name of the Greek cynic philosopher, Menippus. * Cp. ante, pp. 218-219. 254 28. Thk Chateau of Amboise 29. The Chateau of Bi,ois 254 THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE and this was naturally stimulated both by the study of classical antiquity and by the agitation of the Protestants for religious and political freedom. This talk now passed into literature. In his Franco-Gallia, a work which produced a great sensation first in its original I^atin form and later in the French version made under the author's supervision, the Huguenot Hotman boldly appealed to history for justification of the principle that in the last analysis all sovereignty is vested in the people. This principle was further asserted on theoretic grounds by another adherent of Calvinism, Hubert I^anguet, in his Vindiciae contra Tyrannos, which was also widely read in a French translation. Both these treatises owe their inspiration to the conflict of the Protestants with a persecuting autocracy, and thus illustrate the political bearings of the Reformation. But views no less revolutionary were independently expressed in the Contre Un, ou Discours sur la Servitude volontaire, written at the age of twenty-two by Montaigne's dear friend I^a Boetie, though not published till some years after his premature death, lya Boetie, a professed Catholic, was one of those who had nourished his thought with the wisdom of the ancients. But he had also been an eye-witness of the horrible brutalities which attended the suppression by Montmorency of a popular rising against the iniquities of the gabelle in his native province of Guyenne, and he had thus had an opportunity of studying the evils of despotism in their most monstrous forms. It is true, indeed, that he nowhere explicitly refers to contemporary events ; but their influence upon his mind is to be seen in the passionate protests against injustice and inhumanity which run through his philosophical argument in favour of republi- canism. Such works as these, small as was their practical effect at the time, are memorable as evidences of the rising power of that critical spirit in the sphere of politics which some two centuries later was to contribute so much to the overthrow of the Old Regime. It was, however, in general prose that the greatest triumphs of the French Renaissance were won. Two of the most illus- trious names in the annals of their country's literature belong, 255 HISTORY OF FRANCE indeed, to the sixteenth century — ^the one to the first, the other to the second half of it — those of Rabelais and Montaigne. Though difficult to classify, Rabelais is usually placed among the conteurs} and justly so, since, so far as they can be said to belong to any recognizable form at all, his Gargantua and Pantagruel may be described as a kind of burlesque roman d'adventures. Montaigne, on the other hand, by expanding and adapting the popular memoir, really created a very distinct and fruitful literary type — the personal essay. But with the technical characteristics of these two great writers we are not now concerned. Their importance for us lies in the fact that, vast as was the difference between them, each was in his own way a product and an interpreter of the Renaissance. The ardour with which at forty-one, after thirty years of monastic disci- pline, Rabelais threw himself into life, itself seems to typify the spirit of a generation conscious of emerging from the shadow of the cloister into the broad daylight of the world. His pages are full of the youthful vigour and the mighty hopes of the lusty new age. A humanist to his finger-tips and a man of immense scholarship ('' totius encyclopaediae prof undissimus abysmus "), he pours out his accumulated stores of learning with utter disregard of measure and form. He is often the irresponsible buffoon whose rire enorme (as Victor Hugo called it) is excited merely by his huge delight in the extravagances of his own riotous fancies. When the mood is upon him he turns everything into jest and wallows in the mire of obscenity, naked and unashamed. But he is at the same time something more than a reckless fun-maker. He is an intellectual path- finder, Utopian dreamer, satirist, reformer, critic of life. It is certain, indeed, that, after their manner, modern students * Story-literature of various kinds naturally flourished on a soil which had been well prepared by the contes, fabliaux, and romans of the Middle Ages. Among the most famous books of fiction of this time is the Heptameron, commonly attributed to Marguerite of Navarre, though more probably, in large measure at least, the work of some of her courtiers. An imitation of the Decamerone, this has a curious interest for the student of manners because, while the tales composing it reflect the licentious taste of the age, they are turned to a moral purpose under the influence of the pious Queen. 256 THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE are apt to read too much system and too many of their own ideas into his writings. Whether, for instance, his three fabulous giants, Grandgousier, Gargantua, and Pantagruel, are really to_be taken as symbolizing respectively the Middle Ages, the period of transition, and the Renaissance may be considered doubtful. But the whole trend of his teaching at least is unmistakable. He is first and last the uncompromising opponent of medievalism in every form, and especially of the ascetic ideal fostered by the monastic tradition of other- worldliness. He believes in nature, in beauty, in freedom ; he proclaims the just claims of the body no less than those of the mind ; and his theory of education is based upon the Greek principle of the harmonious development of all the faculties whose co-operation is necessary to the production of a complete humanity. No less typical is the philosophy expounded by Mpntaigne. The awakening of personality was, as Burckhardt has said, the great sign of the new time, and this meant the shifting of the ethical accent from self- repression to self-realization and self-expansion, and the asser- tion of the right of each individual to the full enjoyment of all his powers and opportunities. " The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own," writes Montaigne, and thus sums up the individualistic tendencies of the Renaissance in a single pregnant phrase. From this point of view even the unabashed egotism of his Essais is historically significant. Even more significant are his insatiable curiosity and his universal scepticism, The world for him was a field of inexhaustible interest, and to get the maximum amount of value out of experience was one of his guiding principles. At the same time his searching intellect recognized neither fixity nor finality in belief. " Que s^ais-je ? " — the motto of his title-page — was the key-note of his philosophy of life. Amid the strife of creeds he maintains his detached and anti-dogmatic position. It is true that he lived and died a Catholic, but this fact is of little weight against the influence which he exerted for toleration and freedom of conscience by the whole tone and drift of his thought. " My own opinions R 257 HISTORY OF FRANCE are slippery, but I do not change them, for so are the others," he explains with his customary frankness. The quest for absolute truth must therefore be abandoned as hopeless ; each man must be left to his own devices ; and the wisest will be content with approximations and qualifications. Thus Montaigne's place in the literature of the Renaissance is defined. He was the incarnation at once of the inquisitive temper of his age and of its new-born spirit of emancipa- tion. The Renaissance and the Reformation J^ Though it would carry us beyond the purpose of this chapter to pursue the subject in detail, a few words must be said about the relation of the Renaissance in France to the Reforma- tion. The revival in rehgion was in origin part of the great general intellectual revival. It was, moreover, as is well known, directly stimulated by the application of the new learning and the critical methods which accompanied it to the interpretation of the Scriptures. Hence it was natural that many of the leading French humanists and progres- sive thinkers — men, for example, like Ivefevre d'fitaples, the Kstiennes, Peter Ramus,the daring opponent of the old scholastic Aristotelianism, Pare, the eminent surgeon, Bernard Palissy and Jean Goujon, the artists, and Rabelais — should have been sympathetically disposed toward the Reform movement, while some of them were for a time at least avowed adherents of it. To them that movement appealed because, as it seemed, it brought with it the promise of enlightenment and liberty in spiritual things. But when, as they soon learned, Calvinism meant, not enlightenment and liberty, but gloomy fanaticism and the return of theological despotism in another form, their attitude toward it underwent a change. The terrible religious wars, whose course we are presently to follow, and which for many years drenched the country in blood, were also a factor in their reaction. lyong before the century closed humanism and the Reformation had definitely parted company. 258 30. Specimens of Pai^issy Earthenware 258 THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE The Art of the French Renaissance Of the Renaissance in art, which meanwhile went on concur- rently with that in letters and thought, a very brief account will suffice. The growth of a taste for Graeco-Roman archi- tecture in France was one result of the '' discovery of Italy." But while south of the Alps the classic mode had been restored with great rapidity, its progress in France was for some time very slow. Gothic architecture, though already, indeed, it had lost its primitive purity and had passed into the flamboyant stage, was so deeply rooted in French soil that it was not easily displaced by an alien form. Hence a lengthy period of transi- tion, during which many leading architects sought to combine the old manner and the new, retaining the structural principles of Gothic, but making a free use of classic details. This mixed style, or 'style Francois I,' as it is called, for it flourished in the earlier part of that king's reign, was employed especially in the country residences of the nobility on the banks of the Ivoire, as in the chateaux of Chambord and Blois, while other admirable examples of it are to be found in portions of the Hotel du Bourgtheroulde, in Rouen, and in the church of Saint-Bustache, in Paris. By little and little, however, under the influence of Italian architects whom Francois I brought to his capital, the Renaissance style gained ground, and after a struggle which continued till the middle of the sixteenth century its triumph was completed by the native masters Pierre I^escot, Philibert Delorme, and Jean Bullant. The restoration of the old palace at Fontainebleau was carried out for Frangois by Italians, and it was also an Italian, Pietro di Cortona, who provided the plans for the new Hotel de Ville. But the I^ouvre, begun by Francois in the closing years of his life to replace the old lyouvre of the times of Charles V, was in the main the work of lycscot, while the palace of the Tuileries, which was built for Catherine de Medicis,^ was commenced by Delorme and completed by Bullant. These buildings may be ^ Here and henceforth I adopt the Gallicized form of the name under which Catherine de' Medici figures in French history. 259 HISTORY OF FRANCE cited as famous sixteenth-century examples of the new style. But many public buildings in provincial towns, belonging to the same period, show that the Italian mode had now estab- lished itself all over the country. Nor must the social aspect of this fundamental change in architectural method be over- looked. The old feudal castles of the nobility, built with little regard to comfort and with the primary purpose of furnishing security in case of siege, now began to make way for constructions of lighter character, designed to answer the altered needs, as they expressed the modified tastes, of the gentilshommes of the rising generation. Italian taste in painting and sculpture naturally accom- panied Italian taste in architecture. Once more it was foreign masters — men like Andrea del Sarto, Francesco Primaticcio, an^ Benvenuto Cellini, who worked for Fran9ois I at his Court — who gave the first impulse to the new school. In these allied arts, however, comparatively little was accomplished by French- men' themselves during the period now in question, though native sculpture was brilliantly represented by Jean Goujon and Germain Pilon. Among the minor arts which mean- while were cultivated with success, the beautiful ceramic work invented by Bernard Palissy deserves particular mention. Palissy was one of the noblest and most striking figures in the France of his time. He was not only an artist, he was also an indefatigable and enlightened student of nature, and the lectures on natural philosophy which he gave for some years in Paris have- a noteworthy place in the history of scientific thought. But as a Huguenot he was harassed by persecution. Imprisoned at Bordeaux and then released by royal edict, he escaped death in the massacre of St Bartholomew by special grace of Catherine de Medicis, only to be thrown later into the Bastille and to die there as a martyr to his faith. Though we have nothing more to do with him here, he thus forms a connecting link between this digressive chapter and the main course of our narrative, to which we now return. 260 CHAPTER X THE LAST OF THE VALOIS : THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE AND THE WARS OF RELIGION GREAT as were Henri II's shortcomings as a king, his premature death was a misfortune, for it left the royal power in the hands of a youth of fifteen. Fran9ois II reigned only seventeen months (1559-60), and then died of chronic blood-poisoning. Feeble in character as in health, and wholly wrapped up in his beautiful young wife, Mary Stuart (whom we know as Mfiry Queen of Scots), he left all the affairs of State to her two uncles, Francois, Duke of Guise, and the Cardinal of lyorraine, though the Queen-Mother, Catherine de Medicis, was nominally the head of the Government. His brother, Charles IX, then ascended the throne at the age of ten, and reigned nearly fourteen years (1560-74), almost entirely under the domination of his mother. lycaving no issue, he in turn was succeeded by his younger brother, Henri III, then twenty-two, with whom, in 1589, the line of the Valois kings came to a close. The thirty years thus covered by the combined reigns of the three sons of Henri II were years of fierce tumult and deadly peril for the country, for they were the years of the terrible Wars of Religion, by which all patriotic feeling was destroyed and the very existence of the nation jeopardized, and in which, it is computed, more than a million Frenchmen perished. At such a critical period France needed a wise and strong king. Henri II's sons were neither strong nor wise. The decadent offspring of a now exhausted stock, and tainted alike in blood and in mind, they were totally unfit to cope with the gigantic problems of an age in which riotous passions were let loose 261 HISTORY OF FRANCE to work destruction. Poor, sickly Francois was a sovereign only in name. Charles, though a man of physical vigour and some literary accomplishments, was weak of will, vacillating, cunning, and cruel. Henri, who passed his time for the most part between monstrous debaucheries and a feminine devotion to the toilet, with occasional outbursts of religious fanaticism by way of variation, was, so far as government was concerned, v/holly the creature of the ascendant influences of the hour. Such a succession of ineffective rulers was in the last degree disastrous, for not only did the impotence of the throne allow the spirit of anarchy to grow unchecked, but it also encouraged a furious struggle among those ambitious party leaders who saw in such impotence an invitation to snatch at the reins of power. Thus personal rivalries, political intrigues, plots and counter-plots mingled with the religious animosities of the time and made confusion worse confounded. Leaders in the Wars of Religion It will be convenient to pass in review the chief actors in the tragic drama with which this chapter has to deal. On the Catholic side the leaders were the three principal members of the house of Guise. Francois, the second Duke, was an ambitious, insolent, and domineering man, who stopped at nothing in the carrying out of his plans. But his military genius was conspicuous, and he easily takes rank among the greatest captains of his day. This gave him a hold upon the soldiers. At the same time his love of rich costumes, the splendour of his escort, his rather theatrical deportment, and a certain haughty grace of manners which on occasion he knew how to assume, made a potent appeal to the popular imagina- tion, and helped him more than once in a moment of crisis to win the favour of the fickle crowd. His brother, Charles the Cardinal, was in many respects his antithesis and comple- ment. Handsome, " de noble et grave presence," a scholar, an eloquent preacher, a shrewd though hardly a tactful poli- tician, he had a capacity for affairs equal to that which Frangois exhibited in the field. But, like Fran9ois, he was thoroughly 262 31. FRANgois II 32. Francois of Guisk 33. The Cardinai< of I^orrainb 34. HENRI OF Guise 262 THE WARS OF RELIGION self-seeking and unprincipled, and even his zeal for religion, which was great, was only an aspect of his passion for self- aggrandizement. In temper, too, he was no less brutal and autocratic ; he was jealous ; he was vindictive ; he never forgot an injury and never forgave it. With the assassination of Frangois and the death of Charles, the former's son, Henri, the third Duke, came to the front as the great champion of the Catholic cause. In him the bitter animus of his family against Protestantism was intensified by his father's fate, and religious bigotry being thus reinforced by the personal desire for revenge, he became one of the principal organizers of the atrocious crime of St Bartholomew, and later the head of the Catholic I/eague. While neither so great a soldier as his father nor so consummate a schemer as his uncle, he resembled them both in his unqualified selfishness, and in his determination to make the ills of his unhappy country the instruments of his political ends. His ambition, indeed, carried him much farther than they had ventured. They had been satisfied with their ascen- dancy under the existing forms of royalty. He aimed directly at the kingship itself. This lust for power proved his doom. Opposed to the house of Guise was the princely house of Bourbon, the head of which, Antoine, was a cousin on the maternal side of Francois, Duke of Guise, and the Cardinal of Lorraine.^ The Bourbons were next-of-kin to the reigning line, Antoine himself being first prince of the blood. This gave them the place of honour in the eyes of the people, who regarded them as their natural leaders, and looked upon the Guises as foreigners. Antoine, however, was scarcely the man to improve his advantage, for though he was brave and courteous, his easy-going, careless, and fickle nature hopelessly disqualified him for decisive action. Through his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret, the only daughter of Henri II of Navarre and Marguerite of Angouleme, Frangois I's sister, he became titular King of Navarre, and the father of the famous Henri of Navarre, who was presently to emerge as the great hero ^ The father of Antoine was a brother of Antoinette, the mother of the Guises. 263 HISTORY OF FRANCE of the Huguenots ^ and the founder of a new dynasty in France. Antoine's younger brother, I^ouis of Bourbon, Prince of Conde, was a much stronger man, though not really a great one either in character or in genius. When under Francois II the Guises became all-powerful in the kingdom, the two Bourbons, partly from jealousy and self-interest (which seem to have been the main influences with Antoine) and partly from real conviction, went over to the Huguenot cause. Of that cause Jeanne d'Albret was a strong supporter. By far the most important man on the Protestant side, however, was the third of the sons of the Seigneur de Chatillon, Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France. It was during the captivity which followed his heroic defence of Saint-Quentin that he embraced the Reformed faith, and the cardinal purpose of his life thereafter was to obtain complete liberty of conscience and worship for his fellow-Protestants. Upright, disinterested, sincere to his finger-tips, deeply religious and patriotic, a sagacious statesman as well as a brave soldier, Coligny was one of the greatest and noblest Frenchmen of the sixteenth century. Standing between the two rival parties of the Guises and the Bourbons, and in a position of immense difficulty and danger, was the Queen-Mother, Catherine de Medicis. For some years after her marriage with the second son of Francois I this extraordinary woman had given few signs of her real personality. That marriage had been only a detail in the political schernes of the French King and the Pope, and she soon found herself lonely and neglected in her new home. In these trying circumstances she comported herself with singular submissiveness. Bven when her husband became King she still remained in the background, never asserting her position, and scarcely protesting against the domination at Court of Henri's mistress, Diane of Poitiers. It was only on the accession of her young and fragile son Fran9ois that her real qualities, moral and intellectual, began to appear. Hence- 1 This word appears to be derived from ' Kigenot ' (German Eidgenosse, confederate), a Genevese nickname for the Reformers. 264 35- Antoine; of Bourbon 36. Louis of Bourbon 37. Admirai, Coi^igny 38. Jeanne d'Ai;bret 264 THE WARS OF RELIGION forth, till her death in 1589, she was one of the ruling spirits of the age. A true child of the Italian Renaissance, she had both the love of beauty and the moral insensibility of her race. Treacherous, callous, cruel, she was, so far as it is possible for a human creature to be so, entirely devoid of conscience. The most elementary distinctions of right and wrong did not exist for her. Ethical considerations, even of the simplest kind, never for a moment entered into her calculations. Of the commonest feelings of humanity she knew nothing, and she was ignorant alike of compunction and of remorse. The one redeeming feature of her character was her devotion to her sons ; though this was in fact only an extension of her selfishness and a chief cause of her crimes. Determined at all costs to maintain their power against the perils which threatened it from two different sides, she made it the principal object of her policy to turn the struggles of opposed parties to the advantage of the Crown. " II faut diviser pour regner " was one of her favourite maxims ; acting upon which she indus- triously fomented jealousies and dissensions among her enemies in the hope of turning against each other the forces which would otherwise be directed against the monarchy. Wholly without religious instincts, though profoundly superstitious, she regarded the conflict of the Churches from the political point of view only. She had, indeed, in earlier life exhibited some leanings toward Protestantism as the creed of " intellectual people " ; while, but for political complications, her indifference might easily have led her to toleration. But she soon came to hate the Huguenots because, as she saw, the tendency of their teaching was against the despotic authority of the throne. Yet she did not scruple to make all the use of them she could as an offset to the dangerous supremacy of the Guises. Her double-dealing with the two religious parties was therefore only a matter of strategy. As soon as she was finally convinced that her interest lay in the triumph of Catholicism she even intrigued with the hated Guises for the complete annihilation of the Protestant cause. 265 HISTORY OF FRANCE The Reformation in France Such were the leading figures on the stage of French history during the period of the civil wars. A brief sketch of the Reformed religion in France must now be given. The beginnings of the great movement may be traced in the meetings of a small group of Christian humanists known as the Mystics of Meaux, the social and intellectual importance of which is- shown by the fact that it numbered among its members the tender and devout Marguerite of Angouleme, who, according to a contemporary writer, gathered about her all the better spirits in France as the wild thyme gathers the bees ; Briconnet, the earnest but timid and temporizing Bishop of Meaux ; and the distinguished scholar Jacques I^efevre d'lStaples, whose translation of the New Testament had been inspired by his desire to have Christ *^ preached from the sources." Followers of Erasmus rather than of lyUther and 'deeply affected by the Platonism of the Florentine humanist Marsilio Ficino, these unaggressive seekers after truth, while sincerely desirous for the purification of religion, cared far less about external changes than about the development of the spirit of personal piety. Yet the more militant element was not unrepresented among them, for their company included the restless, proselytizing Far el, and the image-breaking weaver I^eclerc, later burnt at Metz on charges of sacrilege. This was in the early years of FrauQois I. For the moment little was accomplished, for in these tentative stages the Reformation in France wanted leadership and driving power. Already, however, it had aroused the hostility of the Sorbonne and the Parliament of Paris. At first the King, on his return from captivity in Madrid, was inclined to protect its adherents ; so it began to spread at Court. The favourite aristocratic poet, Marot, who was himself wounded at Pavia, went over to Protestantism, and made a translation of the Psalms which became popular with the lords and fine ladies ; and thus the new views were for a time distinctly fashionable. But, alarmed by reports of the disturbances which had followed in the wake of the 266 THE WARS OF RELIGION Reformed religion in Germany, the King began to waver. Then the influence of superstition caused him suddenly to change his front. In May 1528 news came that a statue of the Virgin and Child had been mutilated. The outrage produced a great commotion in orthodox circles, and Fran9ois, report says, was " so much angered " that " he wept bitterly." The result of his panic was that he not only permitted but encouraged the persecution of the schismatics ; many were burnt at the stake, some of the executions actually taking place in the presence of the King and his Court. His policy, indeed, changed for a short time while he was seeking alliances with Germany and England, but his negotiations with Pope Clement VII and the violence of a fanatical section of the Reformers led him to renew his attempt to stamp out heresy everywhere in his kingdom. Even more drastic measures than he had hitherto adopted were now employed ; his severity, indeed, going so far that the Pope himself, Paul III, found it politic to remonstrate. But the pause which followed upon the strange papal interference was for a short time only. Persistent and ruthless persecution marked the closing years of Frangois' reign, and his policy in this respect was carried out far more consistently and even more rigorously by his son. Meanwhile the Reform movement had not only been spread- ing widely throughout the country, but had also been undergoing a significant change of character. It had become an organized movement with a definite creed and programme. For this change Calvin was largely responsible. The publication in 1535 of his Instituts de la Religion chretienne, with its famous preface addressed to Francois I, is a landmark in the history of French Protestantism. That epoch-making work was, in- deed, produced in Switzerland ; but its author was a French- man, and as such made a more direct appeal to his countrymen than had ever been made by foreigners like I^uther and Zwingli. His manifesto infused new energy into the Reform party, while at the same time his system of Protestant theology and ethics, claiming as it did the fixity and finality of the older creed, 267 HISTORY OF FRANCE became a nucleus about which French rehgious thought quickly consolidated. Protestantism now gained substance and defi- niteness as well as popularity. Many members of the nobility and of the wealthy middle classes openly went over to it. In 1555 began the formation of regular churches. In 1559 the first national Synod met, and compiled a Confession of Faith and a Book of Discipline. Persecution had helped much in this notable development, because, overreaching itself, it had created a reaction in favour of the persecuted. The efforts of the Government to extirpate heresy and schism were not relaxed ; but the new faith continued to make progress. Such was the situation when, with the accession of Fran9ois II, the Cardinal of Lorraine became the controlling power in the internal administration of the realm. His unqualified antago- nism to the Reformers was at once apparent. In the last days of the former King's reign there had been a great scene in the Parliament of Paris, when Anne du Bourg (son of one of Frafi9ois I's chancellors) and several other members had taken a bold stand for justice and toleration. The offenders were arrested by command of the King. His death did not stop their trial, nor did the protest of the Synod, then in session, affect its issue. They were promptly condemned to the stake, though du Bourg alone was executed. His cruel fate, and the dignified courage with which he met it, made a deep impression upon the populace, while his dying speech, according to a contemporary, " made more converts among the students of Paris than -all the writings of Calvin." After this persecu- tion continued with ever-increasing violence, with the result that ultimately the passions of the Protestants were aroused, and whereas they had hitherto borne their sufferings with Christian meekness, they now began to talk of armed resistance to the Guises and their unrighteous rule. Thus the religious movement became a political movement as well. This meant an accession of strength indeed, but of a kind which was likely to prove almost as dangerous to the Reformers as to their enemies. For the high-handed conduct of the Duke and the Cardinal had stirred up hatred throughout the land, and the 268 THE W.ARS OF RELIGION ranks of the Protestants were now swelled by vast numbers of malcontents who had little or no sympathy with their doctrines. Demands were made that the Guises should be dismissed and their place in the King's councils be taken by the Princes of the Blood. Matters came to a head in 1560 in a plot — ' the tumult of Amboise '—to seize the King's person and, if necessary, to proclaim the Prince of Conde Governor-General of the kingdom. But the conspiracy was badly planned and even more badly managed ; news of it leaked out ; and the Duke of Guise crushed it with barbarous severity. Twelve hundred Protes- tants perished at the hands of the executioner, many of the victims being hanged or their heads exposed on the doors and battlements of the castle of Amboise, to which the Court had been removed — an arrangement made, says a chronicler, expressly for the distraction of some of the ladies, " who were getting bored at staying so long in one place." Conde himself was arrested later and condemned to death ; but the new Chancellor, Michel de I'Hopital, a man of sound sense and moderate views, refused to sign the warrant, and so saved his life. ly'Hopital also prevented the introduction of the Inquisition into France, now advocated by the Guises, and by the Edict of Romorantin (May 18, 1560) transferred the prosecution of heretics from the Parliaments to the bishops' courts. Whether or not well-advised, this move was made in the interests of peace. The Regency of Catherine de Medicis At this juncture FrauQois II died, and on the accession of the ten-year-old Charles IX Catherine de Medicis became Regent of France. To placate the Bourbon party — ^for there v^as at the moment a strong popular feeling in favour of the Princes of the Blood — she released Conde and appointed Antoine of Bourbon I^ieutenant-General of the kingdom. At the same time, to check the power of the Guises, she found herself forced into a policy of conciliation in regard to the Huguenots. Shortly before the late King's death it had 269 HISTORY OF FRANCE been arranged that the States-General should be convened, and in December 1560 they met — ^for the first time for more than fifty years — at Orleans. The opening speech of the Chancellor made it clear that the Regent and her counsellors desired to put an end to the bloody conflict of the creeds, and to devise some means by which a common ground of agreement might be found for those who, great as were, their differences of opinion, were after all men of the same race, living under the same laws. The subsequent debates showed that on this central question of religion the States were hopelessly divided. The clergy, while advocating the reform of the Church, demanded the extermination of heresy. The Third Estate asked for complete toleration and freedom of worship. The nobles of Central France sided with the clergy ; those of the we^t with the Third Estate ; the remainder contented them- selves with urging that both religious parties should be made to keep the peace and that punishment for heresy should be visited upon preachers only. The reply of the Government took the form of a promise to consider the abuses detailed in the cahiers, joined with a general amnesty. Unfortunately, however, even this measure of pacification proved the starting-point of renewed troubles. Emboldened by the suspension of persecution, and treating the concessions made as meaning more than was really intended, the Huguenots proceeded to the open practice of their religious rites. This inflamed the more bigoted Catholics ; there were anti-Protestant riots in Paris and in the country ; in many places the Huguenots retaliated by attacking churches and destroying relics. Once more the Government had to interfere. An edict of July 1561 prohibited under severe penalties the public performance of any religious ceremonies other than those of the Catholic Church, while at the same time it forbade any interruption of Protestant services in houses. Upon this Coligny wrote to his fellow-Protestants that they had nothing to fear so long as they continued to worship in private. Meanwhile the Government had taken the bold step of calling a conference of Catholic and Protestant divines. This 270 THE WARS OF RELIGION met at Poissy in September, the Protestants being represented by twelve ministers under the leadership of Theodore de Beze, or Beza, whose fame as a scholar and controversialist was firmly established. The King, the Queen-Mother, and the Princes of the Blood were all present at the opening session. The Chancellor in his inaugural speech made a strong plea for peace and religious union ; Beza stated the Protestant case with great power and clearness ; the Cardinal of lyorraine replied in a tone of acrimonious partisanship. In ensuing sessions the discussion degenerated into personalities and wr anglings. Nothing came of this ' colloquy ' except the Edict of January 1562, which authorized a reformed public worship outside the walled towns though not within them. This for the first time granted to the Huguenots a certain amount of public liberty. Yet on the whole, like most half-measures, it was ill-advised. Either it went too far or it did not go far enough. It was intended as an eirenicon. In fact it annoyed the one side without thoroughly satisfying the other. It gave, it is true, an immense impetus to Protestantism. But precisely for this reason it justified the fears of the Triumvirate — ^the Constable Montmorency, the Duke of Guise, and the Marshal Saint- Andre, who had now banded themselves together to prevent by all possible means the further spread of the new religion among the people and at Court. A deplorable incident which took place only six weeks after the promulgation of this edict fanned the smouldering fires of sectarian hostility into a mighty blaze. On Sunday, March i, accompanied by his brother the Cardinal, his wife and children, and a large escort of gentlemen and retainers, the Duke of Guise on his way from Joinville to Paris stopped at Vassy to hear Mass. Close by the church was a barn in which, in defiance of the Edict of January (for Vassy was a walled town), a body of Protestants was engaged in public worship. These " gens scandaleux, arrogans, et fort temeraires " were for the most part the Duke's own subjects, and he was furious on discovering such a flagrant outrage upon his authority. He sent some of his suite to order them instantly to desist. The 271 HISTORY OF FRANCE Protestants barred their doors. The Duke's men endeavoured to force an entrance. The besieged repHed with a volley of stones, and several of the Duke's following and the Duke himself were struck. His escort thereupon opened fire with their arquebuses. The tumult was turned into a massacre, in which twenty-three Protestants were killed on the spot and more than a hundred wounded. News of the butchery soon found wing. The extreme Catholics hailed it as a victory, and went wild with enthusiasm when Guise marched in triumph into Paris. Other massacres of the Reformers followed in different parts of the country. At Toulouse 3000 of them were slain — men, women, and children — ^in cold blood, and in circumstances of peculiar atrocity. Sometimes for self- defence, sometimes goaded "by the desire for vengeance, the Prptestants began to arm themselves. Reprisals on their side were numerous. They slew priests ; they pillaged churches ; they were guilty of countless acts of violence and vandalism. In addition, hundreds of them flocked to Paris to place themselves under the orders of the Prince of Conde, who had declared himself their leader, the unstable Duke of Bourbon having now gone over to the Triumvirate. The capital seethed with excitement. A battle of factions in the streets seemed imminent. Catherine at first endeavoured to effect a compromise. Had the Protestants in this crisis rallied to the throne, she would certainly have upheld them ; but they made the mistake of adopting an inimical attitude, and as a result she now took her stand with the Catholic party. A decree of July 13, 1562, proclaimed the Protestants rebels and placed them outside the pale of the law. The war which followed was characterized by extraordinary ferocity on one and the other side, the spirit of cruelty which is usually bred of civil conflict being further intensified by religious fanaticism. The Catholic army, under Guise and Montmorency, was reinforced by Philip of Spain, that of the Protestants, under Conde and Coligny, by Elizabeth of England. In the south the fighting was mainly of a loose, guerrilla kind. The decisive actions took place in the north. In September 272 THE WARS OF RELIGION the Catholic troops captured Rouen, after a long siege in which the Duke of Bourbon was mortally wounded. In December a fierce battle was fought at Dreux, in which both the Constable Montmorency and the Prince of Conde were taken prisoners. Following up this victory the Duke of Guise marched on Orleans, which he invested on February 5, 1563. On the i8th of that month he was shot from behind by a Huguenot from Saintonge, and died six days later. Though the war had on the whole gone against the Huguenots, Catherine was now anxious to make peace. This was secured by a treaty which she signed with Conde at Amboise, by which Protestant worship was authorized in the houses of the nobility and in one city in each hailliage. But this agreement was very unfavourably regarded by the Reformers in general, who had taken their stand on the Edict of January 1562, and Conde was condemned for having been persuaded or tricked into its acceptance. Coligny reproached him because he had secured the rights of his own class and sacrificed those of the poorer brethren of the faith. Calvin accused him of betraying God. Though the peace made on this unsatisfactory basis lasted five years, during which the Chancellor de I'Hopital sought to turn public attention to various much-needed political reforms, the country continued in a state of religious unrest. The Catholics were irritated by even the measure of liberty which had been accorded to their enemies. At the same time the course of events both at home and abroad could not fail to fill the Protestants with alarm. The third session of the Council of Trent (1562-63) showed that the attitude of the heads of the Roman Church was one of uncompromising and bitter opposition, and that the breach between the old doctrines and the new was permanent. The Jesuits were actively engaged in the work of propagandism among the masses. The Counter-Reformation was in full swing. Philip of Spain, who had already attempted to interfere with Catherine's efforts for pacification, had now made the Catholic cause in Europe his own. The temper of the Court was becoming increasingly hostile, and a very bad feeling was created when s 273 HISTORY OF FRANCE the Queen-Mother met in conference at Bayonne (1564) Philip's chief minister, the infamous Duke of Alva. That feeling was deepened two years later when the Duke began his crusade of extermination among the Protestants of the I^ow Countries. Rightly or wrongly, the Huguenots came to believe that a similar crusade was to be directed against themselves. Their fears prompted aggressive action, and the Second War of Religion broke out (1566). Conde blockaded Paris, and at an indecisive battle fought at Saint-Denis (November 10, 1567) the old Constable Montmorency was killed. Through the good offices of I'Hopital a peace was finally patched up at lyongjumeau (March 23, 1568) on the basis of the re-estab- lishment without qualification or restriction of the Edict of Amboise. Henri of Navarre This agreement, however, brought only a moment's pause in the hostilities. The passions of the Huguenots were kept at fever-heat by news of the bloody work which Alva was now doing in the Netherlands, while Catherine's fresh edict forbidding under pain of death the public exercise of their religion and ordering all their ministers to leave the country within a fortnight proved how little confidence was to be placed in the promises of the Government even when backed by formal treaties. Barely escaping a plot to capture them, Conde and Coligny now sought refuge in the Protestant strong- hold of lya B-ochelle, where they were joined by the heroic Jeanne d'Albret and her son, a boy of fifteen — Henri of Navarre. War, which had scarcely ceased, burst out anew. But things went ill with the Huguenots. At Jarnac (March 13, 1569) they suffered a serious reverse at the hands of Marshal Tavannes, and lost their leader, the Prince of Conde, who, badly wounded, was in the act of surrendering when he was treacherously shot by a captain of the guards of the Duke of Anjou. Coligny, now the real head of the Protestants, though young Henri of Navarre was appointed general-in-chief, made an heroic attempt to retrieve this disaster ; but though suc- 274 THE WARS OF RELIGION cessful at I^a Roche-Abeille, he was completely defeated at Moncontour (October 3, 1569). Reinforcements, however, enabled him to hold the field, and the obstinate spirit of the Protestants, who declared that they were ready to fight till their last man was slain, convinced Catherine that it was use- less to prolong the struggle. Again she tried conciliation, and by the Edict of Saint-Germain (August 8, 1570) granted to the Huguenots liberty of public worship wherever it was already established, in the residences of the nobles, and in the suburbs of at least two cities in each province, admitted them to all employments, and further confirmed them in the possession of four cities — ^La Rochelle, Cognac, Montauban, and I^a Charite. These terms were far more favourable than any they had previously obtained. It seemed, indeed, as if, not- withstanding the indignation of the more bigoted Catholics, they provided the foundations of a lasting peace. As such at least Coligny appeared to accept them. He retired to Iva Rochelle and occupied himself with constructive work for the cause and with the education of the two young Bourbon princes — Henri of Navarre and his cousin Henri of Conde — who had been placed under his care. Catherine's next move was to strengthen her hold upon the Huguenots, and perhaps to lull them into a false sense of security, by matrimonial alliances which would appeal to their sympathies. Her scheme to make one of her sons the husband of Elizabeth of England failed. But her overtures for the marriage of her daughter Marguerite to Henri of Navarre were, after some delay, favourably received by the young Prince's mother and by Coligny. The design was also encouraged by Charles IX, who now at the age of twenty-one woke up suddenly to his position and began to grow restive under his mother's rigorous control. This self-assertion on his part introduced yet another element into the complex situation. Charles seems to have become jealous of Philip of Spain, and this jealousy combined with the newly awakened spirit of opposition to Catherine to make him for the time being openly friendly to the Protestant party. Coligny was invited to 27s HISTORY OF FRANCE Court ; treated with honour, Hstened to with respect. Catherine remonstrated. The Catholic nobles were wild with anger. But Charles took no heed. Then Jeanne arrived to make final arrangements for her son's marriage. She reached the capital in May 1572. On the 4th of June she fell suddenly- ill. On the 9th she died. The report got abroad that she had been poisoned by command of the Queen-Mother by an Italian perfumer in her suite. The accusation has never been proved, and may probably be dismissed as a fabrication. But it is certain that Catherine had already begun to consider the possibility of accomplishing by treachery what she could not accomplish by force. In Charles' hostile attitude toward Philip II she saw a danger which must be averted at all costs. As England had refused to be drawn into an alliance with France, an alliance with Spain had become a necessity. Coligny, ndw the most influential statesman in the land, stood between her and her plans, and must therefore be got out of the way. The- force of circumstances thus drove her back upon the Guises, whose bitterness against Coligny and the Hugue- nots in general had been greatly increased by their recent successes. The Massacre of St Bartholomew The chance to strike a blow which she meant to be final came on the occasion of the marriage of her daughter with the young Prince, who was now since his mother's death the King of Navarre. The wedding took place on August 18, and Paris was crowded with Huguenot gentlemen who had come from all parts of the country to join in the celebration and to do honour to their chief. Three days later an event occurred which hastened the inevitable crisis. As Coligny was leaving the lyouvre on his way back to his lodgings he was fired at from a grated window in a house belonging to one of the Guise following, by a professional assassin named Maurevel. The shot failed of its purpose, but it carried away the admiral's right index finger and wounded him in the left arm. That this attempt at murder was made at the instigation 276 THE WARS OF RELIGION or at least with the connivance of Catherine there is not the sHghtest reason to doubt. Its effect upon the Huguenots in Paris may be imagined. News of it was carried to Charles while he was playing tennis. With an exclamation of anger he threw down his racket and retired in great agitation to his own apartments. There he was found by the King of Navarre and Henri of Conde, who demanded that the out- rage should be promptly punished. Coligny also requested a personal interview with the King, but Catherine, fearing to leave the two alone, insisted upon accompanying him with several of her closest advisers. At the wounded man's bedside Charles swore a solemn oath that he would have swift and terrible vengeance for the crime. Catherine now stood in dread lest her responsibility for it should be revealed. Paris meanwhile was in a state of intense excitement. Both parties were under arms. An outbreak of hostilities seemed certain. Then the Queen-Mother called a council of her most trusted adherents. Precisely what happened at their deliberations will never be known. But one step was determined. It was the murder of Coligny and a general massacre of all the Huguenots in Paris. The plans were carefully laid and punctually carried out. A little after one o'clock on Sunday morning, August 24 — St Bartholomew's Day — ^the tocsin sounded from the city churches, and before the early summer dawn the slaughter began. Coligny was killed in his bedroom and his corpse thrown out of the window into the street, where it was kicked by the Duke of Guise. All the Huguenots in the Ivouvre were put to the sword. Then, urged on by the Duke, soldiers and civilians divided into parties, and with hoarse cries of " Tuez ! Tuez ! " went from house to house throughout the city, slaying all who were even suspected of heresy, and pillaging their homes. " Anger, blood, and death," writes a contemporary chronicler, "filled the streets with such horror that even their Majesties, who were the authors of it, could not restrain their fear in the lyouvre. Paris was like a conquered city. . . . All the Huguenots, including men, women, and children, were 277 HISTORY OF FRANCE killed indifferently."^ At nightfall, when bands of lawless ruffians were let loose on the heels of the assassins to indulge in a debauch of butchery and looting, the terrors of the day reached their height, and it was some days before the killing and the rioting were ended. Altogether several thousands of the Protestants fell — 2000 at least, though some accounts say 4000 and some even 10,000. The twp yoUng Bourbon princes — ^the King of Navarre and his cousin — escaped only by consenting to go to Mass. Charles, who at the outset had opposed the massacre, was soon swept away by the lust of blood, and, it is said, revelled in the ghastly spectacle upon which he looked from the windows of his palace. The story even runs — it is a story made familiar to us by the brilliant pages of Dumas ^ — ^that he took an arquebus and amused himself by shooting at the flying Protestants in the streets below, as if they were beasts of chase. This may be dismissed as a legend. But on Tuesday, August 26, he publicly assumed before the Par- liaihent of Paris full responsibility for what had taken place. Then the fury of fanaticism spread from Paris to other cities, and there were general massacres of Huguenots at Meaux, La Charite, Orleans, Saumur, Angers, Lyon, Troyes, Bourges, Rouen, Toulouse, Bordeaux. Only in a few places did the authorities make the slightest attempt to restrain the passions of the mob. News of these atrocities caused an immense sensation throughout Europe. The Protestant nations were of course filled with horror,^ and even the German Catholic princes expressed their disapproval. But the Pope had a medal struck in honour of the victory of the faith, and Philip II when he heard of the massacre is said to have laughed outright — for the first and only time in his life. Catherine had confidently expected that this great stroke would be the death-blow to Protestantism and end all her ^ Tavannes, Memoires, chap, xxvii. * La Reine Margot, chap. x. ' How long the memory of them lingered in England is shown, e.g., by Spenser's reference in The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto VIII, Stanza vi — published eighteen years later. 278 THE WARS OF RELIGION troubles with the Huguenots. She was now to learn her mistake. " These wretches," as she called them, were stunned but not crushed. Disorganized and leaderless as they now were, they soon took heart anew and began to rally to the cause. It became necessary to drive them from their strong- holds, of which the most important were I^a Rochelle on the west coast and Sancerre in Berry. This brought about the fourth civil war. Sancerre was quickly starved into sub- mission ; but La Rochelle offered a stubborn resistance to the besiegers, who in the end had to abandon the attack. Nimes, Montauban, and many other cities in the south also kept their gates obstinately closed against the Government troops. Growing opposition among the more moderate Catholics at Court to the fiercely intolerant policy of the Guises weakened the hands of the King, and in July 1573 the Peace of La Rochelle granted to the Protestants liberty of conscience and the right of public worship in La Rochelle itself, in Nimes, and in Montauban. Such concessions really meant a restriction of the privileges which in theory at any rate the Reformers had hitherto enjoyed. But the extremists of the Catholic party were angry and the King was mortified that the Huguenots should have been recognized at all, and, to make matters worse, the treaty was signed just at the time when Charles was receiving the congratulations of Rome and Spain on the bloody triumph of the Church. Even when it was made there was no hope that such a treaty could prove lasting. On Whitsunday of the following year Charles died of a frightful disease which for some time had been wearing him away, though his end, it is believed, was hastened by remorse over the part he had played in the massacre of his subjects. Ever since that fearful crime he had been a prey to morbid melancholy, and at the last visions of his victims haunted him, while in his frequent attacks of delirium he saw blood every- where about him and was shaken by agonies of horror. In these awful hours of dissolution he was abandoned by all his attendants except his old Huguenot nurse. 279 HISTORY OF FRANCE Henri III His brother, Henri, Duke of Atijou, who through his mother's machinations had recently been made King of Poland, was now called to the throne. Abandoning his crown and his subjects, Henri fled from Cracow by night ; but, lingering on the way to enjoy the pleasures of Vienna and Venice, he did not enter Paris until two months after Charles' death. On February 15, 1575, he was at length crowned at Reims by the Cardinal Guise, the third Duke's youngest brother, the Cardinal of lyorraine having died in the previous December. During the coronation ceremony, a chronicler reports, he complained aloud that the crown hurt him, " and it slipped off his head twice, as if he wished it to fall." Such behaviour made a very bad impression upon the French people, and his effeminacy, hfs favouritism, his fondness for worthless companions, and the scandalous stories which soon leaked out regarding the debaucheries of his private life quickly turned their disappoint- ment into disgust. His accession, however, made little differ- ence to the situation except in one particular. Catherine, whose authority had in some measure been challenged by the late King during his closing years, now once more became the effective head of affairs. The Treaty of I^a Rochelle had not really put a stop to the fighting, which continued in an irregular way in various parts of the country. Fresh encouragement was now given to the Huguenots by the action of Henri of Navarre, who, contriving at length to evade the surveillance of those who had been appointed his guardians in the interests of the Court, took up his quarters in Poitou, and publicly renounced his enforced adherence to Catholicism. In the meantime opposition to the Guises was shaping itself definitely in a third party, called the politiques, whose avowed object was the restoration of peace to the distracted country by means of general toleration and the firm repression of all factions whether on the Catholic or on the Protestant side. The King's brother, the Duke of Alen^on, placed himself at the head of this new movement 280 THE WARS OF RELIGION for pacification, and though he was himself inspired by motives rather of personal ambition than of patriotism, his leadership gave it strength. Henri did not conceal his anger at his brother's defection ; and, realizing that his life was in danger so long as he remained at Court, the Duke made good his escape and hastened to the south, where an alliance was formed between the politiques and the Protestants. The Duke of Guise's success against the German soldiers of the Huguenots at Dormans was offset by the gathering of a strong Protestant force under Conde and the Duke of Alen9on at Moulins, and again Catherine found it necessary to come to terms. Acting as mediator, Alengon successfully negotiated the Peace of Beaulieu — otherwise known, from his title, as ' the Peace of Monsieur ' ^ (May 1576) — ^by which he gained for himself the duchy of Anjou, for the King of Navarre Guyenne, and for Conde Picardy, while for the Protestants at large he obtained the right of public worship everywhere except in Paris and at Court. The Protestants also received eight strongholds or cities of refuge, while chambers of justice, called mi-parties, because they were composed half of Protestants and half of Catholics, were set up in each provincial Parliament. The League This, however, was once more a peace which was no peace. The irreconcilables among the Catholics were a fatal obstacle to the fulfilment of its conditions. Indignant at what seemed to them the entire betrayal of their cause, they determined to renew their resistance, and sought to consolidate their strength. In many parts of the country leagues had been formed among the zealous Catholics for the active defence of their faith. It was a natural step from these to a vast general association through which the forces of the anti-Huguenot party throughout the land should be definitely organized. Such was the origin of the famous Union Catholique, or Sainte Ligue (1576), which rapidly grew to formidable proportions in almost every part of France. According to its constitution, ^ ' Monsieur ' was the title now borne by the King's younger brother. 281 HISTORY OF FRANCE all Catholics were bound to join it under pain of being otherwise accounted its enemies, and to lend it all the help in their power for the maintenance of the Holy CathoHc Church. Its avowed object was the total extermination of Protestantism by any and every means which might be found available for the purpose, while ostensibly it also aimed to support the King against his rebel subjects. But the secret plan of its real instigator and leader, the Duke of Guise, was to use it as an instrument against the King and for the achievement of his own personal ambitions. Henri was becoming more and more unpopular. His brother, the Duke of Anjou, was under suspicion by reason of his relations with the Huguenot chiefs. After him, the next-of-kin to the sovereign were the heretical Bourbons. In these circumstances the Duke of Guise believed th^t with the assistance of Philip of Spain and the Holy See he might carve out a way to the throne. The States-General which the King had promised in the Treaty of Beaulieu to convoke met at Blois in December 1576. Their election had been controlled by the I^eague, and Protes- tantism was practically unrepresented. Extremist counsels therefore prevailed. Henri repudiated the ' Peace of Monsieur,* and at the same time, in the hope of checkmating the Duke of Guise, publicly declared himself the head of the League. The clergy and the nobles, supported by a majority of the Third Estate, demanded the immediate suppression of the Reformed religion and the banishment of its ministers, elders, and deacons. ^ This led to the Sixth War of Religion (1577), which after some months of unimportant fighting was closed by the Treaty of Bergerac (1578). The terms now granted to the Protestants were not on the whole so fa^^ourable as those of the Edict of Beaulieu. But they were better than might have been expected. The separate existence of the Protestant Church was definitely recognized ; while, still acting in accordance with his anti- Guise policy, the King struck a blow at its chief enemy, the League itself, by prohibiting " all leagues, associations, and fraternities, now formed or to be formed on any pretext what- 282 THE WARS OF RELIGION soever." A seventh war, the cause of which can be traced only in the general and increasing disorganization of the country, raged for a short time in 1580, and ended in November with the Peace _of Fleix, by which the Treaty of Bergerac was reaffirmed. Three years of comparative repose now followed. Then trouble began again with the death in June 1584 of the Duke of Anjou, who meanwhile had been helping the Flemings against Philip of Spain. This brought the question of succession once more to the front. It was obvious to all that Henri III, already v/orn out with his debaucheries, could not live more than a few years ; he had no son, and the heir to the throne was therefore the Protestant King of Navarre. The King saw that the only way in which he could hope to secure peace was in persuading Henri of Navarre to become a Catholic. But this Henri refused to do. The Catholic leaders thus found themselves face to face with the fact that in all probability a Protestant prince would very soon be called upon to assume the crown of France. This danger stung them into imme- diate aggressive action. The I^eague was revived and reor- ganized ; Henri of Navarre was declared to be disinherited, and his uncle, Charles, the old Cardinal of Bourbon, was put forward in his place, though this was only a screen to hide for a time the pretensions of the Duke of Guise, who was now working steadily toward the realization of his schemes. Then a treaty was made (December 1584) with Phihp of Spain for the extirpation of all heresy and schism throughout the kingdom. But Henri of Navarre rose to the occasion, answered the manifesto of the I^eague with a counter-manifesto, in which he charged its chiefs with direct responsibility for all the evils from which France had so long suffered, and drew to his side not only the Huguenots, but also the poliiiques. The King now found himself between two fires. A reign of terror had already begun in the cities where the I^eague was strongest. In Paris, which was completely in its power, the spirit of fanaticism ran high. The King tried to temporize ; but, finding this impossible, he fell back upon the Guise party ; 283 HISTORY OF FRANCE under his mother's advice he negotiated a treaty with them (July 1585), and issued an edict rescinding all privileges formerly granted to the Reformers and forbidding everywhere the public exercise of their religion. The Pope, Sixtus V, now came to the support of the League with a bull which proclaimed that as a heretic Henri of Navarre was incapable of succeeding to the throne, and which further absolved all his vassals from allegiance to him. The War of the Three Henries The whole country was now in a state of anarchy, and fighting and rioting were universal. But it was not till the following year that the Eighth War of ReHgion definitely began — * the War of the Three Henries,' as it is commonly called, from the three leaders who took part in it — Henri III, Henri of Guise, and Henri of Navarre. The King's policy was, if possible, so to guide the course of events as to effect the 'destruction of both the opposed factions, and thus to ensure his own safety. But he had neither the strength of will nor the power of brain to achieve success in so delicate a game. At first fortune was against the Huguenots. Then Henri of Navarre inflicted a terrible defeat on the King's army under Joyeuse at Coutras (October 20, 1587). In the north, however, the Duke of Guise drove the German allies of the Protestants out of the country. This exploit gave him immense poptilarity among the masses of Paris ; he became the hero of the hour ; - and when shortly afterward the King entered his capital (December 23), he was received with the jeers and insults of the crowd. In his alarm he brought a large contingent of Swiss mercenaries to the suburbs and sent a peremptory message to the Duke of Guise forbidding him to come to Paris. Events now moved rapidly toward the closing act of the long drama. The League became openly disloyal. Its metro- politan branch had already formed a secret government for Paris, called * the Sixteen,' from the sixteen sections of the city represented in it. An active policy was pursued. Various attempts were made to seize the King's person, and, these 284 39- Catherine de Mh;dicis 284 THE WARS OF RELIGION having failed, the royal prohibition was set at defiance and the Duke of Guise was called in. He entered Paris amid scenes of wild popular enthusiasm. The King shut himself up in the I^ouvre, and most unwisely sent for his Swiss guards. The people of Paris took this as a threat and a challenge. The citizens flew to arms ; the tocsin sounded from the churches ; shops were shut ; chains, benches, carts, barrels, were hastily put to service for the defence of the streets, and the capital assumed the appearance of a city under siege. On that ' Day of Barricades ' — ^May 12, 1588 — the King learned to his humilia- tion who was the real master of the situation. It was only through the personal intervention of the Duke of Guise that the Swiss guard was saved from destruction and Henri himself from capture by the populace. In an interview with the Duke the following day the King was obliged to accede to all the demands of the Xeaguers. If the King needed further proof that the whole country was now against him, it was furnished by the States-General, which he had undertaken to convene, and which met at Blois in October. He had determined to denounce the lycague, and in fact went so far as to declare that he would no longer permit any armed association to exist within his realm. But he was forced to eat his words, and to confirm the appointment of the Duke of Guise as lyieutenant-General of the kingdom. This stirred his hatred of the Guises to fever-heat. He resolved to be rid of them at all costs. There was only one way, and he took it, while the States were still in session. Summoned to a council in the King's apartments, the Duke was assassinated by the royal body-guard (December 23). His brother, the Cardinal, shared his fate. Henri hastened to his mother in triumph with the news, and fatuously boasted that at length he could be King indeed. The Assassination of Henri III Hardly was the crime committed, however, before he dis- covered that he had made a fatal mistake. The report of the murder threw Paris into a fury of excitement. The churches 285 HISTORY OF FRANCE rang with denunciations of the King ; the Sixteen strengthened their organization ; such members of the Parhament of Paris as still remained faithful to the monarchy were arrested ; the Sorbonne solemnly declared that the French people were freed from all allegiance to the throne. A provisional Govern- ment was set up, and the Duke of Mayenne, the only surviving brother of the Duke of Guise, was made lyieutenant-General. In the midst of all this excitement the death of Catherine de Medicis (January 5, 1589) was almost unnoticed. But it removed the wretched King's sole support. There was now nothing left for him but to throw himself into the arms of the King of Navarre. The two sovereigns met at Plessis-les Tours, and an agreement was concluded between them, Henri of Navarre promising to stand by the Crown and undertaking on his faith and honour never to deny to the Catholics the liberty of conscience which he claimed for himself. A basis thus being established for united action, the combined armies of the Royalists and the Huguenots pushed steadily across the country between the I^oire and the Seine, and on the evening of July 30, 1589, appeared, 40,000 strong, before the walls of Paris. The blockade began. The city went mad with excitement. Day and night processions marched through the streets. The frenzy of the preachers was as great and as little restrained as that of the populace. Priests made waxen images of the King and practised the rites of envoute- ment upon them before their altars. Bands of children went about bearing lighted candles, which they blew out with shrill cries of ** Dieu, eteignez ainsi la race des Valois ! " The doctrine of tyrannicide was openly preached from the pulpit and was defended in the schools. Meanwhile on the side of the invaders plans were laid for a general assault on the city on August 2. But before these plans could be carried out the doom of the King had been sealed. Among those in whom excitement had become delirium was a young Jacobin monk named Jacques Clement. The son of a peasant, he was marked by all the rude simplicity and gross superstition of his class. He had prayed and fasted, he had 286 THE HOUSE OF VALOIS Charles, Comte de Valois Son of Philippe III (1270-1325) Phiuppe VI (1293-1350 ; King of France 1328) JEAN II (' le Bon ') {c. 1319-1364) 1 ChawsS V ("le Sage') (1337-1380) 1 Philippe le Hardi {d. 1404) (Ancestor of the Chari^es VI (I368-I422) Chari^es VII 1 I^ouis, Due d' Orleans (d. 1407) 1 House of Burgundy) (I403-I46I) i IvOUIS XI (I423-I483) 1 Chari^es VIII (I470-I498) 1 Charles {d. 1465) 1 lyOUIS XII {I462-I5I5) Jean, Comte d'Angouleme (d. 1467) 1 Charles {d. 1496) 1 Francois I (1494-1547) Henri II (1519-1559) 1 Francois II Chari^es IX Henri III (1544-1560) (1550-1574) (1551-1589) 287 HISTORY OF FRANCE seen visions and heard celestial voices, and he had become convinced that it was his sacred mission to free h^s country from the deteisted King. Provided with a counterfeit letter by way of introduction, he contrived to pass through the Royalist lines and to obtain access to Henri's camp at Saint- Cloud. In Henri's presence he declared that he had private information of the utmost importance to communicate to him. By command the royal guards withdrew. The monk then stepped forward and plunged a knife into Henri's abdomen. Hearing the King's cry, the guards rushed in and slew the assassin on the spot. That night the King of Navarre came to Saint-Cloud from his own headquarters at Meudon, and the dying monarch embraced him, gave him his blessing, recog- nized him as his successor,' and urged him to adopt the true faith. Early next morning he passed away, and thus the prayer of the Paris children was fulfilled. With Henri III the race of the Valois became extinct. 288 BOOK IV THE HOUSE OF BOURBON 1589-1789 CHAPTER I HENRI IV 1589-1610 THE news of the assassination of Henri III caused wild rejoicings in Paris, where cheering crowds paraded the streets in the glare of innumerable bonfires, and even the churches rang with praises of Jacques Clement, the blessed martyr. But while popular feeling thus discharged itself in noisy demonstrations, the leaders of the contending parties in the country now found themselves faced by the serious question of the succession to the throne. As the nearest male representative of the royal house Henri of Navarre was, in accordance with the Salic lyaw, the rightful King of France. But as a Protestant under ban of excommunication he was obnoxious to the mass of the nation, and for the moment it seemed in the last degree unlikely that he could ever make good his theoretical claim. On the other hand, the lycaguers were divided among themselves and confusion prevailed in their counsels. Henri's first step in assuming the royal title was to secure the support of the nobles, Catholic and Huguenot, who had followed his predecessor to Saint-Cloud. To this end he adopted a policy of general conciliation, solemnly undertaking to maintain the Catholic religion as the religion of the State and, as the technical phrase ran, to cause himself to " receive instruction" in it, and at the same time to preserve such freedom of worship as was already enjoyed by the Reformers. But though this declaration was accepted and countersigned T 289 HISTORY OF FRANCE by many of the chiefs of the royal army (August 4, 1589), it failed to give universal satisfaction. Its concessions displeased the extremists of both parties, and while several powerful Catholic nobles withdrew in dudgeon, some of the more stiff- necked Protestants declared their unwillingness to fight for a sovereign '' who promised to support idolatry." By such defections the army at Saint-Cloud was quickly reduced to some eight or ten thousand men, mainly foreigners, whose clamorous demands for their long arrears of pay Henri was too poor to meet. In the country at large the new King's position was equally precarious. His title was generally recognized only in the south. Elsewhere, the provinces and principal cities either sided with the I^eague or remained neutral. It needed a man of Henri's courage, determination, and self- confidence to stand firm against odds apparently so over- whelming. Henri's Struggle with the League Meanwhile the leaders of the Catholic party were forced to take definite action. To reject the claims of the heretic prince was not enough. An orthodox king must be set up in his place. The intrigues of Philip II, who was busily scheming to establish a Spanish dynasty in France, and the pretensions of the Duke of Savoy helped to some extent to close up the ranks of the lycaguers. But the difiiculty of finding an occupant for the throne who would be entirely acceptable to all the factions remained. Had the Duke of Mayenne, now the head of the I^eague, possessed the requisite qualities of daring and resolution, he might easily have assumed the crown. But Mayenne was not the man to take advantage even of such a golden opportunity. He preferred to temporize. He therefore caused the Cardinal of Bourbon to be proclaimed King of France under the title of Charles X (August 7, 1589), while by the same edict he appointed himself lyieutenant- General of the Crown and State. As the Cardinal, who had been a prisoner of the Huguenots since the assassination of the Duke of Guise, was now old and gouty, the real power of 290 40. Henri IV in 1556 41. The Duke of Mayenne 42. Henri IV and Marie dE MJgDICIS "<*-*■?,.{■ .'v.. 43. The Duke of Sui,i,y 290 HENRI IV the Government was vested, as was intended, in Mayenne. It was generally understood that this arrangement was designed only to mark time. But from the point of view of the preten- sions of the Jiouse of Guise the proclamation of the Cardinal was a tactical mistake, since the legitimacy of the rival claims of the house of Bourbon was thereby formally acknowledged. For the moment, however, the situation was entirely in Mayenne's favour, and when Henri learned that the lycague had been strongly reinforced by fresh troops from Spain he saw that to linger at Saint-Cloud would be to court certain disaster. Accordingly he raised the siege of Paris, despatched two of his chief supporters — ^lyongueville into Picardy and d'Aumont into Champagne — in quest of money and recruits, and set out himself for Normandy at the head of an army of 7000 half-starved and discontented men. His principal object was now to reach the coast, in the hope of effecting a junction with the English auxiliaries promised by Queen Elizabeth. He paused in his march, however, to make a surprise attack upon Rouen ; but this failing, pushed on to Dieppe, which at once threw open its gates to him. So desperate was his condition — ^in his own words, he was a king without a kingdom, a husband without a wife, and a soldier without money — ^that he was glad thus to secure a point of vantage from which, if the worst came to the worst, he could make good his escape to England. But in the mean- time he took up a strong position on the heights round the village of Arques, four miles south-east of Dieppe, and there awaited the arrival of Mayenne, who had started in pursuit with a force of 25,000, augmented on the way to 33,000 men. Fully convinced that his immense superiority in numbers gave him the certainty of an easy victory, the Duke had promised the people of Paris either to bring Henri back bound hand and foot or to drive him into the sea. But he soon discovered to his cost that it was one thing to promise and another to perform. For nearly three weeks he did his utmost, now by force and now by treachery, to dislodge his obstinate foe. But Henri's little army repelled every attack ; and 291 HISTORY OF FRANCE when news reached the besiegers that several thousand BngHsh soldiers, well supplied with ammunition and provisions, had joined the King's forces, and that lyongueville and d'Aumont were also approaching with further help, Mayenne abandoned his efforts and retired toward the Somme (September i8, 1589)- This success was a great encouragement to Henri and put new heart into his men, while the arrival next day in the port of Dieppe of 4000 more English soldiers and 1000 Scots was the signal for a general outburst of enthusiasm in the royal camp. Finding that he had now some 25,000 men at his disposal, the King, with characteristic audacity, resolved on a dash to Paris, calculating upon the moral effect which this would have upon his enemies. Paris was, indeed, com- pletely taken by surprise when on the night of October 31- November i, under cover of a thick fog, hundreds of Huguenots, with loud cries of " Saint Bartholomew ! Saint Bartholomew ! " poured into the suburbs on the left bank of the Seine. Three days of unrestrained pillage enabled the raiders to make up in booty what they still wanted in pay. Then the return of Mayenne obliged Henri to renounce all further attempt on the capital. He therefore withdrew his troops and fell back upon Tours, the provisional seat of his Government, which he entered by torchlight on the night of November 22, amid enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty on the part of the inhabitants. On his march south he had captured ]6tampes and Vendome. Nothing succeeds like success. The news of Henri's victories already began to affect neutral opinion throughout the country, and even more markedly the attitude of foreign nations toward him. England, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark had already recognized him ; first among the Catholic states to do so, Venice now followed suit. Even the Pope, notwith- standing the pressure brought to bear upon him by the I^eague and Philip of Spain, began to waver in his antagonism. At the same time the King's position was further strengthened by the growing dissensions of his enemies. The stop-gap policy 292 HENRI IV adopted in the proclamation of the Cardinal of Bourbon was already proving very unsatisfactory. On many sides Charles X was regarded as merely a phantom monarch. The I^eague was torn by the plots and counter-plots of rival factions. Mayenne, though he now too late began to realize that he had missed his chance, was still nursing his private ambitions. Philip II openly asserted the rights of his daughter, as niece of the late King. The Dukes of Lorraine and Savoy also put forth their claims, the one on behalf of his son, who was a grandson of Henri II, the other on his own account as grandson of Fran9ois I. The Dukes of Mercoeur, Nemours, Nevers, and Aumale, each in his own territorial interest, demanded the dismemberment of the kingdom ; while the turbulent Council of Sixteen sought to extend the interregnum, which had given them their power, with a view to the ultimate establishment of a kind of republic, the destinies of which of course were to be in their hands. In these circumstances Paris was a hotbed of ferment and intrigue, the only ground of understanding among the contending parties, amid all their internal jealousies, being their common hatred of the heretic of Navarre. The Battle of Ivry Determined at all costs to keep the realm together and to prevent the crown of France from passing under foreign con- trol, Mayenne maintained a firm front against the enormous difficulties of his position. He took a bold line in suppressing the Council of Sixteen, and announced his determination to convoke the States-General, that the nation might itself decide as to the disposition of the crown. His immediate anxiety, however, was to recover the military prestige which he had lost at Arques, for this was essential to the continuance of his power in the country. The situation, too, called for decisive action. Having established a ministry at Tours and put his dilapidated finances on a somewhat sounder footing, Henri had once more taken the field. At first he met with almost unbroken success, Le Mans, Alen9on, Falaise, I^isieux, HISTORY OF FRANCE and Bayeiix quickly surrendering to him (November 1589- January 1590). But his triumphant career in Normandy was checked by Mayenne's counter-stroke — ^the capture of Pontoise and the investment of Meulan. With the object of drawing off at least a portion of the forces of the lycague, Henri in turn laid siege to Dreux. Mayenne at once marched to the relief of the city. Upon this Henri raised the siege in order to deploy his army on the plain of Saint-Andre, near the village of Ivry, sixteen miles from Dreux. Here on March 14, after two hours of furious fighting, the lycaguers suffered a defeat crushing almost to annihilation. Once more, as at Arques, the numerical odds were greatly in favour of Mayenne, who had some 17,000 men against Henri's 10,000, and the brilliancy of the Royalist victory was -therefore the more apparent. One incident in particular in the great battle is famiHar to every Etiglish reader through Macaulay's stirring ballad. Before hostilities began, Henri, mounted on his fine bay horse, harangued his soldiers. " My companions,'' he cried, " I am resolved to die or conquer with you. If you lose sight of the standards and colours, keep my white plumes always in view, for there you will find the road to victory and glory." And he was as good as his word, for from first to last he was himself in the very thick of the fray. The victory of Ivry, and the fall of Mantes, which imme- diately followed, opened the road to Paris. Had Henri thrown himself upon the capital while the panic caused by the news of Mayenne's rout was still at its height, it seems probable that the inhabitants would have been glad to come to terms with him. He himself, it would appear, was anxious to make the attempt, but was dissuaded by his military advisers, who. Catholic and Protestant aHke, feared that his too rapid triumph might be prejudicial to their own interests by placing him once and for all beyond the necessity of their help. As it was, therefore, he lingered in Mantes to readjust his finances and establish his Council of State, and this delay gave his enemies time to recover from their shock. Even when at length he renewed his campaign he spent several weeks in reducing and 294 HENRI IV occupying various towns of strategical importance on the way. It was thus early May before the royal army was encamped outside the capital and the investment formally begun. The Siege of Paris It was not Henri's policy to endeavour, at least for the moment, to carry Paris by storm. It is said, indeed, that he dreaded the excesses of his Huguenot followers, who were openly determined to avenge St Bartholomew.^ What had happened in the suburbs a short time before may have made him alive to this danger. His plan was therefore to starve the city into submission. He now, indeed, seemed to hold it in an iron grip, for he had strong garrisons in the neighbouring towns, while the main roads and all the bridges of the Marne, the Yonne, the Seine, and the Oise were in his hands. The blockade was in fact practically complete. His chances of success were, moreover, increased by the fact that Paris was but ill prepared for a long siege, being poorly supplied with both provisions and ammunition. But the temper of the people had been stiffened by the disaster which had at first filled them with consternation. Inspired by religious enthusiasm and the fiercest hatred of the heretic King, they were willing to face every peril and to endure every privation rather than yield. The demonstrations of the fanatical clergy and of the Council of Sixteen, which despite Mayenne's decree was still alive and active, became more violent than ever. The grand procession of the League, on May 14, when priests, monks, and students, 1300 strong, marched in battle order over the bridge of Notre-Dame, inten- sified the popular feeling. Thirty thousand citizens enrolled themselves among the regular troops. The very church-bells were melted down for cannon. Summary vengeance was wreaked by the populace on a few politiques here and there who ventured, however timidly, to suggest pacifist counsels. The Sprbonne, at the instigation of Cajetano, the papal legate, 1 See Hardouin de P^r^fixe, Hisfoire du Roi Henri le Grand, p. 134. 29s HISTORY OF FRANCE issued an edict requiring all true Catholics to resist Henri to the bitter end, declaring that those who should advocate the overture of negotiations with him would thereby incur the guilt of mortal sin, and promising to such as died in the good cause the martyr's crown. Hardly had the siege begun when news reached the city of the death of the Cardinal of Bourbon. This event gave the rival pretenders to supreme power a fresh opportunity to press their claims. But the general agitation was so great that the leaders of the I^eague were far more concerned about their immediate danger from the foe without their walls than about what appeared to them the far remoter problem of the succession to the throne. Philip II exhorted Mayenne to proceed at once to the proclamation of a new sovereign, and plainly intimated that the young Duke of Guise would be acceptable to him. But Mayenne in reply announced his intention to defer this till the coming meeting of the States- Ge^neral, and for the present to continue to exercise his functions as lyieutenant of the realm. In the meantime he was strain- ing every nerve to secure succour from the Catholic Powers, lycaving the government of Paris to his brother, the young Duke of Nemours, he hastened to Conde to urge upon the Duke of Parma, the Spanish Governor of the lyow Countries, the instant despatch of the reinforcements which had been promised by Spain. The first two months of the siege were marked by many sorties and bloody encounters in the outlying suburbs, which resulted here and there in slight gains for the lycaguers. But nothing could be done to break the blockade ; the slow agony of the city continued, and with every passing week the condi- tion of its inhabitants grew more and more distressing. Strict orders were issued regulating the sale of provisions, and arrangements made for the public relief of the very poor. But the dearth steadily increased, and before long crowds of haggard and half-frantic people daily besieged the Hotel de Ville and paraded the streets with hoarse cries of " Give us bread ! Money is of no use to us. Give us bread ! " The 296 HENRI IV mortality became frightful ; hundreds died of starvation in the hospitals and the streets ; hundreds more contracted horrible diseases from vile stuff on which they fed. Inquisition made by command of the Duke of Nemours into the resources of the monastic houses brought to light large secret stores of provisions, which were at once converted to public use. But the alleviation thus obtained was only temporary, and the city's state was soon more grievous than before. By the middle of July all the cattle, horses, and mules had been slain ; dogs, cats, even rats and mice, were now used for food. '' I have seen with my own eyes," writes an Italian in the suite of the papal legate, '' many wretches devouring raw dog's flesh and the entrails of beasts which had been flung into the gutter. On one occasion I witnessed the furious combat of a man with a savage dog, which he had attacked to eat. The dog threw down the man, who was famishing, and began to tear and eat his flesh, when the shouts and blows of other miserable wretches drove the brute from his prey." ^ Small loaves were made of a paste composed of human bones ground down and mixed with rancid oil, and thousands perished of this loathsome preparation. ^ The soldiers began to steal children, and in one case it is recorded that a woman of rank fed on the salted bodies of her own offspring.^ The sanitary state of the city was appalling, and pestilence stalked on the heels of famine. Altogether, it is computed, the death-roll of the first three months of the siege reached the gigantic total of 100,000. And still the populace, their hatred of the Huguenot deepened by their very sufferings, held out with grim determination, inspired by the enthusiasm of their fanatical priests, and encouraged by reiterated promises of coming relief from Spain. On the night of July 23, however, a few private citizens, goaded to desperation, threw themselves from the walls, and contrived to make their way to Saint-Cloud, where they laid their piteous case before the King in person. Henri was much * Pigafetta, Assedio di Parigi, 1591. 8 Cp. Voltaire, La Henriade, Chant X. » Ibid. 297 HISTORY OF FRANCE moved, and gave permission for 3000 persons of the non- combatant class — women, children, students, peasants, and priests — to leave the city. But at the same time he resolved to bring matters to a head by a general attack, and this four days later was delivered with such effect that after two hours' fighting all the important suburbs from Saint-Martin on the west side to Saint- Victor on the east were in his hands. This success further increased the rigour of the blockade, and the despair of the inhabitants now became so great that, notwith- standing the persistent clamour of the implacable demagogues and the prohibitory decree of the Sorbonne, it was finally decided to send a deputation to Henri in the interests of peace. On August 5 the delegates selected — the Bishop of Paris and the Archbishop of Lyon — ^were received in audience by the King. Their tone, however, was so unconciliatory that nothing came of the interview. Henri's ultimatum was, in effect, an emphatic refusal to recognize either Mayenne or the King of Spain in the negotiations, and a demand for the capitulation of the city within a week ; though he showed his sympathetic spirit by permitting a further exodus of bouches inutiles, an act of clemency for which he was well rated by Queen Elizabeth. The local situation had thus far made Philip II unwilling to withdraw any of his forces from the lyow Countries, but Paris was now reduced to such an extremity that there was not a moment more to lose. The Duke of Parma was therefore ordered to hasten at once to the assistance of Mayenne, whom he joined at Meaux on August 23. His opportune arrival, which took Henri by surprise, instantly put a new complexion on affairs. The Duke's skilful tactics compelled Henri to raise the siege of Paris (August 30) in order to give battle to the enemy. The Duke, moreover, captured I^agny and pro- ceeded to pour an abundance of provisions into the city by way of the Marne, of which he had thus gained control. In this way Paris was relieved, and Henri's hopes, after four months of expectation, rudely dashed to the ground. ^The King's prospects were now, indeed, as black as they 298 W&iH. 00 H w o > HENRI IV had been in the days before Ivry, and his difficulties were greatly increased by a change in the occupation of the papal chair. Sixtus V, whose hatred and distrust of Philip II had led him to adopt a half sympathetic attitude toward the heretic of Navarre, died in August 1590. His successor, Gregory XIV, was entirely devoted to the I^eague and to Spain. It was useless, therefore, for Henri to expect any compromise with Rome. But even more urgent were the troubles which faced him at home. Disaffection continued to grow apace in his camp, his Catholic adherents complaining of the long-deferred fulfilment of his undertaking to '' receive instruction," the Huguenots openly grumbling that thus far they had gained so little by having a king of their own faith. This disaffection Henri sought to allay by further promises and edicts of a con- ciliatory character. But all such efforts had little influence, especially upon those among the more powerful of his nominal supporters, like the selfish and unscrupulous Marshal Biron, who were really playing for their own hand. Amid all these perplexities Henri saw that his only hope of salvation lay in vigorous action. He determined to utilize the reinforcements which he had now received from England, the lyow Countries, and Germany in a fresh and energetic campaign. All hope of taking the capital, now garrisoned by Spanish troops, had to be abandoned. But as its possession was essential to his success, his plan was to use the method of the long arm and cut off its communications with Normandy. He began by seizing ** the granary of Paris," Chartres (April 10, 1591), the capture of which was largely due to "the valour and address " of Admiral Coligny's young son, Chatillon.^ Then, after spending three months in making the necessary preparations, he marched with 40,000 men, scarcely a quarter of whom were French, upon Rouen, a great stronghold of the lycague and a point of the utmost importance in his designs, since its occupation would have made him master of all North- ^ Sully, Mimoires (1814), t. i, p. 293. Chatillon had all the fine qualities of his father, and his death before the year was out was a great loss to Henri and the Huguenot party, 299 HISTORY OF FRANCE western France (November 1591). But Parma's arrival com- pelled him to abandon his project (February 1592) and fall back upon the Pays-de-Caux. In the fighting which ensued the advantage, in part owing to the calculated inactivity of Biron,, was mainly with the Leaguers. But the death of Parma (December 3) of a wound which he had received months before at Caudebec removed by far the most formidable of Henri's military antagonists. While these events were in progress misery and confusion prevailed in Paris, which the capture of Chartres had once more brought to the verge of starvation. The popular mind was still greatly inflamed by the extremists among the clergy, who openly preached assassination and clamoured for a massacre of the politiques ; but the general spirit had been so broken by privation and suffering that there was less actual violence t^an might have been expected. The Sixteen, in the meantime, their power immensely increased by Mayenne's reverses, were seeking by every means to make themselves supreme in the State, and to that end were engaged in secret negotiations with Spain. At this juncture the young Duke of Guise contrived to escape from the citadel of Tours and hastened to Paris, where as the son of the * martyred ' Duke he at once became the idol of the Catholic mob. He was seized upon by the Sixteen, who saw in his possible marriage with Philip's daughter, the Infanta, the promise of their triumph over the party of Mayenne. Mayenne was alive to the danger, yet he could not bring himself to accept the patriotic suggestion of some of his advisers that in the interests of the country he should checkmate Spanish ambitions by sacrificing personal considera- tions and coming to an understanding with Henri of Navarre. But he showed himself ready none the less to deal a decisive blow at the Sixteen. In November 1591 Brisson (the president of the Parliament) and two other magistrates of high standing were summarily executed by order of the Council. The terror- stricken Parisians thereupon sent message after message to the Duke at I^aon, urging him to return instantly and save them all from destruction, and on his arrival he caused four 300 HENRI IV of the most prominent members of the Sixteen to be seized and beheaded. The flight of several others, almost equally notorious for their turbulence, reduced the Council to impo- tence, and Mayenne completed its ruin by filling the vacant municipal offices with avowed politiques (February 1592). By this unexpected firmness he acquired for the moment an undisputed ascendancy in the city. Distrusted by all factions alike, however, he was unable to turn his position to account. By strengthening the hands of the politiques against the zealots he had in fact cut the ground from beneath his own feet. Unfortunately, on his side, Henri was no less powerless to take advantage of the dissensions of his enemies. He had failed to make himself master either of Paris or of Rouen ; his treasury was empty ; his mercenaries would no longer fight without their pay ; discontent was rife among the rank and file of his French followers ; the defection of his nobles continued. Things were thus at a deadlock. And still through- out the country the war dragged on, bringing desolation and untold misery in its train. At length, however, the influence of the politiques and of the more moderate among the I^eaguers themselves began to make itself felt. Alarmed by the talk of compromise which now became current, Mayenne resolved to redeem his promise of summoning an assembly of the nation. But the States- General which met in Paris in January 1593 were entirely unrepresentative ; they mustered 128 members only, mainly of the Third Estate, and these for the most part were creatures either of Mayenne or of Spain. Philip, who was now convinced that he held the fate of France in the hollow of his hand, despatched an envoy-extraordinary to Paris to make known his plans for the French people. But national feeling and the counter-influence of Mayenne were stronger than he had anticipated, and his successive proposals — first, to place the Infanta on the throne ; then to elect the Archduke Ernest, who had become the Infanta's husband ; and finally to accept the Duke of Guise, to whom, the foregoing arrangements failing, he was willing to give his second daughter in marriage — ^were 301 HISTORY OF FRANCE one by one rejected. Several months were consumed in these futile discussions. One decision only of real importance was reached, and this was in the teeth of the opposition of the extremists. It was agreed that envoys should be sent to Henri to consider with him " the means of securing peace and of maintaining the Catholic religion." The proposed conference met at Suresnes in May. On June 28 the Parliament of Paris declared itself on the patriotic side by issuing a solemn remon- strance, addressed to the lyieutenant-General, who himself sup- ported it, against the abrogation of the Salic I^aw demanded by Philip and the establishment of any foreign prince or princess on the French throne. This remonstrance produced a profound effect throughout the country ; the States made it a pretext to adjourn their debates .without coming to any decision regarding the succession ; the intrigues of the Spanish party were frustrated ; and the chances of the Duke of Guise, now Henri's only rival, were seriously diminished. Henri's Conversion to Catholicism All this was in Henri's favour. Yet for one outstanding reason his success seemed as remote as ever : the weakness of his position made it impossible for him to impose his own terms upon the country and his religion continued to present an insurmountable bar. Three years had now elapsed since the battle of Ivry, and one thing remained clear : that, however weary they might be of war, the mass of the French people would never accept a heretic king. Such were the circum- stances in which Henri took *' the perilous leap " (as he himself called it) which he had long been meditating, and which had been repeatedly urged upon him by his most devoted and sagacious advisers. He publicly announced his conversion to the Catholic faith. On Sunday, July 25, with a large escort of nobles and guards, he repaired to the church of Saint-Denis through crowds of joyous people, who saw in the event the certain augury of peace. At the church, at the door of which he had first to knock, he was received by the Archbishop of Bourges, seven bishops, and a numerous retinue of clergy. 302 HENRI IV " Who are you ? " asked the Archbishop. '' The King," was Henri's reply. *' What is your request ? " And Henri answered : " To be received into the pale of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church." *' Do you desire it ? " in- quired the prelate. " Yes, I do desire it," responded the King. Then, kneeling before the Archbishop, he continued, at the same time handing him his signed confession of faith : " I protest and swear in the presence of Almighty God to live and die in the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, to protect and defend it against all its enemies at the peril of my Ijfe and blood, renouncing all heresies contrary to the same.*' The Archbishop thereupon gave him provisional absolution, and the ceremony was completed by a Te Deum, confession, and High Mass.^ Henri's apostasy has naturally been the subject of long and heated controversy, for it raises questions concerning which much may be said on one and the other side. That his conver- sion was at bottom a matter of real intellectual conviction cannot, I think, be maintained. It seems certain, on the contrary, that he continued to regard his old Calvinistic faith as sound, and that many of the dogmas of the Catholic Church were regarded by him as fooleries (badineries) ; though Sully stoutly urges in his defence that nothing " could have prevailed upon him to embrace a religion which he inwardly despised or even doubted of." There was apparently, however, little depth to his religious feelings ; he was not the kind of man to concern himself much about dogma, and held, indeed, that its importance was greatly exaggerated by the theologians ; and while it evidently cost him something to break with the associations of his early life, he was of a light and debonair nature, and his emotions, though strong for the time, quickly evaporated. We may take it, therefore, that his action was dictated entirely by considerations of political expediency ; that what he did he did, as he himself declared, not with an eye to his own personal benefit, but for the good of his people, ^ For a full account of this ceremony see Palma Cayet, Chronologic novennaire, lyivre V ; Pierre Matthieu, Histoire de Henri IV, t. i. HISTORY OF FRANCE and in the hope, at a crisis when other hope there seemed to be none, of thereby bringing peace and prosperity back to his country, torn and prostrated by forty years of civil war. On this ground he has been greatly praised for his patriotism and fine statesmanship. Even if his change of religion was superficial only, even if it involved the sacrifice of his private beliefs, still, it has been urged, history shows that his conduct was completely vindicated by results. On the other hand, regarding his apostasy from the point of view of policy only, we have still to recognize the justice of the principle set forth in Queen Elizabeth's reproof : " It is a perilous thing to do evil that good may come." However excellent may have been the King's intention, the question will therefore intrude as to whether he is ultimately to be acquitted on the charge of dishonour in seeking even public welfare at the cost of personal integrity. Yet, considering the circumstances, it is hard to condemn him. What, it may be asked, would have happened to France if he had acted otherwise than as he did ? In fairness to him we must look at the problem as one not of abstract theory, but of practical necessity. It is a mere assumption of the moralists that every ethical question can be reduced to terms of absolute right and wrong, and judgment pronounced accordingly. There are countless cases in which a final balance can never be struck, and this of Henri's accept- ance of Catholicism is one of them. On one point at least he deserves the greatest credit. At the time of his conversion he promised his Huguenot followers that he would still be their friend and the protector of the faith which he had abjured. This promise, as we shall see, he kept. The news of his submission to the Catholic Church gave immense satisfaction to the moderate men of all parties, for whom it meant peace and the unification of the country. The clerical irreconcilables, it is true, did their utmost to persuade the Parisians that his so-called conversion was merely an act of hypocrisy, and continued to hurl their invectives against him as heretic and pretender. An attempt on his life 304 HENRI IV by the dagger of an assassin showed the animus of the dis- appointed Spanish faction. At the same time many of the Protestants murmured at what they regarded as their leader's betrayal of their cause. But the national power of the lycague was now broken, and popular feeling throughout the provinces began to run strongly in Henri's favour. Before the end of the year several important towns, including Meaux, Orleans, and Bourges, had yielded to him. Henri enters Paris Henri's next step was to confirm his title by the ceremony of coronation, which, since Reims was still in the hands of the lycague, was performed in the cathedral of Chartres, on Feb- ruary 27, 1594. Alive to the certain effect of this on public opinion, Mayenne in his own defence revived the Council of Sixteen and brought fresh Spanish troops into the capital. But Brissac, the Governor, bribed by money and the promise of a marshal's baton, threw open the gates, and on March 21 Henri entered the city with an escort of between 4000 and 5000 men. His action was a bold one, for his enemies within the walls were strong and their desperate plight had made them reckless. He knew well, therefore, as he passed through the narrow, crowded streets, that he went with his life in his hands. But the surprise of the people soon changed into enthusiasm, and by the time he reached Notre-Dame the city rang with shouts of '' Vive le roi ! " One last attempt made by the Sixteen to rally their forces failed, and the leaders of the Spanish garrison were glad to accept the King's offer that they should be allowed to march out of Paris with the honours of war. It is said that the King watched their retirement from a window over the gate of Saint-Denis, and that he courteously returned the salute of the officers with the words : *' Remember me to your master. Go ! I permit it ; but return no more." ^ The submission of Paris was quickly followed by that of Rouen, which was another severe blow at the fast-waning power of the lycague. For the moment Mayenne and the Spanish 1 Hardouin de P^r^fixe, op. cit., pp. 184, 185. u 305 HISTORY OF FRANCE faction were still strong in the north and in Champagne and Ivanguedoc. But I^aon capitulated in August, and Amiens and other towns in Picardy a little later, and presently the Duke of Guise and the Duke of lyorraine were bought over to the King's side. Among the great nobles Mayenne and Mercoeur alone persisted in their opposition, and this they did in the hope of converting their governments — Burgundy and Brittany — into independent principalities. In thus reducing the realm piecemeal, Henri's policy was to purchase the loyalty of the seigneurs of the I^eague by immense bribes of money and offices. He also acted in the spirit of pacification ; his desire being, as he himself said, '' to forget everything," he treated even the most inveterate of his former enemies with the greatest • clemency. The immediate result was satisfactory, for foes were turned into friends, and one of^the principal obstacles to the restoration of peace was thus removed. Yet, as subsequent events proved, his measures were not altogether well advised. They led the nobility, in whom much of the old feudal temper still survived, to regard rebellion as a game which, skilfully played, might be made to pay. One thing more was needed to make Henri's position secure — absolution from the Pope. This had been delayed by the opposition of Spain. But in September 1595 it was finally obtained from Clement VIII, and Henri's title was thus completely legitimatized. This was the signal for the surrender of Mayenne, who in exchange for his submission was confirmed in the government of Burgundy and appeased with a gift of 35,000 crowns. The lycague was now crushed and Henri had only one enemy left — Philip II, against whom he had formally declared war nine months before (January 1595). The struggle lasted three years, its chief events being the battle of Fontaine- Frangaise, near Dijon (1595), in which Henri exhibited all his old reckless valour, and the siege and capture of Amiens (March-November 1597). But Philip was now dying by inches of a loathsome disease ; he had been badly beaten by Kng- 306 HENRI IV land ; the heroic resistance of the Netherlands had further paralysed his ambitions ; and, to complete his discomfiture, his domestic finances were in a state of hopeless confusion. Realizing that it was impossible for him to cope any longer with the reviving power of a united France, he was therefore anxious for peace, and the war was closed by the Treaty of Vervins, which was based on that of Cateau-Cambresis forty years before, and was signed (May 2, 1598) only four months before his death. The failure of Spain was accompanied by the submission of Mercoeur, the last of the great nobles to hold out against the King. The terms arranged were highly favourable to the obstinate Duke ; he received an indemnity of four million crowns and the promise of the marriage of his little heiress to the King's four-year-old natural son, the Duke of Vend6me. The Edict of Nantes By far the most important event of this momentous year, however, was the proclamation on April 13 of the famous Edict of Nantes. This epoch-making document contained Henri's formal announcement of his policy of religious tolera- tion. Its provisions ensured the practical equality of Protes- tants and Catholics before the law. Certain restrictions as to the towns in which Protestant worship was permitted were still maintained, and the payment of tithes in support of the established religion was made compulsory. But the Huguenots now obtained full recognition of their claims of citizenship. The37^ were declared admissible to all public ofiices ; the benefits of all colleges, schools, and hospitals were extended to them ; they were empowered to found schools of their own and to set up their printing-presses in all the towns in which their worship was sanctioned. Their ministers were authorized to perform marriages and were relieved of all obligations for services incon- sistent with their sacred calling. Within limits, their right of assembly was also acknowledged. The significance of the Edict of Nantes can be appreciated only when we remember the condition of the Catholics at this 307 HISTORY OF FRANCE time and for many years afterward in Protestant England. Historically it is of the utmost importance because it officially introduced an entirely new principle into the practice of government — ^the modern principle of toleration. More than any other act of his life it gives Henri his title to the admiration of posterity. It proves him to have been, in religious matters at any rate, by far the most enlightened ruler of his age. Naturally enough the Catholic clergy regarded such an edict as a piece of sacrilege. For more than a year the Parlia- ment of Paris refused to register it. Nor were the extreme Calvinists completely satisfied. But Henri was determined that its provisions should be enforced as part of the law of the land, and in this he had the support of the more moderate men of all parties. Reorganization : The Duke of Sully The establishment of internal peace was, however, only the* beginning of Henri's work of constructive statesmanship. He next addressed himself to the gigantic task of reconstituting the monarchy, of|bringing|order out of the chaos produced by forty years of civil war, and of restoring prosperity to the exhausted realm. The state of France was indeed deplorable. According to a contemporary estimate, during the preceding eighteen years 800,000 persons had perished by war or massacre, nine cities and 250 villages had been razed to the ground and 128,000 houses destroyed. Many of the most fertile parts of the country had been wasted or abandoned. Communications were precarious, and in places even the main roads had ceased to exist. Agriculture was utterly paralysed. Commerce and industry were at a standstill. Food was dear, work scarce, jobbery and corruption were universal, and destitution and misery were the common lot of the masses of the people. As a result of the long-continued anarchy life itself was insecure and crimes of violence were things of daily occurrence. That the King's government might be made real and effective both wisdom and courage were required. 308 HENRI IV In his work of reorganization Henri was fortunate enough to command the services of several faithful and sagacious counsellors, the most important of whom was a man whose name will always be closely associated with his own, the Protestant -Duke of Sully. Maximilien de Bethune, Baron of Rosny, and later Duke of Sully, was born in 1560. He early attached himself to Henri's person, narrowly escaped death in the massacre of St Bartholomew, accompanied Henri in his flight from Paris, and during the King's years of adventure and .struggle proved himself a brave soldier, a shrewd adviser, and a loyal friend. Keenly appreciative of his devotion and abilities, Henri made him in 1594 a member of his Council of State, and from 1597 onward he was virtually — ^though not till 1601 nominally — ^the Minister of Finance. In that capacity he fully justified the confidence which Henri reposed in him. He was not, it is generally conceded, a financial genius ; there was nothing creative about his policy ; in some important respects he was shortsighted and narrow-minded. But he was certainly a great administrator and a master in the art of finding immediate remedies for immediate ills ; his energy and courage were alike indomitable ; and even his harsh and stubborn temper, which made him generally unpopular, was of great help to him in carrying out his schemes in the teeth of the opposition of those who were interested in the abuses which he destroyed. Among these abuses the most intolerable were those entailed by the existing vicious system of taxation. The taxes were farmed out ; no proper supervision was exercised over the beneficiaries ; pillage and malversation were universal, and favoured individuals fattened at public expense. The conse- quence was that though the people paid annually more than 200,000 millions of livres, less than 50,000 millions actually reached the Treasury. Sully suppressed these evils and brought taxation under the central control of the Ministry. The revenue was thus doubled without any additional charge on the country. He also readjusted in important ways the incidence of taxa- tion, forcing many of the wealthy, who on various pretexts had 309 HISTORY OF FRANCE shirked responsibility, to bear their share of the national burden, and thereby relieving the poorer classes. Without going into further details we may simply say that before the end of Henri's reign he had put the finances of the realm in order, redeemed a considerable portion of the public debt, and reduced taxation, while at the same time he had so increased the revenue that he had succeeded in amassing a handsome surplus even after devoting large sums to arsenals, fortifications, and the equipment of the fleet. Sully regarded agriculture as the one great source of national wealth, and gave much attention to its improvement throughout the country. On the other hand— and here we touch one of his limitations — he distrusted commerce and manufacture. In this respect, however, Henri was in advance of his minister, and hence a great deal was done during the latter part of his r^ign to encourage domestic industry and trade with foreign countries. Henri even nourished colonial ambitions. In 1608 Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec and laid the foundations of a New France beyond the sea. Sully, though far from sympathizing with his master's com- mercial views, agreed with him as to the need of opening up the country and developing its communications. Here he did much good work as Grand Voyer, or Controller of the Ports and Highways of France. Under his superintendence old roads were put into proper condition, new roads were laid out, the navigation of rivers was improved, and a great system of waterwa^^s was planned, of which a beginning was made with the Can'al of Briare, connecting the Loire with the Seine. France recovered rapidly under Henri's beneficent rule, and increasing prosperity made him widely popular. None the less the flames of faction were by no means quite stamped out. There were malcontents among the clergy who continued to denounce him ; the pulpit was seconded by the printing-press ; and the spirit of unrest was kept alive by the intrigues of Spain. Henri's greatest danger lay, however, in the insubor- dination of some of the nobility, whose feudal pretensions to independence had been encouraged by civil war, and who now 310 HENRI IV saw their ambitions thwarted by the steady growth of the royal power. Several conspiracies resulted, the most serious of which was that in which the Duke of Biron, the son of Henri's former marshal, made common cause with Savoy and Spain. Biron, though loaded with favours, had already once before been guilty of treason, but had then been pardoned. This time he met a traitor's death on the scaffold (July 31, 1602). Two years before this Henri had solved a problem which for some time had given great concern both to him and to the country. This was the question of the succession to the throne. His marriage with the profligate IVlarguerite of Valois had been childless, and husband and wife had long lived apart. A legitimate son (his bastard children by his various mis- tresses did not, of course, count) was necessary to assure his line and the peace of France after his death. To this end, with Marguerite's entire consent, he induced the Pope to annul his marriage ; after which, on December 9, 1600, he took as his second wife the Pope's niece, Maria de' Medici.^ The union was not a happ^^ one, but it achieved its political purpose. Marie bore her husband three sons and three daughters. Assassination of Henri Though even after the Treaty of Vervins and the death of Philip II Spain continued to be a source of trouble, Henri perceived that his chief immediate menace now came from the Spanish dynasty's close connexion with the Imperial house of Austria. This power he sought for a time to check by aUiances with the Protestant Governments of Europe. Then the religious and political disturbances of the German states, and specifically the dispute which arose concerning the succes- sion to the duchy of Cleves (i6og), provided him with a pretext to act. The war of aggression on which he was now resolved to enter was distasteful to many of his advisers as a war in defence of Protestantism. But he pushed forward his prepara- tions for it and announced his intention of leading his army ^ Hereafter the recognized French form of this name — ^Marie de Medicis— will be used. 3" HISTORY OF FRANCE in person to the Rhine. His departure from Paris was fixed for May 19. On the afternoon of the 14th, accompanied by a small body-guard only — a few gentlemen and some servants on foot — ^he set out in an open carriage to visit Sully, who was lying ill at the Arsenal. On the way he was attacked by a fanatic named Ravaillac, who, leaning over from one of the back wheels of his coach, struck him with a dagger two blows in rapid succession, the second blow severing an artery near the heart and proving instantly fatal. It was with difficulty that the murderer was saved from the fury of the crowd. A fortnight later he was put to death with the most horrible tortures which the ingenuity of his judges could devise. It remains uncertain whether Ravaillac acted on his own initiative or as a tool in the hands of others — perhaps of the Jesuits^ or of Spain. The former supposition is the more probable. But even so the crime was the direct result of the violent diatribes of the recalcitrant clergy, who were still fired with the worst passions of the days of the Sixteen. It was not their fault that their vile teachings, which had now turned a wretched visionary's unstable brain, had not already borne practical fruit. Nineteen previous attempts at assassination had been made. " When I am no more," said Henri to some of his nobles, on the very morning of the day of his death, " you will know what you have lost." And he was right. The grief of the people in Paris, and, as the news of the tragedy spread, through- out the provinces, was, contemporaries tell us, indescribable. Patriotic Frenchmen of all classes and opinions mourned his loss as that of a true father of his country. Henri's Character Henri's character has been very variously estimated, but there seems little ground to demur to Henri Martin's judgment that he was on the whole the greatest of all the Kings of France. He had, it is true, many serious personal defects, the worst 1 In 1595 the Jesiiits had been banished from France for inspiring an attempt on the life of the King. They were, however, allowed to return in 1603. 312 * HENRI IV of which were the grossness of his taste and manners — remarked even at the time — and the shameless sensuality which led him all through his life to indulge in the coarsest pleasures and to descend on occasion to the most vulgar intrigues. His private biography is indeed in large measure a chronicle of scandals, and his relations with his two wives and his numerous mistresses have provided ample material for gossiping pens. But, on the other hand, he was warm-hearted, generous, magnanimous, wonderfully free from prejudices, and for his age singularly humane. He possessed also the qualities of nature which were best calculated to make him popular and to disarm the criti- cism even of those who were most keenly alive to his faults, for he w^as affable, though brusque, frank (though his frankness covered a good deal of dissimulation), witty, full of bonhomie, absolutely indifferent to dangers and privations, and openly impatient of ceremonial. He is undoubtedly one of the most engaging and romantic figures in histor}^ while as a ruler he claims our admiration by reason of his breadth of view and his enlightenment. From first to last he laboured for the welfare of France and with the interests of his people always in the forefront of his thought. 313 CHAPTER II LOUIS XIII: FIRST PERIOD i6 1 0-1624 HENRI'S eldest legitimate son, Ivouis, was born at Fon- tainebleau on September 27, 1601, and was therefore not nine years old at the time of his father's death. The late King's advisers saw the danger lest the sudden with- drawal of a strong hand from the reins of power might at once let loose the forces of anarchy. It was necessary to preserve o;;der at any cost. Scarcely had Henri's body been carried to the I^ouvre, therefore, before the Parliament of Paris was hastily convened, and at the direction of the Duke of ^Spernon the' Queen-Mother was proclaimed Regent of the realm during the young King's minority. In thus arrogating to itself the right of interpreting the national will the Parliament acted without precedent and in excess of its constitutional powers. But at such a moment of crisis questions of theory were not too carefully scrutinized, nor did any one pause to consider the possible results which might follow the preponderance of so anomalous a body as the magistrature of Paris in the affairs of State. The Regency of Marie de Medicis : Concini Marie's appointment to the supreme control of government was, however, a mistake. She|was, tojbegin with, a foreigner, and as such was distrusted by the people ; she was a common- place and narrow-minded woman, lethargic of temperament and weak of will ; and, worse than all — ^for this led her to take up a wrong attitude toward those who might have helped her in the extreme difficulties of the political situation — she was already completely under the influence of two vulgar and 314 LOUIS XIII intriguing favourites, Italians like herself. On coming to France ten years before, she had brought with her a little ill-formed woman, with pinched features and sparkling black eyes, named I^eonora Dori or Galigai, her foster-sister and bosom friend. Iti her numerous suite there had also been a young man, Concino Concini, the son of a minor official at the Florentine Court. Shrewd, self-seeking, ambitious, this needy adventurer — he was at the time penniless and deeply in debt — determined to make his way in his new home, and as a first step to advancement he married the Queen's confi- dante. Though there was no real affection between the pair, they were w^ell matched, and worked together for their mutual interests. The union thus achieved what Concini had designed : it brought him into intimate relations with the Queen. The scandalous stories which soon gathered about these relations and were popularized in obscene street songs may be dismissed. But the ascendancy which the wily Florentine gained over the Queen's mind was patent to all. That ascendancy he turned to good account, for he soon made himself rich, and now by money and now by influence obtained position after position of honour and power. Before long he was Baron of lyusigny ; then Marquis of Ancre and Governor of Amiens, Peronne, and Dieppe ; then, though he had never seen a battle and was in fact a good deal of a poltroon, Marshal of France. Marie's first important step as Regent was taken under Concini's advice, and was the practical reversal of her late husband's foreign policy. Henri's aim had been to check the power of Spain and Austria. She, on the other hand, sought their support. It was impossible at once to abandon the engagements to which France stood committed, and a small force was accordingly sent into Germany to join the English and the Dutch. But the War of the Cleves Succession was soon brought to a close by the indecisive Truce of Witstett, and this gave Marie the opportunity for which she was waiting of withdrawing from all interference in German affairs. At the same time she entered into negotiations with Spain, the upshot of which was an agreement for a double matrimonial HISTORY OF FRANCE alliance through the union of I^ouis with the Infanta Anne of Austria, and of I^ouis' sister Elisabeth with the son of Philip III. There were those among the former counsellors of Henri IV — men like Villeroy and Jeannin, who had once belonged to the League — who were ready to welcome this new Spanish policy. But Sully vigorously opposed it. The result was that he was dismissed from Council and Court. Thus ended the public career of a statesman who had performed si;ich yeoman service in restoring the prosperity of the country. He now retired to Poitou (of which he was Governor), where he lived till his death in 1641. The Huguenots naturally took alarm at these proceedings, "^ which seemed indirectly to threaten their cause. At a general assembly held at Saumur they therefore protested against the Spanish marriages and the treatment of Sully, and inci- dentally took occasion to make various demands for the further extension of their privileges. The Government threw oil on the troubled waters by despatching commissioners into the provinces to see that the provisions of the Edict of Nantes were being properly carried out. This for the moment satisfied the great body of the Protestants, who, with their minds still haunted with the awful memories of civil strife, were, like the mass of their Catholic compatriots, mainly concerned for the preservation of peace. First Revolt of the Nobles The case, however, was different with the great nobles. The closing years of Henri IV's reign had witnessed an enormous development of the power of the Crown at their expense. But their feudal spirit was not yet broken and they still cherished dreams of turning their governorships into petty kingdoms. They were, moreover, in chronic need of money for the up- keep of the immense and sumptuous establishments which had now become a feature of their princely state. Henri's policy of compromise had taught them the profitableness of sedition, and in sedition they once more saw the means of satisfying their territorial ambitions, and even more their greed. If 316 1 1 H9f«I9IK~ m WM v^ ^9 ^^V;.-'*^K ^1 K\ •^F ^■'%. - '".^p IBb :,^ v; 45. Lkonora Gawgai 46. CONCINI 47. The Prince of Conde; 48. The Duke of Luynes 316 LOUIS XIII success had attended rebellion with a ruler like the late King on the throne, still more likely was it to reward their efforts now that they had to deal with an incapable woman and with a Government weakened by internal dissensions which she was powerless ta control. Marie met their demands for money until the reserves accumulated at the Treasury by Sully had been exhausted, and then they openly raised the standard of revolt. The lead in this new movement was taken by the Prince of Conde. A selfish and irresolute man, with no talent except for intrigue. Conde none the less wielded great influence by reason of his wealth and rank. He was closely related to the royal family, and only the lives of lyouis XIII and his younger brother Gaston stood between him and the crown. Furthermore, though himself a Catholic, he was a descendant of the famous Huguenot chief, and as such had a certain hold upon the more restless portion of the Protestant population. He began by issuing a manifesto addressed to the people in which he made various accusations against the Government, and, adopting the usual pretence of acting in the national interest, demanded the convocation of the States-General for the reform of the abuses specified. As a popular appeal this document had not the slightest effect. But though the masses were indifferent, a number of malcontent nobles at once joined the revolt, among them the Dukes of I^ongueville, Bouillon, Nevers, and Mayenne, and the young Duke of Vendome, Henri IV's natural son by Gabrielle d'Bstrees. There was, indeed, no love lost between the Conde faction and the Guise faction ; but, keen as were their jealousies, they were united in a common hatred of Concini. Some of the Regent's advisers urged her to take drastic action to crush the rebellion. But the feeble Queen-Mother, guided by her timorous favourite, preferred to fall back once more upon the old plan of compromise and bribery. Peace was secured by the Treaty of Sainte-Menehould (May 1614). I^arge sums of money were paid over to the chief insurgents, and a promise was made that the States should be convened HISTORY OF FRANCE and that the proposed Spanish marriages should be brought before them for ratification. The States-General of 1614 The States-General accordingly met in Paris in October 1614 — for the last time, as it proved, till the very eve of the Revolution. They were composed of 464 deputies : 140 of the clergy, 132 of the nobility, and 192 of' the Third Kstate.^ The nobles had intended to use this assembly for the furtherance of their own designs, but in this they were disappointed, for the Court had been careful to control the elections, and a strongly royalist feeling prevailed throughout the representation. The interests of the Government were at the same time favoured by the total want of harmony which soon became apparent among the three orders. Had the States acted as a united body they might have been strong enough to impose their will upon the Court. As it was they failed to come to agree- ment upon any one point of importance in their deliberations. The clergy demanded the promulgation of the decrees of the Council of Trent, Henri's refusal to accept which had been a standing offence to the Ultramontane party, who wished to bring the Gallican Church into entire subjection to Rome. The nobility demanded the abolition of the paulette.^ The Third Estate demanded the reform of the finances, reduction of taxation, and the suppression of the enormous pensions paid to the great lords, the amount of which had doubled since Henri's death ; and, further, that the Ultramontane * It is important to remember that the Third Kstate was in no sense repre- sentative of the nation. It was representative only of the haute bourgeoisie. Nearly all the deputies belonged to the noblesse de robe, or official classes, as officers of finance or justice, mayors, provosts, lawyers, and so on. See the list of deputies printed in Thierry's Histoire du Tiers-^tat, Appendix II. * This was an annual tax instituted by Sully, by payment of which holders of public offices could not only enjoy such offices in perpetuity, but also dispose of them by sale as they chose or transmit them to their heirs. The sale of public offices had long been recognized, but this imposition turned the office-holders of France into a vast corporation with hereditary rights — a noblesse de robe, which at once aroused the antagonism of the noblesse d'epe'e, or territorial aristocracy, because its interests and influence were so obviously inimical to its own. 318 LOUIS XIII doctrines of the clergy should be formally condemned. The orders were, indeed, at cross-purposes on everjrthing except the Spanish marriages, which were approved. One incident which occurred during the proceedings will serve to show the spirit which animated the nobility. The orator of the Third Estate, Henri de Mesmes, Civil lyieutenant of Paris, in a speech which was intended to be pacific, had ventured to represent the three orders as the three children of a common mother, France, the clergy being the eldest, the nobility the second {puisne), the bourgeoisie the youngest (cadet) of the family ; and he had even reminded his auditors how often it happened in families that the youngest sons were called upon to restore the home which their elders had ruined. The nobility regarded this parable as an insult, and through their president, the Baron of Senecey, complained to the King. As a commentary upon this episode we may recall the fact that when the addresses of the orders were presented to the King the orators of the clergy and the nobility were allowed to remain standing, while the representative of the Third Estate spoke on bended knee. Yet the most significant thing about this last meeting of the States-General till the very close of the Old Regime was the proof which it gave of the growth of political intelligence in the Third Order. Many of their proposals regarding finance, administration, and commerce were characterized by remark- able wisdom and public spirit ; their cahiers, indeed, containing "a vast programme of reforms, some of which were carried out by the great ministers of the seventeenth century, while others had to wait till 1789." ^ None the less all their efforts were doomed to sterility on account not only of the opposition of the nobility, but also of the radical weakness of the States as a constitutional assembly. It must be remem- bered that the functions of the States were extremely limited. They had no power to decree or to legislate. They could only petition the Crown ; and as they had no control over the national purse they lacked the great means which the * Thierry, Histoire du Tiers-Etat, pp. 160, 161. HISTORY OF FRANCE English House of Commons possessed of enforcing their requests. The cahiers presented, the Third Estate desired to remain in session till the royal reply had been received. But this did not suit the Government, which scented danger in their deliberations and was in a hurry to be rid of them. On March 24, 1615, therefore, the States broke up, having accom- plished nothing. Second Revolt of the Nobles This was the signal for further action on the part of the unruly nobles, who had already squandered the money which they had wrung from the Treasury on the occasion of their former easy victory. With Conde again at their head, they had the effrontery to complain that the demands of the States had not been met and that by the pending alliances the Government were guilty of sacrificing the interests of France to ,tho§e of Spain. In taking this line their hope was of course to enlist popular sentiment on their side. Their attempt to draw the Parliament of Paris into the quarrel failed ; but, on the other hand, they succeeded in stirring the Huguenots in the south. That autumn the Court travelled to the Spanish frontier for the celebration of the double marriage, and on the way ran no little risk from the proximity of Conde's troops. But once more the policy of concession was adopted, and peace was bought by the Treaty of I^oudun (May 1616). Richelieu afterward estimated that this fresh truce cost the Treasury no less than six millions of livres, a million and a half of which went into the pockets of Conde alone. To complete the triumph of the oligarchic party, Conde was also made chief of the Council. This second success turned the heads of the Prince and his- foUowers, who now bore themselves with great insolence at Court, and even began to talk of declaring Henri's second marriage invalid, displacing lyouis as illegitimate, and putting Conde on the throne. This time, however, they overreached themselves. Concini, believing his life to be in danger, had 320 LOUIS XIII taken refuge in Normandy, but from that place of safety he sent urgent messages to the Regent pointing out the abso- lute necessity of vigorous action. Marie at length rose to the occasion, and on September i, 1616, Conde was arrested and sent to- the Bastille. This bolt out of the blue filled his adherents with consternation, and Mayenne, lyongueville, Nevers, and Bouillon fled from the Court. Others of the faction who remained behind endeavoured to influence the people of Paris on behalf of their cause, but without success. Then Concini returned, made a clearance of all the old ministers, put creatures of his own in their places, and so established himself at the head of the Government more firmly than ever. In the meantime the leading nobles had taken up their head- quarters at Soissons. Thence they demanded the release of Conde and the expulsion of Concini, and even made overtures to the young King, seeking to persuade him that they were really acting in his interests against a disloyal cabal at Court. The Government replied by proclaiming them guilty of high treason. Armies were despatched into the disaffected pro- vinces. Soissons was besieged. The triumph of the Govern- ment would now have been assured but for the rise of unforeseen complications within the Court itself. Death of Concini : Albert de Luynes lyouis was now fifteen. According to the traditions of the French monarchy, he had attained his majority on his thirteenth birthday, and from that time on he had been King in form. But the real power had still remained in the hands of his mother. Sluggish by nature, indifferent to affairs, he had meanwhile spent his time with a group of young associates, hunting, fishing, and indulging in curiously trivial pursuits, such as sewing and cookery. He was thus regarded as a mere puppet at the Court ; no one paid the slightest attention to him ; the various factions carried on their quarrels without reference to his position or his will. But though apparently acquiescing in his anomalous situation he was in secret already brooding over it. He had come to hate his mother because, as he X 321 HISTORY OF FRANCE realized, she wanted to keep him in perpetual tutelage ; and even more bitterly he hated her counsellors, and especially the all-powerful favourite Concini, who on many occasions had treated him with marked discourtesy. Now among those who formed his personal retinue was a young man, some twenty years his senior, named Albert de I^uynes, who had first endeared himself to him by his skill in falconry. Ambitious, clever, and unscrupulous, de lyuynes had beeu quick to improve his opportunity, and had soon obtained an ascendancy over the boy-King's mind as great as that which Concini exercised over the Queen-Mother. He saw how much it would be to his advantage to make I^ouis King in reality as well as in name, and easily induced his young master to connive in a plot for Concini's overthrow. By his direction lyouis ordered his captain of the guard, X'Hopital de Vitry, to arrest the Florentine, and to kill him on the spot if he made the smallest show of resistance. Accordingly on the morning of April 24, 1617, as Concini was about to enter the I^ouvre, he was stopped by'de Vitry and a posse of armed men. " I arrest you in the King's name," said the captain, and before Concini could turn round three pistol-shots were fired by the guard, and he fell dead. Louis, seated on a billiard table, received de Vitry's report with undisguised satisfaction. " Merci, grand merci a vous," he exclaimed ; "a cette heure je suis roi." The fallen favourite was hastily buried, but the long pent-up hatred of the populace of Paris was not yet assuaged. They ex- humed the corpse, dragged it with noisy demonstrations through the- streets, and burned it before the dead man's palace in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Vengeance also over- took his wife, who was charged with practising the black arts in order to obtain influence over the Queen-Mother, found guilty after a farcical trial, and beheaded in the Place de Greve. Marie felt no personal regret for the loss of her favourites, for her infatuation for them was now a thing of the past. But she saw at once that her reign was at an end. She tried in vain to make terms with her son, and was presently forced to 322 49- IvOUiS XIII 322 LOUIS XIII retire in exile to Blois, where her miniature Court forthwith became a centre of intrigue. The great nobles of the malcontent party now hastened back to Paris in the belief that the death of Concini had cleared the way for them. But they soon learned their mistake. De I^uynes had acted in his own interests, not in theirs, and he was not the man to allow them to appropriate the spoils. " Henceforth I will be King myself,*' IvOuis had declared when he received the homage of the courtiers on the day of the assassination. But as a matter of fact the King's favourite now seized the power which hitherto had been in the Queen-Mother's favourite's hands. Most of Concini's confiscated property was transferred to him. He became Duke and Peer of France and Governor of Picardy, and presently increased his prestige by marriage with a member of the great Breton family of the Rohans. One of his brothers was made Duke of Chaulnes, the other Duke of lyUxembourg-Piney. Nothing was now left for the insubordinate nobles in their disappointment but to join forces with their former enemy, the Queen-Mother. With the help of the Duke of !6pernon, whose turbulent nature was still unaffected by age, Marie made her escape from Blois (February 1619) and sought asylum in the Duke's territory of Angouleme. lyike Concini before him, de lyuynes was too fearful of consequences to resort to violent measures, and the threatened outbreak of hostilities was for the moment warded off by an agreement under which Marie received as a sop the government of Anjou. But from their centre at Angers the nobles continued their eft'orts to arouse the provinces against the King. There was some lively fight- ing in which the advantage was mainly with the royal arms. But by this time Marie had begun to perceive that even in the now unlikely event of success she stood to gain very little for herself through her persistent opposition to her son. In August 1620 she finally came to terms with him, the arrange- ment of the preceding year being confirmed. 323 HISTORY OF FRANCE Trouble with the Huguenots More serious troubles were, however, brewing. The Govern- ment had formally ratified the Edict of Nantes, and all over the country, there had been a lull in religious strife. But the immense masses of controversial literature which now poured from the press on one and the other side gave evidence that religious passions were still strong, and these passions were again inflamed by the beginnings in Germany of what was to prove the terrible Thirty Years' War. Deeply moved by the menace to their cause involved in the matrimonial alliance with Spain, the Huguenots now entered, most unwisely and with fatal results, as the sequel was to show, upon an aggres- sive policy which carried them far beyond the charter of their liberties. Their fortified towns were already little republics on jbhe model of Geneva, and now, by welding these into a solid union, dividing France into great administrative districts, in each of which there were a military commander and a provincial council, and establishing representative assemblies which freely discussed not theological questions only but also national affairs, they set up what was indeed to all intsnts and purposes a state within a state. Weak and divided as it was, the Government was bound to take cognizance of such separatist ambitions, which were tantamount to a challenge both to its own supremacy and to the integrity of the realm. Then a crisis was precipitated by the action of the King in Beam. lyouis* grandmother, Jeanne d'Albret, had prohibited the Catholic religion in that province and had confiscated the property of the Church. At the time of his absolution Henri IV had promised that both religion and property should be restored. But though this promise had been redeemed in respect of worship, the Church lands had remained in possession of the Huguenots. By a royal edict of June 1617 such lands were at length retransferred to the clergy. To this the Huguenots replied by protests and threats. For the time being the Government was too much embarrassed by the coalition between the Queen-Mother and the nobles to give 324 LOUIS XIII much attention to other matters, and things were allowed to drift. But as soon as his hands were free lyouis determined to enforce the edict, marched into Beam at the head of an army (1620), and began a vigorous campaign to stamp out the rebellion which his presence inspired. He met, however, with stubborn resistance, and hostilities continued till October 1622. Peace was then arranged by the Treaty of Montpellier, on terms which showed that the Protestants were already losing ground. The Edict of Nantes was, indeed, reconfirmed ; but, on the other hand, the political assemblies of the Reformers were forbidden as illegal, and all their fortified towns were taken from them except Montauban and I^a Rochelle. Conde, now again at liberty, was so indignant at this treaty that he left the Court and set out for Italy. One event of special importance on account of its indirect results occurred during this war. At the siege of Montauban in December 162 1 de lyuynes was attacked by a fever which in four days proved fatal. His influence was already on the wane, and his death led to an immediate reorganization of the Ministry, and before long to the supremacy of the great statesman who for the next eighteen years, as the power behind the throne, was to shape the destinies of France^ — Richelieu. 325 CHAPTER III LOUIS XIII : SECOND PERIOD 1624-1643 THE ADMINISTRATION OF RICHBI.IEU ARMAND-JBAN DU PI.KSSIS DK RICHBI.IEU was born in Paris in 1585. Originally intended for the army, he decided instead to enter the Church, and at twenty-two was consecrated to the Bishopric of Lu9on. He was elected to represent the clergy of Poitou at the States- General of 1614, and so made his mark in the debates that on the presentation of the cahiers to the King he was chosen as orator of his order. He then attracted the attention of the Qneen-Mother and Concini, was made a member of the Council, and a little later became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The new policy adopted by the Government against the nobles, which had its first expression in Conde's arrest, was in part due to his advice. His career was checked for a time by Concini's downfall, which obliged him to retire to his diocese. But he presently formed an alliance with de lyuynes, returned to Court, and was largely instrumental in bringing about the reconciliation between the Queen-Mother and her son. He soon enjoyed the complete confidence of Marie, now once more established in the capital, and through her influence he obtained in 1622 the cardinal's hat. In 1624 he again became one of the King's ministers, and within a few months was head of the Council and virtually ruler of the State. Richelieu and Louis XIII It is necessary to consider rather carefully the relations of the minister and the King during the eighteen years of the former's power. % 326 LOUIS XIII Richelieu- dominated I^ouis* mind in part by the over- whelming force of his genius, but in part also by his complete understanding of the peculiar character of his nominal master, and by his extraordinary tact in dealing with him. I/Ouis was moody,' capricious, uncertain in temper, extremely jealous of his dignity and prerogatives, suspicious of those who served him, and always ready to take offence. Though his education had been singularly defective and the early influences of his life thoroughly bad, he developed a keen interest in public affairs, and became really anxious according to his lights to govern for the good of his country. Nor was he without ability, though his mental activity was continually checked by his natural indolence, itself in large measure the result of his poor health.^ At the same time he was, in spite of his fickleness, both self-confident and obstinate, and while it was often almost impossible to bring him to a decision, it was an equally hard matter to move him to a revision of judgment when once he had made up his mind. Had he been a mere zero and do- nothing king the task of his autocratic adviser would have been relatively simple. As it was it was fraught with countless difficulties and dangers. Moreover, the situation was compli- cated by strong personal feelings. It is certain that I^ouis disliked his minister— certain that he stood in fear of him. Yet his disposition made it necessary that he should have some one to lean upon ; he fully appreciated Richelieu's greatness ; and if he dreaded his power, he dreaded even more what might happen if he were deprived of his support. The delicacy of Richelieu's position and the slenderness of the thread by which he held to office will now be understood. He, on his side, knew perfectly well that he depended entirely upon the uncertain favour of an infirm and peevish master, ^ He was subject all through his life to attacks, often serious, of enteric fever. We can only wonder, not so much that he survived so many illnesses, as that he did not succumb to his physicians, whose treatment of him throws a lurid light upon the drastic methods then in vogue among the medical profession. Without entering into therapeutic details, I may just say by way of illustration that in one year the unfortunate King was bled forty-seven times. 327 HISTORY OF FRANCE and from first to last his conduct was guided by recognition of this one central fact. Dictator as he was, he was always the courtier. His hand of iron was always encased in a glove of velvet. He never for a moment usurped or appeared to usurp the functions of royalty. He never ventured upon a single step without lyouis' express consent. He respected the King's sovereign attributes, and though at times he lectured him on his duties with remarkable plainness of speech, he always kept up an elaborate show of acting only in his behalf and as the instrument of his will. In this way, with con- summate adroitness and skill, he allayed the King's sus- picions and flattered his susceptibilities, while in every detail of administration he made his own will prevail. And this he did amid obstacles and perils beyond those which arose from the character of the King himself. The great minister was hated at Court and unpopular outside. He had many enemies and hardly a single friend. Formidable influences were ever at work to compass his downfall, and there were innumerable plots against his power and his life. When all these circum- stances are remembered, we cannot but admire the calm resolution, the steady courage, and the marvellous dexterity with which he steered his frail bark among the rocks and shallows and maintained his supremacy unshaken till the verj^ hour of his death. Richelieu's Policy and Programme Richelieu's political ideals were fully formulated in his own mind long before he came to power ; when once he felt the ground firm beneath his feet he made their realization the business of his life. The ends which he proposed can be very briefly defined. On the one hand he aimed so to strengthen the central authority of the Crown as to transform the govern- ment of France into a monarchy absolute in fact as well as in name. On the other hand he sought to make France pre- eminent among the nations of Europe. These objects involved on the domestic side the reduction of the nobles to submission and the destruction of the secular pretensions of the Huguenots, 328 50. RiCHKiJKU 328 LOUIS XIII and on the foreign side a return to Henri IV's aggressive policy against Spain. But though we can thus distinguish between his domestic and his foreign ambitions, we must remember that these were closely connected in his own thought, since the entire suppression of all centrifugal forces at home was, as he rightly judged, a condition precedent to the success of his plans abroad. Such then was his programme. How far was he successful in carrying it out ? In answering this question it will be convenient for us to follow the main lines of his administration one by one, disregarding where necessary the actual chrono- logical sequence of events. We will begin with his systematic efforts to crush the Huguenots. Richelieu and the Huguenots It must be clearly understood that these efforts were directed against the Huguenots solely as a political power. With their creed and their liberty of conscience he never proposed to meddle. We have already seen that, stiffened in their anta- gonism to the Government by occurrences which seemed to them to menace their privileges, they had gradually arrogated to themselves rights which, as we have put it, practically constituted them a state within the State. They were no longer merely a religious organization demanding freedom of thought and worship. They had become a political faction ready at all times to make common cause not only with other unruly factions, but even with the foreign enemies of their country. Numerically weak though they were, they were thus a source of constant danger to the peace and order of the nation. It was for these reasons that Richelieu resolved to strike without mercy at their pretensions and to stop at nothing until he had reduced them to impotency. It was certain in the circumstances that he would soon receive ample provocation to action. The memory of the defeat which they had recently suffered still rankled in the minds of the more mutinous of the Protestant leaders, who were therefore on the alert for any excuse to stir up further 329 HISTORY OF FRANCE trouble. They saw their chance when at the very opening of RicheHeu's administration France became involved with Spain. On the ground that the Treaty of Montpellier had not been carried out, they once more took up arms, the centre of the disturbance being the great stronghold of the party — that " nest of wasps," as Richelieu called it — ^the powerfully fortified city of lya Rochelle. A curious feature of the brief struggle which ensued was that Richelieu suppressed the insurrection with the help of the Protestant Powers. His great difficulty was the want of a fleet. But England and Holland were extremely angry with the Huguenots for jeopardizing the combination against Spain, and provided him with ships, which he manned with French troops ; and with these he obtained so complete a victory over the insurgents that one of their chiefs, the Seigneur de Soubise, was forced to fly to Bngland. Preoccupation with foreign affairs, however, pre- vented Richelieu from following up this advantage, and he therefore patched up a hasty peace (February 1626) on the basis of the Treaty of Montpellier. Naturally no one was satisfied. The Catholics were furious at what they regarded as his capitulation to their enemies. The Protestants still nursed their pet grievances — the continued existence of the great fortresses which had recently been erected near I^a Rochelle, and against which they had protested, the old troubles in Beam, the loss of the fortified towns which they deemed essential to their safety. But Richelieu himself never intended the convention to be permanent. He was simply biding his time. The immediate cause of the final conflict was the inter- vention of England. One of Richelieu's first acts as Prime Minister had been the conclusion by marriage of the long- standing engagement between lyouis' youngest sister, Marie, and Charles I. This was a move in his general foreign policy. But it led to quarrels which had an unfortunate influence on international relationships. Charges and counter-charges of bad faith were soon made. The French Government complained that the lot of the English Catholics, which Charles had promised 330 LOUIS XIII to ameliorate, had grown worse instead of better ; the English Government retaliated by accusing lyouis of similar perfidious- ness in respect of his Protestant subjects. Matters were further embroiled by the indiscreet behaviour of the Duke of Bucking- ham, then at the height of his power. On the occasion of the nuptials that vain and foolish nobleman had been sent to Paris as Charles' envoy extraordinary, and had there conducted himself with outrageous gallantry, even to the extent, it was alleged, of making love to the Queen. Now Ivouis neglected his wife, it is true, but he was a jealous husband as well as a jealous King, and he took offence. The consequence was that when a little later Buckingham planned another visit to Paris he was informed that he would be regarded as a persona non grata at the French Court. His pique at this rebuff was one among the various factors which were co-operating in the growing ill-feeling between the two countries. Meaiiwhile Soubise in exile was busy stirring up English sentiment in favour of his coreligionists at home. Then the peace which Richelieu made with Spain in March 1626 increased the tension to breaking-point. Angry at lyouis' defection, Charles resolved to put himself forv\^ard as the protector of the French Protes- tants. In this he was egged on by the self-seeking Buckingham, who, knowing that a war with France undertaken on such an issue would be widely popular in England, saw in it a chance of wiping out the insult which he had received from the French Court and at the same time covering himself with glory. In July 1627 ^ large fleet was accordingly despatched to La Rochelle, with Buckingham in supreme command, and after a sharp engagement the English troops effected a landing on the island of Re, just outside the harbour, and laid siege to Fort Saint-Martin. But Buckingham was as incompetent as he was arrogant. Saint-Martin, like the neighbouring Fort Saint-Louis, was at the moment ill prepared for resistance, and he might have carried both by assault and made himself master of the island. Instead of doing this, he turned the attack into a blockade. Richelieu on his side acted with characteristic promptitude and decision, and as the public 331 HISTORY OF FRANCE Treasury was unequal to the sudden demand made upon it, he came to the rescue with his private purse. In August he arrived on the scene of action accompanied by the King, barely recovered from a severe bout of fever. The condition of the besieged garrison was already growing desperate, but it was not until the night of September 27, when it was within three days of the end of its provisions, that Richelieu succeeded in relieving it with a fresh suppl}^ of food. A little later he landed reinforcements on the island. Buckingham, who had staked everything on his design for starving out the French, was now faced by the imminent danger of being starved out himself. On November 27 he made a desperate effort to carry the fort by storm. The attempt was a pitiful failure, and the fatuous nobleman had to beat a hasty retreat to England with only a wretched remnant of the force he had taken out with l^im a few months before. His expedition had, however, involved the Huguenots once more in war with their Government. At the outset the people of I^a Rochelle had shown no desire for an alliance with England, but they had been led to co-operate with Bucking- ham by the urgency of their leaders. Their decision was now followed by a general rising of the Protestants in the south. Entrusting Conde and Montmorency with the task of subduing lyanguedoc, Richelieu resolved to concentrate all his energies on the destruction of Iva Rochelle. Realizing that its defences were practically impregnable, he at once proceeded to institute a rigorous blockade. Immense lines of fortifications cut off the city entirely on the land side ; the harbour was closed by a gigantic dike, the construction of which, under the direction of two Parisian engineers, was the arduous labour of six months. But, inspired by the magnificent courage of the old Duchess of Rohan and of the mayor, Jean Guiton, who threatened to stab any one who even hinted at surrender, the Rochelais set up a stubborn defence. In May 1628 an English fleet under lyord Denbigh arrived outside the still unfinished dike, but retired without striking a blow. In September Charles despatched a stronger expedition under the Earl of Lindsey, 332 l2^o^ftra;£lcie : 'fviIl€!'de.iaRochelle aaet fes forterelI^,comme eiie eit a preleiit: 51. A Bird's-eye View of I/A RocheItI^E at the Time of THE Siege of 1627 332 LOUIS XIII as substitute for Buckingham, who had just fallen by an assassin's knife ; but this too proved a fiasco. By this time the city was reduced to the direst straits ; half the population was dead or dying of disease or famine ; scarcely 150 men fit for military service remained ; and as the last hope of relief from England had now disappeared, even the lion-hearted mayor was forced to admit that surrender was inevitable. On October 28, therefore, I^a Rochelle capitulated, after a siege which had lasted fifteen months, and on November i the King made a triumphal entry into the city. The lives of the inhabi- tants were spared and their religious liberty confirmed ; but the city's fortifications were razed to the ground and its muni- cipal privileges cancelled. The fall of I^a Rochelle was presently followed by that of Montauban, the last bulwark of Protestant independence, and by the collapse of the Protestant revolt throughout the south ; and the Peace of Alais in June 1629 brought the last religious war to an end. Richelieu's object was now attained ; the Huguenot party as a political organi- zation had ceased to exist. But we must not fail to appreciate the statesmanlike sagacity and moderation by which his policy toward them was marked. He left them no vestige of their former power ; but at the same time he did everything in reason to conciliate them. He reaffirmed the Edict of Nantes, assured them freedom of conscience and the protection of the law, and in proof of his entire confidence in their loyalty employed them throughout his ministry side by side with Catholics in the army, in diplomacy, in the magistrature, and in finance. The results justified his methods. The Huguenots now entered upon a long period of peace and prosperity as patriotic citizens of the State by which they had been absorbed. Richelieu and the Nobles In his second great task, the subjugation of the nobles, Richelieu encountered more serious difficulties, for here he had to contend, not with open antagonism only, but also with the continual plottings of his enemies at Court, who jealously watched for every chance to contrive his downfall. 333 HISTORY OF FRANCE So virulent was their animosity, so deep their dread of his power, that these restless malcontents would gladly have seen him fail against the Huguenots, knowing that success would strengthen his hands against themselves ; an appre- hension pithily expressed in a chance phrase of Bassompierre, one of his three commanders at I^a Rochelle : " We shall be fools enough to take the city." A master in the art of intrigue, Richelieu was generally able to fight underground conspiracy with its own weapons. But it is hardly surprising that when- ever secret hatred burst out into open revolt he should have had recourse to measures, not of conciliation, but of extreme severity ; though it is necessary to add that these measures, more than an3^thing else in his ministerial career, have left a blot upon his name. The central figure in the first great cabal against him was the icing's brother, Gaston, Duke of Orleans, a weak, cowardly, and vicious youth, who had been made the willing puppet of a group of associates more resolute and courageous but not less vicious than himself. The immediate cause of the trouble was a Court quarrel about Gaston's marriage ^ — ^in itself a relatively trivial matter ; but, according to reports, perhaps exaggerated, the Cardinal's life was aimed at, and even the life of the King.^ The Count of Chalais, Gaston's chief confi- dant, was sent to the block ; other participants were imprisoned or banished ; and Gaston, who, characteristically enough, had turned traitor to his friends, made grovelling submission to lyouis and was forgiven. This happened in 1626. The next year Richelieu came into conflict with the nobles over the practice of duelling. This practice had grown into a frightful abuse in the early seven- teenth century ; bloody encounters, in which the seconds as well as the principals frequently took part, were of almost daily occurrence ; and, to make matters worse, the field of battle * Richelieu and I^ouis had decided to marry him. to Mile de Montpensier, of the house of Guise ; his advisers, on the other hand, iirged him to strengthen his position by union with a foreign princess. 2 As I^ouis was still childless, Gaston was heir-presumptive to the throne. 334 s^ LOUIS XIII was often a public street or square. Richelieu's determination to put an end to this evil was part of his general policy against the turbulent nobility, who clung to it as a survival of their former right of private warfare. Edicts against it existed, but they had never been enforced. The Cardinal not only issued a fresh edict, but on the first occasion put it into execu- tion. The Count of Bouteville, who already had twenty -two duels to his credit, ostentatiously defied authority by fighting a twenty-third, in which once more he killed his man, the scene being the Place Royale. Though the offender belonged to the powerful family of the Montmorency, both he and his second, the Count of Chapelles, were beheaded in the Place de Gr^ve (June 1627). Richelieu failed to stamp out duelling, but in his attempt to do so he struck a vigorous blow at the pretensions of those who arrogantly set themselves above the law.^ His action, therefore, still further intensified their hatred of him. His next great danger arose in 1629-30, from the machina- tions of the Queen-Mother. It was largely through her in- fluence that he had first obtained his ascendancy at Court, but she too became jealous and alarmed the moment she realized that the power which she had intended to use for her own caprices was devoted entirely to the welfare of the State. Furious at what she regarded as his base ingratitude, she now turned against him with all the unreasoning passion of a narrow-minded, disappointed woman. Her anger was aroused in particular by his anti-Spanish policy, for the fact that her eldest daughter was Queen of Spain had inspired her with a sympathy for that country which made her utterly indifferent to the interests of France. Choosing a moment when lyouis was dangerously ill, she extorted from him a promise 1 The glorification of the duel was one reason for Richelieu's attack on Corneille's Le Cid (1636); another being the fact that its protagonist was the famous Ruy Diaz de Bivar, the national hero of Spain. Readers of Les Trois Mousquetaires will remember that D'Artagnan's father advised his son to fight duels all the more now that they were forbidden, since he would thus show his courage twice over — ^in disobeying the edict as well as in facing death. 33S HISTORY OF FRANCE to dismiss the Cardinal, and her partisans at once began to gloat over their enemy's fall and their own brilliant prospects of advancement as its sequel. But Richelieu's offer at once to throw up his office brought the distracted King to his senses, and the upshot of an interview between the two at Versailles (then a simple hunting lodge in a deer-forest) was I^ouis* assurance that he would support his minister against all oppo- sition. The day on which the conspiracy collapsed — Novem- ber II, 1630 — has passed into history as la journe'e des dupes. Reprisals followed. One of the chief plotters, Michel de Marillac, Keeper of the Seals, was exiled ; his brother, the Marshal, was condemned to death ; Bassompierre was thrown into the Bastille ; the Queen-Mother was banished to Com- piegne, whence she presently escaped to Brussels ; Gaston sought refuge in lyorraine. '^The internal peace which Richelieu thus secured was, however, only temporary. Gaston's flighty temperament prompted him once more to stir up trouble. Much against his will, he had yielded to pressure and accepted Mile de Montpensier as his wife ; but now a widower, he cemented an alliance with Charles III, Duke of I^orraine, who for purposes of his own had taken up his cause, by secretly marrying the Duke's sister Marguerite. He also found a powerful adherent in Henri, Duke of Montmorency, Marshal of France and Governor of lyanguedoc. The people of that province had long enjoyed a large degree of political independence, which they now saw menaced by the measures which the Cardinal had taken on the suppression of the last Huguenot revolt. Resentment therefore made them ready to support their governor, whose personal influence over them was very strong, and who, indeed, as Richelieu complained, assumed within his territory an authority hardly second to that of the King. But notwithstanding the formidable character of this new insurrection it was easily crushed by a single decisive victory of the royal arms at Castelnaudary, in Languedoc (September i, 1632). The contemptible Gaston again obtained pardon by abandoning his allies and making lavish promises of future LOUIS XIII good behaviour, while condign punishment was meted out to those who had been foohsh enough to co-operate with him. But though many suffered death, imprisonment, or disgrace, public attention was centred upon the fate of Montmorency. It was of course admitted that he had been guilty of high treason in bearing arms against his King. Yet it was the universal feeling that his position as the last scion of a family which ranked perhaps first in the ancient and illustrious nobility of France should at least be held to plead in his favour against a felon's doom, and this feeling, if it did not originate in, at any rate was deepened by, his immense personal popu- larity. The news that he was condemned to the block caused the most profound sensation throughout the country ; the people joined with the princes and the nobles in petitioning for his life ; prayers were offered in the churches in his behalf ; threats mingled with prayers. But Richelieu was inexorable, and Montmorency's head fell beneath the axe. This was Richelieu's greatest object-lesson to the mutinous nobles. He meant to teach them that treason is crime, whoever the criminal may be, and that no consideration of rank or character sufficed to put the traitor beyond the reach of the law. This lesson had its effect. Yet at the very end of his life the Cardinal had to meet two more plots against his power. The first of these was headed by the Count of Soissons and the Duke of Bouillon, and ended with the former's death in battle (1641). The chief figure in the second was young Henri Coifiier de Ruze, Marquis of Cinq-Mars. Placed as a boy at Court by Richelieu himself, Cinq-Mars quickly made himself popular by his personal beauty and attractive manners ; won in particular the favour of the King ; and at nineteen was already Grand Equerry. But success turned his head and filled him with extravagant ambitions ; he began to dream of playing the part of a de I^uynes ; and to that end he did his utmost to undermine Louis' confidence in his great minister. Then once more the smouldering embers of discontent were easily fanned into flame, and designs against Richelieu's life were formed of which the Queen-Mother was cognizant and Y 337 HISTORY OF FRANCE which had the secret support of Spain. But Richelieu, now nearing death, got wind of what was afoot and obtained (by what means is not known) a copy of the treasonable treaty with Spain. The plans of the conspirators were thus ex- posed. Cinq-Mars and his friend Frangois de Thou (son of the historian) were beheaded ; the Duke of Bouillon purchased pardon by surrendering his fortress of Sedan to the Crown ; while Gaston — the ever restless, ever futile , Gaston, who had again dabbled in rebellion and again scuttled and betrayed his accomplices the moment the bubble burst — ^though he escaped other punishment, was obliged to renounce all future claim to public office or dignity and to retire into private life at Blois. Such in brief were Richelieu's relations with the nobility during the eighteen years of his administration. To complete tl^is part of our story it must be added that by two general measures he struck at the roots of their traditional power. In the first place he ordered the demolition of all such feudal fortresses as were not needed for national defence, thus depriving their owners of the strongholds which in feudal days had enabled their ancestors to defy the king's authority, and which even yet remained a dangerous reminder of the former independence of their caste. Secondly, by an important development in the machinery of administration he secured the supremacy of the central Government in local affairs. The governorships of the provinces had long been in the hands of great ruling families, who (like the Montmorencys in lyanguedoc, for example) had come to regard them as hereditary possessions conferring what were tantamount to sovereign rights. Riche- lieu destroyed such territorial possessions by his system of intendants. These officials, who formed three classes — inten- dants of justice, of finance, and of police — ^were appointed by the Crown as its representatives and agents, their duty being to control, within their respective departments, not only the local governors (who now became military governors only), but also the municipalities and provincial Parliaments. This institution, as was evident at the time, and as subsequent 338 LOUIS XIII events even more conclusively proved, was Richelieu's greatest single achievement in his policy of centralization.^ Richelieu's Foreign Policy We have now to turn from Richelieu's domestic to his foreign policy. This subject is unfortunately so entangled with the complicated European movements of the time that it would be impossible to deal with it here in detail without an unwarrant- able digression into general history. It must therefore suffice to indicate the broad lines of the efforts which he directed toward his one great end — the securing for France of the first place among the nations. That object entailed, as we have seen, a struggle with Spain and Austria. Devout Catholic and prince of the Church though he was, he was thus driven by diplomatic necessities, and purely as a matter of political calculation, to make common cause with the Protestant Powers, and he began with England (with what ill-success has already become apparent) and with the Netherlands. His first war was also undertaken in defence of a Protestant people. The Catholic inhabitants of the little Protestant republic of the Orisons had, at the instigation of Spain, revolted against their heretical rulers. The Spaniards had thereupon seized the Valtelline valley, which was of great strategical importance to them as the principal means of communication between their Italian provinces and Austria. Richelieu then intervened on behalf of the Orisons, cleared the country of Spanish and papal troops, and restored the Valtelline to the confederacy. Troubles with the Hugue- nots and the discontent of the Ultramontanes prevented him, however, from turning this victory to its full account, and he was obliged for the moment to make peace with Spain (1626). Three years later hostilities were renewed over the question of the Mantuan succession. The Duke of Mantua and Mont- ferrat had died leaving no near kin, and his next heir was a ^ This system of intendants was not actually originated by Richelieu, but he revived it and made it permanent and effective. 339 HISTORY OF FRANCE French subject, the Duke of Nevers, Governor of Champagne. Spain, the dominating Power in Italy, was, however, deter- mined that the duchy should not pass into French hands, and therefore appealed to the Emperor Ferdinand II to inter- fere, at the same time setting up a rival claimant. This gave Richelieu ground to take the field in Nevers' support. Twice he crossed the Alps in personal command of the French armies (1629, 1630), crushed the Duke of Savoys who had joined Spain, and was soon in a position to impose terms, which included the recognition of Nevers and the cession to France of the fortified town of Pinerolo. France thus established a centre of influence in Italy and obtained possession of an important key to the Alpine passes. In this triumph of his Italian policy Spain and Austria rightly saw a menace to their united power. Hence the continued activity of Spain in fomenting disturbances among the French nobles with a view to embarrassing Richelieu in the pursuit of his foreign ambitions. Meanwhile the Thirty Years' War was running its disastrous course. In origin the result of religious dissensions among the German princes and their subjects, this great struggle or series of struggles had soon become political and dynastic, and had gradually spread until nearly all the rival Powers of Europe were drawn into it. Naturally Richelieu kept a vigilant eye upon every fresh development of a conflict which was certain in the upshot to alter fundamentally the European system ; but his difficulties with the Huguenots compelled him for the time being to remain a spectator. On the whole fortune favoured the Catholic side, and when Wallenstein swept over Northern Germany his successes brought within measurable distance of realization the great ambition of the Austrian Hapsburgs — ^the establishment of a solid Germanic empire, with the Baltic ports as an outlet to the sea. At this critical juncture Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden stepped in as the champion of the Protestants against the Catholic League (1630), and Richelieu at once agreed to support him with large subsidies. But it was not until the noble * Snow King ' 340 LOUIS XIII had closed his brief but glorious career on the field of Iviitzen (1632) that Richelieu began to see his way clear to decisive action. Even then he continued for some time to intrigue with the Protestant princes against the Emperor and his auxiliaries, meanwhile strengthening his own position by im- portant alliances and carefully organizing the French army. At length in 1633 he determined to enter the conflict openty, and declared war against Spain, which throughout had been the mainstay of the Imperial and Austrian cause. At this point, therefore, the long war took yet another turn ; it ceased to be even in name a war for the defence of Protestantism in Germany, and became a war waged by France for her own aggrandizement against the two branches of the house of Hapsburg. At the outset things went ill with France ; at one time the Spanish penetrated into Picardy, seized Corbie, and even threatened Paris itself. But despite the general alarm Richelieu never lost his head or his courage, and in 1638 the tide began to turn. Spain, badly beaten in many directions, was further crippled by revolts of the Catalans and the Portuguese ; the weakness of Spain wrecked the hopes of Austria ; and in his closing years the great minister had the satisfaction of witnessing a succession of brilliant French triumphs by which the power of his enemies was paralysed, though by no means completely broken. Perhaps his greatest single victory was the conquest of Alsace,^ the possession of which, together with that of I/orraine, carried the boundaries of France to the natural frontier of the Rhine and destroyed the coherence of the Imperial states. Though he died before the results of his policy could be consolidated, he left his country everywhere victorious. His successors had only to reap where he had sown. Results of Richelieu's Administration In a remarkable document, Le Testament politique, the guid- ing principles of Richelieu's administration are thus succinctly ^ Definitely ceded to France six years after his death by the Treaty of Westphalia. See post, p. 350. 341 HISTORY OF FRANCE outlined either by Richelieu himself or perhaps by some one writing on his behalf : ^ " When Your Majesty decided to give me a place in your councils the Huguenots divided the State with you ; the nobles conducted themselves as if they were not your subjects, and the more powerful governors of provinces as if they were sovereigns in their own right. Foreign alliances were despised, i private interests preferred to public ; in a word, the dignity of Your Majesty was so degraded and different from what it should be that it was almost impossible to recognize it. I promised Your Majesty to use all my industry and power to ruin the Huguenot party, lower the pride of the nobles, lead all subjects to their duty, and restore the country's name among foreign nations." We are now in a position to realize how far these promises had been redeemed. A few words must, however, be added on the results of Richelieu's administration in general. His paramount object was, as we have seen, the complete concentration of authority in the Crown. This was of course no innovation. Centralizing tendencies had already been increasingly apparent in the evolution of the French Govern- ment from Philippe IV's time to I^ouis XI's and from lyouis XI's to Francois I's ; and though they had been interrupted by the Wars of Religion and the anarchy which followed, they had reappeared with the restoration of internal peace under Henri IV. For several centuries, indeed, as our narrative has shown, the political history of France had largely been the history of a struggle for supremacy between the monarchy and the disruptive forces of feudalism ; in this struggle the monarchy had slowly gained ground ; and since the conditions * The authenticity of this document (first published at Amsterdam in 1688) has been hotly debated. Voltaire pronoimced it the work of a mere compiler, and this view has been accepted, with modifications, by many more recent historians. Henri Martin, on the other hand, declared it to be the genuine production of the Cardinal, and many experts, without going quite so far as this, regard it as having been inspired by him. The passage quoted in the text may in any event be used as a convenient summary, since it defines what were Richelieu's actual aims. 342 LOUIS XIII of the country prevented the emergence of that constitutional type of government which meanwhile had been gradually developing in England, the power lost by the nobles was absorbed by the throne, and the result was necessarily a movement toward autocracy. Richelieu only carried that movement a stage farther, but by his success he practically completed the transformation of feudal monarchy into absolute monarchy. His fundamental principle was the divine right of kings, " the living images of God " — that principle which the Stuarts had vainly sought to impose on the English people, and which, while he was firmly establishing it in France, the English people were preparing once and for all to reject. So thoroughly was this conception of kingship now formulated that lyouis XIII was able to write : "I owe no account of my actions or the administration of my State save to God alone." There was but one step from this to his son's " L'fitat, c'est moi." The destruction of the political power of the Huguenots and the subjugation of the nobility were aspects of Richelieu's policy which were entirely beneficial, for the most urgent danger of the time was still the danger of internal disorder and the first requirement the firm control of all the elements which stood in the way of national unity. Many of his other measures, on the contrary, can be regarded only with the strongest disapproval. In his determination to allow no division of authority he showed himself the uncompromising enemy of all such local liberties as still survived in various parts of the country, and especially of the provincial states. He crushed out all vestiges of constitutional government, and suppressed or weakened every institution which might con- ceivably become an agent of public opinion. Though at the beginning of his ministry he twice summoned an Assembly of Notables, he never again made even this pretence of seeking either the counsel or the support of the nation, and from first to last he deliberately ignored the States-General. He expressly forbade the Parliament of Paris to take any cognizance of public affairs unless specially invited to do so by the Kin' 343 HISTORY OF FRANCE or to make any protest against any edict of the Government. He held the press under the severest censorship. Worst of all, he even tanipered with the administration of justice, setting aside the Supreme Court and appointing extraordinary com- missions — 'the mere creatures of arbitrary power — ^for the trial of every important political offender. By such measures he annihilated the political liberties of the country. It has been argued that Richelieu is not t6 be held respon- sible for the abuses of absolute government during the later Bourbon period. Perhaps not. It is certain that he would have disapproved of them. But he opened the way for them, none the less. His own ideal was despotism for the public good. He did not realize that in the very nature of things despotism must sooner or later turn to public evil. Nor were his own labours in internal administration by any means wholly satisfactory. A strong army and navy were essential to the success of his policy, and he strengthened and ^reorganized the one and practically created the other. These were obvious gains. He also endeavoured in various ways to develop colonial enterprise, extend foreign commerce, and foster domestic industry. But the period of his ministry was not one of general prosperity — in part, indeed, because it was a period of almost continuous war, but in part also because his policy overwhelmed the people with taxation and kept them poor. As a financier he was a failure. He attacked, it is true, the iniquities of tax-farming. But he left untouched the most radical evil in the financial system— that which arose from the fact 'that as the privileged classes were practically exempted from the taille the burden of taxation fell upon the shoulders of those who were least able to bear it.^ Richelieu's Character Yet all allowances made, and whatever may be our own views of the ends to which his energies were directed, RicheHeu 1 In 1634 he made an attempt to reduce the number of exemptions. But so great was the storm of opposition which the effort aroused that even 'he had to bow before it, and the edict remained a dead letter. 344 LOUIS XIII keeps his place, by the common consent alike of those who approve and of those who condemn his policy, among the great statesmen of France and of the world, and, as history clearly records, he left an impress upon his country which not even the Revolution was completely to efface. But what now of the man himself ? Undoubtedly the chief feature of his singu- larly complex personal character was, if the paradox may be allowed, his utter impersonality. Vain and ostentatious he certainly was, fond of power and display, and, in a superficial view, inordinately ambitious. Yet there was nothing vulgar about his ambition, for it aimed at the aggrandizement, not of himself, but of France. He sank himself entirely in the State ; he identified himself with its interests ; he made its welfare his own. " I pray God to condemn me," he said on his death-bed, and we may be sure with absolute sincerity, " if I have had any other object than that of the welfare of God and of the State." In seeking to attain this object he did not scruple to resort to tortuous intrigue and the base arts of Machiavellian cunning, but these, like his pitiless cruelty, he held to be justified as means to his great end. We do not, of course, excuse him on these points. But there are on the other hand aspects of his character which we may cordially admire — his steadiness and tenacity of purpose, his patience his immense capacity for work, and above all his iron resolu- tion and courage, A man of poor physique and fragile health, nearly always ailing and often ill, dependent for his power upon a king constitutionally as feeble as himself, and sur- rounded by enemies who watched, lynx-eyed, for every chance to compass his ruin, he none the less pursued without flinching his narrow and perilous way. Richelieu died on December 4, 1642. Four years before he had lost his one friend and confidant. Father Joseph, popu- larly known as " I'l^minence Grise." His inveterate enemy, Marie de Medicis, died at Cologne, forsaken and poor, on the 3rd of the previous July. His royal master, in whose name he had ruled, survived him barely six months, dying on May 14, 1643. 345 CHAPTER IV LOUIS XIV . I. THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAZARIN I 643-1661 LOUIS XIII's eldest son, also Ivouis, was not yet five years old when his father died, and thus the country was again faced by the dangers of an interregnum. The late sovereign by his will had entrusted the kingdom to Anne of Austria and a Council of Regency by which her acts were to be controlled. But Anne at once took steps to have this provision amended. Following the example of Marie de Medicis in similar circumstances, she appealed to the Parlia- ment of Paris, and the Parliament, glad of the opportunity of once more asserting itself, forthwith annulled the Council and proclaimed her Regent with full powers to act according to her own discretion. The first use which she made of her authority was, however, an unpleasant surprise to the enemies of the dead Cardinal. She appointed as her chief minister Cardinal Mazarin, whom the dying Richelieu had recommended to lyouis XIII as his successor. Cardinal Mazarin Jules Mazarin (whose name was originally Giulio Mazarini) came of a Sicilian family and was born at Piscina, in the Abruzzi, in 1602. He was educated under the Jesuits in Rome and Spain, and served for a time in the papal army ; but he had already begun to attract attention by his political abilities when during the negotiations which followed the French wars in Italy he made the acquaintance of Richelieu. The great statesman was quick to recognize the young Italian's 34<^ LOUIS XIV talents, and soon began to employ him in French interests in important diplomatic affairs. In 1639 ^^ became a French subject, and was henceforth Richelieu's right-hand man ; and in 1 64 1, though he had never advanced beyond minor orders, he was, through Richelieu's influence, raised to the dignity of cardinal. It was now upon the shoulders of this naturalized foreigner, who never learned to speak with a perfect accent the language of his adopted country, that Richelieu's mantle fell. The complete ascendancy which he had already obtained over the mind of the Regent ^ made him in effect the master of the destinies of France. But though, as we shall see, Mazarin was the faithful follower of Richelieu in both foreign and domestic policy, his personal character was strikingly different from that of his great pre- decessor. Sphinx-like, inscrutable, cold and domineering, Richelieu had been content to live in splendid isolation, holding with Machiavelli that it is better for a ruler to be feared than to be loved. Mazarin courted popularity, and possessed all the qualities by which in ordinary circumstances it may be assured, for he was supple, smooth-tongued, affable, insidious, quick to adapt himself to his surroundings, ready at all times to be all things to all men. Richelieu had given grave offence by the formidable state which he maintained, his retinue of servants, his private guard. Mazarin, though a man of luxu- rious and extravagant tastes, sought at the outset to allay antagonism by an elaborate show of simplicity, appearing in the streets with only a couple of lackeys behind his carriage.^ ^ This ascendancy and the constancy with which Anne supported her minister against his many enemies have been held to point to a personal relationship of the closest kind between them. That she gave him her love seems certain ; but the existence of a secret marriage, though not impossible, cannot be proved. It must be remembered that Mazarin, though a cardinal, was not a fully ordained priest ; he was only in deacon's orders, and could therefore legally marry. See Cheruel's Histoire de France pendant la Minorite de Louis XI V and Histoire de France sous le Ministere de Mazarin ; Memoires du Cardinal de Retz, edition of 1843, Appendix ; and, for a summary of evidence, Hanotaux' essay " lya Minorite de l/ouis XIV," in his Etudes historiques sur le XV le et le XV He Siede en France. * Pe Retz, Memoires, 347 HISTORY OF FRANCE His ingratiating manners made him in particular a great favourite with women, who had always regarded the terrible Cardinal with hatred and distrust. But such attractions were merely superficial. Whatever his defects, Richelieu had throughout his career been guided by consideration of what he deemed to be for the public weal. Mazarin was self-seeking and rapacious. He rendered great services to France, it is true, especially in diplomacy, for which he had an extraordinary genius. But while he worked for the country he worked no less for his own ambitions, and he never subordinated personal interests to those of the State. Close of the Thirty Years' War Richelieu, as we have seen, left France everywhere victorious. But his death put fresh heart into his enemies, who at once resumed the offensive. In the spring of 1643 a Spanish army, 26,000 strong, crossed the frontier from the Netherlands inta Champagne and invested Rocroi, twenty-four miles from Sedan. Their design was to advance thence upon Paris, and in this they seemed to have an excellent chance of success, for the French force which opposed them was inferior in numbers and was commanded by an inexperienced youth of one-and-twenty, Tyouis, Duke of Bnghien, afterward famous as ' le Grand Conde.' ^ But, as Voltaire said, the young soldier " etait ne general," and this first engagement established his fame as a military genius of the highest qualities. Against the judgment of his older advisers he determined to throw himself against the close formations of the enemy, and by a combination of skilful manoeuvring and impetuous daring he broke down their resistance and ended by turning their defeat into a rout (May 19, 1643). This brilliant victor^^ not only aroused immense enthusiasm in Paris, but also made a profound impression throughout Europe. For more than a century the Spanish infantry had been deemed all but invincible, but their * He became Prince of Cond6 in 1646, on the death of his father, who, as we remember, had figured conspicuously in the troubles of the preceding reign. 348 .. 'ik,^ .r i!*mO"''- i"' 52. Thk Grkat Conde: 53, Marshai, Turennk 54 Cardinai< Mazarin 55. Cardinai, de Rktz 348 LOUIS XIV traditional prestige was now destroyed, and their glory passed to French arms. Conde's next achievements, the capture of Thionville (Diedenhofen), in I^orraine, after a seven weeks' siege (August 1643), and that of Sierck, which quickty followed (September) j^ gave the French possession of two important strategical points on the Moselle. On the Rhine, however, where the French commanders were overmatched by the Bavarian generals, John of Werth and Baron Mercy, these successes were counterbalanced by serious reverses. The chief command of the campaign in this field was thereupon given to another young general of great distinc- tion, Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne, who, though only thirty-two, had already won his laurels in the Thirty Years' War and had just been rewarded with a marshal's baton for his brilliant feat in wresting Roussillon from Spain. Turenne and Bnghien were destined to become the great military rivals of their time, and it is therefore interesting to note the fundamental contrast, physical and moral, between them : the one thick-set, broad-shouldered, deliberate in speech, cautious in action ; the other lean, emaciated, with the face of a bird of prey, energetic, fiery, dashing. Turenne's move- ments were hampered by the insufficiency of his forces, and he was powerless to prevent the capture of Freiburg, in Breisgau, and the advance of Mercy into Alsace. Then Bnghien once more came upon the scene and took over the supreme command. A fierce three days' battle — ^the bloodiest of the whole war — was fought outside Freiburg (August 1644), but though Mercy was obliged to retreat, the French were too exhausted to follow up their success. Nor was their victory at Nordlingen a year later (August 1645) much more decisive, though the death of Mercy on the field removed one of their most redoubt- able opponents. But in the campaign of 1646-48 Turenne, with the co-operation of the Swedish general Wrangel, overran and conquered Bavaria ; and Bnghien (now Prince of Conde) captured Dunkerque (1646), and, after suffering his first defeat at lyerida, in Catalonia, returned north and routed the Imperial forces at I^ens (August 1648). 349 HISTORY OF FRANCE By this^time, however, the long and terrible war was at last nearing its close. For some years there had been talk of peace, and as early as 1643 a conference of ambassadors was convened in two sections in the Westphalian cities of Osnabriick and Miinster. But the proceedings were protracted on account of the extreme complexity of the conflicting interests to be adjusted, and it was not till October 1648 that the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, Spain in the meantime having with- drawn from the negotiations. With the details of this treaty in its European aspects we are not, of course, concerned. It is enough to say that the religious quarrel in Germany was settled and the political liberties of the Protestants secured ; that the supremacy of Austria was destroyed and the Empire reduced to a loose confederation of miscellaneous states ; and that France retained all her conquests, including Alsace, and obtained a formal recognition of her right to the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun.^ But while the power of Austria was now finally broken, the house of Bourbon had still its second enemy to vanquish before its pre-eminence in Europe could be assured, for the treaty left the relations of France and Spain untouched. Discontent of the Nobles While Mazarin had been thus vigorously pursuing the foreign policy of Richelieu to a successful issue there was at home a revival of the internal disorders which had marked the minority of lyouis XIII. Richelieu's death had encouraged not only Spain, but also the domestic enemies of the central Government. Still restive under the severely repressive regime which he had established, the ambitious nobility saw, as they believed, in the weakness of the Regency a favourable opportunity to undo his work and recover at least a portion of the power of which they had been deprived. The first flurry of discontent was that of a handful of aris- tocratic reactionaries ironically nicknamed ' the Importants,' ^ These had actually been French since the days of Henri II. See ante, p. 242. ^ LOUIS XIV prominent among whom were the Bishop of Beauvais (described by the pungent de Retz as *' more of an idiot than any idiot of your acquaintance "), Cesar, Duke of Vendome, and his two sons, the Dukes of Beaufort and Mercoeur, the famous lya Rochefoucauld, Bassompierre (now released from the Bastille), the beautiful and witty Duchess of Chevreuse (a friend of the Queen-Mother, whom I^ouis XIII had banished from the Court), and two other almost equally notorious and unscrupulous ladies, the Duke of Enghien's sister, the Duchess of lyongueville, and the Duchess of Montbazon. The object of this cabal was to obtain control of the Government by the overthrow — if necessary, the assassination — of Mazarin. But their machinations were discovered, Anne acted with unex- pected decision, the conspirators were imprisoned or exiled, and the plot came to a sudden and ignominious end (September 1643)- A mere Court intrigue of this kind was of no great importance. But before long the Government had to face other dangers far more serious alike in their origin and in their bearings. Richelieu had left as a heritage to his successor an enormous debt, a ruinous system of taxation, and widespread discontent. The problem of providing the sinews of an expensive war was one w^hich in the circumstances would have been formidable enough for any minister, but it was further complicated in Mazarin's case by the necessity of finding money and still more money to maintain the Regent's extravagances and (for in this matter he followed in the footsteps of Henri IV) to buy the support of the greedy nobles. The utmost confusion prevailed in the finances of the country ; the Treasury was empty ; the revenue for the next three years had been swallowed up in advance ; the pay of the soldiers and the salaries of the officers of State were falling more and more into arrear, and things were steadity going from bad to worse. Admirable as a diplomatist, Mazarin was very weak as a financier, and showed himself utterly incapable of grappling with so desperate a situation. He had appointed as his Controller-General a countryman of his own, a certain Michel Particelli,Sieur d'fimery, 351 HISTORY OF FRANCE who years before, it was alleged, had been condemned as a fraudulent bankrupt, and whom de Retz describes, possibly with a touch of exaggeration, as *' the most corrupt spirit of his age." At his wits' end for money, this clever but rascally agent of the chief minister had recourse to all sorts of extra- ordinary devices. He invented fresh imposts of particularly burdensome kinds ; revived ordinances which had long fallen into oblivion simply that he might collect fines for their infrac- tion ; created absurd offices which he sold to the highest bidders ; peddled patents of nobility ; raised loans at exorbi- tant rates of interest. To justify his organized system of extortion he appealed, of course, to the urgent needs of the State. Unfortunately a considerable part of the proceeds of his plunder, instead of replenishing the national coffer, went straight into his own pockets and those of his innumerable underlings and parasites. Mazarin himself cannot be held guilty of actual complicity in these abuses, but he was indirectly responsible for the acts of his subordinates, and we cannot wonder that the country at large was not keen to distinguish between the minister and his agent. The people of Paris and other great cities were furious at seeing themselves exploited and despoiled by foreign adventurers, while throughout the provinces the condition of the peasantry was one of indescrib- able and ever-increasing misery. The whole country was thus ripe for revolt, and a state of things existed out of which, as Mazarin warned the Regent, capital could easily be made by those who for any reason of their own were desirous of weakening the royal authority. The First Fronde The struggle of the Government with the forces of insubor- dination began with what is known as the First, or Parlia- mentary, Fronde.^ Trouble arose as early as 1644 over the ^ The fronde was the sling used by the boys of Paris in the street-fighting in which they then freely indulged. The term frondeur was first applied to the opponents of the Court by some orator during the course of a debate in the Parliament. It stuck, and henceforth fronde and frondeurs were the accepted names of the anti-royalist faction and its adherents. LOUIS XIV resistance of the Parliament of Paris to certain taxes which iSmery sought to impose — the taxe du toise, which was to be levied on houses in the suburbs, and the taxe des aises, which was designed to tap the incomes of the wealthier classes. Though the- dispute was settled for a time and nothing of importance happened immediately thereafter, friction con- tinued between the contending parties, and in 1648 matters came to a head. The crisis was brought about by a fresh demand of the Government that the Parliament should register various new financial edicts. The Parliament refused ; the Government persisted ; and then the Parliament took the bold step of convening an assembly composed of representatives of its own body and of other so-called ' Sovereign Courts ' — the Grand Conseil, the Chambre des Comptes, and the Cour des Aides — ^to deliberate upon the situation. Despite the attempt of the Government to prevent it, the conference met in May in the Hall of St I^ouis in the Palace of Justice. The position of the Parliament of Paris must be carefully considered. The stand which it made against the despotism of the Court was, it may be conceded, in part the result of genuine public spirit, and it was certainly justifiable. Our sympathies, therefore, will naturally be with it in its battle for constitutional rights. Yet it was rather by accident than of set purpose that its own struggle with the Crown corre- sponded with the real interests of the nation. For while some of its members, notably its president, the upright and noble- minded Mole, were actuated by sentiments of real patriotism, the Parliament as a whole was scarcely less selfish than the aristocracy, and like the aristocracy was primarily concerned about its own privileges. Though it was undoubtedly en- couraged by the example of the lyong Parliament of England, it must always be remembered that it had no resemblance to that assembly save only in name, and that from the point of view of statesmanship the actions of the two bodies are in no way comparable. It was not in any sense a representative or democratic institution. It was simply a close corporation of magistrates and lawyers, and as such it was every whit as z 353 HISTORY OF FRANCE jealous of the popular element in the country as it was suspicious of the Crown. However admirable its protest against oppres- sion, however excellent some of its recommendations, its inspiring motive was the desire to usurp the functions which had formerly belonged to the now abandoned States-General and to make itself the chief power in the realm. The Conference of St lyouis undertook to consider at large the condition of the kingdom and to draw up a kind of constitution, which the Parliament transmitted to the Court for the royal sanction. The proposals made included, among many matters of minor importance, the control of taxation by the Parliament, the abolition of the provincial intendants, and the security of the liberty of the subject by the aboli- tion of extraordinary tribunals and of arbitrary imprisonment under the obnoxious lettres de cachet. Such claims, as Mazarin p^ceived, struck at the absolute authority of the Crown* None the less he hesitated to enter into open conflict with a foe whose strength he fully appreciated, though the Queen- Mother did not, and it was only after he had vainly tried the policy of pacification by concession that he yielded to her insistent demand for drastic measures. The moment seemed favourable, for report had just reached the capital of Conde's triumph at I^ens, and this, Mazarin calculated, would increase the prestige of the Government and tend to enlist popular feeling on its side. Secret orders were accordingly issued for the arrest of three members of the Parliament — Charton, Blancmesnil, and Broussel — ^who had made themselves specially conspicuous by their opposition to the Court, and on August 26, immediately after a solemn Mass in Notre-Dame in celebra- tion of the victory, the plan was promptly carried into effect. Warned in time, Charton eluded the guards and escaped ; but his two colleagues were seized and hurried away, the one to Vincennes, the other to Saint-Germain. But Mazarin and the Regent were quickly made aware of their blunder. The news of what had happened ran like wildfire through the city, where Broussel, though an old man of no particular ability, was immensely popular among the middle and lower classes ; 354 LOUIS XIV shops were soon closed, the principal thoroughfares were barricaded, and excited crowds surged through the streets shouting " Broussel et liberte ! " Paris, indeed, was on the verge of a general rising, and the following day the situation became even more alarming when it was known that the Regent had refused to listen to a petition of the Parliament for the release of the two members. At this point a singular figure appeared upon the scene to add to the general confusion in the person of ] ean-Fran^ois- Paul de Gondi, the coadjutor of his imcle, the Archbishop of Paris, and afterward Cardinal de Retz.^ Restless, volatile, ambitious, a lover of tumult and the very genius of intrigue, this extraordinary young ecclesiastic threw himself into the commotion in the hope, of course, of turning it to his own ends. He had already been coquetting with the popular party. He now first tried to render himself indispensable to the Court, and then, having failed in this, resolved to make himself master of Paris by placing himself at the head of the mob. At the same time the peril of the Government was increased by the re-emergence of several influential members of the ever-dissatisfied nobility, among them the Prince of Conti (Conde's brother), the Dukes of Elbeuf, Bouillon, and Beaufort, and the Duchess of lyongueville. With no interest whatever in the real questions at issue, and certainly no sympathy with any demand for popular rights, these turbulent spirits, anxious at any cost to weaken the Government for their own advantage, joined hands with the Parliament and the disorderly elements in the capital. The release of Blancmesnil and Broussel, to which, under great pressure from her advisers, Anne finally though most reluctantly consented, brought a momentary lull in the storm. But, realizing that the danger was by no means over, the Regent, as a measure of precaution, removed the Court from ^ He did not receive the dignity and title of cardinal till 1652, but as a matter of convenience we shall here at once call him by his familiar name. His Memoires, for which he is still famous, rank as a masterpiece in a kind of writing in which French literature is specially rich. 355 HISTORY OF FRANCE Paris, first to Rueil and then to Saint-Germain. This step was regarded with suspicion by the anti-royahst party, and the arrest of two ex-ministers, opponents of Mazarin — ^the Marquis of Chateauneuf and the Count of Chavigny — ^provided fresh pretext for dispute. But none the less the counsels of the more moderate men on one and the other side began to prevail, and as a result of protracted negotiations an agreement was at last reached. On October 22, 1648, duly two days be- fore the promulgation of the Treaty of Westphalia, the Regent affixed her signature to a declaration of the Parliament incor- porating most of the demands which had been made in respect of taxation and the right of the subject to constitutional trial. There could, however, be no stability in such a peace. The Parliament was encouraged by its victory to adopt a more aggressive attitude toward the Government ; Mazarin and th^ Regent, though they had been forced to yield, had done so only as a matter of policy and with the secret determina- tion* of taking the first opportunity to recover the ground they had lost ; while the intriguing nobles, with de Retz at their head, were resolved for their own purposes to keep the spirit of tumult alive. In these circumstances a fresh outbreak of hostilities could not long be deferred. The Parliament soon had reason to complain that the provisions of the declara- tion of Saint-Germain were not being carried out ; the Court again sought safety in flight ; royal troops were concentrated outside the capital, and the city hastily made ready for a siege. In January 1649 civil war began in earnest. The provincial Parliaments and many of the leading cities throughout the country identified themselves with the anti-royalist cause, and popular risings occurred in Normandy and Provence. But Paris was the centre of the storm. The incapable Prince of Conti was appointed generalissimo of the city's forces, with the Duke of Blbeuf as his lieutenant ; but de Retz, whose energy was tireless, and Beaufort, whose popularity with the mob had gained for him the dubious title of ' le Roi des Halles,' were the real leaders of the people. The royal army was placed under the command of the Great Conde himself. In the unequal 356 LOUIS XIV conflict which ensued the advantage was of course entirely on one side. There were a number of skirmishes, in which the undiscipHned Parisians quickly gave way before the well- seasoned enemy, and one engagement of some importance — that of Charenton (February 1649) — ^^ which Conde scored an easy victory. These reverses and the menace of famine had a depressing effect upon the mercurial temper of the popidace. At the same time dissensions arose, as was inevitable, between the Parliament and its princely allies. The nobles had joined the revolt against the Government entirely for the benefit which they hoped to reap from it for themselves, and their support had at once deprived it of all its cor.vStitutional and democratic character and turned it into a vulgar and petty struggle for personal ends. This fact was now perceived by the more patriotic members of the Parliamentary party, who thereupon began to seek for some compromise with the Govern- ment which would enable them to extricate themselves from the false position into which they had been led. I^argely through the instrumentality of Mole, who at that critical juncture " displayed an invulnerable firmness and a presence of mind almost superhuman," ^ terms were arranged with the Court, and by the Treaty of Rueil (March 1649) ^ limited measure of political power was secured by the Parliament, together with the promise of various financial reforms. At one point, however, the Parliament was badly beaten. It had demanded the dismissal of Mazarin, and Mazarin kept his place. The Second Fronde Such was the end of the First Fronde. The Second Fronde — the Fronde of the Nobles — which arose almost immediately out of its ashes, was very different in purpose and spirit. This was, indeed, at bottom merely a struggle for mastery between the nobles and Mazarin. It is true that, as Voltaire said, " the public good was in everybody's mouth," ^ but the reckless 1 De Retz, Memoires, I/ivre I,, p. 431. ' L$ Siecle de Louis XIV, chap. iv. 357 HISTORY OF FRANCE egotism of the leaders was so flagrant that the pretence of patriotism deceived nobody. Moreover, the movement was as frivolous as it was selfish. From first to last it was swayed by trivial ambitions, broken up into contentious factions, complicated by personal jealousies and squabbles, corrupted by the influence of dissolute women, entangled in love intrigues which fill many pages in the memoirs of the time but which need not be recounted here. Even the more outstanding figures on the stage — even men like Conde and Turenne, whose military genius and valour were beyond dispute — showed themselves almost as deficient in political wisdom and as inconstant and untrustworthy as the most contemptible of their followers, while other prominent rebels — Conti, Bouillon, Beaufort, and the rest — were creatures of poor intelligence and giddy temper, who were actuated by no higher motive th^n that of getting whatever they could for themselves out of the general welter of the hour. Hence, though the New Fronde kept the whole country in a state of turmoil for upward of three years, it has little historical importance, and a brief treatment of it here will therefore suffice. The Treaty of Rueil had scarcely been signed before friction arose between Conde and Mazarin. The former's military triumphs had greatly increased his constitutional pride and arrogance, which were further stimulated by the part he had played in recent events as the protector of the Court, and he now demanded extravagant rewards for himself, his relatives, and the young lords — ^the petits-mattres as they were called — who sided with him. For a time Mazarin exerted all his cunning to defeat his ambitions by the arts of intrigue, but at length the situation became intolerable and he realized that his only hope of safety lay in his rival's removal. Conde's insolence had meanwhile made him as obnoxious to the Parlia- ment and the Old Frondeurs as he was to the Regent, and thus the Cardinal felt free to act without fear of the consequences. Accordingly, on January i8, 1650, he had Conde arrested, together with his brother, Conti, and his brother-in-law, lyongueville, and lodged in Vincennes. For the moment Paris 358 LOUIS XIV rejoiced over the fall of the once idolized *' hero of Rocroi." But de Retz, who had been bribed by the promise of a cardinal's hat to use his influence with the populace in favour of the Crown, now finding that his reward was delayed, went over again to the' enemy's camp and began to stir up fresh trouble in the capital. The result was a temporary revival of the Old Fronde in union with the New. Insurrection had also broken out in several provinces, and, what was still more serious, Turenne, seduced by the Duchess of I^ongueville, with whom he was in love, had formed an alliance with the Spaniards and was already threatening Paris (June 1650). His defeat at Rethel in December removed this cause for alarm. But the feeling in Paris against Mazarin was now growing in strength, and when in January 165 1 the Parliament petitioned Anne for the liberation of the imprisoned princes Mazarin was compelled to yield ; the princes were released ; and he himself retired from Paris to Brtihl, near Cologne (April 165 1), whence, however, he continued to guide the Regent's policy. Conde, who received a warm welcome from the Parisians, now determined to use the help of the Old Frondeurs to make himself supreme in the State. But violent quarrels soon dissolved the unstable coalition of Parliament and princes, and Conde himself, having by his outrageous egotism and his overbearing demeanour quickly contrived to put everybody against him, set out for Guyenne (August 165 1), where he raised an army and embarked on civil war. Mazarin returned to Paris in December and proceeded to take active measures to quash the rebellion, with the invaluable assistance of Turenne, who had just deserted the Frondeurs and joined the party of the Court. This curious shuffling of the cards brought the two former colleagues into opposition, and they met in their first engagement at Bleneau, south of the Loire, where Turenne only just managed to avert an overwhelming disaster to the royalist cause (April 7, 1652). The great aim on both sides was now to gain the support of Paris, which was torn by the contentions of rival parties. Conde there- fore took up his position at Saint-Cloud, whence he entered 359 HISTORY OF FRANCE into negotiations with some of the leaders in the city. But Turenne, who meanwhile had defeated a Spanish force at fitampes (May 4), hastened to meet him, and a desperate battle took place outside the Porte Saint- Antoine, which would certainly have ended in Conde's decisive defeat but that at the last moment Gaston d'Orleans' daughter, Mile de Montpensier — famous as ' la Grande Mademoiselle ' — turned the guns of the Bastille upon the royalists and opened the city gates to Conde's army. This success of the rebels, however, and the anarchy which ensued, greatly strengthened the growing reaction against the princes and the desire for the restoration of peace. In order to remove all obstacles to the reconciliation of Parlia- ment and Court, Mazarin again left Paris (August 1652). The young King thereupon entered the capital amid scenes of great enthusiasm, and so far as Paris was concerned the Second Fronde came to an end. Conde, who had fled into Flanders, was in his absence condemned to death ; de Retz was sent to Vincennes ; other conspirators, among them ' la Grande Mademoiselle,' were exiled ; ten members of the Parliament were banished or imprisoned. At the same time the Parliament was formally forbidden henceforth to take any part in affairs of State, while the provincial intendants, to whom the nobles had specially objected, were re-established. Thus the cause of autocracy triumphed, and the discomfiture of its antagonists was completed by the return of Mazarin (February 1653), more secure than ever of his position and power. Foreign Affairs during the Fronde The civil disturbances caused by the Fronde had naturally had a disastrous effect on foreign affairs, and Spain had gradually won back most of the places previously acquired by France, including Dunkerque, Casale in Italy, and the province of Catalonia (1652). With the restoration of internal peace Mazarin was able once more to devote himself to the prose- cution of the war, though he was sadly hampered by the depleted state of the national purse. In 1654 Turenne com- pelled Conde, now in command of the Spanish army, to raise 360 LOUIS XIV the siege of Arras. But in the next two years nothing decisive happened, though the French made steady jjrogress in the Netherlands, while on the other hand Conde gained a con- siderable victory at Valenciennes (July 1656). Meanwhile both countries were growing weary of the war, and were even bidding against one another for the support of Cromwell, whose influence, it was understood, would suffice to turn the scale. Here Mazarin's unrivalled diplomatic skill prevailed, and in 1655 a commercial treaty was concluded between France and England which in 1657 Cromwell was at length induced to convert into a military alliance. This settled the issue. Six thousand of the famous Ironsides were sent to Flanders to co-operate with Turenne ; Dunkerque was besieged ; the Spanish army despatched to its relief was completely routed at the Battle of the Dunes (June 1658) ; the sea-port capitu- lated, and according to compact was handed over to the English. Spain, bankrupt, without troops, without allies, was powerless to make good these reverses and was driven to sue for peace, and the war was closed by the Treaty of the Pyrenees (November 1659), ^Y which the Treaty of Westphalia was confirmed and France gained further territorial advantages along her frontiers. At the same time Conde obtained pardon and the governorship of Burgundy, while a marriage was arranged between the young King and the Infanta Maria Theresa, under conditions to which further reference will have to be made in the sequel. The previous year Mazarin had formed the League of the Rhine. This was an alliance of the Electors of Treves, Mainz, and Cologne, various other German princes, and the King of vSweden for the maintenance of the Treaty of Westphalia, and it assured the supremacy of France in Western Europe. These {striking diplomatic successes mark the real end of Mazarin's career. He died on March 9, 1661, leaving the authority of the Crown firmly established in a country quiet at home and victorious abroad. His administration forms the prelude to the long period, first of glory, then of decline, which we know in history as the Age of lyouis XIV. 361 CHAPTER V LOUIS XIV II. THE ZENITH OF ABSOLUTE MONARCHY 1661-1684 LOUIS XIV was now in his twenty-third year. He had attained his majority in 165 1, and had therefore already been nominally King nearly ten years. But thus far he had given little sign either of desire or of capacity to rule. On /the contrary, he Jiad shown himself remarkably submissive to his chief minister, whose will he never challenged, and to whori;i he had continued to entrust the real government of the State. Those about him — ^the Queen-Mother herself, the coun- sellors, the lords and ladies of the Court — were therefore entirely unprepared for his extraordinary change of front the moment Mazarin's death released him from his long tutelage. One and all they had come to regard him as a young man who, preoccupied with sport and pleasure, would be content to enjoy the empty pomp of royalty while he left its responsi- bilities to others. To their astonishment he at once made clear his determination to take the reins of power firmly into his own hands and to be King in fact as well as in name. Within twenty-four hours he had given his ministers to under- stand that he was their master and that in future not even a State paper should be signed without his authority. When the Archbishop of Rouen, the president of the Assembly of Clergy, reminded him that hitherto he, the Archbishop, had looked to the Cardinal for instructions and asked him to whom he should now turn, " A moi. Monsieur TArcheveque," was lyouis' uncompromising reply. There can be little doubt that the civil disturbances of the 362 LOUIS XIV period of his childhood had helped to implant autocratic ideas in his mind, and that such ideas had greatly developed under the influence of Mazarin, who in the last years of his life had carefully trained him in the ideas of government as conceived from the purely absolutist point of view. lyouis was only ten when news reached the Court of Conde's victory at L/cns. ** lyC Parlement sera bien fache," exclaimed the boy-King, thereby testifying that he had already been taught to consider the Parliament as necessarily a body of rebels. Mazarin had also familiarized him with that great instrument of royal authority the ' bed of justice/ by which the King was able to impose his own will upon the Parliament and to compel it to register edicts to which it had previously refused its assent. There is a popular story to the effect that when in April 1655 the Parliament undertook to discuss certain financial decrees, Ivouis, who was just starting for the chase, hurried back and appeared suddenly in the assembly, booted, spurred, and (according to one picturesque version) with a riding-whip in his hand, and then and there put a stop to the proceedings. The anecdote rests apparently upon rather doubtful founda- tions, but it may serve to indicate the young King's despotic temper and his attitude toward any semblance of opposition to his will. Louis' Conception of Absolute Monarchy As lyouis XIV' s reign marks the culmination of absolute monarchy in France, it is interesting to consider his own ideas of kingship as set forth in the Memoires historiques et Instruc- tions which he prepared with the help of Paul Pellisson, his historiographer,^ for the guidance of his son. A king is God's representative and vicegerent on earth. His authority is divine because it is vested in him directly by God. No division of such authority is possible, nor can it be delegated to others, 1 Pellisson became ' Historiographe royal' in 1666. Barlier in life he had been involved in the downfall of Fouquet (see post, p. 369), and had passed five years in the Bastille. A touching story is connected with his captivity : that of a spider which became the companion of his solitude, and which he taught to eat out of his hand. 363 HISTORY OF FRANCE since it inheres entirely in the person of the sovereign. He is therefore responsible to God alone. To him and to him only belongs the right to initiate and decide. No one else possesses any political power ; the people at large have no part in their own government, while the ministers are simply agents chosen by the king to execute his will. Parliamentary institu- tions in particular must be condemned, because they challenge the king's sovereign authority and are a source of perpetual disturbance to his realm. No criticism of his acts is to be allowed. His subjects owe him unconditional and unqualified submission. *' He who has given kings to the world has willed that they shall be revered as His lieutenants and has reserved to Himself alone the right to examine their conduct. His desire is that whoever is -born a subject shall obey with- out question [discernmenty Moreover, the king is lord and master of the property of his subjects, lay and clerical, as well as of their lives, and may dispose of one and the other according to his discretion. " Iv'fitat, c'est moi " is thus no empty boast. The king is the State, for the State as a political entity and organization exists only in him. These prerogatives, however, entail corresponding duties. The king as God's representative and vicegerent on earth is charged with the task of ruling as God would will — that is, righteously and justly. If the State merges in him, the welfare of the State, and not his own personal interests as viewed apart from this, must be the one object of all his thoughts. His subjects have no rights, it is true ; but since for this reason they are children it should be his highest ambition to act as their father. If he is not responsible to men, he must never forget his responsibility to God, to whom sooner or later he will have to give account of his stewardship. These are the high ideals of a benevolent paternalism. In considering them on their own merits and without reference to the theory of autocracy as such, we must of course make ample allowance for the fact that lyouis was naturally anxious to present his motives and actions under the best possible light. I do not, however, think that his good intentions were entirely LOUIS XIV pose or that he is to be regarded as a mere hypocrite. We shall have severe things to say of his character and conduct by and by ; but in common fairness it must be set down here to his credit that for something like twenty years he honestly did his utmost according to his lights to rule his people wisely and well. It was only in his later life, when the political influences by which he was surrounded had changed from good to evil, when his egotism, fed by the Oriental adulation of his worshippers, had swollen to monstrous proportions, when vanity and religious fanaticism had combined to distort his judgment, and his desire to identify his own interests with those of his realm had given place to selfish greed for power and glory, that the abuses of absolutism began to appear in all their appalling nakedness. But while we must thus be careful to distinguish between the first and last stages of his long reign, it is still obvious that the worst features of the second degenerate stage were but the logical results of a system in itself inherently and irremediably vicious. As lyouis him- self wrote in a sentence which reveals in a flash the dangers inseparable from irresponsible government, " When a man can do whatever he wishes, it is difficult for him to wish only what is right.*' Louis XIV as King lyOuis had undoubtedly many of the qualities necessary to enable him to play the part of grand rot as he himself conceived it. This much we must, I think, admit, however strong our antipathy to him may otherwise be. Though his intellectual parts were by no means exceptional and though he suffered much from his shockingly defective education, his mind was alert and vigorous, his judgment sound, his good sense in general conspicuous. He had force of character and strength of will, and while he lacked entirely the statesmanlike sagacity and grasp of Richelieu, he showed a natural capacity for business and real talent for administration. He was on the whole an excellent judge of men, and his knowledge of human nature, though mainly of such perverted human nature as HISTORY OF PRANCE flourishes best in the artificial atmosphere of a court, was remarkable : his well-known saying that by every benefit he had conferred he had made one person ungrateful and a hundred others discontented is in its penetration and cynicism worthy of La Rochefoucauld. He was singularly free from the capri- ciousness which is commonly associated with arbitrary power, and was always completely master of himself : the hostile Saint-Simon is our authority for the statement that throughout his reign of more than seventy years he lost his temper only four or five times. He had also a rare power of work, and his industry was not the least admirable of his characteristics. His mother professed to be highly amused by the ardour with which at the outset he threw himself into the task of govern- ment, and thought that the hot fit would soon pass. She knew little of his tenacity of purpose. For many years he regularly spent eight hours a day over affairs of State. Such were some of the more solid attributes which ministered to Ms success. There were others of a less substantial kind which counted enormously in the power which he early gained and long kept over the imaginations of men. It may be questioned whether any sovereign was ever so obviously born to the purple as lyouis XIV. Tall, finely built, handsome, noble of bearing, carrying an air of majesty into even the simplest actions, with an elegance of manners which was exquisitely compounded of dignity and gracious ease, he was indeed in appearance and deportment every inch a king. It was of course inevitable that, living as he did from youth to old age on the public stage and in the public eye, there should be something theatrical about his demeanour ; but, as Voltaire said, what would have been a trifle ridiculous in any one else seemed perfectly appropriate to him, and we have the unani- mous testimony of his contemporaries, unfriendly as well as friendly, that he filled to perfection the rdle of chief actor in the magnificent Court drama of his time. That his splendour was in reality a thing mainly of costume and trappings, that he shone almost entirely by the glory that was reflected upon him by his surroundings, is of course true. But he still stands 366 56. Itoms XIV 36^ LOUIS XIV out as the ' Roi Soleil ' — ^the superficially brilliant centre of a really brilliant circle. Louis' System of Government ; So much -for I^ouis himself. We may glance next at the system of government organized by him, bearing in mind as we do so that this system, with a short interruption in the opening years of the next reign, remained intact to the end of the Old Regime. As the sovereign himself is, according to the absolutist doctrine, the one and all-sufficient source of authority, he acts in theory entirely upon his own initiative and as the agent of his own volition. Biit, as I^ouis was astute enough to realize, while this may be the abstract principle of abso- lutism, the complexities of the modern state make it practi- cally impossible for any one man, even though he be divinely appointed as God's vicegerent on earth, to conduct single- handed the whole work of government. Supreme as he is, he needs the advice of experts in the various departments of administration, while a certain amount of machinery is indis- pensable to him for the execution of his will. While, therefore, he never yielded one iota of his pretensions as autocrat, he none the less governed with the co-operation of councils and ministers, though, as these were of course appointed by and were wholly dependent upon him, they in no sense limited his power. The most important of the advisory bodies which he instituted as his auxiliaries was the Secret or Privy Council, known as the Conseil d'JStat or Conseil d'en Haut. This was composed of his regular ministers and of such others as he might see fit to summon on any occasion to take part in its deliberations, and all questions of general policy fell within its province. Then, closely connected with this, though sub- ordinate to it, were other councils having special provinces and functions : the Conseil des Depeches, whose business was with internal administration ; the Conseil des Finances ; the Conseil des Parties, which was a sort of Cour de Cassation, or Court of Appeal. Furthermore, there were a number of 3^7 HISTORY OF FRANCE commissions, also loosely called councils, which were appointed to look after particular interests, such as the Conseil de la Guerre, the Conseil de Marine, the Conseil du Commerce. Such councils were the advisers of the Crown. Its great executive agents were the four Secretaries of State — for War, the Navy, Foreign Affairs, and the King's Household — together with the Chancellor (the head of the magistrature) and the Controller- General of Finances ; while beneath these ministers there was a vast army of officials belonging to the different departments, the most important of whom were the intendants, now growing rapidly in power. But it should be noted that from the very first lyouis declared his intention of being his oWn Prime Minister. A Prime Minister, in his view, was the greatest misfortune that could befall a monarch ; even if he did not, like Richelieu and Mazarin, usurp the royal authority, there was always a dtager that he would come to share it. The Finances : Fouquet When lyouis thus took personal control of the Government the finances of the country were in charge of Nicolas Fouquet, who eight years before had been made Superintendent by Mazarin. So far from doing anything to bring order out of the chaos into which they had fallen, Fouquet by his reck- less maladministration and his corrupt practices had greatly increased the general confusion, by which he had himself so profited that he had amassed a huge fortune out of the public funds. He was a man of considerable ability, a friend of many persons of intellectual distinction, and a generous patron of art and letters ; but his ambition was unbounded ; and even when he had been thwarted in his desire to succeed Mazarin as the chief pillar of the State he continued his career of arrogant self-aggrandizement, apparently blind to the fact that in the circumstances pride such as his was the certain prelude to a fall. The young King looked with a jealous eye upon his haughty subject's ostentatious display of wealth and power, and saw in his pretentious device — Quo non ascendant ? — a challenge to his own supremacy. He was, moreover, fully 368 LOUIS XIV aware that Fouquet was guilty of criminal mismanagement and the grossest peculation, and this gave him ground to act. The blow fell suddenly. In September 1661, a few weeks only after he had entertained the King at Vaux on a scale of regal magnificence, the Superintendent was arrested and lodged in the Bastille. His trial dragged on for three years. In the end a majority of his judges pronounced him worthy of banishment. This sentence, however, was changed by I^ouis himself to one of perpetual imprisonment, and he was immured in the fortress of Pinerolo, where he died in 1680. I^ouis' conduct in this matter has been condemned as arbitrary and vindictive, and it seems certain that it was dictated by personal hostility toward his victim. It can scarcely be maintained that Fouquet's guilt, obvious as it was, was of so exceptional a character as to justify such an aggravation of his fate. He was, indeed, part of a rotten system which had long been allowed to flourish, and the existence of the system may even be held to mitigate to a certain extent his individual respon- sibility. If Ivouis is to be exonerated at all from the charge of undue harshness, it must be on the supposition that, in making Fouquet an example, he intended to announce to all concerned and in the plainest possible terms that the system itself was now at an end. Colbert and his Reforms Fouquet's fall was in large measure brought about by the influence of another of Mazarin's coadjutors, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a man who holds a high position in the annals of lyouis' reign, since it was to his advice and agency that what was best in the King's administration was really due. It was he who had convinced I^ouis by accumulations of positive proof of Fouquet's corruption, and if in part he was moved by jealousy and ambition, his disinterested patriotism must also be acknowledged. He now stepped into Fouquet's place. He did not, indeed, become his successor in name, for lyOuis abolished the office of Superintendent ; but he was made head of the newly instituted Conseil des Finances, with the 2 A - 3^9 HISTORY OF FRANCE title of Controller-General. A few years later he was also entrusted with the charge of the marine, the colo;nies, com- merce, and the affairs of the royal household, and thus he became actually though not nominally lyouis' counsellor in chief. Colbert was the son of a merchant of Reims, where he was born in 1619, and he was himself trained for a mercantile career. Before he was twenty, however, hie secured a post under I^e Tellier, then Secretary for War, where he soon attracted the attention and won the favour of Mazarin. Hence- forth his advancement was rapid, and by the time of the Cardinal's death his abilities were fully recognized by I/Ouis himself. He was in one important particular an ideal confidant for such a king, for I^ouis .preferred to have about him men whose rank inspired them with no pretensions beyond those of-^their official position, and Colbert never forgot his middle- class origin. With his unassuming costume and his familiar velvjet bag, indeed, he appeared in the Council in the guise rather of a busy clerk than of a powerful minister of State. Nor, despite the personal vanity which Mme de Sevigne and others laid to his charge, did he ever attempt to give himself any of the airs and graces of aristocracy. A strong, silent man, distant in manner, and rather difiicult of access, he held himself aloof from the luxury and dissipation of the Court, and devoted hiniself with prodigious industry and never-flagging zeal to the business he had in hand. His administrative talents must be judged by the work which he actually accomplished. His official character is on the whole deserving of high praise. It is true that he had a keen eye for his own interests and that he died one of the richest men in France. But he was none the less absolutely honest and upright, and his ardour for reform and desire for the welfare of the country are incon- testable. Unpopular indeed he was, but his unpopularity was itself testimony to his rectitude and thoroughness. He has been accused of furthering the cause of despotism ; but it must not be forgotten that he did all in his power for many years to arrest the King's extravagance and guide his ambitions 370 LOUIS XIV to public ends, and that the decHne of his influence was coin- cident with the triumph of the evils he had striven to hold in check. Colbert began his labours for reform with the finances, now in as critical a state as that which had existed immediately before Sully's time. The task before him was indeed Hercu- lean. He too had to clean Augean stables. An enormous national debt had accumulated through long years of war, waste, mismanagement, and corruption ; the revenues were already swallowed up two years in advance ; each new year brought a bigger deficit ; while, owing to the vices of the farming system, which again flourished in all its old luxuriance, put of eighty-four million livres of actual imposts only thirty- two millions found their way into the Treasury. The State was, in fact, living from hand to mouth ; order and prevision there w^ere none ; no one knew — and it was to the interest of the whole army of officials, great and small, that no one should know-^the real condition of the Exchequer ; and every fresh demand as it arose was met by hasty and extraordinary devices for providing money, which in turn only bred fresh abuses. Colbert's policy was that of vigorous retrenchment, and if his methods were violent and despotic they may be explained if they cannot always be justified by reference to the desperate difficulties with which he had to grapple. He struck hard, to begin with, at the moral evils which had grown apace under Fouquet, and compelled the dishonest administrators who, with him, had enriched themselves at the country's expense to disgorge their ill-gotten gains. By this alone the Treasury profited to the tune of many millions of livres. By boldly writing down the public securities he forced the nation's creditors to accept repayment of loans on a much reduced scale, though, as a contemporary writer notes, this strong action caused " consternation and despair " among the multi- tude of rentiers affected by it.^ He diminished the number of sinecure-holders and highly paid officials who had been fattening on the funds. One of the worst abuses of the time, ■^ Olivier I^efevre d'Ormesson, Journal. 371 HISTORY OF FRANCE the immunity from direct taxation (taille) enjoyed by the privileged classes, he did not, indeed, dare to attack at its root ; but he tried in various ways to correct where he could not destroy. He deprived a large number of municipal func- tionaries of the right of exemption which they had long claimed. He revoked all patents of nobility which had been acquired b}'' purchase since 1634 and had carried such right of exemp- tion with them. He reduced the taille and increased indirect taxation (aides) on all sorts of commodities, especially luxuries, thus obliging the privileged classes themselves to contribute their share to the national purse. He also introduced a more equable distribution of the gabelle — the old and always un- popular tax arising from the Government monopoly of salt. Above all, he introduced order and economy where disorder and prodigality had hitherto prevailed. He instituted the strictest supervision over the whole financial system, insisted upon the proper keeping of accounts by all officials from the highest to the lowest, and so reduced the cost of collection that, as the revenue returns for the 3^ears from 1661 onward show, he increased the national income by many millions apart from the imposition of any new tax. Colbert's work as Finance Minister was, however, only part of his comprehensive programme of reform. He saw clearly that the financial stability of the State was inseparably bound up with its general prosperity, and he therefore devoted himself with characteristic determination to the industrial development of the people. On the one hand he revived old industries and planted new, buying trade secrets from other countries and inducing foreign artisans to settle in France and teach their methods to native workmen ; and before long factories for cloth-making, lace-making, silk-making, the weaving of carpets and stockings, and metal, leather, and glass works sprang up all over the land.^ On the other hand, he sought to foster such home industries by a rigorous protective system, placing duties often high enough to be prohibitive on articles hitherto ^ In 1662 he purchased the famous tapestry manufactory of the Gobelins and reorganized it as a royal upholstery establishment. LOUIS XIV imported from abroad which could now be produced at home. To the same end he also granted subsidies and monopolies to individuals and corporations, and, true to the prevailing theory of centralization, carried State control into the minutest details of factory organization. In all this we can now see the fundamental fallacies of the doctrines of protection and paternalism, and we are not, therefore, surprised either that his endeavours to make France independent of the rest of the world led ultimately to artificial stimulation, inflation of prices, and tariff wars, or that his policy of State interference proved destructive of individual initiative and power. But we must of course consider his labours in the light, not of later experience, but of his own time, and if he was no wiser economi- cally than his contemporaries in other countries, his intentions were undeniably good. He further sought to open up new markets in distant parts of the world by extending the colonial system and founding companies for the development of French commerce in the Bast and West Indies, in Africa, and in Northern Europe ; he improved the transport facilities of the country — his most important achievement in this direction being the great Canal du Midi, which connects the Mediter- ranean with the Garonne ; he reduced, though he did not destroy, the provincial tariffs which hampered internal trade ; he encouraged shipbuilding and the mercantile marine ; he even tried to induce the nobles to take part in commerce by a special edict proclaiming that they might do so without loss of caste. Nor does even this long list include all Colbert's labours for reform, for a great improvement in the legis- lative system of the country is also to be put down to his credit. It was by such heroic efforts as these for the national welfare that Colbert contributed substantially to the real greatness of the early years of lyouis' independent reign. But while he was thus straining every nerve to build up the prosperity of France, there was another minister who was working quite as hard to ensure its military supremacy. This was the Marquis of lyouvois, the Minister for War, who completely 373 HISTORY OF FRANCE reorganized the army and made it far more efficient as a fighting machine than it had ever been before. Colbert and Louvois were long rivals in the King's councils, and their influences told in absolutely opposite directions. But in the end lyouvois gained the upper hand, to the detriment of the best interests of the realm. Foreign Affairs : The War of Devolution At the opening of Louis' independent reign the condition of Europe favoured the growth of his ambitions. The strength of France was in the measure of the weakness of other nations ; for Germany was in confusion, Spain decadent, Austria crippled, England embarrassed by the now restored Stuarts, and Holland, though powerful commercially, too feeble on the military side to interfere seriously in foreign affairs. Thus the way was cl^ar for France to step into the place of pre-eminence which Spain had long filled, and for Louis himself to become head and dictator of Christendom. Such was the seductive object which was already in the young King's mind, and in the pursuit of which he brought to his country a few years of empty glory, to be followed in due course by ignominy and disaster. At the outset the foreign relations of France were disturbed only by trivial incidents, such as a quarrel with Spain over the question of the precedence of the French and Spanish ambassadors in London ^ and a misunderstanding with the Pope, which led to nothing important and are chiefly signi- ficant as revealing Louis' determination to assert his majesty whenever and wherever it seemed to be threatened. Louis* first war — the War of Devolution — arose out of his marriage with Marie-Therese, which, arranged ostensibly to seal the peace between France and Spain, was now the cause of a fresh struggle between them. The situation was this : In 1665 Philip IV died, leaving as heir to his throne a son, then four years old, the child of his second marriage. Upon this Louis put forth a claim to the Spanish Netherlands in right of * The " fray" between the ambassadors and the bloodshed which resulted are described in Pepys' Diary, September 30, 1661. 374 LOUIS XIV his wife ; the basis of such claim being a custom of the Nether- lands in accordance with which a paternal heritage devolved upon the children of a first marriage to the exclusion of all others. Spain replied that this was merely a civil custom which did not apply to the transmission of territory. It was also true that under the Treaty of the Pyrenees Marie-Therese had formally renounced all pretensions to her father's domi- nions ; but this renunciation had been made contingent upon the payment of a large dowry — a condition expressly designed by Mazarin as a loophole, since he well knew that in the insolvent state of the Spanish Treasury such payment was impossible. The war which followed has no interest from a military point of view, for Spain was entirely unequal to the contest, and Turenne and Conde, now once more fighting on the same side, met with little serious opposition in their campaigns. It was closed by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), by which a part of Flanders was added to French territory and the frontier greatly strengthened on the north-east, though Franche- Comte, which Conde had also occupied, was abandoned. One reason for this rather abrupt termination of hostilities was the action which England and Holland now took to arrest French aggression, the danger of which prompted them to sink their long-standing jealousies and make common cause against a foe which menaced them both. I^argely through the admirable diplomacy of Sir William Temple, Sweden was also brought iiito the coalition, and the Triple Alliance thus instituted was formidable enough to prove a decisive factor in the establishment of peace. The War with Holland ^ But neither lyouis nor his ministers regarded this peace as permanent. The King had many personal grievances against the Dutch. He could not forgive them for the active part they had played against him ; he resented the sturdy inde- pendence of their diplomatists ; his irritable vanity was ruffled by the outspoken criticism of their pamphleteers and by the offensive medals which had been struck to commemorate ' 375 HISTORY OF FRANCE the Treaty of Aix ; while his absolutist ideas were outraged by their republicanism and his religious prejudices by their Protestantism. At the same time their commercial success and the friction which had arisen about tariffs provoked Colbert and brought him to the side of the bellicose Ivouvois, who held firmly to the view that the destruction of the United Provinces was necessary to the completion of the conquest of the Spanish Netherlands. lyouis was thus easily persuaded to abandon the policy of Richelieu and Mazarin, both of whom had looked upon Holland as the natural ally of France against Spain, and to enter upon a war which, whatever pretexts might be trumped up in defence of it, was in fact nothing more than a war of utterly unjustifiable aggression. While lyouvois was busy- with elaborate preparations for the coming campaign, diplomacy cleared the way by breaking up 'the Triple Alliance. Sweden was detached from the coali- tion by the promise of a large subsidy. England — or rather England's shameless king — ^was also bought over. With a fatuous desire to emulate his cousin, Charles II was doing his best to rule without a Parliament, and his chronic need of money and unwillingness to go to the Commons for it made him at all times ready to accept doles from Ivouis' purse. As mercenary as he was profligate, he had already sold Dunkerque to the French, and now by a secret treaty — ^the Treaty of Dover (1670)— he entered into an offensive alliance with Ivouis in return for a handsome pension. The French position was further strengthened by the renewal of the treaty with the League of the Rhine. Holland, on the other hand, now entirely isolated, was rendered specially vulnerable by its own military weakness and internal dissensions. lyouis, however, did not move till everything was in complete readiness, and then in 1672 he took the field at the head of a splendidly equipped army, with Turenne and Conde as his chief commanders. The Rhine was crossed without difficulty — an achievement which was celebrated with the most fulsome flattery in art and poetry, 1 but which Napoleon pronounced " a military r 1 E.g., Boileau's EpUre au Roi : Le Passage du Rhin. 376 LOUIS XIV operation of the fourth class " ; the United Provinces were invaded ; cit37^ after city fell into French hands ; and the triumphant progress continued till Amsterdam itself was threatened. The Dutch were at first paralysed, and for the moment their condition and outlook seemed in the last degree desperate. But the extravagant demands with which lyouis responded to their appeal for peace stirred them to indignation and stung them to resistance. The oligarchic party of Jan De Witt was overthrown, he and his brother were murdered by a mob which held them responsible for all their troubles, and William of Orange was created Stadtholder and given supreme command by land and sea. The young prince — he was only twenty-two — attacked his apparently hopeless task with sagacity as well as courage. By cutting the dikes about Amsterdam and flooding the country he compelled the French to retreat, while at the same time he took advantage of the alarm caused throughout Europe by Louis' aggressive policy, and by consummate diplomacy succeeded in forming the Grand Alliance of The Hague — a powerful anti-French league of which Holland itself, the Empire, Spain, Brandenburg, Denmark, and Saxon}^ were the principal members (1673). Shortly afterward the artificial alliance between France and England broke down under pressure of popular feeling in the latter country, and England made a separate peace with the Dutch. By his irrational ambitions I^ouis had thus contrived to array half of Europe against him ; and even his continued military successes were no adequate offset to the peril latent in so grave a change in the general situation. Inspired by pique and cupidity, he had set out to crush Holland. He now found himself involved in a European war with Sweden only on his side. French military genius, however, rose equal to the occasion. Franche-Comte was again occupied (1764). Turenne with brilliant strategy saved Alsace, which was held as lost (1674), and pushed on into the Palatinate, where he was killed by a cannon-ball while reconnoitring near Salzbach (1675). Conde meanwhile had been operating against strong Dutch and 377 HISTORY OF FRANCE Spanish forces in Champagne (1674), but on Turenne's death he was despatched into Alsace, which was again threatened, and whence he drove the Imperial armies across the Rhine (1675). The naval victories of Duquesne over the united Dutch and Spanish fleets in the Mediterranean were the chief events of 1676. The next year Crequi and Luxembourg, who had replaced Turenne and Conde (now retired), carried on successful campaigns in Germany and the Netherlands, the defeat of William of Orange at Cassel and the fall of Cambrai and Saint-Omer adding great glory to the French arms. The Treaty of Nimeguen By this time, however, the strain of war was beginning to tell seriously on the finances, and the continually increasing burdens of taxation gave rise to discontent throughout the country and here and there to spasmodic revolts, which obliged Louis, however unwillingly, to turn his attention from military tritnnphs abroad to affairs at home. Another fresh factor in the situation was the action of England, which, neutral since 1674, now in 1677 entered into an active alliance with the Dutch, which was cemented by the marriage of the Stadtholder to Mary, the niece of the King. In these circumstances Louis realized the wisdom of making peace while the advantage was still decidedly in his favour, and the war was closed by the Treaty of Nimeguen (August 1678-February 1679).^ The terms of this treaty were highly honourable and advantageous to the United Provinces, which, menaced at the outset with total destruction, now remained in possession of all their territory. Spain, on the other hand, suffered considerably. France, while relinquishing all claim to Holland, obtained the confirmation of all the benefits accruing under the Treaty of Westphalia, and in addition acquired Franche-Comte and a line of strong fortified cities of great value as frontier defences. Historians are agreed that this settlement marks the meridian of Louis' reign. It was soon after this that the Parliament of * To be exact, there were really three treaties : one with Holland, a second with Spain, and a third with the Emperor. 378 LOUIS XIV Paris formally bestowed upon him the title of ' le Grand/ Yet, though he had emerged victorious from an unjust war, and though the supremacy of his military power and his personal prestige at home and abroad had alike been placed beyond challenge, he had in fact gained far less than he had hoped, while by his very success he had deepened the appre- hensions of other European nations and consolidated the antagonism which his lust for territorial aggrandizement had first aroused. In particular he had united Holland and Eng- land against him, and had created a stubborn and implacable enemy in the Prince of Orange, soon to be called to the English throne. The " hollow and unsatisfactory " Peace of Nimeguen (as Macaulay well calls it) was therefore fraught with fresh dangers which were certain to prove the more serious by reason of the malign influence of his triumphs upon I^ouis himself. His vanity, his ambition, his thirst for military glory at all cost had alike been quickened. Blind to the interests of his country, he now entered upon the road which he dreamed would lead him to ever more and more transcendent successes. It proved, on the contrary, to be the road to ruin. 379 CHAPTER VI LOUIS XIV III. THE PERIOD OF DEClvINE 1684-1715 THE cessation of hostilities with the settlement of Nimeguen was welcomed by all the nations which had been drawn into the Dutch war.' But it put no check upon Louis* territorial ambitions. On the contrary, in Voltaire's phrase, he made a period of peace a period of conquests. Taking advantage of the ambiguities in the Treaty of Westphalia, he proceeded, now by tortuous dii^lomacy, now b3^ subsidies, and now by bullying, to add to his possessions in Alsace and Franche- Comte, annexing in particular three powerful fortresses of im- mense strategic value — ^I^uxemburg, Strassburg, and Casale. Naturally the suspicions of Europe, and especially of the Empire, vSpain, and Italy, were again aroused by these fresh acts of usurpation, and under the influence of William of Orange a secret alHance against I^ouis was formed, which, though of little importance at the outset, developed later into the great coalition known as the League of Augsburg. But in the meantime Louis continued to act with unexampled arrogance as the dictator of Christendom, and, deeply as his conduct was resented, no one for the moment dared to inter- fere. He thus had his way, and by the Truce of Ratisbon (1684) secured the assurance of twenty years' undisputed enjoyment of his various recent acquisitions. Just a year before this France had lost a real friend and Louis the wisest of his counsellors by the death of Colbert. That great minister had spent the last of his energies in unavailing resistance to forces which had become too strong 380 LOUIS XIV for him. Once more the finances of the country lapsed into anarchy. The war had already drained the Treasury, and now money and ever more money had somehow to be found to meet the King's ever-growing extravagances — his bribes to foreign princes, his vast expenditure on costly buildings (at Trianon, Marly, Clagny, Saint-Germain, Fontainebleau, Vincennes, Versailles), on royal fetes and progresses, on his mistresses and personal dissipations. It was in vain that Colbert implored him to economize, in vain that he sought to turn his master's attention from military ambitions to the needs of his people. The King was deaf to all his entreaties, and as million followed million into the abyss Colbert was driven to resort to the extortions of his precursors in order to wring money out of an impoverished and discontented peasantry, who execrated him as the author of all their suffer- ings. Bitterly disappointed to see his work for reform undone, he died, worn out by toil and heart-broken, in September 1683. His influence, which on the whole had been distinctly for good, had long been waning before that of his rival, l/ouvois, and his place in the King's confidence was now definitely taken by that unscrupulous and truculent Chauvinist, who cared nothing for the welfare of the people and everything for war and foreign conquest. As a spur always ready to prick the side of his master's intent, he was henceforth for many years to be the evil genius of the King and the country. Louis' Private Life Though it is fortunately no part of our bUvSiness here to swell our record with details drawn from the voluminous chroniques scandaleuses of I^ouis' reign, a few words must still be devoted to the more private side of his life because of the direct bearing of this upon the course of national affairs. lyouis XIII, with all his faults, had possessed one redeem- ing virtue rare in high places at the time, that of personal chastity. lyOuis XIV, on the contrary, was as lecherous as his grandfather and even more unstable in his profligacy. Unfaithful as a lover no less than as a husband, he not only 381 HISTORY OF FRANCE indulged his passions without check or shame, but even relieved the monotony of his more serious illicit unions with innumerable caprices which passed almost as soon as they were born. The first of his more enduring attachments was for Lionise de la Valliere, a gentle, dreamy, fair-haired, blue-eyed girl, who loved her royal master with unmistakable sincerity, bore him two children, and when his fondness for her subsided retired to a Carmelite convent, where she spent the remaining thirty years of her life in austere religious devotions. She was succeeded by a woman of very different character, the haughty, ambitious, imperious Fran^oise-Athenais de Mortemart, the wife of the Marquis of Montespan. For fourteen years she remained the King's chief mistress, and no fewer than eight children were the fruit of- the union — children whom IvOuis had the impudence to legitimatize and to place on an equal footing with those of his wife. Then in turn her period of ascendancy came to a stormy close with the rise of a new power which was destined to change the current of the King's life and the whole spirit of the Court — that of the famous Mme de Maintenon. So great was the part played by this remarkable woman during the second half of lyouis' reign that some account of her is indispensable to our story. Mme de Maintenon Fran^oise d'Aubigne was the granddaughter of the dis- tinguished Huguenot scholar and soldier Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne, and was born in 1635 in the prison of Niort, where her rascally father was confined for debt. After a girlhood of adventure and struggle she married at seventeen the witty, brave, dissipated cripple — " ce joyeux et savant cul-de-jatte," as vSaint-Simon calls him — ^the dramatist and novelist Paul Scarron, through whom she became intimate with the leaders of the literary world of Paris. On his death in 1660 she fell into obscurity, but nine years later she was appointed governess of the King's children by Mme de Montespan, a charge which she fulfilled with great wisdom and solicitude, winning their affection, and at the same time arousing the jealousy of their 382 59- Madame; de Mainxenon 382 LOUIS X,IV mother, who before long began, and with good cause, to regard her as a dangerous rival. The struggle between the two women was long and bitter ; but by little and little, though she steadily refused to take the shortest road to the King's favour, Mme-Scarron gained the royal confidence and esteem, and in 1675 she was formally presented to Court under the title of the Marquise de Maintenon.^ This was the first decisive step toward her ultimate victory. The King's intrigue with a certain Mile de Fontanges was a temporary check to the growth of her influence, but this was removed by the death in 168 1 of that beautiful and self-willed girl after a reign of scarcely more than a year. Many violent scenes had meanwhile taken place, sometimes in the presence of royalty itself, between Mme de Maintenon and Mme de Montespan, but by this time the breach between I^ouis and his former mistress was generally understood by the Court. In 1683 the Queen died, and not long after — probably in December 1684 — ^Mme de Maintenon was married to the King. The marriage was clandestine, and Madame never assumed the rank of Queen. But the secret was an open one, and her position was fully recognized even by the royal princes. Mme de Montespan none the less lingered for several years about the Court and capital. She finally retired in 169 1, spent her remaining years (after the fashion of women of her class) in religious exercises, and died in 1707. The character of Mme de Maintenon, though it has been repeatedly analysed and discussed, is still a good deal of an enigma. She was undoubtedly a woman of clear head and strong will, astute, ambitious, prudent, and cold. Scandal gathered about her earlier life, but that, in the circumstances of the time, was perhaps inevitable, and it would seem that though her lot was cast from the first among persons of the laxest morals, her own conduct, if not altogether faultless, was beyond serious reproach. It is certain at least that amid all the profligacy of the Court she was conspicuously jealous ^ Maintenon was the name of an estate which she had recently bought, and which was made into a marquisate by the King. 383 HISTORY OF FRANCE of her good name. The question of her sincerity in the matter of reUgion is perhaps a more difficult one. She has been portrayed by adverse critics, who take their cue from the thoroughly hostile Saint-Simon, as a clever and unscrupulous hypocrite; with whom piety was simply the means to an end ; and it must, I think, be conceded that her career presents problems which can scarcely be solved on the supposition that she was always actuated by pure and disinterested motives. None the less she seems to have been a thoroughly devout woman, though her ideas of religion took an extremely dis- agreeable form ; and if she was shrewd enough to make capital out of her reputation for sanctity and ascetic virtue, that reputation was still deserved. It is here then that we. have to reckon with her influence upon the King. Urged on by her clerical advisers — by men like her confessor the Abbe Gobelin, Bossuet, and Bourdaloue — she undertook in earnest the task of I^ouis' moral reformation. Her first great success was in bringing about his reconciliation with his neglected wife. After the Queen's death and her own marriage she used her power to turn his attention more and more to matters of piety and to give a religious direction to his policy. Nor was this so remarkable an achievement as might at first sight be supposed. A worn-out rake easily becomes a devotee, and as, moreover, despite his outrageous licentiousness, I^ouis had always shown a strong religious bias, which had already been increasing with advancing years, Madame found a soil well prepared for the seed she was so anxious to sow. The result was a profound change not only in lyouis' own life, but also in the whole tone and temper of the Court. The brilliant fetes which had long been the glory of Versailles were now things of the past ; even the most profligate of the nobility found it desirable, not indeed to abandon, but at least to dissemble, their excesses, now that pensions and promotions were the reward of punctual fulfil- ment of the duties enjoined by the Church ; religion, as Madame herself boasted, became fashionable ; and though it was at bottom only a religion of the most empty pretence — though, in 384 LOUIS XIV Saint-Simon's vivid phrase, the Court " sweated hypocrisy " — the increase in sobriety and external decency may still be counted as a gain. Louis' Religious Policy In another way, however, Mme de Maintenon's ascendancy was unquestionably and wholly for evil. Born a Protestant, but converted to Catholicism while a girl, she was a stifE- necked bigot in the faith of her adoption and was filled with the bitterest animus against her former co-religionists. In such a mind as I^ouis' piety and intolerance were inseparable, and Madame's influence helped to strengthen their union. But here we must speak with qualification. The idea is widely current that she was herself personally and immediately responsible for those crimes of religious bigotry which have left the darkest blot on lyouis' character and reign. This was not so. She stimulated his zeal for orthodoxy and an active propagandism in the cause of the Church, but otherwise her influence upon him was almost entirely indirect, and is to be sought mainly in the growth, under the new conditions which she helped to bring about, of the power of the clergy in national affairs. The prime force behind lyouis' policy of reaction was the Church. Yet so despotic was the King's temper, so deeply rooted in his mind was the idea of the absolute supremacy of his will in all things, that he yielded even to ecclesiastical persuasion only when, like Macbeth's airy dagger, it marshalled him the way that he was going. Personal feelings thus made him a resolute supporter of the liberties of the Gallican Church, which for him were identical with the prerogatives of the Crown. Twice he quarrelled with the Pope : once over the question of the regale, or the royal right of disposing, according to ancient custom, of the revenues and benefices of bishoprics during their vacancy ; and again some years later about the privilege enjoyed by the French ambassador, in common with other ambassadors, of granting asylum to fugitives in his hotel in Rome; and in each case he showed his determination to withstand any encroachment 2B 385 HISTORY OF FRANCE upon his authority even on the part of the Holy See itself. The first of these disputes, though trivial enough in itself, is important because it led to a clear statement of Gallican claims. These claims were formulated by an extraordinary assembly of clergy convened for the purpose, the moving spirit in which was the silver-tongued and servile Bossuet, who, though he never once protested against I^ouis' scandalous life or his unjust and wicked wars, was ready now as at all times to uphold his most extravagant theories of absolutism. Reduced to simplest terms, the famous Declaration of 1682 — long regarded as the Charter of Gallicanism — ^was tantamount to an assertion of the supremacy of the King in Church as well as in State. The Pope, it was decreed, had no right to interfere in temporal matters ; even in spiritual affairs his authority was inferior to that of the General Councils ; ^ " the rules, customs, and institutions " of the national Church, which had made that Church largely independent of Rome, were to stand unchanged ; while the judgment of the Pope was practically stripped of its infalhbility, since it was pronounced to be conditional upon oecumenical ratification. Louis and the Huguenots lyouis' duel with Rome was, however, only a minor episode in his reign and led to no consequences of great significance. It was a very different matter when the same autocratic spirit prompted him to the destruction of every vestige of religious liberty amoug his subjects. We have seen that after their political annihilation by Richelieu the Huguenots had accepted their new conditions and had settled down peacefully under the protection assured to them by the State. The great Cardinal had himself made this easy for them by his wise policy of conciliation, and in this he had been followed by Mazarin and Colbert, both of whom had fully recognized the qualities of the Huguenots as law-abiding citizens, and in particular the immense value of ^ This article was a restatement of the decree of the Council of Constance (1414-18). 386 LOUIS XIV their work in the industrial development of the country. How completely they had now abandoned their former unpatriotic ambitions is shown by the striking fact that they had taken no part in the disturbances of the Frondes. Yet, despite this radical change in the whole tenor of their life, they were still regarded with a certain amount of popular suspicion, while clerical clamour against them had never ceased. To this clamour, which grew steadily in volume and virulence after his accession to power, I^ouis was himself predisposed to listen. He disliked Protestantism on religious grounds, but still more on political. The Huguenots were heretics, which was bad enough ; but they were also schismatics, which was ever so much worse. They were good subjects, it is true ; but they still persisted in their independence in respect of creed and ecclesiastical organization, and for this reason their very existence seemed to him a perpetual challenge to his theory of absolute power. That any body of men should assume the right to worship God in ways other than those which he himself prescribed was intolerable to his arrogant spirit. His purpose was to be supreme over the consciences no less than over the actions of his people. Religious liberty was therefore for him only a subtle form of political insubordination. Such being his views, the really surprising thing is that, notwith- standing the ever-increasing pressure of the zealots at Court, his recourse to open violence should have been so long deferred. For some years after Mazarin's death the attempt to under- mine Protestantism was conducted only by peaceful methods. Missionaries were sent to preach to the heretics ; dogmatic literature was distributed among them ; all the arts of per- suasion were employed to lead them from the error of their ways ; and, to reinforce the appeal, those who yielded received handsome rewards. Only slight headway was made, however, and presently this policy of friendly propagandism was suc- ceeded by efforts of a more aggressive character. Enactment after enactment was levelled against the privileges of the sectaries both as Protestants and as citizens. Their civil liberties were curtailed. lyittle by little they were excluded 387 HISTORY OF FRANCE from all public employments. Many of their schools and temples were closed, and their rights of worship were inter- fered with. Moreover, in countless other insidious ways their position was rendered more and more intolerable ; for example, mixed marriages were prohibited, and while Catholics were forbidden under heavy penalties to embrace Protestantism, Protestant children, on the other hand, were permitted to renounce their faith at the age of seven — a monstrous provision the practical purpose of which is of course sufficiently clear. Such systematic persecution was galling enough. It increased in vigour with lyouis' growing bigotry under the influence of Mme de Maintenon, his confessor the Pere T,a. Chaise, and the great leader of the devout part3' at Court, Bossuet. In 1679 we find Mme de Maintenon .writing of the King : *' II pense serieusement a la conversion des heretiques, et dans peu il y travaillera pour tout de bon." These words herald the harsher measures which began in the following year. To the few who deprecated such measures Bossuet had a simple and crushing reply : " Those who do not approve of the King's using violence in the matter of religion, on the ground that religion ought to be free, are guilty of blasphemy and error." More than any other man I^ouvois was responsible for the savagery which ensued when regiments of dragoons — notorious as the most brutal soldiers in the French army — were despatched first into the Cevennes and later into Beam to annihilate heresy with fire and sword. Revocation of the Edict of Nantes It need scarcely be said that I hold no brief for lyOuis, but in fairness to him it must be remembered that he was himself in all probability kept in ignorance of the worst features of such new methods for ''la conversion des heretiques." He learned only of the practical results of these dragonnades in the return — so it was reported to him — of many thousands of misbelievers to the fold of the true Church. Such results encouraged him to strike his great final blow at Protestant- ism. On October 22, 1685, a decree was promulgated formally 388 LOUIS XIV revoking the Edict of Nantes. By this enactment all civil and religious privileges hitherto enjoyed by the Protestants were cancelled, their ministers were expelled the country, their schools suppressed, and their temples destroyed,. This outrageous measure was followed up by renewed dragonnades and much cruel persecution of the Protestants in all parts of the country, and a little later by a revolt of the Camisards ^ in the Cevennes, which lasted for some years and was not thoroughly crushed until the whole region had been devastated. But such things were commonly regarded as mere incidents, regrettable, of course, but of no importance. The act of revocation was received with almost universal rejoicing. It was, according to Bossuet, a " miracle," for the performance of which, however, the sycophant preacher was careful to divide the praise between the Almighty and His vicegerent on earth. The dying I^e Tellier welcomed it with a fervent ** Nunc dimitte, Domine, quia viderunt oculi mei salutem tuam." Even Mme de Sevigne, from whom a saner judgment might have been expected, wrote of it in a letter : " Nothing could be finer ; no king ever did or ever will do anything so memorable." All over the country preachers and poets, academies and municipalities, combined to swell the chorus of jubilation ; the only cause for regret being that the last clause of the edict still accorded to the heretics the privilege of purely private worship. Only here and there a solitary observer, like Vauban,^ like Saint-Simon, ^ So called from the camise, or blouse, worn by the peasants. ' Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban was a man of special distinction as the greatest military engineer of his age, and the father of the science of fortifi- cation. Altogether he conducted fifty-three successful sieges. It was he who surrounded France with a cordon of fortresses which proved to be of the utmost value in subsequent wars. Saint-Simon speaks of him, apparently without exaggeration, as " perhaps the most honest and virtuous man of his time." His wisdom as a statesman was shown in his attempts to reform many abuses during the later years of Louis' reign. Unlike most of the great soldiers of the age — Cond6, for example, Turenne, lyouvois — ^he was a kind-hearted man, with a deep respect for human life. " Sire," he once said to lyouis, " I would rather save a hundred of your men than kill three thousand of the enemy." 389 HISTORY OF FRANCE had the sagacity to perceive that this *' crowning glory of the King's reign " was in fact a blunder of the first magnitude as well as an atrocious crime. Its moral iniquity is too flagrant to require comment. But attention should be directed to its stupidity as revealed by its economic and social bearings. In spite of severe edicts against emigration, many thousands of Protestants — Henri Martin puts the number at from 200,000 to 250,000 — fled into England, Holland, and Brandenburg, carrying with them their skill and their knowledge of arts and manufactures to enrich the countries in which they sought asylum at the expense of their native land. As the industry of France had been largely in Huguenot hands, the effect of this great exodus will be obvious. Some thousands of the best French soldiers and sailors likewise passed over into the seryice of other Powers ; while a serious loss to the moral strength of the nation was entailed by the withdraw^al of so large a body of men having all the sturdy qualities of our own Puritan stock. War with the League of Augsburg Having now, as he fondly believed, destroyed Protestantism in France, lyouis was ready to take another disastrous step under the same combined influences of personal vanity and religious zeal. Richelieu and Mazarin had united with the Protestant nations against Spain and Austria. lyouis was resolved to be the head of a Catholic Europe. Three years after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes James II was driven from the English throne, and I^ouis' old enemy William of Orange was invited to take his place. James, who fled to France on William's approach, was warmly welcomed by Louis, who at once took up his cause as that both of Catho- licism and of the absolutist principle of " the right divine of kings to govern wrong." The result was that France was soon involved in a long and tedious war with the now powerful lycague of Augsburg. Fortune seemed at first to smile on James, but the fate of that foolish and cowardly king was settled by the battle of 390 LOUIS XIV the Boyne (July 1690) and the great naval engagement at I^a Hogue (May 1692), which struck a severe blow at the power of France at sea and finally convinced lyouis that his attempt to restore the Stuarts in England was doomed to failure. On the Continent campaign followed campaign with little system on either side and with no decisive result. For France the war was mainly one of defence, and the splendid fortifications which had been provided by Vauban enabled her to hold the enemy at bay on all her frontiers. Furthermore, in order to establish the barrier of an absolute desert on the east, the Palatinate was wasted and pillaged, at the direction of lyouvois, with fearful barbarities which aroused the horror and indignation of Europe. Meanwhile Catinat twice routed the Duke of Savoy — at Staff arde (1690) and at Marsaglia (1693) — and lyuxembourg, Turenne's successor, won notable victories in the Netherlands, at Fleurus (1690), Steenkerke (1692), and Neerwinden (1693). But, brilliant as these ex- ploits were, they were barren of practical results, for William of Orange, though repeatedly defeated, always contrived to prevent his adversary from profiting by his success. So the war dragged on for several years longer, and then, though he had really accomplished nothing, lyOuis found it necessary to open negotiations for peace. France was sick of the protracted and aimless struggle. Economically the country was on the brink of ruin. In many parts the population was decreasing ; industry and commerce were declining rapidly ; the financial policy of Colbert's successors was reckless and suicidal ; poverty and misery were universal ; a dangerous spirit of discontent was abroad ; and, despite the rigours of the censorship, there was much open and often daring criticism not only of the King's ministers, but even of his sacred Majesty himself. Even lyOuis, though his early ambitions for the welfare of his subjects had long since vanished before his dreams of conquest and glory, could hardly be blind to such omens of disaster. He was, moreover, impelled to bring the war to a close by a consideration which had greater weight with him than the appalHng state of his people. It was known that the childless HISTORY OF FRANCE Charles II of Spain, who had been dying all his life, was now at last tottering on the brink of the grave. His death would open the question of the succession to the Spanish throne, and lyouis intended that the settlement of that question should be dictated by himself. But to the end that his hands might be free, he must first break up the coalition against him, and this could be done only through peace. The Treaty of Ryswick It has been said that he showed great moderation and a marked desire to conciliate his enemies in the terms arranged. The implied praise is scarcely his due. As a matter of fact, these terms did not emanate from him. They were imposed upon him by his two stubborn opponents, William III and the Emperor Leopold. The Treaty of Ryswick (September 16197) was, indeed, extremely humiliating both to lyouis and to France. Concessions were made in it on every side. Louis' chief foe, William, was recognized as King of England ; all recent conquests in the Netherlands, Germany, and vSpain, except Strassburg, were relinquished ; the Dutch, though they restored the French colony of Pondicherry, were accorded an advantageous treaty of commerce and were permitted to garrison a number of important frontier or ' barrier ' towns. The nine years' war had brought a certain amount of honour to French arms ; but it left Louis with an impoverished country, with no gains commensurate with the losses entailed, and with a much damaged prestige. War of the Spanish Succession : First Period Such prestige, however, he hoped to recover in the impending controversy about the succession in Spain. As Charles II would leave no issue, what would become of his immense possessions after his death ? That was the question which was now agitating the chancelleries of Europe. There were three rival claimants to the throne — the Dauphin of France, the Emperor Leopold, and the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. As the table opposite will show, the Dauphin, as the grandson H O X p W CO o CO PL, C/2 pq < H o o < w o 'd a frt o a -§ i3 a bo Si k2 H to O O CO . 0} en •g 3 a 0) O .2 rt §1 ^ o .13 -r" 5.1 S CO ft as _fc 3 d a. P O d W ■ , 'V:'%$ " -' ■' ;; ■ \ ;;W.:i|iP::-vi ■: 69. lyOUIS XV 440 LOUIS XV for them the name of convulsionnaires. At length the situation became so serious that the Government had to interfere, and in January 1732 the cemetery was closed. The biting epigram which announced that the King had forbidden God to perform any further miracles ^ may be taken as an index of intelligent opinion on the subject. Jansenism had been fast degenerat- ing since the great days of Arnauld and Pascal, and this out- burst of fanaticism brought it into general disrepute. Voltaire declared that the grave of Deacon Paris was that of Jansenism as well. The War of the Polish Succession Soon after this France was once more involved in war. In September 1733 the throne of Poland was left vacant by the death of Augustus II. The Polish monarchy was elective, and two candidates presented themselves : Stanislaus, the exiled sovereign, and the late King's son, Augustus, Elector of Saxony. Stanislaus was elected ; but Russia and Prussia refused to recognize him and proclaimed the Elector of Saxony in his stead. Anxious as Fleury was to preserve peace, he was overborne by the bellicose party at Court who held that France was bound to support their own King's father-in-law. The War of the Polish Succession which resulted lasted from 1733 to 1738. So far as Poland itself was concerned the issue was quickly settled. The Russians seized Warsaw and marched upon Dantzig ; the miserable expeditionary force sent out by Fleury failed completely to arrest their progress ; Stanislaus fled in haste back to France, and his cause collapsed. But these disasters were offset by substantial gains in the war against Austria, in which France had Savoy and Spain as allies. Two armies were despatched : the one under Berwick to the Rhine, the other under Villars, the last of the great generation of I^ouis XIV's captains, into Italy. Berwick seized Kehl and laid siege to Philipsburg, where, however, he was killed. Villars died at Turin, at eighty-one, regretting De par le roi, defense a Dieu De faire miracle en ce lieu." 441 HISTORY OF FRANCE that, unlike Berwick, who had always been more lucky than himself, he had not fallen in battle. But the French were victorious at Parma and Guastalla, while the Spaniards occupied Naples and Sicily. These successes gave the pacific Fleury the eagerly awaited opportunity to open negotiations for peace, and the war died down, though it was not till 1738 that it was formally closed by the Treaty of Vienna. Details of the dis- tribution of the territorial spoils among the allies need not detain us. It is enough to record that Stanislaus, in compensa- tion for the loss of Poland, was granted the duchy of lyorraine, with the proviso that on his death it should be united in perpetuity to France,^ while Francis, the Duke of I^orraine, who was dispossessed to make place for him, received Tuscany in exchange. The War of the Austrian Succession Fleury was satisfied with a peace which for France was not without honour, but within a couple of years of its conclusion fresh clouds began to gather upon the European horizon. In October 1740 the Kmperor Charles VI, Archduke of Austria, died, leaving no male issue, but a daughter, Maria Theresa, then in her twenty-fourth year. Though it was, of course, out of the question that she should aspire to the Imperial crown, her father had done his utmost to secure for her the inheritance of his Austrian dominions, and in this he was confident that he had succeeded, the Pragmatic Sanction in which in 1713 he had proclaimed her right having been formally accepted by all the principal rulers save the Elector of Bavaria, who was himself a rival claimant. No sooner was he in his grave, however, than the consenting parties found the required loop- hole in their agreement and began a diplomatic scramble for the possessions of the young Archduchess — a course which they felt safe in adopting since they had to deal with a woman whose husband (Francis, formerly of I^orraine and now of Tuscany) was a negligible prince, and whose country was in a state of military and financial decay. At this point, however, * This occurred in 1766. 442 LOUIS XV a fresh turn was given to affairs by the sudden appearance of the new King of Prussia, Frederick II, who, with the decision of purpose and cynical disregard of moraHty which together were to characterize his actions throughout his career, trumped up a claim to a portion of Silesia, invaded the province, and defeated the Austrians at Mollwitz (1741) and Chotusitz (1742). This piece of shameless aggression roused the war passion throughout Europe. Poor old Fleury exerted all his efforts to keep France out of the coming struggle, but he was now too senile to withstand the powerful influence of the hot-headed and ambitious Belle-Isle and the anti- Austrian party. Against his own judgment, therefore, he made common cause with Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony, Spain, Sardinia, and Poland in repudiating the Pragmatic Sanction. The Wa.r of the Austrian Succession opened favourably for the allies, and Maria Theresa, basely abandoned by those who should have been her friends, had to seek refuge in Hungary, where her eloquent appeal to their sympathies aroused the entire people in her support. Then by the timely cession of Silesia she detached Frederick from the coalition ; Saxony and Sardinia followed ; while Spain became entangled in a maritime war with England, which, like Holland, now abandoned its neutrality and openly declared for the Archduchess. The result of these shifting conditions was the practical isolation of France, and Belle- Isle's army in Bohemia was at once placed in serious peril, out of which, however, the Marshal contrived to extricate himself by a forced march in which he sacrificed 1200 men but lost neither cannon nor flag. At this juncture Cardinal Fleury died, in his ninetieth year (January 1743), and Louis announced his intention to imitate his great-grandfather by governing henceforth without a Prime Minister. The gravity of the situation rousing him for a moment from his customary lethargy, he took command of his army after the defeat of the French by the English at Dettingen (1743), but at Metz was struck down by an illness which almost proved fatal, and again retired from the scene. Disturbed by the successes of Austria, Frederick now turned against Maria Theresa and 443 HISTORY OF FRANCE invaded Bohemia, but the prospects of European peace were none the less vastly improved by the election of Maria's husband as Emperor. Erance was furious at the course which things had taken^ yet though no possible gain could now accrue to her from the continuance of the war, she was compelled to fight on in the hope of obtaining honourable terms of peace. Victory crowned her efforts in Flanders at Eontenoy (1745), Raucoux (1746), and I^awfeld (1747), but elsewhere the balance of results was against her on both land and sea. It was there- fore a relief to Frenchmen of all classes and opinions when the preliminaries of peace were at length signed at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. This unjust and bloody war had on the whole been creditable to the national arms, though much of its glory redounded to the foreign commander, Maurice de Saxe.^ But its chief results to France were the elevation of Prussia to a place among the foremost Powers and the addition of twelve hundred million livres to the public debt. The period immediately following the Treaty of Aix was, however, one of extraordinary prosperity throughout Europe,^ and even France, with her astonishing vitality, began to recover rapidly from the strain. Yet, as Frederick declared, the peace was only a truce, which gave the combatants time to take breath and prepare to renew the conflict under more favourable conditions. Seven years passed, and then a general struggle was once more precipitated by a collision between France and England. Owing to the colonial rivalries of these two countries, the recent war had spread to India and North America, and in neither of these distant theatres had hostilities ever completely ceased. Despite the unwise methods too often adopted by her statesmen, the power of France beyond the sea had long been growing fast, and her various colonial pos- sessions — ^in the He Bourbon, the Ile-de-France, the Antilles, Canada, I^ouisiana, and India (though here the enterprise of Dupleix had been frustrated by Give and ruined by Dupleix' recall and disgrace in 1754) — gave encouraging signs for still 1 Illegitimate son of Augustus II of Poland. 'jVoltaire, Le Steele de Louis XV. 444 LOUIS XV further success. Such signs, accompanied as they were by the efforts of the French to revive their long-neglected marine, aroused the jealousy of England. The consequent tension was particularly marked in North America, where disputes regard- ing boundaries, notably in Acadia and along the western frontiers of the thirteen colonies, were of continual occur- rence. One of these came to a head in 1754, when a series of encounters (in which, it is interesting to note, young George Washington played a conspicuous part) took place in the Ohio valley. Angry representations were exchanged between the two Governments, but it was not till 1756 that peace was formally broken. The Seven Years' War Distant as was their field, the hostilities which now com- menced in earnest disturbed the equilibrium of Europe. Maria Theresa, though she had accepted the settlement of Aix, had done so only under compulsion, and had continued to nurse her grievances and her desire for revenge. Frederick, aware of her designs, had meanwhile kept his army ready for instant action. Both France and Britain were also preparing to enter the pending conflict, the latter on the side of Prussia, the former, together with Russia, Sweden, and most of the German states, as an ally of Austria, her hereditary foe. Such was the disposition of the antagonists when in 1756 began the desperate Seven Years' War, which has a twofold significance in history because it was the closing struggle at once between Austria and Prussia for the possession of Silesia and between France and England for colonial supremacy and the com- mand of the sea. Having obtained b}'' bribery information of the combination which was being formed against him, Frederick with his characteristic promptitude again anti- cipated his enemies and in August 1756 invaded Saxony, where he carried everything before him. Two French armies at once took the field, one of which overwhelmed Cumberland, * the Butcher,' at Hastenbeck and Klosterzeven (1757), while the other was routed by Frederick at Rossbach 445 HISTORY OP FRANCE (1757). Thenceforth the continental war was fought out on two separate Hues. Frederick, engaging the Austrians and Russians in the region of the Elbe and the Oder, exhibited tireless energy and consummate military genius ; yet his campaigns of 1758-60 were on the whole unfortunate, and in the winter of 1761-62 he was brought so near to the end of his resources that his position seemed almost desperate. But the death of the Tsarina Elizabeth in 1762 removed Russia from the Hst of his enemies, and from this point on the tide ran entirely in his favour. In the meantime in the valley of the Rhine the French, operating against the Anglo™Hanove- rians, were now victors and now vanquished, now able to push forward into Germany and now forced to retreat. All through they displayed their usual dash and valour, but their apnies were in poor condition, ill-equipped and ill-disciplined ; their officers were in general careless and incompetent ; while their chief command had suffered seriously by the substitution through a boudoir intrigue of the Prince of Soubise and the Duke of Richelieu for that really fine old soldier. Marshal d'Estrees. For France, however, the colonial war was of infinitely greater moment than the continental. In this wider field the struggle opened auspiciously, for a French fleet defeated the English under Byng in the Mediterranean (1756) ; Minorca was captured ; while Montcalm in Canada broke the English invasion and repulsed Abercrombie at Ticonderoga. But in 1757 the course of events underwent a decisive change. Despite George II 's dislike of him, Pitt was now firmly estab- lished in power, and carried the war forward with the utmost vigour and sagacity, while on the other hand the government of France, now practically in the hands of the King's mistress and her creatures, was steadily going from bad to worse. An attempt to gain strength by the union of the two chief branches of the Bourbons in the Family Compact with Spain (1761) failed entirely to stem the tide of British successes ; indeed, the main result of this secret agreement was to involve Spain in the growing reverses of France. In Canada, after a brief LOUIS XV but heroic resistance on the part of the habitants, Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham (1759), the fall of Quebec, and the capture of Montreal (1760) virtually closed the his- tory of French dominion in North America. In India I^ally- Tollendal, deserted by the fleet, was forced back into Pondi- cherry and compelled to surrender after a splendid defence of nearly a year, and the doom of French power in Asia was also sealed. The Seven Years' War, having exhausted all the combatants, was closed in 1763 by the Treaty of Hubertsburg between Prussia and Austria and that of Paris between France and Britain. On the continental side the gigantic struggle had accomplished nothing ; for it made no alteration in the map of Europe and '' not a hamlet . . . changed its ruler " as a result of all its waste and carnage.^ In its colonial aspects, on the other hand, its consequences were vast and far-reaching. In plain terms, its chief issue for France was the practical destruction of her power beyond the seas. She was, indeed, permitted to retain a few possessions of little value in the West Indies, and those in India as they had existed before 1749, but her colonial development was arrested and her commerce crippled. Moreover, she was compelled to cede lyouisiana to Spain as an indemnity for Spain's losses under the Family Compact, and, as a last drop of bitterness in the cup of her humiliation, to guarantee the demolition of the fortifications of Dunkerque. It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that the Treaty of Paris was the most cruel blow that French pride had received in modern times. It is certain that with its signature France sank lower in the eyes of the world than at any moment since the Wars of Religion. Nor was this all. National disaster and disgrace deeply affected the imagination of the sensitive French people themselves and intensified their growing bitterness against their Government. The Seven Years' War has therefore to be included among the many causes which were now co-operating to bring about the debasement of the monarchy in the judgment of the nation. ^ J. B. Perkins, France under Louis XV, vol. ii, p. 177. 447 HISTORY OF FRANCE The Character of Louis XV Even more potent among such causes, however, we have to reckon the character and conduct of the monarch himself and of those into whose hands he allowed the control of the State to lapse. I^ouis XV seems to have been born with a thoroughly vicious disposition. It is hardly too much to say that he was a moral pervert. As a child he showed himself singularly callous and cruel, his principal pleasure being the killing of little birds, while all through life he indulged his lust for blood in forms of sport which were little better than organized slaughter. Utterly selfish and indolent, he evinced, save on a few rare occasions, no interest in either domestic or foreign affairs. The ruin of his country and the miseries of his people left him unmoved ; " Cela durera bien autant que moi," he is reported to have said ; and again, '* Apres moi le deluge " ; and if these were not the actual phrases used by him they will serve to express his feeling. His temperament was, indeed, so sluggish that even the external trappings of kingship gave him no pleasure. The splendours of the Court in which lyouis XIV had found satisfaction were to him a weariness. From youth to age he suffered from terrible listlessness and boredom, out of which his main escape was into debaucheries which have made his name infamous even in the annals of kings. Yet many as were his amours he never exhibited the slightest trace of genuine passion in any of them. His sensuality had nothing poetic about it ; it was merely one aspect of a hopelessly brutal and depraved nature. The Marquise of Pompadour Of all the women who figure in the record of his reign one deserves some attention because she belongs to the history of France as well as to that of the Court. Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, afterward the Marquise of Pompadour, was married at twenty to a certain I^e Normant d'fitioles, and at twenty- four became the King's mistress and the ruling star at 448 00 Pi P Q W P « P o <1 o Ah D Q o LOUIS XV Versailles. She was a woman of great beauty and charm, and of rather unusual intellectual endowments; vivacious and witty; a devotee of art, a lover of pretty things, a good musician and an admirable actress. But in temper she was cold (" froide comme une macreuse ") ; her mind was corrupt ; and from first to last she made the favour of the King the means for the satisfaction of her greed and ambitions. Had she been content to be simply the arbiter of fashion and taste she would have done comparatively little harm. Unhappily she aspired to political power, quickly obtained control of public affairs, filled the most important ofiices with her favourites, made her creatures ministers, appointed and dis- missed generals, and even interfered with the conduct of campaigns. Thus she was for a while practically the Prime Minister of France, ruling in accordance with her whims and caprices, and this at a critical time when the destinies of Prussia were being shaped by Frederick and those of England by Pitt. That during the nineteen years of what she herself called her * reign ' she absorbed something like thirty-six million livres from the State Treasury is a further fact to be set down in her account. Nor did her grasp upon the govern- ment relax till the very day of her death in 1764, though long before that popular hatred of her had been unceasingly dis- charging itself in lampoons, satires, and ' poissardes,' for which many a wit was sent to the Bastille. For as her own health and charms failed she accepted her change of position from royal mistress to amie necessaire, and, resolved at whatever cost to maintain her hold upon the King, descended even to pander to his vices by acting the part of procuress to the harem which he had established in the notorious Parc-aux- Cerfs behind Versailles. Yet, disastrous as was her rule, the country she had plundered gained little when she made way for the even more disreputable Mme du Barry. This handsome, coarse, vulgar woman, whose tastes were entirely for money, dress, and jewels, whose rapacity was almost incredible, and who bled the Treasury of some twelve million livres while the State was tottering on the verge of bankruptcy, contrived to 2 F 449 HISTORY OF FRANCE tickle the jaded appetites of the worn-out debauchee of sixty, and remained supreme over him till his death. Decline qf the Monarchy In these circumstances what chance was there that the monarch would retain even a shred of the respect of his subjects, or that the divinity which had long hedged the French throne would survive so many and such rude assaults ? In his youth lyouis had been the object of much popular affection. On Fleury's death high hopes had been entertained of his personal rule. During his serious illness a little later the country was stirred to its depths with anxiety ; his recovery was hailed with transports of joy ; even the sovereign, surprised out of his apathy, was fain to ask — as well he might — ^what he had dqne to be so beloved. It was at this time, indeed, that the surname was bestowed upon him which was afterward to gain such a cynical significance — that of * Bien-aime.'^ But the mood of the nation changed rapidly after the Peace of Aix, when the Government became the plaything of scheming courtiers and dissolute women, and the King's unpopularity thenceforth grew apace until it had developed into the bitterest hatred. A sentimental reaction in his favour set in, it is true, when in January 1757 his life was attempted by a half -crazy valet named Damiens. But it was only momentary. As years went on and he sank lower and lower into the slough of debauchery, the abominations connected with his private life combined' with the reckless misrule of those who nominally governed in his behalf to intensify the loathing with which he was everywhere regarded. It was during these years that P'rance came clearly to realize that the figure she had worshipped as God's anointed was only a monstrous idol of clay. The Ministry of the Duke of Choiseul The one comparatively bright spot in the thirty years from Fleury's death to the end of the reign was the period of the ministry of the Duke of Choiseul, between 1758 and 1770. 450 LOUIS XV Choiseul owed his elevation to Mnie de Pompadour, but though for a time he depended upon backstairs influences he gradually made himself secure enough to act independently. He was not a great statesman nor a very scrupulous one ; but he was a man of ideas ; he had the national interest at heart ; and if he lacked stability he had plenty of courage. His chief ambition was to restore the prestige of the country in the councils of Europe, but the fact that two years after his retire- ment Russia, Prussia, and Austria partitioned Poland among them without troubling to consult France is proof that his efforts met with only a measure of success. In order to seal the Austrian alliance he arranged a marriage between the Dauphin and Marie-Antoinette, Maria Theresa's daughter (1770). He introduced various useful reforms in the army, the navy, and the finances, developed trade and industry at home, and, convinced that all was not yet lost abroad, set himself to the task of reviving what was left of the French colonial empire and the mercantile marine. The purchase of Corsica from Genoa (1767-68) — an acquisition of great im- portance for naval purposes — was another step in his foreign policy. These measures, and still more the suppression of the order of the Jesuits, rendered him extremely popular. But he made enemies at Court, especially after Mme de Pompa- dour's death, and his temerity in opposing the all-powerful Mme du Barry led to his downfall. On December 24, 1770, he received his dismissal, and retired at once to his estate at Chanteloup. The demonstration which attended his departure showed that the popular sympathies were all on his side. Cheering crowds followed his carriage to the gates, and his portrait was sold in the streets. Closing Years of Louis' Reign After this the government of France passed into the hands of a triumvirate composed of the Duke of Aiguillon as Foreign Minister, the Abbe Terray as Controller-General of Finances, and the Chancellor Maupeou. The chief event of their combined rule, which lasted till the King's death, was the 4SI HISTORY OF FRANCE suppression of the Parliaments. Since the Regency the Parlia- ment of Paris had renewed its old practice of interfering in political affairs, and had thus more than once come into serious collision with the Court. Meanwhile, however, it enjoyed so much popularity by reason both of its resistance to arbitrary taxation and its uncompromising opposition to the Jesuits that on the last of these occasions, in December 1756, it was only the diversion of feeling caused by Damiens' attempted murder of the King which prevented a rising of the people in its favour. On the other hand, like the pro- vincial Parliaments, it was hated by the philosophic party for its despotism and bigotry.^ Such was the situation when Maupeou, who had himself been its president, was installed as Chancellor, For several years a violent quarrel had been raging between the Parliament of Brittany and Aiguillon, then governor of the province, who was accused by it of extor- tion. In this quarrel the local magistrature had the support of Ihe Parliament of Paris. I,ouis took a strong line against the combination, asserting in language which echoed that often held by his great-grandfather his own sole and sovereign power ; but all the same Aiguillon was recalled and cited before the Parliament of Paris. It was while the trial was dragging on its weary course that Choiseul's dismissal occurred. Then, under the advice of Mme du Barry and the triumvirate, the King annulled the proceedings. The provincial Parlia- ments joined that of Paris in a vigorous protest against this arbitrary act, and the dispute thus became generalized into a conflict of principles. Upon this Maupeou determined to crush all resistance to the Crown by a coup d'etat. On the night of January 19-20, 1771, the magistrates of the Parlia- * It must be remembered that the Parliament of Paris condemned Rous- seau' t works to be burnt and Voltaire's publishers to severe punishment, behaved with brutal injustice in the case of Lally-ToUendal, and sent I^a Barre and d'i^allonde to the stake for alleged insults to the crucifix. The record of the provincial Parliaments was as bad. That of Toulouse rendered itself specially infamous by the persecution of the Protestants and the judicial murder' of the Huguenot Calas, in whose case Voltaire made such a splendid fight in the cause of humanity. LOUIS XV ment were visited by mousquetaires, who summarily demanded their subjection to the King. Those who refused — 113 in all— were exiled from Paris under leftres de cachet. This action was followed in April by the suppression of the Parlia- ments throughout the country, their place being taken by new judicial bodies popularly known as the ' Parlements Maupeou.* Save for this effort to preserve the empty show of absolutism amid the wreckage of its reality, the maladministration of the triumvirate is noteworthy only for the cynical dishonesty of Terray in dealing with the finances. Now that the check imposed by the Parliament of Paris was removed, the King and his mistress squandered the public money more recklessly than ever, and the Controller was driven to all sorts of ex- tremities to meet their incessant needs. Widespread ruin and disorder were the general results of his measures. It happened that bad harvests and great scarcity of food at this time brought the people in many provinces to the verge of starva- tion. Terray not only prohibited the free circulation of grain throughout the country, but even manoeuvred a * corner ' in it, thus making enormous profits out of the nation's misery. Then the story got abroad that lyouis himself was the principal party to this infamous pacte de famine. Actual proof of the allegation is wanting, though it seems to be well founded ; at any rate, the people believed it, and their minds were inflamed with impotent rage against their King. Callously indifferent to this ever-growing hatred, l/ouis continued his way of life unchanged to the end. On April 28 he was taken suddenly ill ; his malady developed into smallpox ; and of this loathsome disease he died on M^y 10, having, as we are solemnly informed, evinced at the last a truly Christian penitence. So passed I^ouis le Bien-aime ; so appropriately closed what has been justly described as the most disgraceful reign in French history. It is significant that while in general the great dignitaries of the Church, after their sycophantic wont, eulogized the dead reprobate in the customary tone of 453 HISTORY OF FRANCE nauseating flattery, one at least, the Bishop of Alais, boldly spoke of the evil example he had set to his subjects. As for the nation at large, it received the news of his death with universal satisfaction. His obsequies were made the occasion of popular rejoicings, and his memory was lampooned in ballads and pasquinades. 454 CHAPTER X LOUIS XVI FROM HIS ACCKSSION TO 1789 WHEN the late King's grandson ascended the throne in his twentieth year ^ it was a critical hour both for the sovereign and for France. For many years, as observers like Montesquieu had clearly seen, 2 the country had been drifting toward revolution. While the authority of the Crown was still absolute in name, it was matter of common knowledge that I/Ouis XV himself had been little more than a puppet in the hands of corrupt women and rapa- cious officials, and the personal prestige of the monarchy had thus been fatally discredited. Meanwhile symptoms of dan- gerous unrest were everywhere apparent. Vague discontent was being sharpened into a specific sense of injustice. The wrongs and miseries of the people were being openly discussed and the misdoings of the Government boldly challenged. The air was filled with talk and speculation, and the theories of the philosophers were freely bandied about the streets.^ Even at Court a conflict was already arising between old ideas and new, while outside aristocratic circles, and especially among thoughtful members of the middle classes, the general reaction against all the principles on which the ancient order had rested was steadily growing in strength and volume. The situation 1 Ivouis XVI was the only surviving son of lyonis XV's only son, Ivouis of France, who had died in 1765. 2 See, e.g., his letters of April 13, 1752, and December 25, 1753- * A traveller who at the beginning of the reign of I^ouis XVI returned to France after some years of absence was asked what change he noticed in the nation. " None," he replied, " except that what used to be talked about in the drawing-rooms is now repeated in the streets " (Taine, L'Ancien Rigime, ]Rng. trans., p. 317). . 455 HISTORY OF FRANCE was therefore one which demanded in the ruler called upon to face its problems a combination of the highest qualities of statesmanship — sagacity, judgment, energy, tact, decision. Unfortunately these were the qualities in which J ouis XVI was conspicuously wanting. Of vigorous physique, fond of manly exercises, yet finding particular pleasure in mechanical pursuits, such as lock-making, this ill-starre(^ king was for the rest a man of simple tastes, temperate, decent in his private life, and sincerely religious. He had, moreover, a thoroughly good heart and was honestly desirous of ministering to the welfare of his people. But he was at the same time feeble in character, unintelligent, narrow-minded, timid, and irresolute. As M, Albert Sorel has said of him, he knew how to do many things — ^to love, to pardon, to suffer, to die ; but he did not know how to reign. This essential weakness was his individual contribution to the destructive forces of his time. To a large extent, of course, he paid the penalty of his predecessors' sins ; ' he came too late to undo the mischief which they had done, and where they had sown the wind he had to reap the whirlwind for his harvest. Yet we cannot ignore the fact that his own pitiful inefficiency was one cause of his tragic failure. M ARI E- AnTO I N ETTE The evil influence exerted over him directly and indirectly by his wife must also be emphasized. From the very outset Marie- Antoinette, as an Austrian princess, had been unpopular in France, and her unpopularity increased as she came, not without reason, to be suspected of caring much more about the country of her birth than about that of her adoption. Barely fifteen at the time of her marriage, four years before lyouis' accession, she brought with her to the formal and punctilious Court of Versailles the freer manners to which she had been accustomed at home, and by her rather reckless disregard of etiquette and convention created scandals by which her reputation suffered. There was, indeed, no real ground for the charges whispered against her, but none the 456 M o I w < CO > LOUIS XVI less, like the famous affair of the diamond necklace some years later/ they gave a convenient handle to prejudice. As she grew older, however, and especially after she became Queen, though she lost little of her frivolity, other and more in- jurious elements in her character came to the surface. She now showed herself self-willed, supercilious, and domineering. Conscious of possessing far more strength of mind and purpose than her husband, she arrogated to herself the prerogatives of royalty. Henceforth she was always interfering, and in general most injudiciously, in State affairs and State appoint- ments, until her meddlesome habits even aroused the anxiety of her mother and called forth a private reproof from her brother, the Kmperor Joseph. Educated as she had been in the severest principles of absolutism, she carried with her into her new environment a spirit of obstinate hostility to all liberal ideas, and in respect of every effort made toward reform constituted herself the leader of the obstructionists and the reactionaries. Thus as she gained more and more power over lyouis' sluggish mind she used that power almost entirely for evil. As to-day we look back into the last years of the Old Regime through the medium of after-events, our recollection of Marie-Antoinette's terrible fate and of the courage with which she met it is apt to turn the edge of our judgment. The impartial historian has still to record that this haughty and unyielding woman must in the measure of her influence be held responsible for blunders which in their consequences were as serious as crimes. lyouis' first act as King was to dismiss Mme du Barry, and, with the help of the Count of Maurepas, whom he placed at the head of his Council, to make a clean sweep of the trium- 1 The affair of the diamond necklace (1784-85), the chief actors in which were a notorious adventuress named Jeanne de la Motte, her husband, and the vain and fatuous Cardinal de Rohan, was a plot to obtain possession by false pretences of a wonderful necklace originally meant for Mme du Barry, who, however, had been banished before its completion. The populace of Paris, who were well aware of the Queen's inordinate extravagance, imagined that she was herself privy to the conspiracy, and this erroneous view greatly stimulated their animus against her at a time when for other reasons she was generally detested. 457 HISTORY OF FRANCE virate. This was all for the good. But the choice of Prime Minister was ill-advised. Maurepas, who had held various offices under I^ouis XV years before, and in 1749 had been exiled for an epigram on Mme de Pompadour, was now a man of seventy-three, clever in a superficial way, but frivolous and cynical, and therefore very obviously not the right person, in the circumstances, to be entrusted with the destinies of the country. As changeable as a weathercock,^ he had neither settled convictions nor definite policy, and merely toyed with public opinion. Even he, however, soon perceived that stronger heads were required, and he therefore called to his aid, along with several other counsellors, the well-known pub- licist Turgot, first as Minister of Marine and then (August 1774) as Controller-General, of Finances, and Turgot's ardent admirer, Malesherbes. The Ministry of Turcot A^ine-Robert- Jacques Turgot was born in Paris in 1727, and after a brilliant career at the Sorbonne abandoned his original intention of entering the Church, devoted himself to the law, and soon began to make a mark by writings which gave him a place of distinction among the economists and the philosophes of the time. In 1761 he was appointed Intendant of lyimoges, a position which he held for thirteen years, during which time he laboured hard and patiently to ameliorate the condition of the people of lyimousin, then sunk in poverty, ignorance, and vice, by the introduction of a number of social and economic reforms which he had already worked out in theory. His transference to the Ministry of Finances then provided him with the opportunity of trying on a large-scale and for the whole of France the experiments which he had made with success on a small scale and in a single province. In the memorable letter which he addressed to the King on taking office, he briefly outlined his policy : " Your Majesty has been good enough to permit me to place on record the engagement you have taken upon you to sustain me in the execution of those plans of economy 458 LOUIS XVI which are at all times, and to-day more than ever, of an indis- pensable necessity. ... At this moment, Sire, I confine myself to recalling to you these three words : No Bankruptcy ; No Increase of Taxes ; No lyoans. No bankruptcy, either avowed or disguised -by illegal reductions. No increase of taxes, the reason for this being in the condition of your people, and still more in that of Your Majesty's own generous heart. No loans, because every loan diminishes always the free revenue and necessitates at the end of a certain time either bankruptcy or the increase of taxes. ... To meet these points there is but one means. It is to reduce expenditure below revenue, and sufficiently below it to ensure each year a saving of twenty millions [of livres] to be applied in the redemption of old debts. Without that, the first gunshot will force the State to bankruptcy.'* His programme of financial and economic reform was boldly conceived and comprehensive, for it included reduction in the cost of collecting the taxes ; the suppression of many abuses in their incidence and distribution, and in particular the destruction of the immunities of the privileged classes ; the substitution for various feudal dues, such as the corvee (or forced labour of peasants on public roads), of a regular impost on landed property ; free trade in grain throughout the kingdom ; the removal of the vexatious fiscal barriers (douanes interieures) which prevented natural commercial intercourse between province and province ; and the abolition of the old trade guilds {jurandes), which had long exercised a vicious control over labour. Nor do these measures exhaust the list of his enterprises. He also outlined a system of national education and a scheme of interconnected elective assemblies, beginning with the parish and ending with the State, the functions of which, however, were to be, not legis- lative, but merely deliberative ; while in a proposal for the rati- fication of Protestant marriages he took what he meant to be the first step in a general policy of religious toleration. At the outset this great minister had the support of the King, who once remarked : " Je vois bien qu'il n'y a que 459 HISTORY OF FRANCE M. Turgot et moi qui aimoiis le peuple." But, as his letter to lyouis shows, he had clearly foreseen the antagonism which he was certain to arouse among those — and they were many — whose advantage lay in the maintenance of the evils he had set out to attack. Before long he had the nobles, the higher clergy, the farmers of taxes, the great financiers, the trading corporations, ranged in a solid mass against, him. The corn riots of 1775, deliberately fomented, it is believed, by his opponents, weakened his influence in the country at large. A little later he came into conflict with the Parliament of Paris, which, together with the provincial Parliaments, had been restored, against his advice, by Maurepas, and was now behaving as factiously as ever. Then the Queen, who dis- liked his liberalism and was determined to thwart his plans, beean to intrigue against him with the ever- jealous Maurepas. lyouis was too weak to resist so much pressure, and especially that brought to bear upon him by his wife, and he was the more' ready to yield because, though he warmly approved of Turgot 's policy, his religious prejudices were ruffled by his free-thinking : however admirable his statesmanship, the im- portant fact remained that he did not go to IVIass ! Turgot, on his side, though the very incarnation of integrity, was neither conciliatory nor tactful enough to deal successfully with so many powerful foes ; his relations with the King were soon strained to breaking-point ; and on May 12, 1776, he was dismissed, having held office for just twenty months. His removal w-as accompanied by the resignation of the high- minded and public-spirited Malesherbes, who in earlier years as president of the Cour des Aides and censor of the press had laboured indefatigably in the cause of justice and toleration, and who as minister had given his friend substantial help in his work for reform. The fall of Turgot was hailed with delight by the Court and viewed with consternation by Voltaire, Condorcet, and the whole philosophic party, who rightly saw in it an irreparable misfortune to the country. What might have happened had he been allowed a free hand in the carrying out of his programme 460 LOUIS XVI it is of course idle to speculate. But the judgment of history is that his dismissal was lyouis' gravest mistake and the real crisis of his reign. " With him," as M, Sorel has well said, " vanished all hope of recasting the Government in its ancient mould."! The Ministry of Necker Reaction triumphed all along the line under the brief rule of Turgot's successor, Clugny : the corvee was re-established, the jurandes restored, and free trade in grain suppressed. Then, as the finances were again lapsing into absolute anarchy, and all that Clugny could propose to meet the swelling deficit was a State lottery, Maurepas called to his aid the great banker Jacques Necker, who had already lent money to the Govern- ment and had distinguished himself as a writer by a pamphlet in opposition to Turgot's free-trade policy. Though Swiss by birth, Necker had made his fortune in Paris, where the salon of his wife, the charming and accomplished Suzanne Curchod,^ had long been a centre of intellectual activity, but the fact that he was a foreigner and a Protestant debarred him from a seat in the Council, and he took office, not as Controller-General, but as Director, first of the Treasury (1776) and then of the finances (1777). A vain and showy man, he was at the same time honest and hard-working, and his thorough business training stood him in good stead. Rejecting all the doctrinaire schemes of Turgot, of which his practical temper made him contemptuous, he addressed himself to the task of readjusting the taxes, introducing more order and system into their administration, and devising various expe- dients to meet the liabilities of the State, one of which, a new loan (January 1778), proved a great success. War with England Unfortunately for Necker, his difficulties were greatly in- creased by a new turn in foreign affairs. On July 4, 1776, ^ L' Europe et la Revolution fran^aise, t. i, p. 213. * Who earlier in life had been engaged to Gibbon, The only daughter of M, and Mme Necker became famous in literary history as Mme de Stael. 461 HISTORY OP FRANCE the British colonies in North America proclaimed their inde- pendence and entered upon the struggle which was to end in the establishment of the United States. Hatred of Britain and a rankling sense of humiliation left by the memory of the Seven Years' War made the cause of the colonists immensely popular in France, but the influence first of Turgot and then of Necker and the natural antipathy of the King ('' dont le metier etait d'etre royaliste ") to an association with repub- licanism prevented the Government for some time from entering the lists against its ancient foe. Finally, however, the diplomacy of Franklin and the clamour of the nation carried the day, and in February 1778 two treaties, one of commerce, the other of defensive alliance, were signed with the United States. The inevitable result was that France and Bngland were soon again at war. The astonishing power of Choiseul's strengthened fleet was now apparent ; during the first stages of the war, indeed, the French navy had practical command of the sea, to the enormous advantage of the American forces in their own campaigns, though Rodney's decisive victory over de Grasse ofl Jamaica in April 1782 ultimately restored the supremacy of the British flag. Meanwhile, however, Sene- gal, Gambia, Sierra I^eone, St Vincent, Grenada, Demerara, St Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, Tobago, and Minorca had succes- sively fallen into the hands of the French, while British dominion in India was also threatened by Admiral de Suflren's capture of Trincomalee. By this time, thoroughly beaten in the field, overweighted by a European coalition, and badly shaken by dissensions at home, England was glad to acknowledge the independence of her former colonies and to bring the war to a close. Under the Treaty of Versailles (1783) most of the territory acquired by the belligerents was reciprocally restored ; but France was allowed to retain various possessions in India, the Antilles, and Africa, while the articles in the Treaties of Utrecht and Paris respecting the fortifications of Dunkerque were cancelled. Moreover, the moral prestige of the nation in the eyes of the world was now in large measure retrieved. Not without justification it was felt that the part which France 462 LOUIS XVI had played in the American War of Independence had wiped out the disgrace of the ruinous Seven Years' War. None the less such success, notable as it was, did nothing to benefit the Government or the country. On the contrary, the additional strain which had necessarily been imposed on the finances only aggravated internal evils. Necker wrestled manfully with his hopeless task, and managed to provide the sinews of war. But before the end came he had himself fallen from power. His policy of retrenchment had made him ob- noxious to the Queen. His attempted reforms had aroused the hostility of many vested interests. In reply to his critics he published in 1781 a famous document, entitled Compte rendu au Roi, in which he undertook to provide a plain state- ment of the nation's position and incidentally to justify his own methods. This work created an immense sensation, but while it had the effect its author intended of inducing capitalists to lend money to the State, it also stirred up a host of enemies against him. In order to strengthen his position he now demanded from Maurepas a seat in the Council. This was refused on the score of his religion. Upon this he resigned (May 178 1) and retired to Geneva, followed by the regrets of all patriotic Frenchmen, who regarded his departure as a public calamity. The Eve of Disaster : Calonne Necker's labours represent the last serious efforts of I^ouis' Government to set their house in order and avert the impending catastrophe. Once more relieved of the irritating interference of reforming ministers, the careless Court abandoned itself afresh to its frivolous pleasures in utter indifference to any day of reckoning which might possibly be in store. Turgot and Necker alike had preached economy. The Queen herself now set the pace for a renewed orgy of extravagance. Favours and pensions were multiplied ; the festivities at Versailles were on a scale of extraordinary magnificence ; money was even squandered on new palaces at Saint-Cloud and Ram- bouillet. Then when Marie-Antoinette and her little group 463 HISTORY OF FRANCE of intimates grew weary for the moment of the excitement and dissipation they retired together to the Petit Trianon, where they milked the cows, fished in the lake, and, like shepherds and shepherdesses out of a conventional pastoral, amused themselves in pla3dng at rustic simplicity. In the meantime the poor King, too feeble to check what he did not approve, lived very much apart, spending most of his time in hunting and lock-making. For the rest, in those actively responsible for his government there was no longer either statesmanship or honesty. Maurepas died within a few months of Necker's resignation, and no new Prime Minister was appointed. But the control of the finances, after a couple of insignificant stop-gaps had demonstrated their own futility, was entrusted to Charles-Alexandre de Calonne, who held the position from November 1783 till April 1787. Calonne was a clever but totally unscrupulous man, who could juggle with figures in a way to dazzle the uninitiated, btft was wholly destitute of political wisdom. He captivated the vacillating King, however, by his charming manners and easy, seductive speech, and made himself popular with the Queen and the Court by discarding the parsimonious counsels of his precursors and openly encouraging extravagance on the ground that a general display of wealth was necessary to attract capital for the loans with which he designed to carry on the business of the State. Then when, having borrowed 487 millions of livres, he found himself unable any longer to live from hand to mouth, by a sudden right-about-face he turned reformer, and laid before the King a plan for the readjustment of taxation. '* But this is Necker pure and simple ! " said I^ouis in his astonishment. " Sire," replied Calonne with calm effrontery, " I could not possibly offer you anything better." Naturally tliis absolute change of policy turned his former supporters at Court into foes. But in the hope of bearing down all opposition he advised the King to convene an Assembly of Notables, who should, of course, be merely the nominees and creatures of the Crown. Already there was a widespread movement for the revival of 464 LOUIS XVI the States-General, but this suggestion was too revolutionary to be considered, and Calonne persevered in his own design, hoping in this way at once to satisfy public opinion and to make his own position secure. The Notables accordingly met in February 1787. In his characteristically optimistic speech to them the Controller first painted a rosy picture of the prosperity of the country and then passed on to outline the schemes by which he proposed to meet the appalling deficit to which he had to confess. But the Notables did not prove as amenable as he had anticipated. They refused to entertain his suggestions ; and the more advanced among them — prominent among whom was I^a Fayette, who had imbibed liberal ideas while fighting for Washington in America — ^insisted on an appeal to the States-General. As I^ouis himself now abandoned him, Calonne's tenure of office came to an ignomi- nious close. LOMENIE DE BrIENNE AS MiNISTER OF FiNANCE Calonne's collapse would have been an immense advantage to the country had there been any better man ready to take his place. But things were little likely to improve under the rule of his successor, the ambitious, vulgar, and short-sighted Archbishop of Toulouse, lyomenie de Brienne, who owed his position mainly to the influence of the Queen. The country was now seething with excitement ; talk of reforms of the most radical kind filled the air ; the demand for the convoca- tion of the States-General grew more and more insistent. But, heedless of these unmistakable omens of approaching storm, Brienne resolved to use the power of the King, whose personal popularity was still undiminished, to enforce his own schemes. The Notables were therefore dismissed and the edicts of the new Controller submitted to the Parliament of Paris. Then began the last struggle between that body and the Crown. The Parliament's reply was that neither the King nor the Parliament itself was competent to levy the taxes proposed, and that " the nation represented by the States- General alone had the power to grant to the King such subsidies 2 G 465 HISTORY OF FRANCE as had been proved absolutely necessary." This was a direct challenge in uncompromising terms to royal authority. Plucking up his courage to meet it, lyouis summoned the refractory magistrates to Versailles, and there, by the traditional method of the ' bed of justice,' compelled them to register the edicts in question. The next day, however, the Parliament declared that this enforced registration was null and void. The King's rejoinder, again according to long-standing precedent, was to send the Parliament into exile (August 15, 1787). But the time had now gone by when by these ancient devices abso- lutism could assert itself with safety and effect. It was useless for the distracted King to fall back upon the doctrine of his autocracy, and to reply to protests regarding the legality of his procedure with an impatient '* C'est legal parce que je le veux." Words like these would have been well enough on the lips of the fourteenth I^ouis ; on those of the sixteenth they were an empty boast. Public agitation now assumed dangerous proportions. Though, as it happened, the disputed edicts really aimed at the equalizing of taxation, the public at large were indifferent to this aspect of the matter, seeing in the King's treatment of the Parliament only a despotic attempt on the part of the Crown to deprive the nation of a voice in the management of its own affairs. The disgraced magistrates were followed out of the city by excited crowds. The elder of the King's brothers, the Count of Provence (* Mpnsieur '), who had expressed democratic opinions in the Assembly of Notables, received an enthusiastic welcome when he appeared in the streets. On the other hand, the press i teemed with pamphlets against the Government, with satires, with caricatures. The King himself was on the whole immune from these attacks. But the hatred of Marie- Antoinette — * I'Autrichienne,' ' Madame Deficit ' — was so intense that, at the request of the police, who dreaded violence, she no longer showed herself in the capital. 466 LOUIS XVI The Last Months of the Old Regime The perplexity of the Government was now so great that it had to abandon its despotic tone and resort to compromise. Negotiations were opened with the exiled Parliament at Troyes, which at length consented to register the edicts after they had been amended in various particulars. Upon this the Parliament returned to Paris amid the acclamations of the populace (November 1787). But the same old question of registration arose over the very next edicts which were pre- sented, and at this point the Government decided to have recourse to heroic measures and to crush the opposition of the magistrates once and for all by what was virtually, if not in form, a repetition of Maupeou's coup d'etat. On May 8 the Parliament was summoned to Versailles, where a compre- hensive programme of reform was laid before it, which it was required to accept on the spot. This programme contained many admirable proposals. But it also included a plan for the transference of the extra-judicial functions assumed by the Parliament to a new body — the Cour Pleniere — which was to be instituted for the purpose. The outcry which followed the proclamation of these edicts was loud enough to convince the King and his advisers that they had totally misjudged the force and direction of public opinion. The Parliament stood solid in its resistance to the Government. A demand for the immediate convocation of the States-General arose all over the land. Feeling in the provinces ran so high that in many places^ — as in Dauphine and Brittany — there were rioting and disorder. Before this outburst of popular anger the King, with national bankruptcy staring him in the face, was forced to recoil. To the very last he clung to the hope that the appeal to the country might yet be avoided. But in May 1788 a proclamation was issued convening the States for the following spring. In the midst of all this excitement Brienne had held to office, but public hostility at length became so strong that he was forced to resign. The nation had long been clamouring 467 HISTORY OF FRANCE for the recall of Necker. Much against his will the King had to give way on this point also. But Necker did nothing to allay the passions of the country, nor did his temporary measures arouse any interest either in the capital or outside. Through the memorable winter of 1788-89 all France, on the tiptoe of expectation, was awaiting the one great event — the meeting of its ancient representative parlianient — ^which, as was universally believed, was to inaugurate a new era of freedom , justice, and prosperity for the entire people. 468 CO O (^ O pq W K H BOOK V THE REVOLUTION AND THE EMPIRE I789-1815 CHAPTER I PRELIMINARY " ^nr^HE Revolution/* wrote de Tocqueville, "was not I a fortuitous event. If it had not taken place, the ^JL old social structure would equally have fallen, sooner in one place and later in another ; only it would have crumbled away by degrees, instead of falling with a crash." ^ " Ivong before the final crash," wrote Taine, France was '^ in a state of dissolution." ^ Xhe truth of these statements must be apparent to any one who follows the course of French history during the eighteenth century, even in such broad outlines as alone have been possible to us here. But a few pages of recapitulation and addition may be desirable before we pass on to the crash itself. The Decay of Absolutism In the last years of the Old Regime the fabric of I^ouis XIV's political system was still standing intact. In accordance with the principles finally formulated by him, the monarchy was absolute ; no limitation of any kind was imposed upon its authority ; the King was an irresponsible ruler ; he could make peace or war of his own volition ; the whole internal administration was in his hands ; he was superior to all the * On the State of Society in France before the Revolution, English trans., p. 25- ' L'Ancien Rdgime, I^ivre I, chap. iv. 470 PRELIMINARY machinery of law, which with his arbitrary lettres de cachet he could override at his will. No public opinion was recognized ; no vestige of popular liberty remained. Religious freedom had disappeared with the suppression of the Huguenots ; the States-General had been almost forgotten ; even the Parlia- ments had at length been virtually silenced. Yet, as we have seen, though the forms of absolutism endured, the monarchy had fallen into decrepitude. The ruinous wars of lyouis XIV and the shameless orgies of his successor, with all the financial disasters which these had alike entailed, had not only fatally discredited the Crown itself in the eyes of the nation, but had even aroused adverse criticism regarding the principles upon which the whole political system rested. " The opinion gains ground everywhere," wrote a trustworthy exponent of the general feeling as early as 1757, '' that absolute monarchy is the worst conceivable form of government." ^ That opinion grew rapidly in the decades which followed. To the extent to which their own interests were bound up with its mainte- nance, the clergy and the nobility supported autocracy, but the middle classes were already openly hostile to it. They saw clearly how many reforms were needed by the country, and at the same time understood perfectly well how, one and all, such reforms would receive uncompromising opposition from a despotism which was concerned only to safeguard its own power. The Rise of the Middle Classes None the less forces were silently at work beneath the unchanging surface of things which no arbitrary authority could check and which made the continuance of the existing system impossible. This, as we can now see, was very obviously the case with the social order. The dividing lines between the so-called privileged classes — ^the clergy and the * D'Argenson, Journal. It may be of interest to recall the fact that Gold- smith, who was in France just before this, was convinced by what he saw that the French were " imperceptibly vindicating themselves into freedom" {The Citizen of the World, Letter LVI). HISTORY OF FRANCE nobility — and the bourgeoisie — the merchants, traders, and professional men — were almost as sharply drawn as ever. The clergy were still protected by the wealthy and powerful corporation to which they belonged ; the nobles continued to form a definite caste, with many hereditary rights to which they clung, though their original feudal semi-independence of the Crown, and with this their feudal duties, had long since disappeared. But neither the clergy nor the nobility now held their ground unchallenged. The middle classes had begun to emerge as a new force in society after the final overthrow of the aristocracy in the Frondes, and with the development of commerce and industry during the eighteenth century they increased steadily in wealth, influence, and prestige. Even intellectual leadership now passed more and more into their hands, as wealth created leisure, and leisure brought with it fresh opportunities and tastes. It is a significant fact that while the young nobles, after the fashion of their fathers, were still spending their time in acquiring the gentlemanly arts of fencing, riding, and dancing, the serious work of education was going on among the bourgeoisie. " In the eighteenth century the great majority of the students in the colleges were the sons of citizens." ^ The real meaning of this new social movement was apparent at the time only to a few keen observers here and there, like Voltaire. ^ But there is ample evidence in general literature of the growing self -consciousness of the trading classes in regard to their importance in the State. It is noteworthy that on the stage they now begin to displace the aristocracy and to occupy the premier plan. In Sedaine's masterpiece, to cite only one example, Vanderk, the merchant, defends and eulogizes his calling in language which recalls that already used in more industrial and demo- cratic England by Steele's Sealand and lyillo's Thorowgood.^ ^ Babeau, La Bourgeoisie d' Autrefois, p. 369. 2 Le Siicle de Louis XV. ' Le Philosophe sans le Savoir, Act II, Scene iv. The democratization of literature in France had begun, as we have seen, in the later seventeenth century {ante, pp. 409-411). In the later eighteenth century it was largely a literature of the middle classes. Hence the significance of the fact that 472 PRELIMINARY In the very nature of things it was impossible that the Third Kstate, thus increasing not only in power but also in the sense of power, should continue to acquiesce silently in the in- equalities of a system which profited by their labours and wealth while it denied to them rights to which their labours and wealth entitled them. The Condition of the People The growing discontent of the bourgeoisie was therefore manifestly an element of danger in the established order. Another element existed in the as yet wholly ignored and inarticulate mass beneath the bourgeoisie — the mass composed of the artisan classes in the towns and the peasantry in the country. The condition of the urban workman was servile and wretched ; he toiled hard for wages which scarcely sufficed to keep him out of want ; he was oppressed by the guilds, which largely controlled his fate ; he had little chance to rise above the narrow limitations of his precarious lot. That of the rural peasantry was even worse, for they lived as a rule from hand to mouth in a state of abject and hopeless misery. In their case, indeed, the hardships entailed by the old feudal system had in many ways been increased rather than diminished by the changes which were taking place elsewhere. In the old days the resident noble had been to some extent responsible for the welfare of the locality whose seigneur he was. Now the wealthy aristocracy flocked to Paris and Versailles, abandon- ing their feudal duties though they maintained their feudal claims, while those — and their number was large — whose poverty compelled them to live on their own soil were seldom able, even where they were willing, to fulfil their nominal obligations to their fiefs. In many instances, indeed, they were driven by their poverty to sell or farm out their seig- neurial rights ; whence arose all the abuses of non-resident ownership and the curse of the middleman. it was now greatly influenced by certain English writings — e.g., the Spectator, the navels of Defoe and Richardson, the plays of lyillo and Moore — in which the ideas and sentiments of the middle classes were clearly expressed. 473 HISTORY OF FRANCE At the same time all local affairs not directly connected with the old feudal relationships had passed under the control of the Crown as represented by the intendant, his deputies, and a whole army of minor officials, whose arbitrary power had become an intolerable despotism, from which there was no appeal. So complete and so far-reaching was the bureau- cratic system that not a parish rate could be levied and not a church steeple repaired without the authority of the central Government. Beneath the crushing burden of this petty but uncontrolled officialism the whole country groaned in impotent unrest. ■In any estimate of the forces behind the Revolution the greatest stress must be laid upon the deplorable state of the masses of the French people. ^ As the eighteenth century advanced their sufferings continued to increase ; in the last years of the Old Regime they had become acute. Agriculture, impeded by the complications of the antiquated land-system and by the dense ignorance of the farmers and peasants them- selves, had everywhere long been at a standstill, save that in many parts it was retrogressive. The failure of a single harvest — and in the circumstances failure often 6x:curred — meant literal starvation for thousands who depended on the soil, and famine and disease claimed so many victims that in some of the provinces the population was actually declining. Thus far little resolute effort had been made to grapple with these terrible facts, and would-be reformers, like Turgot, had found the obstructionists too much for them. Charity was unorganized ; there was no regular poor relief ; and repeated attempts to fix the price of food resulted in more harm than good. Destitution and despair produced their inevitable con- sequences. Bread riots were frequent all over the country. Beggars, vagabonds, and criminals multiplied. M,urders, high- way robberies, burglaries, smuggling, and poaching increased. The severest measures were adopted to stamp out these evils, ^ For detailed evidence, for which no place can be found in a brief sketch, see, e.g., Arthur Young's well-known Travels in France and Taine's L'Ancien Rigime, I^ivre V. 474 PRELIMINARY and hundreds of persons were yearly imprisoned, sent to the galleys, or hanged. But vice and crime bred so fast that justice was unable to keep pace with them. A special feature of the situation which must also be recognized was the incessant influx of the vagrant, the disorderly, and the felonious into the towns, particularly, of course, into Paris. This is a fact to be borne in mind, for its direct connexion with the excesses of the rabble during the progress of the Revolution. Taxation under the Old Regime But we have not yet touched the real tap-root of all these evils. To reach that we must turn to the question of taxation. Again and again in the preceding pages we have had to speak, with almost monotonous iteration, of the financial anarchy of the country and of the shifts and devices of successive ministers, wise and unwise, to meet the ever-recurring problem of deficits and threatened bankruptcy. It was to consider this problem that, as we remember, the States-General were called together : a fact which shows that its critical character and the need of radical methods in the handling of it had at length been appreciated by the Government. And indeed it would seem that, revolution or no revolution, drastic action could not well be deferred, for the whole system of taxation from first to last was clumsy, wasteful, oppressive, and almost incredibly unjust. Some of the taxes were farmed : that is, the right to collect them was purchased for an annual payment in the lump by speculative contractors, who then made their profit out of them, with the result that, as we have seen, a large part of the nominal yield went into the pockets of the middle- men. Others, like the taille, the capitation, and the vingtidme, were kept in the hands of the agents of the central Government, who, however, in assessing and levying them proved them- selves as rapacious and as merciless as the tax-farmers them- selves.^ * The arbitrary reassessment every year of the taille (a tax on land and house property) by these agents was one of the most flagrant abuses of the time. It operated as a direct check upon thrift and industry. A case is 475 HISTORY OF FRANCE But the most vicious feature of the system was not its complexity nor its absurdity, nor even the brutaHties which accompanied its administration, but its monstrous injustice. As members of the privileged classes, the clergy and the nobility enjoyed complete exemption from many of the taxes, while on all sorts of pretexts they contrived to evade their proper share in respect of others to which they were nominally liable.^ This was, of course, a standing grievance with the bourgeoisie. But many of the bourgeoisie of the towns acquired some of the privileges of their superiors by purchasing various offices, created for traffic by the State, which carried certain immunities with them. The consequence of this iniquitous condition of things was that the weak were crushed to benefit the strong and the poor bled to relieve the rich. The more capable a man was of contributing to the nation's expenses, the less, as Taine points out, he was required to contribute : " the heaviest burden of the load finally falls on the most indigent and most laborious class, on the small proprietor cultivating his own field, on the simple artisan with nothing but his tools and his hands, and, in general, on the inhabitants of villages." ^ Two of the most abominable taxes which thus ground the poor demand particular mention — ^the gabelle and the corvee. The former, which was farmed, was an impost on salt,^ and was all the more vexatious because the purchase of this article in specified quantities was made compulsory in the interests of the State, which held the monopoly of it. No recorded of a peasant begging his landlord not to mend the roof of his cottage, since this sign of increasing prosperity would inevitably mean an increase in the taille. 1 Thus they were exempt from the taille itself, and though they paid the capitation (a property tax dating from the end of the seventeenth century), they gradually managed to elude the burden to the extent, it is calculated, of contributing only one-eighth of their real dues. Even in the reign of Ivouis XIV Vauban had declared that the " two bleeding wounds " of the country were " the army of tax-gatherers and the mismanagement and confusion of their business " and " the army of privileged persons who claim to be free from the ordinary taxation of the realm." * Op. cit., lyivre V, chap. ii. ' For the origin of this see ante, p. 185. 476 PRfiLlMINARY tax caused more widespread discontent, and thousands of persons were punished with brutal severity for inability to pay or attempts to elude it by smuggling. The corvee, which was no less hateful, was a survival from feudal times ; it was a tax, not on property, but on life,^ the peasants being obliged for a certain number of days in the year to give their time and labour in making and repairing roads, and in other work required of them either by their lord (corvee seigneuriale) or by the State [corvee royale) . And in the meantime the burdens of the poor were increased and the financial demoralization of the country completed by multitudinous indirect taxes in one and another form. Province was separated from province by high tarifi walls, the internal custom imposts being levied with such rigour that even artisans who crossed the Rhone — say, from Dauphine into I/anguedoc — on their way to work had to pay on the day's food which they carried in their pockets, while the exorbitant octrois of the larger towns and the heavy excise duties on such articles of common consump- tion as candles, fuel, wine, grain, and flour artificially enhanced the prices of the prime necessaries of life. Intellectual Forerunners of the Revolution Such in brief outline were some of the social and financial conditions in France which were clearly making for a great crisis during the later eighteenth century. It remains for us to glance at the intellectual movement of the time in its bearings upon the Revolution. A prominent place in that movement must be assigned to the new school of political economists, or Physiocrats, on account of their direct advocacy of specific financial reforms. Many of the cardinal doctrines of this school had been antici- pated quite early in the century by Vauban in his Dime royale (published in 1707), a book which he vainly attempted to bring to the notice of lyouis XIV. But its real founder and leader was Frangois Quesnay, who for some years was medical adviser to Mme de Pompadour, and at the time of his death in 1774 1 Though in some parts a pecuniary tax was substituted. 477 HISTORY OF FRANCE was first physician to the King ; while after Quesnay its chief adherents were the Marquis of Mirabeau (father of a more famous son), lycmercier de la Riviere, author of L'Ordre naturel et essentiel des Societes politiques, the Abbe Morellet, and, finally, Turgot, whose attempts as Intendant of lyimousin and Finance Minister to put the theories of the school into practice have already been described. Those theories were deduced from certain abstract principles. Societies should rest on natural foundations and should be governed by natural laws, interference with which can lead only to disaster. Hence the attack of the Physiocrats upon the jurandes and the douanes interieures, their insistence upon the complete freedom of labour and trade, and their famous formula, ** I^aissez faire, laissez aller." Holding as they did that land is the one ul-^imate source of all wealth, they argued that agriculture is the only enterprise that really increases the wealth of a com- munity ; industry merely transforms and commerce merely circulates that which agriculture produces. Their proposed readjustment of the whole financial system followed from these data. The Physiocrats were not political radicals ; Quesnay, for example, explicitly maintained the necessity of an intelligent despotism. But their teachings were openly hostile to the immunities of the privileged classes and to the entire economic structure of the Old Regime. The theories of the Physiocrats, however, necessarily appealed only to a limited public. For the wider development of the subversive movement in eighteenth-century thought we have to turn to general literature. Attempts have been made by some recent historians to minimize the influence of the so-called intellectual forerunners of the Revolution, and it is possible, indeed, that the direct effect of their writings has occasionally been exaggerated. Yet indirectly, by making men think about many things as they had never thought before, and by stimulating a spirit of unrest, inquiry, and criticism which in the long run was bound to be fatal to the dogmatic founda- tions of the traditional order, they certainly helped to prepare the way for the great upheaval and to form " the generation 478 PRELIMINARY of '89." The philosophes and their unattached followers were not responsible for the Revolution ; but without reference to them no account of the forces behind it would be complete. The great forerunner of the philosophic party was Montes- quieu, whose Esprit des Lois (1748) laid the foundations of the modern science of jurisprudence. In that monumental and epoch-making work Montesquieu undertakes a systematic study, historical and comparative, of the principal forms of government and the aims and methods of legislation ; but though this study is conducted with critical impartiality, it is none the less an argument against despotism and the whole theory of ' divine right ' as expounded by Bossuet, and in favour of regulated freedom and a constitutional monarchy on the English model. Twenty-seven years before this, in a work of a very different character, the Lettres persanes (1721), the great jurist had already turned his pungent wit upon the manners, customs, and beliefs of society under the Regency. Beneath the brilliant badinage of this " most serious of frivolous books " there is much searching and deadly criticism not only of the social conventions but even of the political institutions of the time. Three years after the appearance of L' Esprit des Lois Denis Diderot, with the assistance of the celebrated mathematician d' Alembert, began the publication of one of the most impor- tant works of the century, the Encyclopedic. The successive volumes of this immense undertaking (which was not completed till 1765) were made the occasion of violent attacks by the conservatives in Church and State ; repeated efforts were made to prohibit its circulation ; and Diderot himself, as its leading spirit, was in continual danger of prosecution and imprison- ment. These facts show that the real meaning of the Ency- clopedie was fully appreciated by those who were anxious at all costs to stop the spread of the new ideas. It was, indeed, the first great systematic work of the rising philosophic party, and the first organized expression of the principles for which they stood. The editors had been successful in gathering about them a body of writers who represented the most 479 HISTORY OF FRANCE advanced knowledge of their time in their own special sub- jects, and were, moreover, known for their sympathy with liberty, enlightenment, and progress ; these collaborators in- cluded such men as Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Holbach, Morellet, Condorcet, Quesnay, and Turgot. As an. encyclo- paedia it was, of course, primarily a repository of informa- tion. But incidentally it was much more than this. It was also a vast storehouse of facts and theories for those who were in any way engaged in doing battle with the forces of oppres- sion and obscurantism. All questions — social, political, philo- sophical, religious — ^were treated in it with an entire freedom from the bias of tradition and with scant respect for " the wisdom of our ancestors " and the sanctity of the past. Its temper was aggressively modern. Kven the large place given in i^ to science, industry, and the useful arts was significant of its progressive spirit. While much, however, was done by the Encydopedie to disseininate this spirit, it was the consummate man of letters Voltaire who by the magic of his brilliant style, his abounding wit, and his unflagging vivacity did most to popularize the ideas of the philosophic party, of which for some forty years he was the acknowledged leader. Many erroneous views are current in this country about Voltaire, who commonly figures in general thought as an iconoclastic radical and the very incarnation of the Mephistophelian spirit of denial. In fact, he was in many respects strongly conservative. He accepted civilization, even the civilization of his time, with gratitude, and humorously protested against Rousseau's propaganda of " back to nature." He was not in revolt against society. He had little sympathy with the masses. Nor was he in any true sense a democrat. While his early residence in England (1726-29) had taught him to admire the political freedom which that country enjoyed under its limited monarchy, ^ his * See in particular his Lettres philosophiques or Lettres sur les Anglais (1734), in which he eulogizes the political system of England, and under the veil of this eulogy delivers a telling, though indirect, attack upon the despotism which crushed down the life of France. The polemical point of this little 480 o 00 < tn P O H t-r o > PRELIMINARY later sojourn in Prussia and his relations with Frederick the Great had impressed him with the importance of the strong man. For France he desired a peaceful revolution only — a fundamental change in men's minds, and not any radical change in the political or social system. Voltaire certainly had no new gospel to propound for the salvation of the human race. But he was none the less one of the great liberalizing and progressive forces of his century, because from first to last he was the fearless champion of tolerance and freedom of thought. His attack was delivered in particular against what is unreasonable — against injustice, oppression, superstition, war, and the lust of war. " God and lyiberty " — the phrase which he used, in English, in giving his blessing to Franklin's little grandson — was his watchword. Hence the lifelong cam- paign which he carried on against the Church, which was for him the embodiment of everything which he most abhorred. His incessant and often venomous assaults upon the whole system and creed of ecclesiastical Christianity are chiefly responsible for the antipathy with which he is frequently regarded by pious people even in our own day. But when we remember what the French Church of the eighteenth century really was — a vast and powerful organization which fattened upon the public wealth while it refused to bear its share of the public burdens ; when we remember that its bigoted obscurantism and tyrannous insistence upon the minutiae of dogma were accompanied by widespread moral laxity and by open profligacy in its high places ; when we remember the ferocity of its persecuting spirit as expressed, for example, in the hideous tragedies of the Calas family and I^a Barre : when we remember these things, we realize how much justification there was for Voltaire's clarion call, " Bcrasez I'Infame ! " Yet, immense as was Voltaire's prestige and the power which he wielded as the foremost European man of letters book was well understood. The Parliament of Paris condemned it to be burned " as scandalous, contrary to religion, to morality, and to the respect due to authority." 2 H 481 HISTORY OF FRANCE of his age, the premier place among the precursors of the Revolution does not after all belong to him. That place is incontestably occupied by Rousseau, who, according to the testimony of Mallet du Pan, '' had a hundred times more readers among the middle and lower classes than Voltaire." The names of the two men are closely associated in everyday thought and speech, and even in the pages of literary history. It is necessary, therefore, to lay stress on the fact that they had hardly an idea or ideal in common. At several impor- tant points in particular they stand in the sharpest contrast. Voltaire was by temper an aristocrat. By sentiment as by birth Rousseau was entirely plebeian. Voltaire had no quarrel with even a decadent civilization, the absurdities of which he satirized but which he sought neither to undo nor to reconstruct. In his absolute antagonism to civilization Rousseau was at on6e reactionary and Utopian. Voltaire, as I have said, knew nothing of the zeal for practical reform. Rousseau, in his odd 'fashion, was a practical reformer through and through, and in endeavouring to destroy existing institutions was always haunted by the vision of a better and purer social state and inspired by the desire to help toward its realization. His wild, paradoxical, inconsistent teachings penetrated down to the very root of things. Kven the famous tirade against all the boasted arts and refinements of civilization with which he startled the public in his prize essay of 1749, and which he renewed in different forms in later writings, hopelessly unsound and fantastic as it was, had at least the merit of forcing upon the minds of his readers the essential contrast between the real man and the factitious man — between *' rhomme de nature," or man as beneficent nature intended him to be, and *' I'homme de I'homme," or man as he has been perverted by the malign influences of an artificial society. His evangel of a " return to nature," though at bottom flagrantly absurd, at least suggested the need of simplification and the possibility of a reversion to a saner mode of life. ** By his passionate protest against what man has actually ' made of man ' ; by his vehement and oft-repeated attack upon 482 PRELIMINARY concrete abuses ; by his prophetic denunciation of the greed, callousness, and depravity of those who sat in high places ; by his eloquent appeals on behalf of the poor, toiling, down- trodden masses, ' groaning without hope under the burden of oppressions,' he lifted high the standard of the new democracy." ^ In his educational treatise, Emile, he presented a new type of manhood, and strove to show how it might be produced by the application of that principle of '' following nature " which he there illustrates in detail. In his Contrat social he worked out a political system based on the sovereignty of the people, and in that '* fundamental book " of the Revolution (as I^amartine called it) provided his contemporaries with a manual and a programme. And here, if nowhere else in the later eighteenth century, we have to reckon not only with the general but also with the specific effect of literature upon life. Rousseau did not desire the Revolution, though he foresaw it ; ^ he would himself have been shocked by the course that it pursued ; yet it cannot be questioned that he did much to bring it about. Throughout the entire Revolu- tionary period, as I have elsewhere said, '' veneration for his memory was almost unbounded, and he was popularly idolized as the typical friend of virtue and liberty — the writer who beyond all others had shown himself the enemy of tyrants and the advocate of the people. The result was the develop- ment of a regular Rousseau cult. His portrait was con- spicuous in public exhibitions ; statues were erected to him ; a street in Paris in which he had lived for eight years was rechristened by his name ; on the 20th Vendemiaire, An III, a splendid fete was held in his honour, and the remains of * the man of virtue and of truth ' were borne in triumph to the Pantheon. And while he thus entered everywhere into the imagination of the Revolution, he directly and profoundly influenced those who were mainly responsible for its destinies. ^ The quotation is from my own Rousseau and Naturalism in Life and Thought, p. 231. 2 See the prophetic passage, " We are approaching a crisis and a period of revolutions," etc., in ^mile, lyivre III. 483 HISTORY OF FRANCE He himself had taken pains to quahfy his doctrine of the omnipotence of the sovereign people. His disciples took the doctrine, stripped it of the qualifications, and made it the corner-stone of their paper constitutions. As early as 1788 . . . Mallet du Pan heard Marat reading and commenting upon the Contrat social in a public promenade, amid the applause of an enthusiastic audience, and he adds to his record of the incident that he would find difficulty in mention- ing a single Revolutionist ' who was not transported by these anarchistic theories and did not burn with desire to realize them.' Robespierre in particular took Rousseau as his guide in politics, and deliberately fashioned his style upon the Nouvelle Helo'ise, which he always kept on a table beside him. The debates in the Assemblies are full of references to and echoes from the master's writings. His doctrines furnished the basis for the Jacobins' effort to reconstruct society ; and the ground-plan of both those great features of their programme — ^the scheme of State religion and that of public education — • is to be found in Emile." ^ We must not, however, take further space for the considera- tion of the preliminaries of the Revolution. Incomplete as it has necessarily been, this inquiry should serve its purpose as a general introduction to the events of those few momentous years upon the narrative of which we are now prepared to enter. 1 Op, cit., pp. 248-250. 484 CHAPTER II THE STATES-GENERAL AND THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY May i789-Skpte;mbkr 1791 ■^HB convocation of the States-General determined, a problem of great importance at once arose. Fully conscious of their place in the community, the Third Estate demanded that as they immensely outnumbered the other two orders they should have at least double the number of representatives, and that, moreover, the three orders should vote together, since unless this were done their numerical superiority would count for nothing. ^ These demands were resisted by the privileged classes, who saw that if they were granted the predominance of power would pass to the hour- geoisie. Vacillating as usual, the Government consulted first the Parliament of Paris and then an Assembly of Notables convened (November 1788) for the purpose, and in each case the advice given was, in effect, that the procedure of 1614 should be followed. The pressure of public opinion was, how- ever, too great to be withstood, and the King in council issued a decree (December 1788) granting the request of the commons for double representation, but relegating the question of " vote par ordre ou par tete " to the consideration of the assembly itself. The Meeting of the States-General On May 5, 1789, the States-General met in the Salle des Menus Plaisirs at Versailles — a strange setting for the first scene of the Revolutionary drama. The King, accompanied ^ See in particular the famous pamphlet of Abbe Si6y^s, Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-^tat ? in which the claims of the commons were powerfully set forth. 485 HISTORY OF FRANCE by the Queen and attended by a splendid retinue of courtiers, opened the ceremony with a brief speech in which he invited the assembly to consider the general situation and expressed his " tender interest " in the national welfare. Barentin, the Keeper of the Seals, followed with vague promises of the equalization of taxation. Then Necker consumed two hours in reading a detailed but not wholly candid memoir on the financial condition of the country. This closed the first day's proceedings, which left the deputies of the Third Estate disappointed and ill at ease. They had expected a definite lead from the Government in their coming work of reform. One thing only had been made clear : the Government had no such lead to offer. The next day the struggle "for power began over the deferred question of procedure. The commons insisted that as the three orders formed a single assembly they should deliberate and vote together, and in this contention they had the support of S(5me of the lower clergy, men of plebeian origin whose sympathies were with the class to which they belonged. But the rest of the clergy and the nobles refused. Five weeks were wasted in this initial quarrel, while popular excitement was growing daily in Paris and the provinces and the Court party looked on delighted, hoping that the apparent deadlock would mean the humiliating collapse of the States. At lengthy weary of futile pourparlers, negotiations, and conferences, the Third Estate resolved to take matters into their own hands, and on June 12 they sent a final invitation to the other two orders to join them in the ratification of the mandates (j)ou- voirs), the preliminary business over which the dispute had arisen. Only a few of the clergy responded. Then in a stormy session on the night of June 16-17 the Third Estate decided to act independently, and forthwith organized itself into an Assemblee Nationale. This decisive action impressed the clergy, who by a narrow majority voted to unite with the commons. But it alarmed the Court. The King was strongly urged by those about him to dissolve the States. He chose rather to announce (with perhaps some shadowy recollection 486 THE STATES-GENERAL of the old ' beds of justice ' in his mind) that he would deliver his sovereign will to them in person ; but meanwhile, with the intention of preventing any further meeting of the in- subordinate deputies, the hall at Versailles was shut against them on the childish pretext that it must be prepared for the coming royal session. Such, however, was now the temper of the deputies that this foolish trick served only to stiffen their purpose. Excluded by the military from their hall, they transferred themselves to the old tennis-court not far away, and there amid scenes of tremendous enthusiasm they swore a solemn oath to remain in session '' until the constitu- tion of the kingdom be established and affirmed on solid foundations." It seems almost incredible that the next day the tennis-court was in turn closed to them, the Count of Artois, the younger of the King's two brothers, having suddenly discovered that he wanted it for a game. But the cure of Saint-Iyouis placed his church at their disposal, and there their deliberations were continued. At the royal session on June 23 the King, though he appeared '' triste et morne," took a high tone : he declared it to be his will that the orders should meet separately, annulled the resolutions of the commons, and reminded the Assembly of the questions which they had been called to consider. This done he rose and retired. The nobles, elated at their victory, also dispersed. But the commons remained behind in '' gloomy silence." Then came a dramatic moment. Henri de Dreux- Breze, Grand Master of the Ceremonies, reappeared on the scene, and, addressing himself to Bailly, as president of the self-constituted Assembly, reiterated his Majesty's command. Bailly, though pale, stood firm. But Mirabeau, stepping forward, boldly defied the Crown in words which were soon to ring through France ; ^ after which, on a motion by Mirabeau, 1 There are various slightly differing versions of this famous allocution. That given by Mirabeau himself in his Leitres di, ses Commettants, runs : " Je ddclare que, si Ton vous a charg^ de nous faire sortir d'ici, vous devez demander des ordres pour employer la force, car nous ne quitterons nos places que par la puissance des baionnettes." The often quoted " AUez dire k votre maitre " appears to be unauthentic. 487 HISTORY OF FRANCE the Assembly decreed the inviolabiHty of all its members. Before this open resistance to his authority, reinforced as it was by the threatening growth of popular excitement in the capital, the King recoiled, and a few days later the clergy and the nobility received a royal order to combine with the commons. The family being now complete (as Bailly put it), the Assemblee Nationale, under the new title of Assemblee Nationale Constituante (July 9), addressed itself to the task of framing a Constitution. The Constituent Assembly This victory of the Third Estate was, however, bitterly resented at Court, and especially by the Queen and the Count of Artois, who urged I^ouis to take immediate steps for the recovery of the power which he had weakly allowed to slip through his fingers. As the disturbances in Paris were still increasing, they persuaded him to use these as an excuse to mass large bodies of troops, which would presently be of service in a movement of reaction, in the vicinity of the capital and Versailles, and the loyalty of the French soldiers being considered doubtftd, these troops were mainly Swiss and German mercenaries. This provocative action naturally made a very bad impression, and the Assembly protested, but vainly, against it. Then on July 11, still under pressure from the same ill-advisers, the King proceeded to an even more serious mistake — the dismissal of Necker. The Controller-General had done little indeed to enlist the sympathies of the reformers, but he was known to have held aloof from the reactionaries and had been conspicuous by his absence from the royal session, and now his disgrace, which had all the appearance of a blow struck at the cause of progress, made him the hero of the hour. News of it fell like a thunderbolt on the Assembly and spread like fire through the city, everywhere arousing the wildest excitement. On Sunday, the 12th, enormous crowds gathered early in the great centre of popular commotion, the gardens of the Palais-Royal, where they were stirred to fever- heat by the eloquence of a young advocate from Picardy, 488 ''it' ll, 'Wf ■..■IfiliiiiLi'iJiiyrn ■-■■•» .h'i' ^ "\ ••' " ,'••'"] iFigeacfi;^ VUOZE;^ [^ -A. Rodfiz^'y'Sfei ^ViWfr-anche--'''V^ ■Lff^ Lill^r^I-. S^Affrique-l-^^ TARN''-- ■•::;; .LDoS !< CastresvH Ert^ioiui SlIleftMehe....;; StPons f , u.C5Selnaudary.n . » ;« Hrcassomie-x.B^zieps-' i "■■■•• ■■• ^ . ,.Pprpign£ t:^i■■"!:;■■■■■PYRENEES,- '•-PradestoRLEsC ,__ A N G L E T E R R E -Southampton P M A N C H E CdelaH^^^ ,etW"rL„(« Diepgex- BtuxeUes -S? ;^K BELG-PQIje tw "•■'Roert MeziepES L- OCEAN 1 Guernese^^ Valo^es. 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'^rS^iiSlCv^ Cah'ors.... . ^ . ^ IMit-de-MarsIm ^LeS'.'^Gs.ilSr^' ■ S- Affnque s^sj;S%^ E R/S -i^A^^^T^R ~ ■■■ •■., .iMonpto- iOrfei'^^'^io.S^X^f^t^'H ERh Jlt; BSSES.- „fPau;n;;^i;i,-GARONNEpijte5?J;i4S'aCy!>o,T<.JyCette Mont^limar : Gafl.„.^- ■liSiSterohi •Sarcelonnatte " ■-'. ■ GA R.b >^-.'^«?i,'"^^sps-*Ai.p|S'-Ai.PESi:; ■ . Trl tX iAvi^on /orcaiauiaf^ .Puji* Thiinie leViJan Nimea ^.(^1 -Apt .Casieilihiil -MMITIMESjjj,^ ;;!ferbt /-PYRENEES ^rtJIES^ 'SGaui lurelf .WletocjiE..-;: SJPnm. OenS Pamsrs /i"^^ -MS. ^,>£> 'ParrJers j'*^^^ iNarbonne reipignan '■"-■, n J PYREWEES- MarsemgC 6o/fe du Lion "I'fHyirt /W£/? ME D ITE R RANEE CHAPTER III THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OCI'OBKR 179I-SKPTKMBKR 1792 " ^^ IRE," said the president, addressing the King in the ^^ last session of the Constituent Assembly, ''your . ^^ Majesty has ended the Revolution." Those who applauded these words were sanguine enough to believe that the national crisis was now over and the peace and welfare of the country assured. Yet the Constitution of 179 1, which was regarded as the foundation of a new and permanent order, was destined to last for less than a year and to disappear in a welter of anarchy. By a quixotic and singularly ill-advised act of self-denial the Constituent Assembly had resolved that none of its mem- bers should be eligible for a seat in the first lyCgislature. The deputies who thus voted themselves out of power were actuated by various motives, in some cases good, in others bad ; but, whatever their intentions, the result was most unfortunate. There were a few at least among them who had learned some- thing of the business of politics from practical experience and whose influence might therefore have been of advantage in the next council of the nation. As it was, the lyCgislative Assembly which met on October i, 1791, was composed of new men, many young, all untried, and nearly all without even an elementary knowledge of public aifairs. Composition of the Legislative Assembly In this unstable combination of unpromising elements the party lines were soon defined. The Right was occupied by the Feuillants (so called from the club at which they held 2 1 497 HISTORY OF FRANCE their meetings), of whom the most important were General Mathieu Dumas, Girardin (who boasted of his former friend- ship with '' the virtuous Rousseau "), and Theodore de I^ameth, and who honestly desired the maintenance of the throne and the consolidation of the new order. Outside the Assembly these " constitutional royalists " had the strong support of men like I/a Fayette and Barnave, but as , a parliamentary party they lacked organization, leadership, and programme. Opposed to them on the lycft was a more compact group which gradually formed about certain deputies from the department of the Gironde — ^the great orator Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, Grangeneuve, Ducos ; this group hence came to be designated the Girondins, though at first they were known as Brissotins, from the Quaker-like humanitarian Jean-Pierre Brissot, who wa^s soon recognized as their chief. Among other prominent members of the party were Petion, Mayor of Paris, the Marseil- lais Barbaroux, Isnard, lyouvet (of dubious fame in literature as the author of Le Chevalier de Faublas), and the celebrated philosopher Condorcet. With an ardent love of their country and a passion for liberty nourished on classical antiquity and the heroic pages of Plutarch, these men were moderate re- publicans whose antagonism to the monarchy, while in part bred of their profound distrust of the Court, had its root, like all their political sentiments, in theoretical principle. Essen- tially visionaries and idealists, they lived in a Utopian world of noble but fantastic abstractions, and while they had plenty of character and ability, they possessed none of the qualities requisite for practical statesmanship. Yet their high-pitched enthusiasm and fervid rhetoric greatly impressed the neutral Centre of the Assembly and gave them a predominant power in debate. Just above them, on the Extreme I^eft, in an elevated position which later (February 1792) came to be called ' la Montague,' sat a handful of deputies — the chief among them being the ex-Capuchin Chabot, Basire, and Merlin de Thionville — ^who were the representatives in the Assembly of the uncompromising republicanism of the Cordelier and Jacobin Clubs outside. Numerically weak, they soon made 498 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY themselves conspicuous by the violence alike of their opinions and of their language. At the outset these extremists, who formed the nucleus of what was soon to be the Jacobin party, gave a general support to the Brissotins, but the rapid course of events soon led them to take an independent line. The Work of the Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly was faced by many and grave difficulties. There was serious trouble with the non-jurant priests (pretres insermentes) , who, strengthened by the Pope's condemnation of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, were stirring up discontent among the orthodox Catholics through- out the country. The emigration of the aristocracy had been going on rapidly, and large numbers of nobles were now gathered at Brussels, Coblenz, M^^inz, Treves, and other places on or near the frontier, where they were busy intriguing for a foreign invasion of France which, as they fondly hoped, would restore them to their former rights. Though their haughty behaviour and characteristic indifference to every- thing save their own interests made them unpopular in the Court circles in which they had found hospitality, their per- petual agitations were naturally regarded as a source of danger at home. Moreover, even apart from any question of their influence, the foreign situation was menacing. The Revolu- tion, though at first treated with contempt as a mere flash in the pan, began to arouse something like consternation among the crowned heads and diplomatists of Kurope as its real importance came to be appreciated. After the fiasco of lyouis' attempted flight the King of Prussia and the Kmperor lyeopold (Marie-Antoinette's brother) had in the Declaration of Pillnitz (August 27, 1791) formally announced that the position of the King of France was a matter of common concern to all the sovereigns of Kurope, and that if necessary they would not hesitate to interfere in his behalf. His acceptance of the Constitution, it is true, had for the moment deprived them of all pretext for action, but the menace of invasion remained, and the tension was increased by the widespread 499 HISTORY OF FRANCE belief that if not the King himself, at any rate ]M,arie- Antoinette and her party at Court — ^the ' Austrian Committee ' as it was called — were secretly conspiring with foreign potentates against the hard-won liberties of the French people. In these circumstances the Assembly proceeded at once to measures the severity of which was held to be justified by the perilous condition of the country. The recalcitrant clergy were required to take the oath of allegiance, failing which they were to be expelled from their livings ; the King's brother (the Count of Provence) and the emigrant nobles were sum- moned to return to France before a given date under pain otherwise of death and the confiscation of their property. Except in regard to his brother, however, the King, exercising his power of suspensive veto, refused to sanction these decrees, and in the crisis which was caused by his unexpected action he would certainly have had the support of the constitutional party had not renewed strain in the relations of France and Austria over the question of the emigres given their opponents an advantage which they were quick to seize. For several reasons the Girondins had fixed their minds on war : they were, to begin with, convinced that the sovereigns of Kurope, with the connivance of the Court, were combining together to crush the popular cause ; they believed that a European conflict would place I^ouis in a position of hopeless embarrass- ment and thus favour the success of republican ideas at home ; while at the same time they cherished the characteristically chimerical dream that it would spread these ideas among the enslaved peoples of other lands and make the ** tyrants " of the world *' tremble on their thrones of clay." In their demand for war they were joined by I^a Fayette and a few of the con- stitutionalists, who, looking at the matter from the diametri- cally opposed point of view, satisfied themselves that war would in fact help to restore the prestige of the Crown, for which very reason the Jacobins, on the other hand, declared strongly against it. This was the first serious disagreement between the moderate Republicans and their advanced allies, and it quickly developed into the fiercest antagonism. The 500 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY popularity of the idea of war in the country at large, however, gave additional driving power to the eloquence of the Girondins in the Assembly, and before long they were strong enough to force the King to dismiss his pacifist Feuillant ministers and to replace them with adherents of their own. Of this new ministry the most important members were Charles-Fran9ois Dumouriez, who held the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, and Jean-Marie Roland de la Platiere, who was in charge of the Interior.^ The former, who had served with distinction in the Seven Years' War, was more of a soldier than a statesman. The latter, an ex-Constituent, was the very embodiment of integrity and honour, but narrow, pedantic, conceited, and unsympathetic. His own personality was, however, entirely overshadowed by that of his much younger wife, a woman of striking beauty and charm, whose salon was the chief centre of the Girondin party, and who exercised an enormous influence in their councils. Ardent, impulsive, enthusiastic, of noble spirit but unbalanced mind, and a curious blend of Spartan austerity and romantic sentimentalism, of the temper of Plutarch and of Rousseau, Mme Roland was a characteristic type of the peculiar idealism which she did so much to inspire. The War with Austria and the Overthrow OF the Monarchy The purpose of the Girondins was soon achieved. Dumouriez* curt demand that Austria should cease mobilizing troops on the French frontier was met by an unsatisfactory reply from the new Emperor, Francis II, who had just succeeded his father, and on April 20, 1792, war against Austria was declared. The French plan was to conduct a defensive campaign on the natural frontiers and to take the offensive in the Nether- lands. Hostilities opened, however, with a series of reverses which, though really due to the rawness of the soldiers and the inexperience of their leaders, were at once attributed to 1 It must be remembered that, according to the new Constitution, no member of the I/egislature was eligible for a place in the Government, and that the ministry was thus composed of outsiders. 501 HISTORY OF FRANCE treason ; the clubs and journals were loud in their accusations against the Court ; Marat, in his Ami du Peuple, voiced the violent animus of the lowest classes by demanding " five or six hundred heads to assure the repose and happiness of France." Petion, as Mayor of Paris, had already armed the populace against any emergency, and the peace of the city was seriously threatened by the bands of sans-cidottes who swarmed in the streets. All this clamour alarmed the Assembly, which in order to deprive the King of his military support disbanded his guard, at the same time resolving to create at Soissons a camp of 20,000 federal soldiers, drawn from all the cantons, which was to protect the Legislature against any possible enemies within the gates. ^ The King, though he consented to the removal of his guard, vetoed both the forma- tion of a camp and the deportation of the non-jurant clergy which had also been decreed, and, irritated by an impertinent lette;: of protest addressed to him by Roland (though in fact written by Mme Roland), dismissed his Girondin ministers and filled their places with friends of La Fayette. These events again inflamed the passions of the populace, and on June 20 — the anniversary of the ' tennis-court oath ' — some 20,000 armed men and women, mainly from the suburbs of Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, having first invaded and terrorized the Assembly, marched on to the Tuileries, the doors of which they were proceeding to break down with hatchets when the King himself appeared, calm and collected, before the shouting and gesticulating rabble. A butcher named Legendre there- upon read to him a petition demanding the sanction of the decrees. Louis replied with dignity that that was neither the time nor the place for him to consider such a request, and that he would act in strict accordance with the Constitution ; but he placed on his head the bonnet rouge which was the badge of the Commune and drank a glass of wine to the health of ^ During their inarch across France and into Paris the federes from Mar- seille sang the famous Hymne db I'Armee du Rhin, which from this circum- stance came to be known, as it always will be known, as the Marseillaise, though it was actually composed a few weeks before at Strassburg by a young officer of the engineers, Rouget de I^isle. 502 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY the people. At the end of two hours Petion arrived on the scene and the demonstration closed. During the whole of that critical time Mme Elisabeth, the King's sister, shared his danger with equal coolness and courage, while Marie-Antoi- nette, with her children, remained in concealment under the protection of a few devoted adherents, and was thus saved from the fury of the women, whose insults and threats were specially directed against her. This riot, for which neither the Girondins nor the Jacobin chiefs were responsible, created a slight rally in the King's favour among the bourgeoisie, who warmly approved of I^a Fayette's action in demanding the punishment of the ring- leaders. But public attention was now distracted by foreign affairs. For meanwhile the reverses of the French arms con- tinued ; Austria had been joined by Prussia and Sardinia ; and on July 25 the Duke of Brunswick, as commander of the main army of invasion, issued a violent manifesto in which he announced that the object of the allies was nothing less than the suppression of anarchy in France and the restoration of the ancient monarchy. This impolitic proclamation caused the deepest indignation throughout the country, which was everywhere stirred to the highest pitch of martial fervour. Already the Assembly had solemnly declared the country in danger (July 11) and had called for volunteers, and large numbers now responded to the appeal. This patriotic enthusiasm was, however, accompanied in the capital by a tremendous outburst of anger against the King, whose secret understanding with Austria was held to be beyond dispute, and who was accordingly execrated as the worst of the nation's enemies. This gave the insurrectionary sections the oppor- tunity for which they had been waiting, and a carefully prepared rising was the result. On August 9 and 10 an armed crowd from the faubourgs took possession of the Hotel de Ville, where they murdered Mandat, the commander of the National Guard, and early the next morning an attack was made on the Tuileries, the Swiss guard of which was cut to pieces. The King and his family sought refuge in the Assembly, HISTORY OF FRANCE but the Assembly was impotent to protect them. Even its proposal to lodge them in the I^uxembourg was rejected by the Commune, which insisted that they should remain in its own hands, and imprisoned them in the tower of the Temple. Bowing before the storm, the 284 deputies who were brave enough to keep their places decreed the suspension of the King, the convocation of a National Convention to settle the problems which this step entailed, and in the meantime the appointment of a council to perform the functions of the royal executive. The overthrow of the monarchy was at the same time the defeat of the Assembly, and both had been brought about by the Commune of Paris, which had emerged triumphant in the struggle. Roland and his colleagues returned to office, but the real victor for the moment was a young lawyer of Arcis- sur-Aube, who had been practising in Paris when the Revolu- tion began, had rapidly risen into prominence as an agitator agaiflst the party of lya Fayette, and now entered the Executive Council as Minister of Justice. A man of really great parts, a genuine patriot and lover of liberty, Georges- Jacques Danton was mainly instrumental in rousing the national spirit in that hour of imminent danger from foreign foes, and the value of the work which he thus accomplished must never be forgotten. Unfortunately, however, he did not hesitate at violence ; he had no scruples about means when a given object was to be attained ; and thus he was ready to condone, though he did not directly inspire, the terrible events which immediately followed the collapse of the throne. But though lyouis was now powerless in the hands of the Commune, the country's perils increased. La Fayette, having vainly endeavoured to induce his soldiers to march to the King's rescue, abandoned his army and fled across the fron- tier. His desertion weakened the French forces ; the allies advanced rapidly ; and when the news came that first Ivongwy (August 23) and then Verdun (September 27) had been captured by the Austrians, who had thus opened the way to Paris itself, the city was seized with panic. Then followed the 504 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY most hideous scene of the early Revolutionary drama, when bands of assassins, hired by the Commune, invaded the prisons, at that time crowded with supposed royalist sympathizers, and for five days and nights systematically butchered their inmates (September 2-7). For the most part the women were spared, but among those who perished was the beautiful Mme de lyamballe, who gave her life for her allegiance to her friend the Queen, and whose head, carried through the streets on a pike, was exhibited to Marie- Antoinette before a window in the Temple. While, however, the last days of the now quite helpless Assembly were stained by the excesses of this first portent of the later Terror, Dumouriez' success in throwing back the Austrians at Valmy showed that the tide of war was now taking a turn in favour of France. This notable victory was won on September 20. The next day the I^egislative Assembly gave place to the National Convention, which meanwhile had been elected by universal suffrage. 505 CHAPTER IV THE NATIONAL CONVENTION Septkmber 1792-OcToBKR 1795 IN its first session the National Convention made absolute the Assembly's provisional decree of deposition against the King and formally proclaimed the abolition of royalty in France. Then, pending the establishment of the new machinery of the Republic, to devise which a special coilimittee was appointed, it assumed all the functions and responsibilities of government. » The Girondins and the Jacobins Within and without the situation was critical. The country was in a state of commotion. Many important administrative questions had to be settled. A fresh constitution had to be prepared. At the same time there was a great war to be carried on against a league of powerful enemies by whom the very existence of the nation was imperilled. Yet of the 782 deputies of whom the new assembly was composed, and of whom about one-third had already sat in one or other of the preceding bodies, the vast majority, forming the Centre, or ' Plaine,* approached their gigantic task with no definite views and no plan of action. For the time being, therefore, these uncertain and ill-prepared legislators — ^these crapauds du marais, as they were contemptuously called — counted little except through their votes. But in the meanwhile the dis- sensions which already separated the two sections of the former lycft — now sharply distinguished as Girondins and Jacobins — had developed into a fierce hostility, and for the first nine months of its existence the Convention was the scene 506 THE NATIONAL CONVENTION of violent contentions, which culminated in a life-and-death struggle between them. Their rivalry was at bottom perhaps a matter less of specific principles than of temper and person- alities. Yet their differences at certain points were clearly- marked. The Girondins, who now occupied the Right, though they clung to their vague abstractions and formulas, were on the whole anxious to temporize, and as the advocates of moderation they were for the moment the main hope of the middle classes throughout the country, who desired to uphold property and order. The Jacobins, or Party of the Mpuntain, on the other hand, were radicals of the most uncompromising kind who did not scruple to push theory to the last extreme in practice and frankly appealed to the passions of the Parisian mob. The two parties thus represented two successive waves in the revolutionary movement. The Third Estate had been the chief gainers from the events of '89 onward ; the Constitu- tion of 1791 had been wholly in their favour, and they would now have been well satisfied to leave things as they were. Not so the lower classes, who, though relieved, indeed, from the crushing burdens of the Old Regime, had otherwise profited far less than they had expected from the past two years of change. The original middle-class party — ^the party formerly led by men like La Fayette, Bailly, Barnave, and the Lameths — had now merged in the amorphous and impotent Plaine. But its place was to some extent taken by the Girondins, who, despite their anti-monarchical and anti-clerical doctrines, tried in their turn to arrest the forces of destruction, while on their side the Jacobins proclaimed the necessity of a further extension of the Revolution in the interests of the proletariat, whose cause they had made their own. On another closely connected issue too they were hopelessly divided. The Girondins, deriv- ing their support from the provinces, stood for the independence of the Convention and the rights of the departments against the domination of the Commune of Paris. The Jacobins, who depended upon the Commune, advocated a strongly centralized government and the supremacy of the capital in the State. However much they might differ among themselves on S07 HISTORY OF FRANCE particular points, and however fluctuating might be their poHcy, the Girondins, who included most of the Brissotins of the Assembly, were fairly homogeneous in character and sentiments. The Jacobins, on the contrary, were a motley crowd whose disparate elements were temporarily held together only by a common hatred of their rivals and a common passion for power. Three outstanding personalities, each of whom had his special followers and satellites, exercised at the outset a dominating though divided influence over them : Danton, ** the Mirabeau of the sans-culottes," a tower of strength in the hour of peril and the very incarnation of the audacity which he preached ; the " incorruptible " Robespierre, narrow- minded, ambitious, relentless, intense, the dupe of his own phrases, cold-bloodedly cruel, as events were soon to prove, yet with all his priggishness and conceit absolutely sincere ; and the gloomy demagogue Marat, whose overheated imagina- tion saw plots and traitors everywhere, and whose diatribes in his Ami du Peuple were hardly distinguishable from the ravings of homicidal mania. Among other members of the Mountain already or soon to be conspicuous it will suffice to mention Camille Desmoulins, Danton's devoted admirer and friend ; Saint-Just and Couthon, both, like their leader Robes- pierre, fanatical idealists of the school of Rousseau ; the bloodthirsty Billaud-Varennes ; the infamous Collot-d'Herbois ; the eccentric Anacharsis Cloots, *' orator of the human race," who even at that time of windy rhetoric contrived to attract attention by .his amazing loquacity ; Fabre d'Eglantine, the poet ; David, the painter ; and Philippe, Duke of Orleans, presently to be known as Philippe-;6galite. The Trial and Death of the King As soon as the Convention settled down to business the struggle of the parties began with the demand of the Gironde for the punishment of the assassins in the recent massacres, for the arraignment of Robespierre and Marat on a charge of aiming at a dictatorship, and for the formation of a strong guard to protect the Convention against the Commune. The So8 THE NATIONAL CONVENTION Jacobins retaliated by counter-accusations against the Gironde of desiring to establish a federal republic whereby the depart- ments would be brought into conflict with the capital and the unity of_the nation destroyed. Over these matters weeks were consumed in unseemly wrangles and recriminations. At length, early in November, the committee appointed to inves- tigate the conduct of the fallen King presented its report ; the Mountain forced on the Convention the consideration of his fate ; and after much discussion the argument of Robes- pierre and Saint-Just that he should be put to death without process of law was rejected, and it was decreed that he should be tried by the Convention itself as the representative of the French people. Accordingly, on December ii, lyouis Capet, as he was now called, was brought to the bar of the Assembly and impeached for conspiracy against public liberty and national safety, his defence being entrusted to the veteran Malesherbes, Tronchet, formerly a distinguished member of the Parliament of Paris, and a young and eloquent advocate from Bordeaux named Des^ze. On December 26 the trial was concluded, but it was not till January 7, 1793, that the voting commenced, in the presence of disorderly crowds who packed the galleries and overawed and intimidated the deputies with their clamour and threats. On the initial question of lyouis' guilt the Con- vention was unanimous ; the proposal that its judgment should be submitted to the ratification of the people was rejected by 424 votes against 283 ; by the narrow majority of 53 the death penalty was decreed ; again by a narrow majority, this time of 70, it was resolved that no respite should be given. All through the debates on these questions the essential weak- ness of the Girondins was conspicuous. They had joined in declaring lyouis' guilt ; their leaders had voted for his death ; but they had done their utmost to save him from the scaffold by endeavouring to secure a referendum ; and their attempt to obtain a delay in the execution of the sentence was a last desperate effort on their part to escape from the logical con- sequences of their own action. The final step in these protracted proceedings was taken 509 HISTORY OF FRANCE on January 19. On the 21st the sentence was duly carried out in what had till recently been the Place I^ouis XV and was now the Place de la Revolution. The deposed monarch had borne the hardships of imprisonment with pious resignation, and during his trial had compoiled himself with simple dignity. Nor did his courage fail him at the supreme moment. Stepping to the front of the scaffold, he began a speech to the people protesting his innocence, but his voice, though strong and firm, was drowned in the rolling of drums, and a few moments later his head fell beneath the knife of the guillotine. The execution of lyouis created a profound sensation through- out Europe, and greatly increased the dangers of the Republic by multiplying and uniting. its foreign foes. The defeat of the Austrians in the last days of the Assembly had been followed by striking successes on the Rhine, in Savoy, and in Nice, and Dumouriez' victory at Jemappes (November 6, 1792) had placed Belgium in the power of the French. But this triumphant progress was checked when early in 1793 Kngland, Holland, Spain, and the Germanic Confederation joined Austria and Prussia in a coalition, and at once assumed the offensive. In February and March a series of reverses overtook the French arms ; the invasion of Holland was abandoned ; and Dumouriez' defeat at Neerwinden (March 18) entailed the loss of Belgium. That able but adventurous general had saved the country in a moment of special danger ; but he was known to be dissatisfied with the course which things were taking in the Convention ; the latter, aware of his royalist leanings, despatched commissioners to arrest him in camp ; and, like lya Fayette before him, he deserted his army and sought refuge with the enemy. The menace of foreign invasion thus reappeared. At the same time there were serious troubles at home. The provinces were disaffected, and in the west, where Catholic and monarchical feelings were strong, reaction against the new order manifested itself in the beginnings of an insurrection in Vendee, soon to develop into civil war. 510 THE NATIONAL CONVENTION Organization of the Revolutionary Government While these events were in progress Danton made an heroic attempt to reconcile the contending factions in the Convention in the interests of unity, but their quarrels continued to increase in bitterness, and as the Jacobins gained ground the position of the Girondins became more and more critical. It was now indeed war to the knife between them and the Com- mune of Paris, for while they denounced the disorders of the populace, the populace replied with demonstrations against them and clamour for their expulsion. In the meantime, dominated by the Mountain, the Convention quickly organized the machinery of the Revolutionary Government, and in so doing created the formidable instruments of despotism which were to become so famous a little later in the Reign of Terror. A Revolutionary Tribunal was established, endowed with extraordinary powers for the summary treatment of " traitors, conspirators, and anti-revolutionists." A central Committee of General Security (Surete Generale) was charged with the task of hunting out political crime and sending suspected persons before the Tribunal, while similar bodies were organized in all the communes of the country. The full authority of the executive was vested in another committee — that of Public Safety (Salut Public) — which stood outside of and above the law and exercised absolute control over all departments of administration ; while members of the Convention, armed with dictatorial powers, were sent out " on mission," some to superintend the operations of the armies in the field, others to carry out the orders of the Government in the provinces. Knergetic action was also taken for the prosecution of the war ; a further issue of two milliards of assignats was decreed, and an order was made for a fresh levy of 300,000 men, to be raised, voluntary recruits failing, by conscription. Fall of the Girondins Immensely strengthened by these measures, the Jacobins pressed their attacks upon the Girondins with renewed vigour. HISTORY OP FRANCE Robespierre accused them of complicity with Dumouriez. As a counter-move they made a second attempt to crush M^rat, whom they succeeded in sending to the Revolutionary Tribunal ; but the charge against him was dismissed and his acquittal was followed by a tremendous outburst of popular enthusiasm. Amid all this excitement many social and economic questions were forced upon the Convention by the scarcity of food and the sufferings of the poor, and much time was spent in debates about capital and property which in the main had little result, though severe laws were enacted against those who trafficked in the currency, and a maximum was established to regulate the price of provisions according to a sliding scale (May 3). These conditions and events still further inflamed the passions of the mob against the Girondins, whose leaders had opposed the^ demands of the Commune for exceptional legislation. As the weeks went by the agitation in the capital grew apace ; Marat in L'Ami du Peuple continued to rave for the blood of the *' anti-patriots" ; and even he was now outdone in violence by the editor of Le Pere Duchesne, the atrocious and con- temptible Hebert, whose ribaldry and obscenity made him the idol of the lowest elements in the rabble. Threatened risings in the south and west in favour of the Girondins did little to check the fury of the metropolis against them, and their futile endeavour to silence Hebert brought the fast-gathering storm to a head. At the end of May the sections of the city formed themselves into a municipalite insurredionnelle, and the Con- vention was invaded by 30,000 armed men, against whom it vainly tried to preserve at least the fiction of independence. For three days it remained in a state of siege ; an attempt made by its members to escape was frustrated by Hanriot, the drunken but resolute commander of the National Guard, and Marat with a hundred patriots conducted them back to their hall. On June 2 the Mountain triumphed, and the arrest of the twenty-two leaders of the Gironde was decreed. This was the signal for many serious outbreaks in the provinces ; I^yon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Toulon, Grenoble, Caen, and other important cities became centres of anti- 512 THE NATIONAL CONVENTION Jacobin risings ; the royalist reaction made rapid progress in Vendee, where the insurgents, under their heroic peasant chief CatheHneau, swept everything before them. At the same time the alHes scored some notable successes on the northern and eastern frontiers ; Metz, Valenciennes, and Conde were captured ; the ports of France were blockaded by the English fleet. Already one of the great figures of the Mpuntain had disappeared — ^Marat, assassinated (July 13) by the young avenger Charlotte Corday, who had travelled from Caen on her self-appointed mission and cheerfully paid the price of her deed on the scaffold. For the moment D ant on and Robespierre were rivals for power ; but though Danton worked -hard to save the nation and did lion's service in its cause, the movement of events was entirely in favour of Robespierre. Confronted by these many perils, the Convention rose to the occasion with promptitude and unflinching courage, and before long the situation was completely changed. The revolts in the provinces were suppressed. The Vendeans, whose onward rush had brought them to the walls of Nantes, were thrown back in disorder, though it was not till the end of the year that they were decisively beaten by Kleber and Marceau. Fresh levies were raised and new generals appointed for the foreign campaigns ; apathy and misunderstandings weakened the coalition ; the tide turned again, and by the autumn all danger of invasion was once more averted. Whatever judg- ment we may otherwise pass upon the members of the Revolu- tionary Government, their splendid and successful defence of the country in that dark hour of imminent disaster must always be remembered to their credit. The Reign of Terror Unfortunately, however, there was another side to their activity. To conciliate public opinion a new Constitution, delegating unlimited authority to the sovereign people, was hurriedly prepared, but when deputations waited upon the Convention with demands that it should at once be put in force the reply was that the provisional machinery of govern- 2K 513 HISTORY OF FRANCE ment must continue till the end of the war. Thus, while extreme democrac^^ was admitted on paper, an autocratic bureaucracy^ was maintained in practice. The Committee of Public Safety, now reconstituted, with Danton left out, and withCouthon, Saint-Just, Robespierre, andver\" shortty Collot- d'Herbois and Billaud-Varennes among its members, remained in absolute control of affairs and proceeded to carr}^ out the polic}^ which has made it infamous in the annals of despotism. On September 17 the notorious Loi des Suspects was enacted, under the terms of which ' suspected persons ' were so defined as to include all who even in the most negative way could be deemed hostile to, or even lukewarm in their attitude toward, the Republic, liberty, and ' civism.' With this the Reign of Terror, which realty dates from the formation of the Com- mittee of Public Safety, began in earnest. The law itself was sweeping enough, but in practice it was stretched even be3^ond its nominal intention. Paris, and indeed the whole of France, was thrown into a fever of suspicion ; no one was safe ; men and women were arrested and imprisoned without cause or motive ; the Revolutionary^ Tribunal, now enlarged and vested with increased powers, worked with frenzied activity to ' purify ' the cotmtry ; the guillotine was in daily use. The first important victim of the new system was Marie- Antoinette, who on October 16 met her fate with a noble dignity which goes far to bUnd us to her many and grievous faults. On the 31st the twenty-one members of the Gironde proscribed in June went to the scaffold singing the Marseillaise.^ Philippe- E^galite followed on November 6 ; Mme Roland on the 8th ; Bailly on the nth. Among other prominent persons whose heads fell beneath the knife during the next few months were the Princess Elisabeth (the late King's sister) ; the once all- powerful Mme du Barry ; the generals lyuckner, Houchard, Custine, and Beauharnais ; the Constituent Barnave ; the poets Roucher and Andre Chenier ; the chemist lyavoisier ; 1 others among the leading Girondins who met with violent ends were Salles, Guadet, and Barbaroux, who were guillotined and Potion, Buzot, Roland, and Condorcet, who committed suicide. THE NATIONAL CONVENTION and the former minister Malesherbes. Nor was the Terror confined to the capital. Its atrocities were even more appal- ling in some of the provinces. Collot-d'Herbois, Fouche, and Couthon, sent to lyyon to punish that city for its recent revolt, accomplished their mission with merciless destruction and slaughter. At Nantes, Carrier, the agent of the Conven- tion, finding that even at the rate of several hundred exe- cutions a day the guillotine was still too slow to keep pace with the Tribunal, devised a system of wholesale drownings (noyades) and shootings (fusillades), which enabled him to account for some 15,000 persons in the space of four months. Only less monstrous were the excesses committed by Tallien at Bordeaux, by Barras and Freron at Toulon, and by Joseph lycbon at Arras. After the fall of the Gironde, however, the Mountain itself began to break up into factions, and a conflict soon arose between Hebert and the Commune of Paris on the one hand and Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety on the other. The Hebertists, or enrages, who advocated the extremest measures of Terror, were for the moment in the ascendant, and it was chiefly at their dictation that the Convention abolished Christianity by introducing a new Republican calendar ^ and establishing a Cult of Reason, which was inaugurated on October 10 in Notre-Dame, when the Goddess of Reason, impersonated by a handsome young actress of the Opera, took the place of the '' ci-devant sainte Vierge." But the situation was soon complicated by the rise of a new party of indulgents. Early in December Camille Desmoulins began in his new paper, Le Vieux Cordelier, to denounce the policy of bloodshed and to plead for clemency. At first his main effort was directed against the enrages. But ^ This calendar was dated from September 22, 1792. the first day of the Republic. The year was divided into twelve months : Vendemiaire, Brumaire, Frumaire (autumn) ; Nivose, Pluviose, Ventose (winter) ; Germinal, Flor^al, Prairial (spring) ; Messidor, Thermidor, Fructidor (summer). E^ach month had three weeks and each week ten days ; and every tenth day (decacli) was a day of rest. The remaining five days of the year were festivals [sans- culottides) ; the extra sixth day of leap-year was the Festival of the Revolution. 515 HISTORY OF FRANCE before long he turned also upon the Committee of Public Safety. Robespierre, who had hitherto encouraged him, now found himself caught between two fires. In this critical junc- ture he showed his usual timidity, but his loyal henchman Saint-Just provided the practical energy which he lacked and at once carried the war into the Hebertist camp. The Hebertists thereupon endeavoured to organize a popular rising against the Government. But Paris was growing weary of insurrections ; the attempt failed ; and Hebert himself, the procureur Chaumette, Anacharsis Cloots, and other members of the party, nineteen in all, were guillotined (March 24-April 14, 1794). In the meantime, Danton, who had retired in disgust to Arcis-sur-Aube, returned to Paris, where he at first supported Robespierre against the enrages. B^ut he soon threw in his lot with Desmoulins. Upon this Saint-Just proceeded to eliminate the Dantonists (as the Moderates were now called), as he had already eliminated the Hebertists. On April 2-4 both Danton and Desmoulins were tried before the Tribunal. Danton made a tremendous fight against his accusers, and for the moment it seemed possible that he might even arouse the uncertain passions of the multi- tude in his favour. But Saint-Just had his way, and Danton fell a victim to the tyranny he had done so much to organize. He and Desmoulins went to the scaffold together (April 5), and a number of their followers, including Chabot, Fabre d'figlantine, Basire, Herault de Sechelles, and Philippeaux, shared their < fate. This triumph of the Committee meant the practical dictator- ship of Robespierre, with Saint- Just and Couthon as his sup- porters ; for the Commune was now reduced to subjection ; the Convention was cowed ; while even the clubs and cafes of the city were silenced and paralysed. The policy of Terror was now pursued with even greater fury, the final stage — ^the Grande Terreur — opening with the atrocious decree of 22 Prairial (June 10), which swept away the last remnants of legality in the proceedings of the Tribunal and practically deprived suspected persons of all right of defence. After this S16 THE NATIONAL CONVENTION *' heads fell like slates/' and men, women, and even children perished in batches in an undiscriminating butchery, at the rate of thirty, forty, and even fifty a day. At the same time Robespierre -seized the opportunity which was now presented to him to realize his religious ideal. A sentimental deist after the fashion of Rousseau's Savoyard Vicar, he had recoiled horrified from the atheism of Hebert and the Cult of Reason. In pursuance of a policy which had already sent Gobel, the renegade Archbishop of Paris, to the guillotine, those suspected of atheism were now brought before the Tribunal, while the people of France were called upon to accept as the creed of the State the doctrines of the existence of a Supreme Being, the immortality of the soul, and the moral duty of man. On 20 Prairial (June 8) — ^two days only before the ferocious decree just mentioned — Robespierre himself took the chief part in a solemn farce in the garden of the Tuileries to celebrate the introduction of the new religion. The details of the ceremony were almost incredibly childish. But the climax of absurdity was reached shortly afterward when a crazy old spiritualist, named Catherine Theot, announced that she was the Mother of Cod and that Robespierre was the new saviour of the world. Fall of Robespierre : The Thermidorian Reaction Robespierre's ascendancy was, however, destined to be very brief. Many of his colleagues dreaded him or were jealous of his pretensions. Beneath the surface in city and Conven- tion alike a tide of feeling was rising fast against the senseless brutalities of the despotic regime. If any excuse could ever have been urged for Terrorism it was provided by the national danger. But that danger had been destroyed by the successes of the French armies in all the theatres of war, and when news reached Paris of Jourdan's great victory over the Austrians at Fleurus (June 26, 1794) and the reoccupation of Belgium the temper of the public underwent a radical change. Timid, unpractical, wholly lacking in political insight and in resolution, Robespierre was powerless to stand up HISTORY OF FRANCE against the growing hostility which now became apparent. Saint-Just, indeed, made frantic efforts to choke it before it could become dangerous. But his ill-timed demand for a recognized dictatorship, which was of course understood to refer to Robespierre, and Robespierre's own threats of sum- mary vengeance against his enemies, only served to frighten the Convention into action. All parties — ^the survivors of the Dantonists and the Hebertists, the remnant of the Gironde, the Moderates of the Centre — combined against the tyrant who menaced them all. A short, fierce struggle ensued, in which Robespierre endeavoured to defeat the Convention with the help of the Commune and the National Guard. But on 9 Thermidor (July 27), amid scenes of wild excitement, the Convention rose against him and ordered his arrest. The Jacobin Club and the Commune made one more effort to save their hero, but the insurrection collapsed. On July 28 Robes- pierre, Saint-Just, Couthon, and nineteen of their supporters went to the guillotine ; seventy-one members of the Commune followed the next day ; twelve again the day after ; and by this final outburst of Terror the Terror itself was virtually brought to a close. Vergniaud's prophecy of sixteen months before — ^that the Revolution, like Saturn, would successively devour all its children — had now been fulfilled. In the reaction which followed the triumph of the ' Thermidorians ' there was, indeed, serious danger lest the principles of the Revolution should be forgotten, and the Convention itself found it neces- sary to affirm the existence of the Revolutionary Government. That Government was, however, greatly modified. The Com- mittee of Public Safety and the Tribunal were reorganized with curtailed powers ; the law of 22 Prairial was repealed ; the Convention assumed the functions of administration ; the Commune was abolished. At the same time a systematic attack was directed against the defeated Mountaineers, who were not even now prepared to yield without further struggle — an attack carried on outside by the Orateur du Peuple of the former Cordelier Freron, and other journals, and by groups 518 THE NATIONAL CONVENTION of young men — jeunes gens, la jeunesse dorie, les Muscadins — who vowed vengeance upon sans-culottisme and paraded the streets armed with heavy sticks, assaulting the Jacobins and breaking up their meetings. On November 12 that great centre of popular agitation the Jacobin Club was closed. On December 8 seventy-three Girondins who had fled from Paris on the fall of their party were recalled. In the M^arch follow- ing a determined attempt was made to suppress the dema- gogues who were still stirring up trouble ; two of the most notorious of them, Billaud-Varennes and Collot-d'Herbois, were transported to Cayenne ; and this would also have been the fate of Barer e and Vadier, but that the former contrived to escape from prison, while the latter found safety in hiding. During the winter of 1794-95, with the ruinous fall in the value of the assignats and the enormous rise in the price of food, there was much distress and discontent throughout the country, and these led to disturbances in Paris, which, fomented by the Jacobins, culminated in the bread riots of 12 Germinal (April I, 1795) and the rising of i Prairial (May 20). But though the second of these movements assumed very formid- able proportions, it was finally quelled by the National Guard. Thereupon six prominent members of the Mountain were sent to the scaffold and the power of the extreme Jacobins was broken. On the other hand, there was serious danger from royalist reaction in the provinces. In the south a Terreur Blanche was organized, and fearful reprisals taken for the excesses of the Terreur Rouge, while civil war was renewed in Vendee, where the native insurgents were reinforced by dmigres, who saw in the Thermidorian triumph the promise of the restoration of the Old Regime. Amid all these internal troubles, however, the successes of the French armies continued, and by the Treaties of Basel (April 5 and July 22, 1795) peace was made with Spain and Prussia on terms which included the recognition of the national Government by these two Powers. Coincidently the failure of an emigrant descent, aided by England, upon Quiberon (July 21) brought about the collapse of the royalist revolt in the west. 519 HISTORY OF FRANCE End of the Convention In the meantime the new Constitution was completed — that of Year III — to take the place of the Jacobin Constitution of 1793, which still remained on paper. This Constitution was adopted on 5 Fructidor (August 22). But the career of the Convention, tempesttious throughout, was not to close without one more storm. The new Constitu- tion, the chief provisions of which were already known to the public, was welcomed by the reactionaries because they saw in it the opportunity of making a clean sweep of the Conven- tionals and so preparing the way for a counter-revolution. To obviate this danger and to perpetuate its own power the Convention on 5 and 13 Fructidor (August 22 and 30) decreed th^t two-thirds of the coming legislature must be composed of its own members. These decrees were accepted by the provinces and embodied in the final proclamation of i Vende- miaire (September 23) . But in Paris they aroused the deepest indignation among the malcontents. On 13 Vendemiaire (October 5) there was a serious rising of the sections, and some 40,000 insurgents marched to the Tuileries, where the Conven- tion was in session. But there they found a body of troops under the command of a young Corsican named Buonaparte ready to receive them, and at the first " whiff of grapeshot " they broke and dispersed. That same day Barras was able to assure the assembly that the Government was safe. Three weeks later the National Convention dissolved. In tracing the course of events during the three years of its existence we have been compelled to fix our attention mainly on the forces of destruction which it let loose. But we must not forget that it did much constructive work of a valuable kind. Not only did it save the country from foreign foes, but it also began to lay the foundations of a new France. During the Jacobin ascendancy, indeed, it passed much legisla- tion of a wildly communistic character ; but its permanent contributions to progress must be sought elsewhere. It estab- lished a standard metrical system of weights and measures. 520 THE NATIONAL CONVENTION It introduced a system of public education. The Polytechnic School, the Institute of France, the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, the Conservatory of Music, the Museum of Natural History, were- its creation. All these things are to its credit. Another more general remark must also be made. The struggles, intrigues, anarchy, and bloodshed which marked the period of its rule are not hastily to be set down to the account of liberty and democracy. A people born and bred in servitude is never likely in the moment of its emancipation to exhibit those virtues of patience and self-restraint which only the discipline of ordered freedom can foster, and the worst abuses of the Reign of Terror are really to be regarded as the inevitable aftermath of the evils of the Old Regime.^ 1 It is greatly to his credit that our own Wordsworth, notwithstanding his recoil to Toryism, perceived this [Prelude, Book X, 11. 470 ff.). It was also perceived by Shelley (Preface to The Revolt of Islam) and by the Swedish poet Tegner. 5- CHAPTER V THE DIRECTORY October 1795-NovEMBER 1799 THE Constitution of Year III was the work of the Moderate Republican party and bore many traces of the spirit of reaction. The avowed object of its f tamers was to establish a " Government of the best," and tjiey were evidently convinced that this could not be attained without the abandonment of many of the principles of pure democracy. Universal suffrage was suppressed, the franchise was limited by the reintroduction of a property qualification, and the method of election by two degrees, which had been a prominent feature of the Constitution of 1791, was restored. The abuses to which a single chamber is liable having been amply demonstrated by recent events, the bicameral system was adopted. The lyCgislature was composed of a Corps Legislatif , or Council of Five Hundred, and a Council of Ancients, consisting of half that number. The lower house, members of which had to be at least thirty years of age, initiated all legislation. The main function of tjie upper house, which was elected by the lower, and to which married men or widowers of forty or over were alone eligible, was to exercise the suspensive veto which the Constitution of 179 1 had entrusted to the King. Fear of royalty being still so strong that any suggestion of a single head or president of the Republic was obviously inadmissible, the executive authority "as lodged in the hands of five Directors, who were selected the Ancients from a list submitted to them by the Five ired. These Directors, who had also to be over forty, ed one by one yearly and were ineligible for re-election. THE DIRECTORY The complete separation of the legislative and executive powers, which had been a curious obsession with previous Constitution-makers, was maintained. No member of either chamber could hold any executive office, and the Directory was independent alike of the I^egislature and of public opinion. The first Directors were Ivarevelliere-Lepeaux, Rewbell, I^etour- neur, Barras, and Carnot, all ex-Conventionals who had voted for the death of the King, and were therefore regarded as whole-heartedly committed to the Republic. France during the Directory The preamble to the new Constitution was conceived in a singularly didactic spirit, and expressly emphasized the import- ance of personal morality in the State. '' No one," it declared, '' can be a good citizen unless he is a good son, a good father, a good brother, a good friend, and a good husband." Such platitudes were well meant, but the social history of the next few years provides a strange commentary upon them. For the period of the Directory was in fact a period of dissolution. After the long strain of fierce passions and deadly struggles a sweeping reaction set in. Pleasure became ' the order of the day.' " Chacun," wrote Mallet du Pan in 1796, " ne pense plus qu'a jouir, boire, et manger." A frenzy of extrava- gance and a rage for luxury and ostentation seized the wealthier classes. Gambling and speculation were universal. The salon was again in full swing, but as a centre, not of intellectual interests, but of dissipation. The public gardens and places of popular resort, the theatres, the ball-rooms, the restaurants which now sprang up in Paris, were thronged. The mania for Graeco-Roman antiquity, which had formerly bred men like Vergniaud and women like Mme de Roland, now inspired v/hat was supposed to be a ' classic ' revival in dress, and the fashions of the women were grotesquely eccentric and often audaciously indecent. From top to bottom of the social scale there was a loosening of the national fibre. Morals and manners were alike depraved. The number of divorces increased enormously, and everywhere the marriage tie and HISTORY OF FRANCE the sanctities of family and home were cynically derided. At the same time in public life dishonesty was general and corrup- tion and venality flourished unchecked. This political rot must in particular be recognized on account of its direct connexion with what was soon to follow. It prepared the way for military despotism, and especially for the dominating personality who now rose rapidly into prominence, and was shortly to become not only the controlling force in the destinies of France, but also the greatest figure on the European stage. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleone Buonaparte — in the Gallicized form of the name which he presently adopted, Napoleon Bonaparte ^ — sprang from an Italian stock, and was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on August 15, 1769, little more than a year after his native island had been annexed to France. At the age of nine he was placed in the College of Autun, where he remained three months in order to learn French enough to enable him to take up his studies, first at the Military School in Brienne, which he entered in April 1779, and later in the Military College in Paris, to which he was transferred in October 1784. On passing his final examinations in September 1785 he obtained his com- mission as second-lieutenant in the artillery. Then for some years he led a life of poverty and struggle, incidentally gaining a reputation as a firebrand through his activity on the Re- publican side in the revolutionary disturbances in Corsica. He was in Paris in the summer of 1792 ; saw the procession of sans-culoUes to the Tuileries on June 20 ('* Why did they let those blackguards get in there ? " he exclaimed to his friend Bourrienne, who was with him) ; and was also an eye- witness of the more serious affair of August 10. These events seem to have destroyed his youthful dreams of democracy and liberty. Yet he perceived quite clearly that it would be to his present advantage to ally himself with the ' patriots,' and with his characteristic want of principle he accordingly espoused * It will be seen, however, that, in accordance with established English custom, I henceforth write the name Napoleon without the accent. 524 THE DIRECTORY the Jacobin cause, which he supported with pen as well as sword. He first made his mark by the conspicuous part which he took in the crushing of the anti- Jacobin rebellion at Toulon, his reward being promotion to the rank of brigadier- general. The fall of Robespierre threatened to involve him in irretrievable disaster, and even when he was released from Fort Carre, near Antibes, where he was imprisoned for thirteen days with the shadow of the guillotine hanging over him, it seemed for the moment that his career as a soldier had practi- cally come to an end. But the course of political events soon brought a sensational change in his prospects. On the out- break of the reactionary movement against the Constitution of Year III he was asked by Barras, to whom he had attached himself, to take the second command of the army of the Convention. Only the day before he had said to Junot : '' If only these sectionaries would put me at their head I would make short work of the Convention 1 " But in the true spirit of the soldier of fortune he seized his chance, and his success in scattering the sections on 13 Vendemiaire and so saving the Government made him the man of the hour. His advancement was now rapid, and he was soon Commander- in-Chief of the Army of the Interior. He further strengthened his political position by marrying on March 9, 1796, a woman of considerable influence in the inner circles of the Directory — Marie- Josephine-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, widow of the guillotined general Alexandre de Beauharnais. Meanwhile Carnot, who was still at the head of military affairs, as he had been under the Convention, had decided to push the war against Austria, in accordance with a comprehen- sive plan of action, in three directions, one army, under Jourdan, operating in the north-east, a second, under Moreau, on the Rhine, while a third, the command of which was given to Bona- parte, was to invade Italy. The German campaigns collapsed ; but Bonaparte's expedition was a series of brilliant successes, in which he amazed the world by his supreme military genius, his marvellous fertility in resource, the boldness of his strategy, the bewildering rapidity of his movements, and the resolution HISTORY OF FRANCE with which he carried out his ideas. Crossing the Alps he quickly overran Piedmont ; forced the King of Sardinia to sign the armistice of Cherasco (April 1796) ; drove the Austrians before him to the Adda ; entered Milan (May 15) ; gained victory after victory, notably in the great battles of Areola (November 1796) and Rivoli (January 1797) ; made himself master of Northern Italy ; reduced the Pope to submission ; and crowned the triumphs of eighteen months with the Treaty of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797), by which Austria ceded the Netherlands to France, acknowledged the independence of the new republics of Genoa and lyombardy, and recognized the natural frontier of France on the left bank of the Rhine. While, however, the young conqueror's dramatic success naturally gave satisfaction to the ' Cinq Sires ' in Paris, it p;:ovided them also with good ground for alarm. Already he had made them uneasy by his restlessness, his ambition, and his intriguing spirit, and it was indeed in part because they recognized in him an element of danger to their peace at home that they had sent him to Italy. But his conduct in Italy had served to increase the strain in their relationship. He had made it only too evident that though he was nominally working for them, he really despised them. Throughout his campaign he had persistently acted on his own initiative in diplomatic as well as in military matters ; he had either not waited for instructions from headquarters or had coolly ignored them when they did not happen to fit in with his own views ; and in his dealings with foreign Powers he had boldly usurped the authority which properly belonged to the central Govern- ment alone. Such behaviour was manifestly disquieting. On his triumphant return to Paris he was officially welcomed by the Directors in a grand ceremony in the court of the I^uxem- bourg (December 10); but when his craving for adventure prompted him to fresh undertakings, they were only too willing to agree to his gigantic scheme for the conquest of Egypt, because, whatever might be its issue, it had the advantage of getting him once more out of their way. The expedition to Egypt, which had as its ultimate object 526 THE DIRECTORY the destruction of English supremacy in the East, proved, however, a grandiose failure. Sailing from Toulon on May 19, 1798, Bonaparte seized Malta (June 11), occupied Alexandria (July 2), overthrew the Mamelukes in the Battle of the Pyramids (July 21), and entered Cairo (July 23). But Nelson's annihilation of his fleet in the Bay of Aboukir (August i) upset all his plans and put him into a position of great diffi- culty. His communications by sea cut off, he was now com- pelled to seek a way out by land. He therefore struck out for Syria, captured Gaza and Jaffa, and defeated the Turks at Mount Thabor (April 16, 1799). But his rebuff at Saint- Jean-d'Acre, after sixty-one days of siege and fourteen assaults upon the city, finally shattered his dream of Eastern empire. By this time his army was greatly reduced by hardship and pestilence and was in a pitiable state of exhaustion. He therefore turned back to Cairo. There he received the first news from home which had reached him for six months, and it was news of a kind to stir him to instant action. The arms of the Republic had suffered serious reverses in a fresh war against a European coalition ; France was threatened by Anglo- Russian forces ; the whole country was in a ferment of political unrest ; the Directory was discredited and totter- ing to its fall. Bonaparte saw that, in his own phrase, " the pear was ripe," and he resolved to grasp it without delay. Basely abandoning his army and leaving his subordinate Kleber to face certain disaster, he made a perilous journey to France, barely escaping the English cruisers on the way, landed on October 9 at Saint-Raphael (where fifteen years later he was to re-embark for Elba), travelled hurriedly through Aix, Avignon, Valence, and I^yon, amid the acclamations of an excited people, and reached Paris on the i6th. The I 8th Brumaire The internal history of the Directory during the five years of its existence had been a record of steady decay. At the outset the Executive was badly harassed by the old financial difficulty, which it attempted to overcome by an issue of 527 HISTORY OF FRANCE mandats territoriaux (exchangeable for land) to replace the now exploded assignats, and by other desperate devices. These, however, were only temporary expedients, and the continued strain of war, though to some extent relieved by the huge sums which Bonaparte sent home as the proceeds of his plunder in Italy, was felt as time went on with ever- increasing severity. Political trouble was also rife. There was a new rising, encouraged by England, in Vendee, which was, however, suppressed by Hoche (February-March 1796), and a popular revolt under the CoUectivist leader, Baboeuf (May 1796). The Royalists, too, were active. The elections of Year V brought into the councils a large body of deputies avowedly anxious for the restoration of the monarchy, and a Bourbon sympathizer, Barthelemy, at the same time entered the Directory.^ This led to the coup d'etat of 18 Fructidor (September 4, I797),by which the Republican Directors Barras, lyarevelli^re-IvCpeaux, and Rewbell, with the help of their supporters in the councils, made a clearance of their enemies, many of whom were exiled, while Barthelemy and his asso- ciate Carnot had to fly the country. A second coup d'etat on 22 Floreal, Year VI (May 11, 1798), was directed against the Jacobins, to whom the new elections had been favourable. By such unconstitutional violence the feeble Government attempted to cover up its weakness. But by thus overriding the will of the people, as well as by other acts of despotism — such as the renewed persecution of the priests, forced loan§, and the gagging of the Press — it succeeded only in alienating nearly all classes throughout the country, and when Bonaparte arrived in Paris it was evident that its doom was sealed. This was his opportunity. His immense popu- larity made him confident that he could carry the country with him, and he determined to turn the situation to his own advantage. Siey^s, now a member of the Directory and the only one who really counted, was even then meditating the * The son of I^ouis XVI, known as I 545, 547. 548 Blois, city, 227, 259, 282, 285, 323, 338 Blois, county, 227 Blois, ]Stienne, Count of, 83 Blois, Kudes I, Count of, 61 Blois, !Eudes II, Count of, 63 Blois, Ivouis, Count of, 113 Blondel de Nesle, 139 Bliicher, Gebhardt Leberecht von, 549, 551 HISTORY OF FRANCE Bodel, Jehan, 139 Bodin, Jean, 254 Bohemia, 443, 444 Boileau-Despreaux, Nicolas, 253, 376 n., 406 n., 409, 410 Boisrobert, Abbe Fran9ois le Metel de, 407 Bolingbroke, Henry, Viscount, 399, 400 Bonaparte, house of, 538 Bonaparte, Caroline, 541 Bonaparte, Prince Charles-I 55, 56, 58, 60, 68, 69, 116, 139. 158, 223, 541 ; ancestry, 27 ; becomes King of the Franks, 34 ; wars with the Saxons, lyombards, and Saracens, 35-38 ; zeal for Christianity, 35, 41 ; proclaimed Kmperor by Pope Leo III, 37 ; extent of his Empire, 38 ; as ad- ministrator, 38-43 ; and the Church 41-42 ; and education, 42-43 ; and music, 43 ; personal characteristics and character, 44-45 ; death, 45 ; dissolution of his Empire, 50, 53- 56 Charleroi, 396 Charles II of France (' le Chauve ' ) , 47-48, 49, 50, 53, 55, 56 n.. 67, 68 Charles le Gros, 50, 53, 55 Charles III (' le Simple'), 50, 51, 52, 53. 55 Charles IV (' le Bel'), 153, 154, 155, 156, 157 Charles V (' le Sage'), 163-166, 167, 185, 192, 215, 259, 287. See also Charles, Dauphin Charles VI (' le Bien-aim^'), 167- 171, 190, 192, 230, 287 Charles VII (' le Victorieux '), 172- 183, 187, 190, 191, 192, 193. 194- 195. 196, 198, 200, 287. See also Charles, Dauphin Charles VIII, 210, 216-225, 226, 227, 229, 240, 247, 249, 287 Charles IX, 261, 262, 269, 27T, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 287 Charles X, 469, 556-558. See also Artois, Charles- Philippe, Count of Charles V, Emperor, 227, 228, 230, 231, 244 ; and Frangois I, 232- 238 ; Henri II and, 242 Charles VI, Kmperor, 393, 399, 400, 442. See also Charles, Archduke of Austria Charles I of England, 330, 331, 332, 469 Charles II of England, 376, 378 Charles II of Spain, 392, 393, 394, 395 Charles, Dauphin (afterward Charles V), 185-186, 188, 190. See also Charles V Charles, Dauphin (afterward Charles VII), 170, 171, 172. See also Charles VII Charles, Archduke of Austria (after- ward Emperor Charles VI), 394, 397. 398, 399. See also Charles VI, Em.peror Charles, Archduke of Austria, 545 Charles I, Count of Anjou (King of Sicily), 129, T46, 147, 157, 223 Charles of France, Duke of Berry (i), 198, 199, 200, 202-203, 210 Charles of France, Duke of Berry (2), 393 Charles-Ferdinand of Bourbon, Duke of Berry, 469, 556, 558 n. Charles of Blois, 159 Charles the -Bold, Duke of Bur- gundy, 201, 202, 203-207, 208, 210, 221 Charles le Bon, Count of Flanders, 92 Charles, Duke of lyorraine, 51, 55, 60, 62 Charles II, Duke of lyorraine, 293, 306 Charles III, Duke of lyorraine, 336 Charles III, Count of Maine, 210 Charles Martel, 28-31, 32, 33, 34 Charles le Mauvais, King of Navarre, 157, 161, 163, 164, 186 Charles, Count of Valois, 156, 157, 287 Charles, son of Charlemagne, 46, 55 Charolais, 230 Charolais, Charles, Count of, 198, 199, 200, 201 Charpentier, Marc-Antoine, 413 Charter of 1814, the, 550, 555, 557, 559 Charton, President of the Parliament of Paris, 354 595 HISTORY OF FRANCE Chartres, 162, 182, 299, 300 Chartres Cathedral, 143, 305 Chartres, Philippe, Duke of, 432. See Orleans, Philippe II, Duke of Chateau Gaillard, no, in Chateaubriand, Francois- Rene, Vis- count of, 554 Chateaubriant, Frangoise, Countess of, 241 Chateauneuf, Henri, Marquis of, 356 Chatillon — see Coligny Chaucer, Geoffrey, 140 Chaulnes, Honors d' Albert, Duke of, 323 Chaumette, Pierre-Gaspard, 516 Chavigny, ly^on. Count of, 356 Ch^nier, Andre-Marie de, 514 Cherasco, armistice of, 526 Cherbourg, 160, 166, 183 Cheruel, Pierre- Adolphe, 347 w. Chevalier de Fauhlas, he, 498 Chevreuse, Marie de Rohan, Duchess oi 351 Child^bert I, King of Paris, 20, 21, 25 Childebert II, King of Austrasia and of Burgundy, 25 Childeric I, King of the Franks, 15-16, 25 Childeric III, 24, 31 Chilperic I, King of »Soissons and of Neustria, 21-22, 25 Chinon, 105, 176 Chislehurst, 581 w. Chivalry, 66, 74-76 Chlodion, or Hlodion, King of the Franks, 15 Choiseul, !Stienne-Fran9ois, Duke of, 450-451, 452, 462 Chotusitz, battle of, 443 Chouans, 534 Christianity, the beginnings of, in Gaul, 13 ; the Franks and, 13, 16- 18, 32 ; among the Frisians, 28 ; Charlemagne's zeal for, 35, 41 ; medieval, and humanity, 133 ; abolished by the National Conven- tion, 515 Church, the early, 13 ; and the Franks, 16-18, 32-34 ; Clovis and, 17-18 ; Charles Martel and, 30 ; Charlemagne and, 41-42 ; I^ouis I and, 46-47 ; moves agaiUvSt the practice of private war among the nobles, 65-66 ; and the feudal system, 71-72 ; chivalry and, 76 ; and the First Crusade, 78-81 ; gain in influence of, as a conse- quence of the Crusades, 87 ; op- pOvSes the communal movement, 95 ; lyouis VII and, 97 ; and the Second Crusade, 98 ; Philippe- Auguste and, 116; Philippe III and, 145-146 ^ Philippe IV and, 148-149 ; Charles IV and, 154 ; Charles VII and, 193 ; the Con- cordat of 1 5 16, 231 ; Francois I and, 231, 239-240, 241 ; the Refor- mation and the Wars of Religion, 261-308 ; Henri IV's struggle with the League, 290-306 ; Henri IV embraces Catholicism, 302-304 ; the Kdict of Nantes, 307-308 ; the Ultramontane party and the Gal- lican Church, 318 ; Louis XIII and, 324, 325 ; the Huguenots attempt to divide the State, 324- 325 ; Richelieu and the Hugue- nots, 328, 329-333, 339, 340, 342. 343 ; Louis XIV and, 385-386 ; Louis XIV and the Huguenots, 386-390 ; Revocation of the Kdict of Nantes, 388-390 ; Jansenism, 414-418, 440-441 ; Quietism, 41S ; persecution of the Protestants under the Duke of Bourbon 439 ; Voltaire's antagonism to, 481 ; State control of, established by the Constitution of 1791, and Church property appropriated, 493, 494 n. ; re-established by Bonaparte, 534 ; growth in power of, under Louis XVIII, 556 ; Catholicism deprived of its position as vState religion, 559 ; educational privileges of, restored, 568 Cicero, 247 n., 250 Cid, Le, Corneille's, 335 n., 408 Cimbri, 5 Cinq-Mars, Henri Coiffier de Ruz6, Marquis of, 337-338 Cisalpine Gaul — see Gallia Cisalpina Cisalpine Republic, 535 Cistercian order, 415 City of God, Augustine's, 44 Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 495, 499 Civil War, American, 578 Civilis, Claudius, 10 596 INDEX Clagn5^ 381 Classicism, 404, 407, 409-411, 413, 414 Claude of I^orraine, first Duke of Guise, 244 n. Claude, daughter of I^ouis XII, 227 CUlie of Mile de Scudery, 406 Clement V, Pope, 148-149 Clement YII, Pope, 235, 236, 267 Clement VIII, Pope, 306 Clement IX, Pope, 417 Clement XI, Pope, 417 Clement, Jacques, 286-288, 289 Cleopdtre of Jodelle, 253 Cleopatre of lya Calprenede, 406 Clergy, supporters of autocracy and the Old Regime, 471-472 ; exempt from many taxes, 476 ; in the States- General of 1789, 485, 486, 488 ; the I/egislative Assembly and, 499, 500, 502 ; persecuted by the Directory, 528 ; public instruction practically in charge of, under Louis ^ XVIII, 556 ; growth in power of, under Charles X, 557 Clerical party, 555, 558, 574, 578 Clermont, Council of (1095), 80, 81 Clermont-Ferrand, 13, 80 Clermont-Tonnerre, Stanislas, Count of, 492 Cleves, duchy of, 311, 315 Clive, Lord Robert, 444 Cloderic, 19 Clodomer, King of Orleans, 20, 21, 25 Cloots, Anacharsis, 508, 516 Clotaire I, King of Soissons, 20, 21, 25 Clotaire II, King of the Franks, 22 Clothildis, or Clotilda, 17 Clovis, or Hlodowig, 16-20, 25, 31, 58 Clubs, in the Revolutionary period, 494 Clugny de Nuis, Jean-Btienne-Ber- nard, 461 Ciuniac Revival, 66, 78 Clusium, 2, 3 Coblenz, 499 Cocherel, battle of, 164 Code Civil, or Code Napoleon, 534 Cceur, Jacques, 173, 190-191, 195 Cognac, 275 Coictier, Jacques, 211, 217 Coinage, Louis IX' s reforms in, 122- 123 ; tampered with, by Philippe IV, 152 ; the right of, reasserted by the nobles, 153 ; Philippe V regulates, 154 ; debased by Charles V, 154 ; popular discontent with alterations in the value of the currency, 188 ; the feudal nobility deprived of the right of coinage, 192 ; the value of the currency lowered, 423 ; Law's ' System ' and the currency, 425, 426, 427; the Constitution of 1791 and the currency, 494 ; the National Con- vention protects the currency, 512 Colasse, Pascal, 413 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 369-374, 376, 380-381, 386, 391, 396 Coligny, Fran9ois de, 299 and n. Coligny, Gaspard de. Seigneur de Chatillon, 264 Coligny, Gaspard de. Seigneur de Chatillon (Admiral Coligny), 264, 270, 272, 273, 274-277, 279, 299 and n. College de France, founded by Frangois I, 249 CoUot-d'Herbois, Jean-Marie, 508, 514, 515, 519 Cologne, 15, 17 n., 82, 345, 359 Cologne, Elector of, 361 Colonia Agrippinensis, 15 Colonization, fostered by Henri IV, 310 ; fostered by Richelieu, 344 ; encouraged by Colbert, 373 ; Law's ' System ' and, 426-427 ; growth of France's colonies, 444 ; France's colonial development crippled by the Seven Years' War, 447 ; Bona- parte and, 535 Comines, Philippe de, 200, 204, 211, 212 n., 214, 224, 225, 247 Commendation, 68, 69 Commentaires of de Montluc, 253 Commentaries of Caesar, 6 and n., 8 and n., 14 n. Commerce, benefited by the Crusades, 87 ; growth of, 97 ; Louis IX and, 122 ; the development of, and the Renaissance, 134 ; encouraged by Louis XI, 215 ; growth of, under Louis XII, 229 ; impaired by the Wars of Religion, 308 ; Sully's unsympathetic attitude to, 310 ; S97 HISTORY OF FRANCE encouraged by Henri IV, 310 ; encouraged by Richelieu, 344 ; adversely affected by the War of the Spanish Succession, 401 ; Ivaw's ' System ' and, 425, 426-427, 431 ; crippled by the Seven Years' War, 447 ; fostered by Napoleon III, 575 ; the commercial treaty of i860 with Great Britain, 578 Committee of General Security, 511 Committee of Public Safety, 511, 514, 515, 516, 518 Commune, the (of the Revolution), 502-505, 507, 508, 511, 512, 515, 516, 518 ; abolished, 518 Compagnie de Chine, 427 Compagnie des Indes, 427-428 Compagnie des Indes Orientales, 427 Compagnie d' Occident, or du Missis- sippi, 426-427 Commission of Five, 564, 565 Commission de Gouvernement pour les Travailleurs, 564 Commodus, Kmperor, 11 Communal movement, beginnings of the,' 92-96, 97 ; encouraged by lyouis- Philippe, 117; checked under lyouis IX, 125-126 ; disappearance of the free communes, 126 ; emerg- ence of the Third E)state as a politi- cal force, 150 ; Louis XI and, 214 Compiegne, 179, 336 Compte rendu au Roi, Necker's, 463 Concini, Concino, 315, 317, 320-322, 323. 326 Concordat of 15 16, 231 ; of 1801, 534 Conde (Conde-sur-l'Escaut), 296, 513 Cond6, house of, 536 Cond6, Henri I, trince of, 275, 277, 278, 281, 469 Conde, Henri II, Prince of, 317, 320- 321, 325, 326, 348 w., 469 Conde, Henri- Jules, Prince of, 469 Conde, Louis I, Prince of, 264, 269, 272, 273, 274, 317, 469 Conde, Louis II, Prince of, 348-349, 35i> 354. 355, 356-357. 358-361. 363, 375, 376, 377-378, 389 n., 396, 436. 469 Cond6, Louis III, Prince of, 469 Conde, Louis-Joseph, Prince of, 536 Condorcet, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of, 460, 480, 498, 514 w- 598 Confederation of the Rhine, 541, 542, 547 Confession of Faith of 1559, 268 Conflans, 199 Congregation, the, political associa- tion, 556 Congress of Vienna, 550, 551 Conn^table, appointed by Philippe- Auguste, 117. 5^6 a/50 Constable Conqueste de Constantinoble, 142 Conrad III, Kmperor, 99, 100 Conrart, Valentin, 407 Conseil du Commerce, 368 Conseil des Depeches, 367 Conseil d'FJtat, 367 ; under the Consulate, 530, 537 ; under the Second Republic, 566 Conseil des Finances, 367, 369, 370, 423, 426 Conseil de la Guerre, 368 Conseil d'en Haut, 367. See Conseil d']&tat Conseil de Marine, 368 Conseil des Parties, 367 Conseil General de R^ence, 422 Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, 521 Conservatory of Music, 521 Considerations politiques et militaires sur la Suisse, of Louis-Napoleon, 566 Constable of France, Du Guesclin as, 165 ; the Count of Armagnac as, 168 ; Louis Bonaparte as, 539 Constance, Duchess of Brittany, 105, no Constance, wife of Robert II, 61, 62 Constantine I, Emperor, 13 Constantinople, 32, 79, 82, 83, 85, 99, 100, 107, 113, 215, 576 Constituent Assembly of the Revolu- tion, 488-489, 490, 491-496, 497 ; of the Second Republic, 563, 564, 565, 567, 568 Constitution of 1791, 492-496, 497, 499, 501 n.. 502, 507, 522 Constitution of 1793, 513-514, 520 Constitution of Year III, 520, 522, 523, 525, 529 and n. Constitution of Year VIII, 530-531, 533, 534, 538, 571 Constitution of the First Empire, 538-539 Constitution of the Second Republic, 566, 569 .^u INDEX Constitution of January 14, 1852, 570-571. 574 Constitution of the Second Empire, 574-575 Consulate, the, 530-537. 539, 568 Contes of I^a Fontaine, 410 Conti, Armand de Bourbon, Prince of, 355. 356, 358 Conti, Ivouis-Armand de Bourbon, Prince of, 428 Continental System, or Blockade, 543-544. 545. 547. 548 Contrat social of Rousseau, 483, 484 Contre Un of lya Bo^tie, 255 Controller-General of Finances, Louis XIV's, 368, 370 ; Law becomes, 429 ; the Abbe Terray as, 451, 453 ; Turgot as, 458, 478 ; Clugny as, - 461 ; Calonne as, 464-465 ; Brienne as, 465 ; Necker as, 468, 488 Convulsionnaires, 441 Copenhagen, 544 Corbeil, Count of, 65 Corbie, 341 Corday, Charlotte, 513 Cordelier Club, 494, 498 Cordeliers, 494 n., 496 Corneille, Pierre, 335 n., 408 Cornelius Gallus, Caius, 11 Cornelius Nepos, 1 1 Corps Legislatif, under the Directory, 522 ; under the Consulate, 530 531 ; under the Empire, 539 Corsica, acquired by France, 451 ; mentioned, 524 Cortona, Pietro di, 259 Corvee, 459, 461, 476, 477 Corvei, monastery of, 43 Counctt, the King's, Louis IX and, 125 ; Philippe IV summons mem- bers of the Third Estate to, 150 ; development of, under Philippe IV, 151 ; the Council of State, . formed hy the States-General of 1484, 219, 220 ; Louis XIV's various Councils, 367-368 ; men- tioned, 300, 301, 309, 316, 320, 326, 461, 463. See also Conseil d']&tat Council of Ancients, 522 Council of Constance, 386 n. Council of Five Hundred, 522 Council of Sixteen, 284, 286, 293, 295, 300-301, 305-306, 312 Council of State — see Conseil d'Etat Council of Trent, 273, 318 Counter- Reformation, 273 Coup d'etat of 18 Fructidor, 528, 537 n. ; of 22 Flor^al, Year VI, 528 ; of December 1-2, 185 1, 570 Cour de Cassation, 367, 493 Cour des Aides, 353, 460 Cour Pleniere, 467 Cours prevdtales, 555 Court, the French, practically began with Fran9ois I, 240 Court of Requests, Paris, 124 Courts : Louis IX and the judicial prerogatives of the nobility, 123 ; the Parliament of Paris estab- lished, 125 ; the baronial, lose ground, 145 Courtrai, battle of (1302), 151 Coustou, Guillaume, 412 Const ou, Nicolas, 412 Couthon, Georges, 508, 514, 515, 316, 518 Coutras, battle of, 284 Coysevox, Antoine, 412 Cracow, 280 Crecy, battle of, 160, 162, 164, 191 Credit Foncier, 575 Credit Mobilier, 575 Crequi, Frangois de, 378 Crespy, Treaty of, 237 Crime, growth of, under the Old Regime, 474-475 Crimean War, 576 Critique de V Boole des Femmes, 409 Cromwell, Oliver, 361 Crusades, France's prominent part in, 77 ; what inspired by, 78-79 ; the influence of, 86-88 ; the end of, 129 ; and the Renaissance, 135 Crusade, First, 64, 77-88, 98 ; Second, 98-101, 149 ; Third, 105-109 ; Fourth, 112-114, 115, 142; Sixth, 126-128, 139 ; Seventh, 128-129 Crusade against the Albigenses, 114- 116, 118, 139 Cumberland, William Augustus, Duke of, 445 Curchod, Suzanne (Mme Necker), 461 Custine, Adam-Philippe, Count of, 514 Custom dues, between the various provinces, 477 ; abolished by the Constitution of 1791, 493 Cyprus, 127 599 HISTORY OF FRANCE DagobeIrT I, King of the Franks, 23, 24. 25 Dalmatia, 83, 113 Damascus, 100 Damiens, Robert-Fran9ois, 450, 452 Damietta, 127 Dammartin, Antoine de Chabannes, Coiint of, 194, 195, 200 Dante, 37 n., 139 Danton, Georges- Jacques, 494, 504, 508, 511, 513, 514, 516 Dantonists, 516, 518 Dantzig, 441 Danube, the, 82, 543, 545 D'Artagnan, Dumas' hero, 335 n. Dauphin, origin of the title, 193 Dauphine, 193, 194, 195, 467, 477 David, J acques-I^ouis, 508 ' Days of the Barricades ' (1588), 285 ; (1648), 355 ; (1848), 565 Decamerone, the, 256 n. Dec^rzes, !]©lie, Duke, 555, 556 Declaration of 1682, 386 Declaration of Pillnitz, 499 Declaration of the Rights of Man, 492 Deffente et Illustration de la Langue fvangoyse, 252 Defoe, Daniel, 473 n. De la Republique of Jean Bodin, 254 Delorme, PhiUbert, 259 Demerara, 462 Denbigh, William, first Earl of, 332 Denmark, 292, 377, 431, 544, 580 Departments, France divided into, 493 Descartes, Rene, 414 and n. Des^ze, Raymond, 509 Desiderius, King of the I^ombards, 36 Desmoulins, Camille, 489, 508, 515, 516 Dettingen, battle of, 443 De Witt. Jan, 377 Diamond necklace, the affair of the, 457 Diane of Poitiers, 244, 264 Diderot, Denis, 479 Dido se Sacrifiant of Jodelle, 253 Diedenhofen, 349 Dieppe, 291, 292, 315 Dijon, 8 n., 214, 228, 306 Dijon, Parliament of, 214 Dime royale of Vauban, 477 Dinant, 201 Dion Cassius, 8 Directory, the, 522-529, 539 600 Discours de la Mithode of Descartes, Discours politiques et militaires of lya None, 253 Dolet, Btienne, 248, 250 Domaine royale — see Royal domain Domremy, 174, 176, 179 * Donation of Pippin,' 36 ' Do-nothing kings,' 23-24 Don Quixote, 223 Dorat, Jean, 252 Dori, or Galigai, I^eonora, 315, 322 Dormans, 281 Douai, 151 Douanes intevieures, 459, 478 Dover, Treaty of, 376 Doyat, Jean de, 212, 217 Dragonnades, 388, 389 Drama, the beginnings of, 141-142 ; deA'-elopment in, during the Renais- sance, 253 ; during the Grand Si^cle, 412-413 ; the democratiza- tion of, 472 Dresden, battle of, 549 Dreux, 273, 294 Dreux-Breze, Henri-l^vrard de, 487 Drogo, son of Pippin of Heristal, 28, 29, 33 Druidism in Gaul, Caesar and, 9 ; Augustus and, 10 Dubois, Guillaume, 432-434, 436 Dubois, Pierre, 148 Ducos, Jean-Fran9ois, 498 Ducos, Roger, Count, 529, 531 Duels, judicial, forbidden by Louis IX, 122 ; Philippe III and, 145 ; the right of duelling reasserted by the nobles, 153 ; Richelieu en- deavours to suppress, 334-335 Duff, J. Wight, II w. Du Guesclin, Bertrand, 164-165, 166 Dumas, Alexandre, pdre, 253, 278 Dumas, Mathieu, 498 Dumouriez, Charles-Frangois, 501, 505, 510, 512, 559 Dunkerque (Dunkirk), 349, 360, 361, 376, 434, 447, 462 Dunois, Frangois, Count of, 217, 220, 223 Dunois, Jean, Count of, 177 Duns Scotus, 136 Dupleix, Joseph, Marquis, 444 Duport, Adrien-Jean-Frangois, 494 Duquesne, Abraham, 378 Durango, battle of, 545 INDEX Dutch, the, 315, 378, 392, 400 ; Louis XIV and, 375-376, 377 Duvergier de Hauranne, Jean, 416 Dux Francorum, Pippin of Heristal becomes, 28 ; Charles Martel as, 29 Bast IndiEvS, 373 Bbro, river, 38 Bbroin, Mayor of the Palace, 24 Bckmiihl, battle of, 545 Eclogues of Clement Marot, 252 Bdessa, 86, 98, 100 Bdict of Amboise, 273, 274 Bdict of January 1562, 271, 273 Bdict of Nantes, 307-308, 316, 324, 325, 333, 421 ; Revocation of, 388- 390 Bdict of Romorantin, 269 Bdict of Saint-Germain, 275 Bdinburgh, 424 Bducation, Charlemagne and, 42-43 ; Rabelais' theory of, 257 ; a system of national, outlined by Turgot, 459 ; the bourgeoisie and, 472 ; a system of public education intro- duced by the National Convention, 521 ; systematized by Bonaparte, 533-534 ; public instruction practi- cally in the hands of the clergy, 556 ; freedom in university teach- ing restored by Martignac, 558 ; educational privileges of the Church restored, 568 ; regulated, under the Second Bmpire, 574 Bdward I of Bngland, 150-15 1 Bdward II of Bngland, 151, 157 Bdward III of Bngland, 157, 158, 165, 185, 191 ; his claim to the French throne, 156, 158-159, 169 ; invades France, 160 Bdward IV of Bngland, 201, 203, 205 Bdward, Prince (afterward Bdward II of Bngland), 151 Bdward, the Black Prince, 160 Bgypt, 113, 127, 129, 139; Napo- leon's expedition to, 526-527 ; evacuated by France under the Treaty of Amiens, 532 ; France supports Mehemet AU in, 561 Bighty-nine Club, 494 Binhard, 24, 35, 37, 44, 45 n. Blba, 527, 535 ; Napoleon sent to, 550 ; Napoleon escapes from, 551 Blbe, the, 38, 446, 542, 545 Blbeuf, Charles II, Duke of, 355, 356 Bleanor of Neuburg, 393 Bleanor of Portugal, wife of Frangois I, 236 Blectoral system, under lyouis XVIII, 555, 55^ ; Charles X and, 558 Blisabeth, sister of I^ouis XIII, 316, ^ 469 Blisabeth, sister of I^ouis XVI, 503, 514 Blizabeth, Queen of Bngland, 272, 275, 291, 298, 304 Blizabeth Farnese, 433 Blizabeth Petrovna, Tsarina, 446 :]^mery, Michel Particelli, Sieur d', .351-352, 353 Emigres, 494 n., 499. 500. 5i9. 55o, , 557. 558 Bmile of Rousseau, 483 and n., 484 ' Eminence Grise, 1', 345 Bmpire, First, 537, 538-539i 55^, 554. 567, 573 Bmpire, Second, 571, 572-581 Encyclopddie, the, 479-480 Bnghien, I^ouis, Duke of — see Cond^, Ivouis II, Prince of Bnghien, Louis-Antoine-Henri, Duke oi, 536, 538 Bngland. I. The country, 51, 70, 106, 178, 185, 200, 248, 291, 308, 330. 332, 343. 426, 429, 431. 472, 480, 495, 559, 560, 562, 567, 574 ; the Renaissance in, 250, 251 ; Huguenots flee to, 390. II. The State, 91, no, 196, 232, 276, 306, 374. 436 n., 443, 449, 519. 528, 557 ; lyouis of France's preten- sions to the crown of, 112 ; Scot- land's alliance with France against, 151 ; the Hundred Years' War with, 158 et seq. ; in the Holy League against Louis XII, 228 ; in the League against the Bmperor Charles V, 235 ; loses Calais, 243 ; Francois I and, 267 ; and Henri IV, 292, 299 ; supports Richelieu against the Huguenots, 330 ; inter- venes on behalf of the Huguenots, 330-333 ,' supports France against Spain, 361 ; joins Holland and Sweden against France (Triple Alliance), 375-376 ; sides with France, 376, 377 ; joins Holland against France, 378, 379 ; in the War of the Spanish Succession, 395-400 ; joins France and Hol- 601 HISTORY OF FRANCE land in a new Triple Alliance, 433- 434. 435 ; and the Seven Years' War, 444-447 ; France against, in the American War of Indepen- dence, 462-463 ; joins a coalition against France (1793), 510 ; Napo- leon and, 531-532, "535. 540-552; and the Mexican War, 577 ; and the Franco-Prussian War, 580 Enguinegatte, 209 Enquesteufs, appointed by St I^ouis, 123 Enrages, 515, 5 16 Epernon, Jean-Louis de Nogaret, Duke of, 314. 323 Erasmus, 248, 266 Ernest, Archduke, 301 Espaly, castle of, 172 Espinosa, battle of, 545 Esprit des Lois of Montesquieu, 479' Estienne, Henri, 248, 258 Estienne, Robert, 248, 258 Estr^es, Gabrielle d', 317 Estr^es, Louis-Charles-Cesar Letel- ^ lier^ Coimt and Duke of, 446 Etallonde, Gaillard d', 452 n. iHStampes, county, 199 ]&tampes, town, 65, 292, 360 ]§tampes, Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess of, 241 Staples, Treaty of, 183 Btienne, Count of Blois, 83 Ettenheim, castle of, 536 Eudes, or Odo, Count of Paris, Duke of France, 50-51, 52 Eudes I, Count of Blois, 61 Eudes II, Count of Blois, 63 Eugene, Prince, 396, 397, 399, 400 Eugenie, Empress, 574, 581 and n. Eugenius III, Pope, 98 Bvreux, no, 199 l^vreux, Robert, Count of, 93 Excise duties, 477 Executive Council of the National Convention, 504 Executive of the Consulate, 530, 531, 533. Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristotelem, 414 Extreme Left, in the Legislative As- sembly, 498-499. 5(?e Jacobins Eylau, battle of, 542 Fables of La Fontaine, 410 Fabliaux, 141 602 Fabre d' Eglantine, Philippe-Fran^ois- Nazaire, 508, 516 Faerie Queene, 278 n. Falaise, in, 293 Family Compact, the, 446, 447 Farel, Guillaume, 266 Farnese, Elizabeth, 433 Fastolf, Sir John, 174, 178 Father Joseph, Richelieu's friend, 345 Faubourg Saint- Antoine, Paris, 502 Faubourg Saint- Germain, Paris, 322, 354. 356, 381 Faubourg Saint-Marceau, Paris, 502 Faubourg Saint-Martin, Paris, 146, 298 February Revolution, the, 562, 563 Fenelon, Fran9ois de Salignac de La Mothe-, 402 n. Ferdinand II, Emperor, 340, 341 Ferdinand III, Emperor, 393 Ferdinand II of Aragon — see Ferdi- nand V of Castile Ferdinand V of Castile (' the Catho- lic'), 210, 222, 224, 226-227 and n., 228 FercQnand VII of Spain, 556 Fermat, Pierre de, 414 Festival of the Revolution, 515 n. Fete de la Federation, 494-495 Feudalism, 54, 56, 57, 58 ; the anarchy of, 64-66, 89 ; the character of the system, 67-74 ; effect of the Crusades upon, 86-87 .' Louis VI and the feudal nobility, 89-90, 92, 95 ; the communal movement and, 92-96, 125 ; women admitted to the exercise of feudal rights, and effect of this, loi ; Philippe II and the feudal nobility, 103-104 ; the feudal nobility and Blanche of Castile, 1 19-120 ; Philippe III and the feudal nobility, 146 ; the influence of the legists upon the feudal conception of kingship, 147- 148 ; feudal reaction, 153-154 ; the end of the feudal regime, 156, 213 ; decline of the feudal nobility during the period of the Hundred Years' War, 1 91-192 ; Louis XI and the feudal nobility, 196-201, 214 ; Brittany, the last stronghold of, becomes subject to the Crown, 222 : the disappearance of the feudal military organization, 224 ; INDEX the disappearance of, reflected in architecture, 260 ; Richelieu orders the destruction of feudal fortresses, 338 ; the centuries-old struggle between the monarchy and the forces of feudalism, 342-343 ; rise of a noblesse de cour out of the feudal nobility, 404 ; relics of, under the Old Regime, 473 Feuds — see Fiefs Feuillants, 497-498, 501 Ficino, Marsilio, 266 Fiefs, or feuds, 67 ; women allowed to inherit, loi Field of the Cloth of Gold, 233 Fifth Coalition, 545 Finland, 543 Flahaut, General de, 574 w. Flanders, 56, 68, 91, 92, 150, 162, 202, 209, 222, 230, 233, 234, 236, 360, 361, 375, 444 ; united to4iie French Crown, 151 Flanders, Arnoul II, Count of, 60 Flanders, Baldwin IX, Count of, 113 Flanders, Charles le Bon, Count of, 92 Flanders, Ferdinand of Portugal, Count of. III Flanders, Philip of Alsace, Count of, 104 Flanders, Robert II, Count of, 83 Fleix, Peace of, 283 Flemings, 92, 159, 162, 209, 283 Flesselles, Jacques, 489 Fleurus, battle of (1690), 391; (1794), 517 Fleury, Cardinal Andre-Hercule de, 439. 450 Florence, 224, 235, 247, 547 Foix, Frangoise de, Countess of Cha- teaubriant, 241 Foix, Gaston IV, Count of, 196 Foix, Gaston de (Duke of Nemours), 228 Foix, Germaine de, 228 Fontaine, Nicolas, 415 Fontaine-Frangaise, battle of, 306 Fontainebleau, 249, 259, 314, 381, 395 Fontanet, battle of, 49 Fontanges, Duchess of, 383 Fontenoy, battle of, 444 * Foolish War, the,' 220-221 Forbach, battle of, 581 Fort Carre, near Antibes, 525 Fort Saint-I^ouis (R6), 331 Fort Saint-Martin, 331 Fouche, Joseph, 515 Fougeres, 182, 183 Foulon, Joseph-Frangois, 490 Foulques III, Count of Anjou, 63 Foulques V, Count of Anjou, 92 Foulques of Neuilly, 113 Fouquet, Nicolas, 363 n,, 368-369, 371 Fourier, Francois - Charles - Mane, 560 Fourth Coalition, 542 Fox, Charles James, 542 France. Duchy of, 56, 57, 68 n. Franche-Comte, 208, 209, 375, 377, 378, 380 Franchise, limited under the Constitu- tion Df Year III, 522 ; qualification for, lowered under Louis-Philippe, 559 ; universal suffrage under the Second Republic, 566 ; industrial disenfranchisement, 568 ; Louis- Napoleon promises universal suff- rage, 569 Francia, 23 Franciade, La, 253 Francis II, Bmperor, 501 Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, 577 Francis of Paola, 211 Franciscan Order, 494 n. Franco-Gallia of Hotman, 255 Franco-Prussian War, 580-581 Frangois I, 230-242, 243, 244 and n., 246, 251, 259, 260, 263, 264, 266, 267, 268, 287, 293, 342 ; struggle with the Emperor Charles V, 231- 238 ; death, 238 ; character and influence, 238-242 ; and the Re- naissance, 239, 240, 245, 246, 249; and the Church, 239-240, 241 ; the French Court began with, 240 ; absolutism of, 241 ; the nobility and, 241 ; and the States-General and the Parliament of Paris, 241 ; the public debt initiated under, 242 Frangois II, 261, 262, 264, 269, 287 Frangois of Angouleme (afterward Francois I), 228, 230. See Fran- gois I Frangois II, Duke of Brittany, 198, 199, 201, 202, 204, 220, 221 603 HISTORY OF FRANCE Francois of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, 242, 243, 244 and n., 261, 262, 263, 268-269, 271-273 Prank Ric, 23 Frankfort-on-the-Main, 580 Franklin, Benj^amin, 462, 481 i^ranks, settlement of, in Gaul, 12, 14-15 ; and Christianity, 13, 16- 18, 32 ; derivation of the name, 14 ; Salian and Ripuarian, 14-15 ; and the Church, 16-18, 32-34 ; Eastern and Western, 22-23 ; an element in the French race, 53 ; mentioned, 30 Fredegonda, 21-22, 23 Frederick I, Emperor (' Barbarossa '), 106, 107 Frederick II, Emperor, 121 Frederick III, Emperor, 205 Frederick II of Prussia (' the Great '), 443. 444. 445-446, 449. 481 Frederick III of Naples, 227 Freiburg-im-Breisgau, battle at, 349 French, the language — see I/anguage French, the race, elements in, 53 Pr^ron, I/Ouis-Stanislas, 515, 518 Pr^teval, no Friedland, battle of, 542 Frisians, 28 Froissart, 156, 160, 161, 184 n. Frondes, the, 352-361, 387, 408, 472 Fulda, monastery of, 43 Fuller, Thomas, 137 Puretiere, Antoine, 407 Fustel de Coulanges, Numa-Denis, 10, 54 Gdbelle, the salt tax, 185, 255, 372, 476-477 Galfrid de Beaulieu, 130 w. Galicia, 546 Galigai, or Dori, I/eonora, 315, 322 Gallia Bracata, or Provincia, 4 ; Cisalpina, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11 ; Comata, 9 ; Narbonensis, 11 ; Togata, 4 ; Transalpina, i, 5. See Gaul Galswintha, wife of Chilperic I, 21- 22 Galway, Henry de Massue de Ruvigny, Earl of, 397 Gambia, 462 Garde Nationale — see National Guard Gargantua of Rabelais, 256 604 Garigliano, battle of, 227 Garnier-Pages, lyOuis-Antoine, 564 Garonne, the, 19, 373 Gascony, 46, 56, 68, loi, 164, 183 Gassendi, Pierre, 414 Gaston, Duke of Orleans, 317, 334, 336-337. 338, 360, 469 Gaudry, Bishop, 96 Gaul, the Romans and, 1-13, 14 ; Caesar and, 5-10 ; the Romaniza- tion of, 9-1 1, 49 n. ; Augustus and, 10 ; Germanic peoples settle in, 12, 14-15, 27 ; the beginnings of Christianity in, 13 ; the Arabs in, 29-30 ; the I^atin tongue in, 49 n. Gauls, the race, 2 Gautier sans Avoir, 82 Gaza, 527 Gelee, Claude (Claude I/orrain), 412 w. Genappe, castle of, 195 Geneva, 324, 463, 532 Genoa, 107, 228, 235, 451, 526 Gensonne, Armand, 498 Geoffrey II of Anjou, 63 Geoffrey IV of Anjou, 92, 102 Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany, 105 Geoffrey of Villette, 124 George I of England, 434, 435 George II of England, 446 Gergovia, 8 Germanic Confederation, 510 Germany, 38, 82, 83, 98, 112, 149, 196, 205, 223, 228, 236 267, 299, 315. 374. 378, 392, 397. 535. 537 n., 560 ; emergence of, as a country, 23, 50 ; in the Thirty Years' War, 324, 340, 341, 350 ; in the War of the Spanish Succession, 395, 400 ; in the Seven Years' War, 445, 446 ; Napoleon in, 541 ; in the Sixth Coalition, 549 ; the Franco- Prus- sian War, 580-581 Ghent, 159, 201, 237, 397, 551 Gibbon, Edward, 461 n. Gibraltar, 397, 400 Gilles, Pierre, 249 Girardin, Rene-Ivouis, Marquis of, 498 Girardon, Fran9ois, 412 Gironde, department, 498 Girondins, 498, 500, 501, 502, 503, 506-509, 511-518, 519 Gisors, 106 Glaber, Rodulfus, 62 n. Gloucester, Himiphrey, Duke of, 173 Gobel, J ean-Baptiste- Joseph, 517 INDEX Gobelin, Abb6, 384 Gobelins, the tapestry manufactory of, 372 n. Godfrey of Bouillon, 86, 98 Goethe, 408 Goldsmith, Oliver, 471 n. Gomberville, Marin I,eroy de, 406 Gondi, Tean-Fran9ois-Paul de — see Retz, Cardinal de Gontran, King of Orleans and of Burgundy, 25 Gothic architecture, rise and develop- ment of, 143-144 ; the Renais- sance and, 259 Goujon, Jean, 258, 260 Gramont, Antoine - Alfred - Agenor, Duke of, 581 Grand Alliance of The Hague, 377, ' 395, 399 ' Grand Conde, le ' — see Cond^ Grand Council, 188, 353 Grand Cyrus, Le, of Mile de Scudery, 405 n., 406 ' Grand Siecle, Le,' 404-418 Grand Trianon, 412 Grand Voyer, Sully as, 310 ' Grande Mademoiselle, la,' 360 Grande Terreur, 516-517 Grandgousier, 257 Grangeneuve, J acques- Antoine, 498 Granson, 206 Grasse, Frangois- Joseph-Paul, Count of, 462 Gratian, KmpeTor, 13 Gravelines, 233 Gravelotte, battle of, 581 Great St Bernard, 532 Gregoire, Henri, 492 Gregory I, Pope, 36 Gregory II, Pope, 32 Gregory III, Pope, 32 Gregory V, Pope, 61 Gregory VII, Pope, 79 Gregory IX, Pope, 121 Gregory XIV, Pope, 299 Gregory of Tours, 15, 16 n., 17 n., 18 n., 19 and n., 20, 21 n. Grenada, 462 Grenoble, 194, 512, 551 Grimm, Jacob, 14 m. Grimwald, son of Pippin of Heristal, 28, 29, 33 Grimwald, son of Pippin of I^anden, 24, 28, 33 Grisons, 339 Guadet, Marguerite-0ie, 498, 514 w. Guastalla, duchy of, 541 Guastalla, town, 442 Guerre des Deux Jeannes, 160, 161, 163, 164 Guerre folle, 220-221 Guesclin — see Du Guesclin ^ Guild of Paris, 97 Guilds, 459, 473 ; abolished, 493 Guilhiermoz, P., 11 1 n. Guillaume le Batard, 63. See Wil- liam the Conqueror Guinegatte, 209, 228 Guines, 233 Guise, house of, 244, 262, 263, 264, 265, 291, 334 n. Guise, Charles of I^orraine, fourth Duke of, 296, 300, 301, 302, 306 Guise, Claude, first Duke of, 244 n. Guise, Fran9ois of Ivorraine, Duke of, 242, 243, 244 andn., 261, 262, 263, 268-269, 271-273 Guise, Henri I, Duke of, 244 and n., 263, 277, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284- 285, 286, 290, 300 Guiton, Jean, 332, 333 Guizot, Frangois - Pierre - Guillaume, 52 n., 54, 62 n., 68, 95 n., 561-562 Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, 340- 341 Guyenne, 56, loi, 105, no, 150, 151, 162, 165, 172, 183, 200, 203, 210, 218, 255, 281, 359 -' Guyenne, Charles, Duke of, 203. See Charles, Duke of Berry (i) Guy on, Mme, 418 Hague, The, 434 Hainaut, 208 Hainaut, house of, 129 Hainaut, Jacqueline, Countess of, 173 Ham, fortress of, 567, 572 Hamburg, 547 Hannibal, 3, 4 Hanotaux, Albert-Auguste-Gabriel, 347 *^- Hanover, city, 434 Hanover, E)lectorate of, 535, 580 Hanriot, Nicolas, 512 Hapsburg, house of, 340, 341 Harfleur, 16 Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford, 399, 400 Hastenbeck, 445 605 HISTORY OF FRANCE Haussmann, Baron Nicolas, 575 Hubert, J acques-Ren6, 512, 515, 516, 517 H^bertists, 516, 518 Heinsius, Anthony, 396 Helvetic Confederation, 535 Helvetii, 5 Henri I, 62-63, i57 Henri II, 242-244, 261, 264, 267, 287, 293, 340 n. See also Henri, Prince Henri III, 261, 262, 280-288, 289, 293 Henri IV, 254, 289-313, 314, 315. 316, 318, 320, 324, 329, 342, 351, 415 n., 420, 469 ; struggle with the Ivcague, 290-306 ; besieges Paris, 295-298 ; adopts Catholicism, 302- 303 ; crowned at Chartres, and enters Paris, 305 ; his pacific policy, 306 ; and the nobles, 306, 3 10-3 1 1, 316-317 ; struggle with Philip II, 306-307 ; proclaims the Kdict of Nantes, 307 ; his work of reconstruction, 308-310 ; marriage with Marie de MMicis, 311 ; assas- sinated, 312 ; character, 312-313. See also Henri III of Navarre ' Henri V/ 469 Henri, Prince (afterward Henri II), 236. See Henri II Henri, Duke of Anjou, 280. See Henri III Henri of Cond^ — see Conde Henri I, Duke of Guise — see Guise, Henri, Duke of Henri II, Duke of Montmorency, 332, 336, 337 Henri I of Navarre, 146 Henri II of Navarre, 263 Henri III of Navarre, 263-264, 274- 275, 276, 277, 278, 280, 281, 283, 284-285, 286, 288, 289. See also Henri IV Henriette- Marie of France, 330, 469 Henry I of England, 91, 92 Henry II of England, I^ouis VII and, 102 ; Philippe II and, 104-105 Henry III of England, 112, 118, 120- 121, 128 Henry IV of England, 168 Henry V of England, 168-171, 172, 182, 191 Henry VI of England, 171, 172 ; crowned King of France, 182 Henry VI, Shakespeare's play, 178 606 Henry VII of England, 222. See also Henry Tudor Henry VIII of England, 149, 228, 233. 234, 235, 236, 237, 238 Henry VI of Germany, 109 Henry, Prince, son of Henry II of England, 105 Henry Tudor (afterward Henry VII of England), 220. See Henry VII Heptameron, the; 256 n. H^rault de Sechelles, Marie- Jean, 516 Hermengard, wife of lyouis I, 47 Hermonymus, Georgius, 246 Hesse, Grand Duchy of, 580 Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims, 31 w. Hippolyte et Aricie of Rameau, 413 Hirschau, monastery of, 43 Histoire de la Guerre des Albigeois, 115 n. Historia Francorum, 16 n., 17 w. Hlodion, or Chlodion, 15 Hlodowig, or Clovis — see Clovis Hoche, I^azare, 528 Hodgkin, Thomas, 28 n., 29 n. Hogue-Saint-Vaast, La, 160 Hohenlinden, battle of, 532 Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d', 480 Holland, 330, 374, 375, 390, 395, 396, 400, 426, 433, 434, 435, 443, 510, 532, 541, 580 ; war with, 375- 379 ; made a French province by Napoleon, 545 Holy AUiance, 551, 556 Holy I^and — see Palestine Holy I^eague (1509), 228 ; (1526), 235 ; (1576) — see Iveague, the Holy Roman Empire, 233, 350, 377, 380, 395, 396, 399 ; Richelieu's policy responsible for the destruc- tion of the coherence of the Impe- rial states, 341 ; dissolved by Napoleon, 541 Horace, 43 Hortense, wife of lyouis Bonaparte, 566, 574 n. ' Hotel,' department for personal service to the king instituted by Philippe IV, 151 Hotel du Bourgtheroulde, Rouen, 259 Hotel des Invalides, Paris, 412, 489, 567 Hotel de Ville, Paris, 186, i8y n., 259, 296, 503. 565 Hotman, Frangois, 255 INDEX Houchard, Jean-Nicolas, 514 House of Commons, 320, 399 Hroland, or Roland, 38 Hrolf, or RoUo, 52 Hubertsburg, Treaty of, 447 Hudson Bay Territory, 400 Hugo. Victor, 253, 256, 570 Huguenots, 244, 471, Book III, Chap. X, and Book IV, Chaps. I, II, III, passim ; Richelieu and, 328, 329- 333. 339, 340, 342, 343, 386 ; I,ouis XIV and, 386-390 Hugues Capet, 51-52, 57-58, 60, 61, 62, 68 and n., 155, 157 Hugues le Grand, 51 Hugues du Puiset, 90 Hugues, Count of Vermandois, 82 ' Hundred Days, the,' 551, 552, 555 -Hundred Years' War, the, 158-193, 201, 224, 246 ; Edward III invades France — the battle of Cr^cy, 160; Kdward gains Calais, 1 60-1 61 ; the battle of Poitiers, 162 ; the Treaty of Br^tigny, 162 ; England loses most of her French possessions, 166 ; Henry V's invasion — the Treaty of Troyes, 1 69-1 71 ; Jeanne Dare, 174-182 ; Henry VI of England crowned King of France, 182 ; end of the war, 183 ; social and political condition of France during the war, 184-193 ; effect on the feudal aristocracy, 191-192 ; France's recovery from, 195 Hungary, 82, 83, 222, 443 Huns, 12 Hunting, the nobles deprived of the right of, 197 Huss, John, 191 M. Huy, Netherlands, 82 Huyghens, Christian, 414 Hymne h I'Armee du Rhin, 502 w. IcoNiUM, 107 I dees Napoleoniennes of I^ouis-Napo- Hon, 567 He Bourbon, 444 He de la Cite, Paris, 118 Ile-de-France, province, 186, 200 Ile-de-France (Mauritius), 444 Iliad, the, 250 Illyria, 5, 545. 547 Immunitas, in the feudal system, 69, 72 Imperialists, 550, 555, 566 ' Importants, the,' 350-351 Income tax, 493 India, 444, 447 Indulgents, 515 Industry, benefited by the Crusades, 87 ; growth of, 97 ; Louis IX and, 122 ; encouraged by I^ouis XI, 215 ; impaired by the Wats of Religion, 308 ; Sully's un- sympathetic attitude to, 310 ; encouraged by Henri IV, 310 ; encouraged by Richelieu. 344 ; developed by Colbert, 372 ; effect of Huguenot emigration upon, 390 ; adversely affected by the War of the Spanish Succession, 401; I/aw's 'System' and, 425, 431 ; developed by Napoleon, 534 ; fostered by Napoleon III, 575 Infanta Anne, 316 Infanta Isabella, 300, 301 Infanta Maria Theresa (i), 361 Infanta Maria Theresa (2), 435, 438 Ingeburge, wife of Philippe-Auguste, 116 n. Innocent II, Pope, 97 Innocent III, Pope, 112, 113, 114- 115, 116 and n. Innocent IV, Pope, 121, 127 Innocent XII, Pope, 418 Inquisition, the, 116, 269 Institute of France, 521 Instituts de la Religion chretienne of Calvin, 254, 267 Intendants, re-instituted by Riche- lieu, 338-339 ; the Conference of St lyouis demands the abolition of, 354 'y growth in power of, 368, 474 Invalides, Hotel des, 412, 489, 567 Ionian Isles, 547 Irenaeus, St, 13 Irene, Empress, 36 Irmengard, wife of I^ouis I, 55 Iron Crown, the, 36 Ironsides, fight in Flanders, 361 Isabella, Queen of Castile, 210, 227 n. Isabelle of Bavaria, 167, 168, 170, 176 Isabelle, wife of Edward II of England, 151, 156, 157 Isabelle of Hainaut, wife of Philippe II, 104, 129 Isabelle Taillefer, no, in n. Isidori Pacensis Chronicon, 30 n. Isnard, Maximin, 498 Issoudun, 105 607 HISTORY OF FRANCE Italy, 5, II, 32, 34, 38, 46, 47, 48, 80, 81, 121, 148, 196, 244 n., 246, 247, 248, 251, 252, 259, 325, 340, 346, 360, 380, 396, 397, 400, 431, 433. 434, 441. 525, 526, 528. .560 ; Charlemagne invades, 36, 37 ; Charles VIII' s invasion of, 223- 225, 247, 249 ; lyouis XII's inva- sions of, 226-228, 229 ; PranQois I and, 230-231, 233, 234, 235, 236 ; Henri II and, 242 ; the end of France's effort to establish a foot- ing in, 243 ; Napoleon crowned King of, 538 ; Napoleon III and, 576-577 ; war with, 578 Ivry, battle of, 294. 299, 302 Jacobin Ci^ub, 494, 498, 518, 519, 559 Jacobins, 484, 494 n., 498, 500, 503^, 506-509, 511-512, 519, 525, 528 529, 533, 534, 535. See Mountain Jacobites, 400 ' Jacquerie,' the, 186 ' Jacques Bonhomme,' 186 n. Jaffa, 527 Jamaica, 462 James II of England, 390, 395, 435 James V of Scotland, 236, 244. n. Jamyn, Amadis, 250 Jansen, Cornelius, 415, 416, 417 Jansenism, 414-418, 440-441 Jargeau, 178 Jarnac, 274 Jean I, 155 Jean II, 161-162, 163, 185, 187, 188, 192, 287 Jeanne, wife of Charles of Blois, 159 Jeanne Dare, 174-182, 1 91-192 Jeanne, daughter of I^ouis XI, 210, 216, 226 Jeanne, wife of John of Montfort, 160 Jeanne of Navarre, wife of Philippe IV, 146, 147 Jeanne of Navarre, daughter of IvOuisX, 157 Jeannin, Pierre, 316 Jemappes, battle of, 510 Jena, battle of, 542 Jerusalem, 63, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 91, 98, 100, 105, 108, 109, 113, 127, 128, 224 Jesuits, 273, 312, 346, 415 and n., 416 andn., 417, 440, 451, 452, 558 Jeu d'Adam, or de la Feuillee, Le, 142 Jeu de Robin et de Marion, Le, 142 608 Jeunes gens, of the Revolution, 519 Jeunesse doree, la, 519 Jews, persecution of, under Robert II, 62 ; persecution of, in E)urope, during the First Crusade, 82 ; Richard I's persecution of, 106 ; Louis IX' s treatment of, 132 ; persecuted by Philippe IV, 152 ; Charles IV and, 154 ; persecution of, in Philippe V's reign, 155 ; persecution of, during the Black Death, 185 Joan of Arc — see Jeanne Dare Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand V of Castile, 227 n. Jodelle, Btienne, 252, 253 John, King of England, 110-112, 116 n. John II, King of Aragon, 203 John, Prince (afterward King John of England), 105, 109, no John V, Duke of Alengon, 210 John V, Count of Armagnac, 203, 210 John of France, Duke of Berry, 167 John the Fearless, Duke of Bur- gundy, 167-168, 169, 170 John IV of Montfort, 159-160 John of Werth, 349 Johnson, President Andrew, 578 Joinville, 124 w., 271 Joinville, Jean de, 124, 129, 142 Joseph I, Emperor, 393, 399 Joseph II, Emperor, 457 Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria, 392, 393, 394 Josephine, wife of Napoleon, 525 539 546, 566 Jourdain de I'lsle, 154 Jourdan, Jean-Baptiste, Count, 517, 525 Journal de Dangeau, 402 n. Journal officiel, 578 Journee des dupes, la, 336 Jouvenel des Ursins, Jean, 190 Joyeuse, Anne, Duke of, 284 Juarez, Benito Pablo, 577 Judaism, 534 Judith, wife of lyouis I, 47, 55 Judith of du Bartas, 253 Julian the Apostate, 15, 58 Julius Caesar, and Gaul, i, 2, 5-10 ; mentioned, 14 n., 37, 58 Julius II, Pope, 228 Junot, Andoche, 525, 544 Jura Mountains, 48, 206 INDEX Jurandes, 459, 461, 478 Jury, trial by, 493 Justice, administration of, Louis IX and, 123-125 ; the feudal nobility deprived of the rigi^t of administer- ing justice, 192 ; tampered with by Richelieu, 344 ; changes in, under the Constitution of 1791, 493 Justice de la Paix, 493 Juvenal, 43 KarIv — see Charles Karlings, 26-56, 67, 69 ; tables of the dynasty, 33, 55 ; extinction of the dyTiasty, 51 Karloman, son of Charles Martel, 31, 33 Karloman, son of Ivouis II, 50, 55 Karloman, son of Pippin the Short, 33. 34.- 36 Kehl, 441 Kiersy-sur-Oise, Edict of, 56 n., 67 Kleber, Jean-Baptiste, 513, 527 Klosterzeven, 445 Knighthood, 74-75 Knights Hospitallers, 87 Knights of St John, 108 n. Knights Templars, 87 ; suppression of the order by Philippe IV, 149, 150. 152 Koniggratz, 580 Koran, the, 29 IvA BarrE, Jean-Fran9ois Lefevre de, 452 n., 481 Iva Boetie, iStienne de, 255 Iva Bourdonnaye, FranQois-Regis de, 558 Iva Bruyere, Jean de, 410 La Calprenede, Gautier de Costes de, 406 La Chaise, Pere, 388, 417 La Charite, 275, 278 La Fayette, Marquis de, 465, 489, 490, 491, 494, 496, 498, 500, 502, 503, 504, 507, 510 La Fayette, Mme de, 407 La Fontaine, Jean de, 410 Lagny, 298 La Hogue, battle of, 391 Laisne, Jeanne (' Hachette'), 204 Lally-ToUendal, Thomas-Arthur de, 447, 452 n. Lally-ToUendal, Trophime-Gerard de, 492, 554 La Marche, Hugues X, Count of, 120 Lamartine, Alphonse - Marie - Louis ' Prat de. 483, 563, 564 Lamballe, Princesse de, 505 Lamennais, F61icite-Robert de, 561 ' La Mdre Ang^lique,' 415 Lameth, Charles-Malo-Frangois de, 494. 507 Lameth, Theodore de, 498, 507 La Motte, Jean de, 457 n. Lancelot, Claude, 415 Land-tenure in the medieval period 67 Langres Cathedral, 143 Language, the French, the begin- nings of, 49 ; the langue d'oc and the langue d'oil, 62 ; replaces Latin in criminal trials, 229 ; writers of the Renaissance and, 252-253 ; the work of the Academic for the French language, 408 Languedoc, 118, 172, 218, 306, 332, 336, 338, 439. 477 Languet, Hubert, 255 La Noue, Frangois de, 253 Lanson, G., 404 Laon, 90, 96, 300, 306 Laon Cathedral, 143 Larevellidre-Lepeaux, Louis-Marie, 523. 528 La Riviere, Jean Bureau de, 190 La Riviere, Lemercier de, 478 La Roche- Abeille, 275 La Rochefoucauld, Frangois VI, Duke of, 351, 366 La Rochefoucauld-d'Knville, Louis- Alexandre, Duke of, 492 La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Fran- 9ois-Alexandre-Fr^d€ric, Duke of, 489 La Rochelle, 274, 275, 279, 325, 330 ; siege of, 331-333. 334 La Rochelle, Peace of, 279, 280 La Salle, Robert Cavelier de, 427 n. Lascaris, Andreas Janus, 247 Later an Council of 1215, 116 Latin, the language, in Gaul, 49 n. replaced by French in crimina trials, 229 ; writers of the Renais- sance and, 252 Launay, Bernard- Rene Jourdan, Mar- quis de, 489 Lavall^e, T.-S., 37 n., 153 n., 199 n. Lavisse, Ernest, 83 w., 217 w. Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent, 514 Law, John, 424-432 2Q 609 HISTORY OF FRANCE I^aw, Louis IX's reforms in, 123-125 ; the legists and their influence, 147- 148 ; Ifouis XII' s reforms in, 229 ; changes in, under the Constitution of 1791, 493 ; the Code Napoleon, 534 I^aw of 22 Prairial, 516, 517, 518 Lawfeld, battle of, 444 Laxard, or I^assoir, Durand, 175 League, the (Sainte Ligue), 263, 281- 282, 283, 284, 285, 289, 290-306, 316 League of Augsburg, 380, 390 ; war with the, 390-392 League of Cambrai, 228 League of Neutrals, 532 League of Public Welfare, 197-201 League of the Rhine, 361, 376 Lebon, Joseph, 515 Le Brun, Charles, 412 Lebrun, Charles-Frangois, 531, 539 Le Bugey, 243 Leclerc^Jean, 266 Le Daim, Olivier, 212, 217 Ledru - Rollin, Alexandre - Auguste, 561, 564, 566, 568 Lefevre, Jean, 414 Lefevre d'l^taples, Jacques, 248, 249, 258, 266 Legendre, Louis, 502 Legion of Honour, instituted, 539 Legislative Assembly, of the Revolu- tion, 492, 497-505» 506 ; of the Second Republic, 566, 567, 568, 569. 570 Legists, the, 147-148 Leipzig, battle of, 549 Le Maltre, Antoine, 415 Le Mans, 19, 105, 293 Le Normant d']^tioles, 448 Lens, battle of, 349, 354, 363 Leo III (* the Isaurian '), Emperor, 32 Leo III, Pope, 37, 42 n., 47 Leo X, Pope, 228 Leopold I, Kmperor, 392, 393, 394 Leopold II, Emperor, 499 Leopold, Prince, of HohenzoUern, 580 Le Puy, 172 L^rida, battle of, 349 Les Andelys, no Lescot, Pierre, 259 Le Sueur, EJustache, 412 Leszcynska, Marie, 438-439 Le Tellier, Michel, 370, 389 Letoumeur, Charles-Louis-Fran9ois- Honor6 523 610 Lettres de cachet, 354, 471 Lettres persanes, 479 Lettres provinciates of Pascal, 416 Liberals, 555, 556, 562 Li€ge, 201, 202, 396 Ligue — see League Lille, III, 151, 397 Lillo, George, 472, 473 n. Limoges, 165, 458 Limoges, Ad^mar V„ Viscount of, no Limousin, 121, 162, 165, 432, 458, 478 Lindsey, Robert Bertie, Karl of, 332 Lisbon, 544 Lisieujx, in, 293 Literature, Gallic, 11 ; development of, in the medieval period, 138— 143 ; fostered by Louis XI, 215 ; of the Renaissance, 250-258 ; the influence of the salons on, 405-407, 408 ; classicism and, 407-411 ; the influence of the Academie on, 407- 408 ; the influence of the Court on, 408-411 ; the democratization of, 409-411, 472 n. ; the part played by literature in producing the Revolution, 478-484 Liutprand, King of the Lombards, 32 Livy, 2 n. Local government, Richelieu destroys, 338 Locke, John, 414 n. Lodeve, 439 Loi de SiHrete generate, 575 Loi des Suspects, 514 Loire, the, 16, 19, 138, 172, 173, 259, 286, 310, 359 Loiret, 57 Lombard, Peter, 136, 137 Lombards, 32, 34 ; Charlemagne's wars with, 35, 36 Lombardy, 526, 532 Lom^ie de Brienne, D^tienne-Charles de, 465, 467 London, 112, 162, 228, 374, 424, 536, 567 Long Parliament, English, 353 Longjumeau, 274 Longjumeau, plain of, 199 Longueville, Anne - Genevieve de Bourbon, Duchess of, 351, 355, 359 Longueville, Henry I, Duke of, 291, 292 Longueville, Henry II, Duke of, 317, 321, 358 Longwy, 504 INDEX I/orenzo the Magnificent, 247 lyorrain, Claude, 412 n. I/orraine, 49. 50, 81, 185, 206, 336, 341, 349, 394 ; united to France, 442 ; ceded to Prussia, 581 I/orraine, house of, 244 I/orraine, Charles, Cardinal of, 244 and n., 261, 262-263, 268-269, 271. 280 I^rraine,Charles,Duke of, 51 , 55, 60,62 lyorraine, Charles II, Duke of, 293, 306 Lorraine, Charles III, Duke of, 336 I/orraine, Frangois-!^tienne, Duke of, 442 Lorraine, Ren6 II, Duke of, 206, 217 I/orris, Guillaume de, 140 lyothair I, Bmperor, 47, 48-50, 55 lyothair. King of France, 51, 55 Lotharingia, 49, 205. See Lorraine Lottery, royal, established by Fran- 9ois I, 242 Loudun, Treaty of, 320 Louis I (' le Pieux,' ' le Debon- naire'), 46-48, 53, 54, 55 Louis II {' le B^gue '), 50, 51, 53, 55 Louis III, 50, 55 Louis IV {' d'Outremer'), 51, 55 Louis V (' le Faineant '), 51, 55 Louis VI (' le Gros '), 89-96, 97, 157 ; and the feudal nobility, 89-90, 92 ; and the communal movement, 95- 96 Louis VII (' le Jeune'), 92, 97-102, 104, no, 143, 157 ; and the com- munal movement, 96, 97 ; and the Church, 97 ; and the Second Crusade, 98-100 ; and Henry II of England, 102 Louis VIII ('le Lion'), 118, 157. See also Louis, son of Philip II Louis IX est Louis'), 116, 118, 1 19-133. 134. 135. 138, 139* 142, 143, 144, 145, 157, 217, 223 ; his mother's regency, 1 19-120; and the feudal nobility, 1 20-1 21 ; rela- tions with Henry III of England, 120-121 ; and the Church, 121- 122 ; administrative and other reforms, 122-126 ; establishes the Parliament of Paris, 125 ; inter- feres with the communes, 125- 126 ; takes part in the Sixth and Seventh Crusades, 126-129 ; death, 129 ; character, 129-133 Louis X ('le Hutin'), 153, 155, 156, 157 Louis XI, 194-215, 216, 217, 218, 222, 233, 246, 287, 342 ; and the nobles, 196-201, 214 ; and the League of Pubhc Welfare, 197- 201 ; his struggle with Charles the Bold, 201-208 ; his large gains of territory, 208-210 ; consolidation of the monarchy under, 210 ; death, 211-212 ; character and policy, 212-215 Louis XII, 210, 216, 225-229, 230, 240, 246, 287 ; wars with Italy, 226-228, 229 ; death, 229 ; his administration, 229. See also Louis, Duke of Orleans Louis XIII, 251, 314-345, 346, 350, 351, 393» 404. 407. 469; asserts hinself as King, 321-322, 323 ; conflict with the Huguenots, 324- 325 ; Richelieu's influence over, 326-328 ; his character, 327 ; death, 345 ; his chastity; 381 ; his fondness for music, 412 Louis XIV, 251, 343, 346-403, 404, 408, 411, 418 n., 419, 427 n.. 434, 436 n., 439, 441, 448, 466, 469, 470, 471. 476 w., 477, 531 ; the Regency of Anne of Austria and the administration of Mazarin, 346- 361 ; his reliance upon Mazarin, 362 ; asserts his authority as King, 362 ; overrides the Parliament of Paris, 363 ; his absolutist ideas received from Mazarin, 363 ; his conception of absolute monarchy, 363-365. 367 ; as King, 365-367 ; character and attributes, 365-366 ; his system of government, 367—368, 422 ; and Fouquet, 368-369 ; and Colbert, 369-370, 380-381 ; the marriage with Marie-Th^r^se and the War of Devolution, 374-375 ; the war with Holland, 375-379 ; receives the title of ' le Grand,' 379 ; growth of his power, 380 ; his extravagances, 381 ; Louvois and, 381 ; his private life, 381- 382 ; and Mme de Maintenon, 382- 385, 388, 402 ; his religious policy, 385-386 ; his quarrel with Rome over supremacy, 385-386 ; poUcy toward the Huguenots, 386-390 ; revokes the Edict of Nantes, 388- 390 ; and the war \dth the League of Augsburg, 390-392 ; and the 611 HISTORY OF FRANCE War of the Spanish Succession, 392- 400 ; appeals to the nation, 398- 399 ; death, 402-403 ; and the bourgeoisie, 410, 422 ; on Moliere, 410 n. ; his influence upon the art of his time, 411-412 ; and music, 412-413 ; the teaching of Cartesianism prohibited under, 414; opposes Jansenism, 416-418 ; his system of government by Secre- taries of State abolished, and restored, 422-423, 433 ; his burden of debt upon the coimtry, 423 ; the Age of, 361, 410-41 1 Ivouis XV, 401, 419-454, 455 and n., 458, 469, 471 ; betrothed to the Infanta, 435, 438 ; crowned, and assumes the Kingship, 436 ; mar- ried to Marie I^eszcyn.ska, 438-439 ; character, 448 ; popular feeling against him, 450, 453 ; death, 453 Louis XVI, 455-468, 469, 485-510, 522, 523, 528 n., 550 ; qualities and character, 456 ; Marie- Antoinette's influence over, 456 ; and Turgot, 458-461 ; struggle with the Parlia ment of Paris, 465-467 ; and the vStates-General of 1789, 485-488 ; and the Constituent Assembly, 488-490 ; yields to the Assembly, 490 ; attitude to the Constitution of 1 79 1, 494-496 ; attempts flight, 495 ; supported by the European Powers against the Revolution- aries, 499 ; the , Commune and, 502-504 ; deposed, 506 ; con- demned and executed, 509-510 ' I^ouis XVII,' 469, 528 n. lyouis XVIII, 469, 4^5 n., 550-552, 554-556, 557 Louis, son of Charles VII (afterward Louis XI), 194-195. See Louis XI Louis, son of Louis IX, 132 Louis, son of Louis XIV (' le Grand Dauphin'), 392, 393, 394. 40i, 4^9 Louis, son of Louis XV, 455 n., 469 Louis, son of Philippe II (afterward Louis VIII), III, 112. See Louis VIII Louis I, Duke of Anjou, 167 Louis, Duke of Anjou (afterward Louis XV), 402. See Louis XV Louis of Bavaria, 47, 48, 49, 50, 55 Louis, Duke of Burgundy, 393, 401- 402, 469 612 Louis of France, Duke of Orleans, 167-168, 226 n., 230, 287 Louis, Duke of Orleans (afterward Louis XII), 200, 210, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 223, 225. See Louis XII Louis de Luxembourg, Count of Saint- Pol, 210 Louis-Philippe, King, 469, 559-5^2, 567. 569 Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans i'l^galiW), 469, 489, 508, 514,559 Louis-Napol^n, Prince — see Bona- parte Louise of Savoy, 230, 236, 241 Louisiana, 427, 444, 447 Louvel, Louis- Pierre, 556 Louvet de Couvray, Jean-Baptiste, 498 Louvois, Frangois-Michel Le Tellier, Marquis of, 373-374, 37^, 381, 388, 389 n., 391, 396 Louvre, the, 117, 259, 276, 277, 285, 314, 322, 412 Low Countries — see Netherlands ' Loyal Serviteur, Le,' 254 Luckner, Nicolas, Baron de, 514 Lugon, Bishopric of, 326 Lucques, duchy of, 541 Ludovico il Moro, 224 Lugdunum, 13. See Lyon Lulli, Giovanni Battista, 413 Luneville, Treaty of, 532 Lusigny, Baron of, Concini as, 315 Lutetia, 13, 58. See Paris Luther, Martin, 232, 248, 266, 267 Liitzen, battle of (1632), 341 ; (1813), 549 Luxembourg, Fran9ois - Henri de Montmorency, Duke of, 378, 391 Luxembourg, Palace of the, 504, 526, 564 Luxembourg-Piney, Duke of, 323 Luxemburg, city, 380, 396 Luxemburg, duchy of, 580 Luynes, Charles d' Albert, Duke of, 322, 323, 325, 326, 337 Lyon, 13, 121, 127, 278, 512, 515, 527, 560 Lyon, Pierre d'Espinac, Archbishop of, 298 Lyonnais, 172 Macaui^ay, Thomas, 294, 379 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 347 Mackail, J. W., 11 n. INDEX Madrid, 266, 397, 544, 545 Madrid, castle of, 234 Madrid, Treaty of (1526), 234-235, 236 Mailles, Jacques de, 254 Maillotins, revolt of the, 186-187 Main, river, 48 Maine, county of, 102, 105, 121, 210 Maine, Charles III, Count of, 210 Maine, I^ouis-Auguste, Duke of, 419- 420, 435-436 Maintenon, Mmede, 382-385, 388, 402 Mainz, 499 Mainz, Elector of, 361 Maison Carrie, 11 Maisoncelles, 169 Malesherbes, Chr^tien-Guillaume de Lamoignon de, 458, 460, 509, 515 Malherbe, Pran9ois de, 253, 409 Mallet du Pan, Jacques, 482, 484, 523 Malmesbury, James Howard Harris, Earl of, 572 Malouet, Pierre- Victor, Baron, 492 Malplaquet, battle of, 399 Malta, 527, 535 Mandat, Jean-Antoine Galyot, Mar- quis of, 503 Mandats territoriaux, 494 n., 528 Mansart, Jules Hardouin-, 412 Mansurah, 127 Mantes, 64, 294 Mantua and Montferrat, Duke of, 339 Manuel Comnenus, Emperor, 99 Manuel d'Artillerie of lyOuis-Napo- l^on, 566 Manuzio, Aldo, 248 ' Marat, Jean-Paul, 484, 502, 508, 512, 513 Marceau, Fran9ois-S^verin Desgra- viers, 513 Marcel, Btienne, 186, i88 Mardyk, 434 Marengo, battle of, 532 Margaret of Austria, 236 Margaret, St, 175 Margaret of Scotland, wife of lyouis XI, 194 Margarita Theresa, wife of lycopold I, 393, 394 Marguerite of Angoul6me, or of Navarre, 239, 251, 256 n., 263, 266 Marguerite of Burgundy, 209, 222 Marguerite, wife of Gaston of Orleans, 336 Marguerite of Provence, 120 Marguerite of Valois, 275, 311 Maria Anna, wife of the Emperor Ferdinand III, 393 Maria Antonia, wife of Maximilian of Bavaria, 393 Maria Theresa, Empress, 442-444, 445» 451 Marie of Brabant, 146 Marie of Burgundy, 208, 209, 227 n. Marie of Ivorraine, 236, 244 n. Marie de Medicis, 311, 324, 326, 337, 346 ; regency of, 314-323 ; Riche- lieu and, 335-336 ; death, 345 Marie, Alexandre-Thomas, 564 Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France, 451, 456-457. 460, 463-464, 465, 466, 486, 488, 491, 495, 499, 500, 503 » 505. 514 Marie-Ivouise, wife of Napoleon, 546 Marie-Th^rese, wife of I^ouis XIV, 361, 374-375. 383. 384* 393» 394 Marignano, battle of, 230, 234 Marigny, Enguerrand de, 148, 153 Marillac, l/ouis de, 336 Marillac, Michel de, 336 Mariotte, Edme, 414 Marius, Caius, 5 Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of, 396-397. 399. 400 Marie, Thomas de, 90 Marly, 381, 412 ' Marmousets,' 190 Marne, the, 295, 298 Marot, Clement, 251-252, 266 Marriage, under the feudal system, 70 Marsaglia, battle of, 391 Marseillaise, origin of the, 502 n. ; mentioned, 514 Marseille, 3, 107. 234, 431 n., 502 n., 512 Marseille, Renier, Bishop of, 114 Marsin, Ferdinand, 396 Martignac, Jean - Baptiste - Silv^re Gaye, Viscount of, 557-558 Martin, Henri, 200, 312, 342 n., 390 Martin, Theodore, 573 w., 576 n. Mary I, Queen of England, 242, 243 Mary, Princess (afterward Mary II of England), 378 Mary, wife of I^ouis XII, 228 Mary of Lorraine — see Marie Mary Queen of Scots, 244 n., 261 Masselin, Jehan, 219 n. Massena, Andr6, 532 Massilia, 3-4. See Marseille 613 HISTORY OF FRANCE Matilda, lyady of England, 92, 102 MattMeu, Pierre, 303 n. Maupeou, Ren^-Nicolas-Charles-Au- guste de, 451-452, 467, 531 Maurepas, Jean-Fr^d^ric Phelypeaux, Count of, 457-458, 460, 461, 463, Maurevel, Charles de lyouviers. Sire de, 276 Maury, Abb^, 492 Maximilian I, Emperor, 205, 209, 220, 221, 222, 224, 227 and n., 228, 231 Maximilian, Archduke of Austria and Emperor of Mexico, 577-578 Maximilian Emmanuel of Bavaria, 393 Mayenne, Charles of I^orraine, Duke of, 286, 290-292, 293-294, 295, 296, 298, 300, 301, 302, 305-306 Mayenne, Henri, Duke of, 317, 321 Mayors of the Palace, 23-24, 27 Mazarin, 'Cardinal, the administra- tion of, 346-361 ; favoured by Richelieu, 346-347 ; character, 347-348 ;, the nobles plot against, 350-351 ; and the Frondes, 352- 360 ; makes a treaty with England, 361 ; forms the League of the Rhine, 361 ; death, 361 ; Irouis XIV's reUance on, 362 ; inculcates absolutist ideas in Louis, 363 ; and Fouquet, 368 ; and Colbert, 369, 370 ; and the Huguenots, 386 ; mentioned, 375, 376, 387, 390, 412, 433 Meaux, 186, 278, 298, 305 Meaux, the Mystics of, 266 Medici, Lorenzo de' (' the Magnifi- cent'), 247 Medicis, Catherine de — see Catherine Medicis, Marie de — see Marie Mediterranean, the, 373, 378, 446 Melignano, 230 Melun, 65 M^moires of Saint-Simon, 421 n, Memoires historiques et Instructions of Louis XIV, 363 Menippus, 254 n. Mercoeur, Louis, Duke of, 351 Mercoeur, Philippe-Emmanuel, Duke of, 293, 306, 307 Mercy, Fran9ois de, 349 Merlin de Thionville, Antoine-Chris- tophe, 498 Merovingians, 15-26, 27 Merowig, 15, 25 Mersen, 68 Mesmes, Henri de, 319 Messina, 107 Methodus ad facilem Histoviavum Cognitionem of Jean Bodin, 254 Metz, city, 43, 242, 244, 266, 443, 495> 513. 581 Metz, kingdom of, 20 Metz, Bishopric of, 356 Meudon, 288 Meulan, 294 Meung, Jean de, 140 Meuse, the, 15 Mexico, republic of, war with, 577— 578 Michaud, Joseph-Frangois, 108 n. Michelet, Jules, 247 '.Middle Kingdom, the,' 49, 205 Migne, Jacques-Paul, 30 n., 60 n. Milan, city, 226, 230, 237, 526, 538 Milan, duchy of, 226, 227, 228, 230, 231, 233, 237, 243 Military College, Paris, 524 Military School, Brienne, 524 Minorca, 400^ 446, 462 Mint, the, 427 Mi-parties, 2d,i Mirabeau, Honors-Gabriel Riquetti, Count of, 478, 487, 492, 494, 495, 508 Mirabeau, Victor Riquetti, Marquis of, 478 Missi dominici, 41, 123 Mississippi, the, 428 ' Mississippi BablDle,' 428-431 Modena, Rinaldo, Duke of, 394 Moderate Republican party, 522, 533 , 564 Mohammed, 29, 38 Mole, Mathiea, 353, 357 Mohere, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 405, 409, 410, 413 Molinos, Miguel, 418 MoUwitz, battle of, 443 Monarchists, 569 Monarchy, the, consoUdated under Louis XI, 210, 213 ; extended over Brittany, the last of the great fiefs, 222 ; great development of, under FranQois I, 241 ; defended in Jean Bodin' s De la Repuhlique, 254 ; Richelieu's work for, 328, 343 ; effect of the Seven Years' 614 INDEX War upon, 447 ; fall in prestige of, under l/ouis XV, 450, 455 ; decay of, 471 ; Montesquieu's views on, 479 Moncontour, battle of, 275 Mons-en-Pevdle, battle of, 151 ' Monsieur/ royal title, 281 n. Monstrelet, Knguerrand de, 194 ' Montague, la,' 498. See Mountain Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de, 255, 256, 257-258 Montaigu, Jean de, 190 Montaubana 275, 279, 325, 333 Montbazon, Duchess of, 351 Montcalm de Saint- V^ran, I^uis- Joseph, Marqiiis of, 446 Montdidier, 204 Montereau, 170 Montespan, Henri-Ivouis, Marquis of, 382 Montespan, Mme de, 382-383, 419, 435 Montesquieu, Abb6, 492 Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron of, 455, 479, 480 Montfaucon, 146, 153 Montfort, county of, 199 Montgomery, Gabriel, Count of, 243 Montlhery, Hugues de Crecy of, 65, 90 Montlhery, battle of, 199 Montluc, Blaise de, 253 Montmorency, house of, 335, 338 Montmorency, Anne, Duke of, 237, 242, 244, 255, 271, 272, 273, 274 Montmorency, Henri II, Duke of, 332, 336, 337 MontpelHer, Treaty of, 325, 330 Montpensier, Mile de, wife of Gaston d' Orleans, 334 n., 336 Montpensier, Mile de, daughter of Gaston d' Orleans, 360 Montreal, 447 Montreuil, Treaty of, 151 Montserrat, island of, 462 Moore, Edward, 473 n. Moors, 38, 222 Morat, 206 Moravia, Duke of, 106 Moreau, Jean- Victor, 525, 532, 536 Morellet, Abb^, 478, 480 Morny, Charles - Auguste - Louis - Joseph, Duke of, 574, 578 Mortemer-en-Bray, battle of, 63 Moscow, capitulates to Napoleon, 548 Moselle, the, 15, 349 Moulins, town, 281 Mountain, Party of the, 507, 508, 509, 511, 512, 513, 515, 518, 519. See Jacobins Municipaliid insurrectionnelle, 489, 512 Miinster, Westphalia, 350 Murat, Joachim, 541, 544 Muscadins, les, 519 Muset, Colin, 139 Museum of Natural History, Paris, 521 Music, the study of, encouraged by Charlemagne, 43 ; during the Grand Siecle, 412-413 Mystics of Meaux, the, 266 Namatianus, II Namur, 397 Nancy, 206 Nantes, 513. 5I5 Nanteuil, Philippe de, 139 Naples, city, 224, 225, 227, 247, 442 Naples, kingdom of, 223, 224, 226- 227, 235, 394, 544. 547; ill the Third Coalition, 541 Napoleon Bonaparte, 376, 520, 524- 553. 555, 558, 559, 560, 567, 568, 574, 577 ; early years, 524 ; rise into prominence, 525 ; campaign in Italy (1796-97), 525-526, 528 ; expedition to Egypt, 526-527 ; overthrows the Directory, 528- 529 ; becomes First Consul, 530 ; routs the Austrians at Marengo, 531 ; made Consul for life, 533 ; his administration as First Consul, 533-535 ; plots against his life, 534, 536 ; prepares to invade Eng- land, 535, 540 ; and the execution of the Diike of Enghien, 536-537 ; made Emperor, 537, 538 ; crowned King of Italy, 538 ; forms a new nobility and keeps royal state, 539- 540 ; campaign against Austria and Russia — ^Austerlitz, 541 ; and the Fourth Coalition — ^the Treaty of Tilsit, 542-543 ; at the zenith of his power, 543 ; struggle with Eng- land, 543-552 ; the System, 543- 544, 548 ; the Peninsular War, . 544-545, 546, 548 ; and the Fifth Coalition — ^the Treaty of Schon- bnmn, 545 ; marriage with Marie- I^uise, 546 ; extent of his Empire, and its instability, 546-547 ; the 615 HISTORY OF FRANCE invasion of Russia, 54^549 ; and the Sixth Coalition, 549-550 ; forced to abdicate, and sent to Elba, 550 ; escapes from Elba, 551 ; ' the Hundred Days,' 551 ; Waterloo, 551 ; death, 552 ; his place in history, 552-553 1 cha- racter, 573 ; Napoleon III com- pared with, 573 Napoleon III, 8 n., 571, 572-581 ; his character, 573-574, 576 ; his absolute rule, 574-575 ; material progress of the country under his rule, 575-576 ; his foreign policy, 576-578 ; and Italy, 576-577 .* and Mexico, 577-578 ; concedes con- stitutional government, 579 ; and the Franco- Prussian War, 580- 581 ; death, 581 n. See also Bona- parte, Prince Charles-Iyouis Narbo Martins, 4 Narbonne, 4, 29 Nassau, 580 National Assembly, 486-488 National Convention, the, 504, 505, 506-521' 525, 531 National Debt, initiated under Fran- 9ois I, 242 ; Law and, 427 ; in- creased by the War of the Austrian Succession, 444 National Guard, 489, 491, 492, 496, 503, 512, 518, 519, 559, 562, 565 National Workshops, 564, 565 Navarre, 147, 228, 233, 234 Navy, practically created by Riche- lieu, 344 ; value of, in the American War of Independence, 462 Nazareth, 129 Necker, Jacques, 461-463, 464, 468, 486, 488. 489. 490, 493 Neerwinden, battle of (1693), 39^ » (1793), 510, 559 Nelson, Horatio, 527, 532, 541 Nemours, house of, 210, 223 Nemours, Charles of Savoy, Duke of, 293, 296, 297 Nemours, Jacques, Duke of , 200,203, 210 Nesle, 204 Nesle, Blondel de, 139 Nesle, Simon de, 124 Netherlands, 38, 82, 227, 237, 242, 248, 274, 292, 296, 298, 299, 307, 339. 348, 361, 378, 39i» 392. 395, 396, 397. 400, 417, 501, 526 616 Netherlands, Austrian, 400 Netherlands, Spanish, 374-375. 376, 396 Neufchatel, principality, 541 Neustria, 22-24, 27, 28, 29, 46 Nevers, Charles, Duke of, 317, 321, 340 Nevers, l/ouis de Gonzague, Duke of, 293 Nevis, 462 Newfotmdland, 400 > New Orleans, 427 n. New Testament, 266, 417 Ney, Marshal, 542, 546, 555 Nicaea, 79, 83. See Nice Nicaea, Council of (325), 18 _ Nice, city, 237. See also Nicaea Nice, province, 510 ; annexed by France, 577 Nicole, Pierre, 416 Niemen, the, 542, 548 Nile, the, 127 Nile, battle of the, 527 Nimeguen, Treaty of, 378, 379, 380 Nimes, 4, 11, 29, 279 Niort, 382 Noailles, Adrien-Maurice, Duke of, 423-424, 426 Noailles, Cardinal de, 417 Nobles, Ivouis I and, 47 ; rise of the feudal nobility under the Karlings, 54-56 ; Hugues Capet and, 57-58 ; the anarchy of feudalism under Philippe I, 64-66 ; the institution of feudalism, 67-74; I^ouis VI and, 89-92 ; the feudal nobility and the communal movement, 92- 95 ; lyouis VII and, 97 ; Philippe n and, 103-104 ; Blanche of Castile and, 1 19-120 ; I^uis IX and, 120, 122-123 ; Philippe III and, 145, 146 ; feudal reaction in the later Capetian period, 153- 154 ; and the growth of middle- class influence, 190-191 ; decline of the feudal nobility in the period of the Hundred Years' War, 191- 192 ; I^ouis XI and, 196-201, 214, 217 ; reaction among, during Charles VIII' s reign, 217 ; Charles VIII and, 223 ; Francois I's supre- macy over, 241 ; Henri IV's pacific policy with, and its results, 306, 316 ; conspire against Henri IV, 3 10-3 1 1 ; lose ground under Henri IV, 316; revolts of, against the INDEX Regent Marie de M^dicis, 316-317, 320-321 ; in the States-General of 1614, 318, 319 ; side with Marie de M^dids against lyouis XIII, > 323 ; Richelieu and, 326, 328, 333-339. 342-343: plot against Mazarin, 350-351 ; in the First Fronde, 355-357 ; the Fronde of the Nobles, 357-360 ; rise of the noblesse de cour : the salons, 404 ; Philippe of Orleans attempts to restore the nobility to predomi- nance in political affairs, 422 ; suffer in prestige in connexion with I^aw's ' System,' 432 ; supporters of autocracy and the Old Regime, 471-472 ; exempt from many taxes, 476 ; in the States-General of 1789, 485, 486, 487, 488 ; titles of nobility abolished by the Con- stitution of 1 79 1, 492 ; emigration of the nobles during the Revolu- tionary period, 499 ; the emigres threatened with confiscation by the Ivegislative Assembly, 500 ; Napoleon's new nobility, 539-540 Noblesse d'epee, 318 w., 422 Noblesse de robe, 318 n., 422, 423 Nogaret, Guillaume de, 148 Nogent, Guibert de, 82 n., 95 Nordlingen, battle of (1645), 349 Normandy, 56, 63, 68. 69, 91, 92, 93, 102, no, III; 121, 128, 160, 170, 199, 201, 204, 205, 218, 291, 294, 299, 321, 356 Normandy, Charles, Duke of, 200. See Berry, Charles, Duke of (i) Normandy, Richard II, Duke of, 93 Normandy, Robert II, Duke of (' Courte-Heuse'), 64, 83, 91 Normandy, William, Duke of — see William the Conqueror Normans, 53, 64, 78 Norsemen, settlement of, in France, 52-53 North, Sir Thomas, 251 n. Notabilites communales, departemen- tales, and nationales, 531 Notre-Dame. bridge of, 295 Notre-Dame, cathedral of, 118, 143, 305> 354. 515, 538 Notre-Dame, school of, 135 Nouvelle Heloise, Rousseau's, 484 Nova Scotia, 400 Noviant, Jean de, 190 Noyon Cathedral, 143 Nureddin, 100 Observatory, Paris, 412, 414 Octroi, 477 Oder, the, 446 Odo, or Budes, Count of Paris, Duke of France, 50-51, 52 Odyssey, the, 250 Ohio, 445 Oise, department, 57 Oise, river, 295 Old Regime, the, 255, 319, 3^7* 457. 507. 519, 521. 539, 555, 561 ; end of the, 467-468, 470 et seq. Opera, rise of the, 413 Opera House, Paris, 534 Orange, Roman arch at, ii Orateur dii Peuple, L', 518 Oratory, the, Paris, 417 Orchies, 151 Ordericus Vitalis, gi n. Ordre naturel et essentiel des Sociitis politiques, 478 Organisation du Travail of I^ouis Blanc, 562 j Orlando, or Roland, 38 Orleanais, 172 Orleanists, 560, 569 Orleans, city, 43, 60, 62, 187, 228, 270. 273, 278, 305 ; siege of (1428), i73-i74> 176, 177-178, 181 Orleans, kingdom of, 20 Orleans, house of, 230, 438 Orleans, Charles, Duke of , 168,187, 287 Orleans, Ferdinand, Duke of, 469 Orleans, Gaston, Duke of, 317, 334, ^ 336-337' 338, 360, 469 Orleans, I^ouis of France, Duke of, 167-168, 226 «., 230, 287 Orleans, lyouis, Duke of (afterward l/ouis XII), 200, 210, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 223, 225. See also Louis XII Orleans, I/Ouis-Philippe Duke of, 469 Orleans, Louis- Philippe Duke of (afterward King) — see Louis- Philippe Orleans, Louis- Philippe- Joseph, Duke of (' %alite'), 469, 489. 508, 514,559 Orleans, Philippe I, Duke of, 469 Orleans, Philippe II, Duke of (Re- gent), 419-437. 438, 439, 469 Ormesson, Olivier III Lefdvre d', 371 «. 617 HISTORY OF FRANCE Orsini, Felice, 575 Osnabriick, 350 Oster Ric, 23 Otho IV, Emperor, iii, 112 Oudenarde, battle of, 397 Ovid, 43. 252 . Painting, during the Renaissance period, 260 ; during the Grand Siecle, 412 ' Paix Perpetuelle, la,' 231 Palace of Justice, Paris, 353 Palace School, Charlemagne's, 43 Palais- Royal, Paris, 404, 421, 488 Palatinate, the, 377, 391 Palestine, 63, 77, 78, 81, 85, 86, 88, 98, 99, 100, 107, 109, 127, 129, 139, 144. 155 Palissy, Bernard, 258, 260 Panfagruel of Rabelais, 256 Pantheon, the, Paris, 483 -Papacy, the, and the Franks, 32-34 ; gaih in prestige of, as a consequence of the Crusades, 87 ; Philippe IV' s quarrel with, 148-149 ; the royal authority gains against, 193 ; the Concordat of 15 16, 231 Papal States, the, 532 ; aimexed by Napoleon, 544, 545 Parc-aux-Cerfs, 449 Par^, Ambroise, 258 Paris, 13, 19, 61, 64, 65, 108, 112, 124, 125, 127, 128, 136, 137, 138, 143, 149, 154, 160, 165, 167, 168, 170, 178, 179, 182, 185, 186, 187, 188, 195, 197, 199, 200, 201, 237, 243, 246, 247, 248, 259, 260, 268, 270, 271, 272, 274, 276, 277, 278, 280, 281, 283, 284, 285, 286, 288, 289, 291, 292, 294, 299, 300, 301, 305, 309, 312, 314, 318, 319, 321, 322, 323, 326, 331, 341, 348, 352 and n., 354-355. 35^357. 358-360, 382, 405, 408, 411, 413, 414, 415, 423, 428, 429, 438, 440, 453. 457 n., 458, 461, 466, 467, 473, 475, 483, 486, 488, 493, 494, 495, 502 and n., 504, 512, 515, 517, 519, 520, 523, 524, 526, 527, 528, 529 n., 532, 534. 549. 550. 551. 552, 558, 560, 562, 570, 571 ; sacked by Norse- men, 52 ; early history, 58 ; rise into prominence, 58-60 ; Philippe- Auguste's improvements in, 117- 118 ; besieged by Huguenots and 6x8 Royalists, 286 ; pillaged by Hugue- nots, 292 ; besieged by Henri IV, 295-298 ; during the Revolution, 488-491 ; under the Reign of Terror, 514-518 ; under the Second Republic, 564-565 ; improved under Napoleon III, 575; the Exhibitions of 1855 and 1867, 576 ; siege of (1870-71), 581 Paris, Jean-Frangois de Gondi, Arch- bishop of, 355 Paris, Pierre V, Bishop of, 298 Paris, Coimt of (I^ouis-Philippe- Albert of Orleans), 469, 562, 563 Paris, Deacon, 440-441 Paris, Guild of, 97 Paris, kingdom of, 20 Paris, Parliament of — see Parlia- ment Paris, Treaty of (1258), 121 ; (1763), 447 ; (1778), 462 : (May 30, 1814), 550 ; (August 2, 1815), 552 Paris, University of, 118, 135-136, 138, 187, 197, 215, 246, 414 Parisii, 58 ' Parlements Maupeou,' 453 Parliament of Bordeaux, 197, 214 Parliament of Brittany, 198, 452 Parliament of Dijon, 214 Parliament of Grenoble, 194 Parliament of Paris, 145, 198, 200, 268, 278, 286, 300, 302, 320, 346, 352 n., 358, 359, 360, 378, 415 n., 435, 440, 485, 509 ; estab- lished, 125 ; growth in power of, 151, 154 ; lyouis XI defies, 197 ; l/ouis XI restricts the functions of, 214 ; affirms FrauQois I's supremacy above the law, 241 ; deprived of rights and privileges by Frangois I, 241 ; hostile to the Reformation, 266 ; refuses to register the Edict of Nantes, 308 ; proclaims the regency of Marie de M^dicis in excess of its powers, 314 ; forbidden to take cognizance of public affairs by Richelieu, 343- 344 ; opposes taxation imposed by the Sieur d'i^mery — ^the Confer- ence of St I^ouis, 352-354 ; cha- racter of the Parliament, 353 ; the Parliamentary Fronde, 354-357, 359 ; secures a measure of political power (Treaty of Rueil), 357 ; for- bidden to take part in affairs of INDEX State, 360 ; overridden by I^ouis XIV, 363 ; annuls Louis XIV's will, 419-420 ; the Regent Philippe of Orleans restores a privilege to, 420 ; checked by the Regent Philippe, 423 ; opposed to Law's Bank, 426 ; conflict with Louis XIV, and suppressed, 452-453 ; restored, 460 ; Louis XVI' s struggle with, 465-467 ; condemned Vol- taire's Le/^y^5j5)Ai/oso^Aig'Mes, 481 n. Parliament of Toulouse, 197, 452 n. ParHaments, suppression of, by Mau- peou, 452-453 ; restored, 460 ; local, aboHshed under the Con- stitution of 1 79 1, 493 Parma, 442, 535 Parma, Alessandro Farnese, Duke of, 296, 298, 300 Parma, Ferdinand, Duke of, 535 Particelli, Michel, Sieur d'l^mery, 351-352. 353 Partition, Treaties of {1698, 1700), 394 Pas-de-Calais, 209, 233, 540 Pascal, Blaise, 414, 416, 441 Pasquier, l^tienne, 254 Passaro, Cape, battle of, 435 Pastoureaux revolt, in Louis IX' s reign, 128 ; in Philippe V's reign, 155 Pat ay, 178 Paul III, Pope, 237, 267 Paul IV, Pope, 242 Paulette, tax, 318 Pavia, 234, 266 Pays-de-Caux, 300 Peace. For the various treaties, see under the specific name of each ' Peace of God,' the, 65 ' Peace of Monsieur,' 281, 282 Peasantry, condition of, under the Old Regime, 473-474 ; discontent among, under the Second Republic, 565-566 Peasants' Crusade, 81-82 Pedro III, King of Aragon, 223 n. Pellisson-Fontanier, Paul, 363, 407 n. Peninsular War, 543-545. 54^, 548, 549 Pepys' Diary, 374 n. Perche, 210 Pdre Duchesne, Le, 512 P^^xe, Hardouin de Beaumont de, 295 w., 305 n., 416 P^rigord, loi, 121, 162 Perigord, Count of, 60 Perkins, J. B., 447 n. P^ronne, 26, 202, 315 Perpignan, 147 Perrault, Charles, 410, 412 Perrault, Claude, 412 Perrin, Pierre, 413 Persigny, Jean- Gilbert- Victor FiaUn, 574 Peter of Fontaines, 124 Peter the Hermit (Peter of Amiens), 81-82, 84, 98 Peter, St, 37 w, Peterborough, Charles Mordaunt Barl of, 397 Petersburg, 548 Petion de Villeneuve, Jerome, 492 498, 502, 503, 514 n. Petit-Dutaillis, C, 217^., 219W. Petit de JuUeville, L., 180 n. Petit Trianon, 464 Petrarch, 139 Philip II of Spain, 242-243, 272, 273^ 274, 275, 276, 278, 282, 283, 290» 292, 293, 296, 298, 299, 301, 302, 306-307, 311 Philip III of Spain, 316, 393 Philip IV of Spain, 374, 393, 394, 469 Philip V of Spain, 393, 397, 398, 399, 400, 419 n., 433, 434, 435 Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy ,^ 167, 287 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, 170, 171, 173, 179, 182, 195-196. 198 Philippa of Hainaut, wife of Edward III of England, 161 Philippe I, 63-64, 82, 89, 91, 155, 157 Philippe II (' Philippe- Auguste'), 60, 103-118, 122, 123, 157, 217, 415; and the feudal nobility, 103-104^ 116; struggle with Henry II of England, 104-105 ; and the Third Crusade and Richard I of England, 1 06-1 10 ; and King John of Eng- land, 110-112, 116 n. ; and the crusade against the Albigenses, 114 ; France's progress during his reign, 116; and the Church, 116; his administration, 117 ; and the commimal movement, 117 ; im- proves Paris, 1 1 7-1 1 8 ; death, 118 Philippe III ('le Hardi'), 145-147, 157, 287 619 HISTORY OF FRANCE Philippe IV (' le Bel'), 145, 147-152, 153. 155, 156, 157' 342; import- ance of his reign, 147; quarrel with the Papacy, 148-149 ; sup- presses the order of the Knights Templars, 1^49 ; summons burghers to his Council, 150 ; foreign policy, 1 50-1 5 1 ; improvements in ad- ministration during his reign, 151 ; character of his rule, 152 ; death, 152 Philippe V (' le I,ong '), 153, 154, 155, 156, 157 Philippe VI, 156, 157, 158-161, 185, 187, 188, 192, 193, 287 Philippe, Duke of Anjou (afterward Philip V of Spain), 393, 394, 395- See also Philip V Philippe, son of Marie of Burgundy, 209, 227 n. Philippe I, Duke of Orleans, 469 Phipppe II, Duke of Orleans (Regent), 419-437, 438, 439, 469 Philippeaux, Pierre, 516 Philipsburg, 441 Philoiophes, the, 479-480 Philosophy in the Middle Ages, 136- 138 ; during the Grand Sidcle, 414 Physiocrats, the, 477-478 Piacenza, 80, 247 Picard, Jean, 414 Picardy, 203, 208, 209, 242, 281, 291, 306, 323, 341, 488 Pichegru, Charles, 536 Piedmont, 237, 397, 526, 535 Pigafetta, Filippo, 297 n. Pilon, Germain, 260 Pinerolo, 340, 369 Pippin I of Aquitaine, 47, 48, 55 Pippin II of Aquitaine, 49, 55 Pippin of Heristal, 24, 26, 27-29, 33 Pippin of Italy, 46, 55 Pippin of lyanden, 24 n., 27, 33 Pippin the Short, 31-34 Pisa, 225, 247 Piscina, 346 Pisseleu, Anne de. Duchess of ;©tampes, 241 Pitt, William, the elder, 446, 449 Pitt, William, the younger, 540 Pius VII, Pope, 538 Pius IX, Pope, 568 Place de Greve, Paris, 322, 335, 490 Place lyOuis-le-Grand, Paris, 425 Place l/ouis XV, Paris, 510 620 Place de la Revolution, Paris, 510 Place Royale, Paris, 335 ' Plaine,' the, in the National Con- vention, 506, 507, 531 Plains of Abraham, 447 Plectrudis, wife of Pippin of Heristal, 29 * Pleiade,' the, 252-253 Plessis-les-Tours, 211, 286 Poetry, in the medieval period, 138- 141 ; of the Renaissance, 251- 253 Poissy, 271 Poitiers, 20, 29, 30, 162, 188 Poitiers, battle of, 162, 164, 191 Poitou, loi, no. III, 118, 121, 128, 162, 165, 280, 316, 326 Poland, 280, 441, 442, 443, 451, 542, 548, 564 Polignac, Prince of, 558 Politiques, the, 254, 280-281, 283, 295. 30O' 301 Polixandre of Gomberville, 406 Polytechnic School, Paris, 521 Pomone of Robert Cambert, 413 Pompadour, Jeanne- Antoinette, Mar- quise of, 448-449, 451, 458, 477 Pondicherry, 392, 447 Pontarlier, 206 Ponte-Corvo, 541 Pontoise, 199, 294 Port- Roy al-des-Champs, 415 Port- Royal de Paris, 415, 417 Porta Nigra, at Treves, 1 1 Porte Saint- Antoine, Paris, 360 Portugal. 544-545, 546; in the Fifth Coalition, 545 ; in the Sixth Coalition, 549 Postal service, initiated by Louis XI, 215 Pot, Philippe, Seigneur de la Roche, 218-219 Pothinus, Bishop of Lugdunum, 13 Poussin, Nicolas, 412 n. Pragmatic Sanction : (i) Of 1269, 122 n. (2) Of 1438, 193 ; revoked by Louis XI, 197 ; the revival of, demanded, 219 ; abolished, 231. (3) Of 1713, 442-443 Prague, 191 n. Prague, Treaty of (1866), 580 ' Praguerie,' the, 191, 194 Precieuses ridicules, Les, 405 Prelude, Wordsworth's, 521 n. Presburg, Treaty of, 541, 542 INDEX President, instituted under the Second Republic, 566 Press, held under censorship by Richelieu, 344 ; freedom of, secured by the Constitution of 1791, 492 ; gagged by the Directory, 528 ; Bonaparte and, 534, 548 ; censor- ship of, under Louis XVIII, 556 ; restricted by Charles X, 557 ; free- dom of, restored by Martignac, 557 ; censorship of, restored by Charles X, 558 ; liberty of, restored under Louis- Philippe, 559 ; con- trolled under Louis - Napoleon, 568 ; controlled under the Second Empire, 574 Pretender, Old, 434, 435 PrStres insermentis , 534 Prdvots, Philippe- Auguste and, 117 ; Louis IX and, 123 w. Prie, Mme de, 438, 439 Primaticcio, Francesco, 260 Prime Minister, Louis XIV on the, 368 ; Louis XV decides to govern without, 443 Prince Consort, Albert Edward, 573, 576 Prince Imperial, 579, 581 Princesse de CUves of Mme de La Fayette, 407 Printing, protected by Louis XI, 215 ; the beginning of, in France, 248 Privy Council — see Conseil d']§tat Projet de Constitution of Louis- Napoleon, 566 Protection, a system of, instituted by Colbert, 372-373 Protestantism, Henri II and, 242- 243 ; the Wars of Religion and the Reformation, 261-308 ; Catherine de Medicis and, 265 ; Henri IV's struggle with the League, 290-306 ; Henry IV's apostasy, 302-305 ; the Edict of Nantes, 307-308, 324, 325 ; Louis XIV and, 387, 390, 418 ; Turgot and, 459 ; Napoleon and, 534 Provence, 4,29, 46, 50, 57 w., 120, 138, 210, 218, 234, 237, 240, 356, 431 n. Provence, Louis, Count of (afterward Louis XVIII), 466, 495 n., 500, 528 n., 550. See Louis XVIII Provence, Raymond Berenger IV, Count of, 120 Provincia, 5 Prussia, recognized as an independent Power, 400 ; in the War of the Austrian Succession, 443, 444 ; in the Seven Years' War, 445, 447 ; shares in the partition of Poland (1770), 451 ; at war with France (1792), 503 ; joins in a coalition against France (1793), 510 ; recog- nizes the Republican Government, 519 ; in the Fourth Coalition, 542 ; in the Sixth Coalition, 549 ; the Franco-Prussian War, 580-581 ; mentioned, 441, 449, 481, 576 Psalms, the, 266 Puget, Pierre, 412 Puiset, Hugues du, 90 Pyrenees, 15, 18, 38, 102 Pyrenees, Treaty of the, 361, 375 QUADRTJPI^E Al^IylANCK (1718), 435 Quarantaine le roy, 117, 122 Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, 410 Quebec, 310, 447 Queen's Confessor, 123 n., 130 Quentin Durward, 202 Quercy, 121 Quesnay, Fran9ois, 477-478, 480 Quesnel, Pasquier, 417 Quiberon, 519 Quietism, 418 RabkI/AIS, Fran9ois, 256-257, 258 Racine, Jean, 408, 410 Railways, developed under Napoleon in, 575 Rambouillet, 463 Rambouillet, castle of, 238 Rambouillet, Catherine, Marquise of. 404-405 Rambouillet, Hotel de (salon), 404, 406 Rameau, Jean- Philippe, 413 Ramillies, battle of, 397 Ramus, Peter, 258 Raoul, or Rudulf, King of France, 51 Raoul, steward to Philippe III, 146 Rasp ail, Frangois- Vincent, 565 Rastadt, Treaty of, 400 Ratbod, King of Frisia, 28 Ratisbon, Truce of, 380 Raucoux, battle of, 444 Ravaillac, Frangois, 312 621 HISTORY OF FRANCE Raymond Berenger IV, Count of Provence, 120 Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, 83 Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, 114-115 Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse, 115-116, 120 R6, island of, 331-332 Reason, the Cult of, 515. 517 Rebecco, battle of, 234 Recherches de la France of Pasquier, 254 Reformation, the, relation of the Renaissance to, 258 ; beginnings and development of, in France, 266 et seq. ; mentioned, 86, 255. See also Protestantism Reformistes, 562 Regale, the, 385 Regency, of Blanche of Castile, 119- 120 ; of Anne of Beaujeu, 216-223 ; of Catherine de Medicis, 269-273 ; of Marie de Medicis, 314-323 ; of PhiUppe of Orleans, 419-437 Regensburg, 107 Reichenau, monastery of, 43 Reichshofen, battle of, 581 Reichstadt, Duke of, 560 Reign of Terror, 505, 511, 513-518, 521 Reims, 17, 43, 91, 119, 167, 178, 182, 187, 195, 197, 211, 280, 305, 370, 436 Reims Cathedral, 143, 178 Reims, Adalb^ron d'Ardenne, Arch- bishop of, 51 Reims, Remigius, Bishop of, 17 Reims, Renaud III of Chartres, Archbishop oft 178 Religion : Druidism in Gaul, 9, 10 ; the Roman reHgion introduced into- Gaulu 10 ; the beginnings of Chris- tianity in Gaul, 13; the Franks and Christianity, 16-18 ; the Re- formation and the Wars of Religion, 261 et seq. ; religion during the Grand SiMe, 414-418; Chris- tianity abolished by the National Convention, 515 ; atheism pro- scribed, 517 ; Robespierre's new religion, 517 ; Bonaparte's atti- tude to religion, 534 ; Catholicism deprived of its position as the State religion, 559. See Chris- tianity and Church 622 Renaissance, the Crusades a remote cause of, 88 ; the ' springtime ' of, 134-144 ; Frangois I and, 239, 245 ; its development in France, 245-260 ; checked by the Hundred Years' War, 246 ; the literature of, 250-258 ; relation of the Reforma- tion to, 258 ; the art of, 259-260 ; mentioned, 265 Renaissance style in architecture, 259-260 Rennes, 222 Republic, the First, 506-537, 559 ; converted into the Kmpire, 537 Republic, the Second, 563-571 Republic, the Third, 554 Republicans, 529, 534, 550, 555, 560, 566, 569, 570, 578 Restoration, First, 550 ; Second, 552, 554. 55^ Rethel, 359 Retz, Cardinal de, 347 n., 351, 352, 355, 356, 357 *^-> 359, 360 RSveries politiques of lyOuis-Napol^on, 566 Revocation of the Kdict of Nantes, 388-390 Revolt of Islam, Shelley's, 521 «. Revolution of 1789, 86, 150, 185, 231, 318, 345, 403, 470 et seq., 555, 557, 559, 568 ; the social factors produc- ing, 470-477 ; the intellectual fore- runners of, 477-484 ; attitude of the Kuropean Powers to, 449-500 ; organization of the Revolutionary Government, 511 ; the Reign of Terror, 505, 511, 513-518; the Grand Terror, 516-517 ; the fall of Robespierre, 517-518 ; the Congress of Vienna seeks to undo the work of, 550-551 ; gave Napo- leon his opportunity, 552 Revolution of July 1830, 558, 560 Revolution of February 1848, 562, 563, 566, 567, 572 Revolution, Festival of the, 515 «. Rewbell, Jean-Baptiste, 523, 528 Rhine, the, 5, 6, 14, 15, 17, 312, 341, 349, 376, 378, 396. 397, 441, 446, 510, 525, 526, 532, 536, 542, 545, 549, 551, 576, 580 Rhine, lyeague of the, 361, 376 Rhone, the, 48, 193, 477 Richard I of EJngland, 106-109, no, 139 INDEX Richard II of England, i66 Richard III of England, 220 Richard, Prince (afterward Richard I of England), 105 Richardson, Samuel, 473 n. Richelieu, Armand-Jean du Plessis de, Cardinal, 320, 325, 32&-345, 346, 351, 368, 376, 390, 407 ; and the nobles, 326, 328, 333-339, 342, 343, 350 ; becomes Cardinal, 326 ; head of the Council, 326 ; his influence over lyouis XIII, 326-328 ; policy and programme, 328-345 ; absolu- tism his ideal, and his work for it, 328, 342-343. 344 ; liis attempts to crush the Huguenots as a poHtical power, 328, 329-333, 339. 34°, 342. 343. 386 ; tries to suppress duel- ling, 334-335 ; and Marie de Medicis, 335-336 ; his foreign policy 339-341 ; results of his adminis- tration, 341-344 ; ignored the States-General, controlled the Par- liament of Paris, and censored the press, 343-344 ; tampered with the administration of justice, 344 ; built up the army and navy, 344 ; increased the burden of taxation, 344. 351 ; character, 344-345 : death, 345, 348, 350; favours Mazarin, 346-347 ; contrasted with Mazarin, 347-348 ; his foreign policy carried on by Mazarin, 350 ; his disastrous legacy of debt, taxa- tion, and discontent, 351 Richelieu, I^ouis - Fran9ois - Armand du Plessis, Duke of, 446 Rickaby, J., 136 n. Right, the, in the I^egislative Assem- bly, 497-498 ; in the National Convention, 507-508 Ripuarian Franks, 15, 17, 19 Riviera, Italian, 532 Rivi^e — see I^a Riviere Rivoli, battle of, 526 Robert I, 51 Robert II (* le Pieux '), 61-62, 93, 157 Robert, Count of Artois, 159 Robert II, Count of Flanders, 83 Robert II, Duke of Normandy, 64, 83, 91 Robert, son of Robert II of France, 62 Robespierre, Maximilien-Marie-Isidore de, 484, 492, 508, 509, 512, 513, 514. 515, 516, 517-518, 525 Rochefoucauld — see La Rochefou- cauld Rocroi, 348, 359 ~~^~- Rodney, George Brydges, 462 Roederer, Pierre-I^ouis, Count, 492 Roemer, Olaiis, 414 Rohan, house of, 323 ^ Rohan, I/Ouis-Rene-]^douard, Car- dinal de, 457 n. Rohan, Marguerite, Duchess of, 332 * Roi Citoyen,' 561 ' Roi des Halles,' 356 ' Roi Soleil,' 367 Rois faineants, 23-24 Roland, or Hroland, 38 Roland de la Platiere, Jean-Marie, 501, 502, 504, 514 w. Roland, Mme, 501, 502, 514, 523 RoUo, 52 Romagna, revolt of the, 566 Roman Catholic Church — see Church Roman d'aventure, the, 408 Roman bourgeois of Furetiere, 406- 407 Roman comique of Scarron, 406 Roman ct la mode, the, 406 Roman de Renart, 141 Roman de la Rose, 140 Romans, in Gaul, 3-12 ; power of, in Gaul, finally overthrown at Soissons, 16 Rome : (i) The city, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11, 32, 34, 37, 81, no, 121, 224, 235, 247, 279, 346, 546, 568 ; occupied by Napoleon, 544. (2) The Papsd See, 232, 235, 299, 318, 386, 416^ 417 Romorantin, Edict of, 269 Romulus Augustulus, 12 Roncesvalles, 38 Ronsard, Pierre de, 252, 253 Rooke, Sir George, 396 Rosny, Baron of — see Sully, Duke of Rossbach, battle of, 445 Roturiers, 72-73 Roucher, Jean-Antoine, 514 Rouen, no, 160, 167, 174, 183, 197, 198, 199, 200, 259, 299, 301, 305 ; Jeanne Dare tried and executed at, 179, 180, 181 ; siege of, during the Wars of Religion, 273 ; mas- sacre of the Huguenots at, 278 Rouen, Frangois III de Harlay, Archbishop of, 362 623 HISTORY OF FRANCE Rouget de Lisle, Claude- Joseph, 502 ft. Rouher, Eugene, 574, 579 Rousseau, Jean- Jacques, 452 n., 480, 498, 501, 508, 517 ; his work and ideals, 482-484 ; contrasted with Voltaire, 482 ; his influence upon the Revolution, 482, 483 Roussillon, 210, 349 Rouvray, 174 Royal domain, the, 158, 192-193, 218; growth of, under Louis XI, 210 Royal towns, 126 Royalists, 533, 534. 535, 536-537. 555. 556 Royce, J., 414 n. Roye, 204 Rudolf, or Raoul, Duke of Burgundy, 51 Rue^ de 1 'Bcole de Medecin, Paris, 494 w. Rue Quincampoix, Paris, 428, 429, 430 Rue Saint-Honore, Paris, 494 n. Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, Paris, 404 Rue Vivienne, Paris, 428, 430 Rueil, 356 Rueil, Treaty of, 357, 358 Russia, 441, 445, 446, 451, 545, 557 ; in the Third Coalition, 540 ; in the Fourth Coalition, 542-543 ; Napoleon's invasion of, 548-549 ; in the Sixth Coalition, 549 Rutebeuf, trouvere, 141 Ruze, Henri Coif&er de. Marquis of Cinq-Mars, 337-338 Ryswick, Treaty of, 392, 394 SABi^i;, Treaty of, 221, 222 Sadowa, 580 Saint- Andr^, J acques d' Albon de, 244, 271 Saint- Andre, plain of, 294 St Antoine, 168 Saint- Antoine, faubourg, Paris, 502 Saint-Aubin-du-Courmier, battle of, 221 Saint- Aubin-du-Courmier, Treaty of, 120 St Augustine, 44, 415 St Catherine, 175 Sainte-Chapelle, 143-144 Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, Treaty of, 52, 53 Saint-Cloud, 288, 289, 290, 291, 297, 359, 463. 529 Saint-Cyran, M. de, 416 Saint-Denis, 274, 305 Saint-Denis, abbey of, 58, 71, 146, 302 Saint-Kustache, ' church of, Paris, 259 Saint-Florent-sur-Loire, church of, 63 St Gall, monastery of, 43 Sainte-Genevieve, school of, 135 Saint-Germain, faubourg, Paris, 322, 354, 356, 381 Saint-Germain-des-Pres, abbey of, 58 St Helena, 545, 552, 567 Saint-Hilaire, church of, Poitiers, 29 Saint-Jean-d'Acre, 108 n., no, 527. See also Akka Saint- Just, Louis- Antoine de, 508, 509, 514, 516, 518 St Kitts, 462 Sainte Ligue, the — see League Saint-L6, 160 St Louis — see Louis IX St Louis, Conference of, 353-354 St Louis, Hall of, 353 Saint-Louis, parish of, Paris, 487 Saint-Marceau, faubourg, Paris, 502 St Martin of Tours, 43 Saint-Martin of Tours, abbey of, 51 w., 58 Saint-Martin, faubourg, Paris, 146, 298 Saint-Maur-les-Fosses, Treaty of, 199- 200, 201, 202 Saint-Medard, cemetery of, 440-441 Sainte-Menehould, Treaty of, 317 St Michael, 175 Saint-Omer, 208, 378 Saint-Pierre, Mustache de, 161 Saint- Pol, house of, 210 Saint- Pol, Louis de Luxembourg, Count of, 210 Saint- Quentin, battle of, 242, 264 Saint-Raphael, 527 Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri, Count of, 560 Saint-Simon, Louis, Duke of, 364, 382, 384, 385, 389 and n., 421, 422, 423. 433. 434 624 INDEX Saint- Victor, faubourg, Paris, 298 Saint- Victor, school of, 135 St Vincent, island of, 462 Saintes, battle of, 120 Saintonge, 165, 273 Saladin, 105, 109 Saladin Tithe, 105 Salian Franks, 14-15, 20, 156 Salic I/aw, 156, 289, 302, 538 Salisbury, Thomas de Montacute, Earl of, 173 Salle des Btats, in the Tuileries, 579 Salle des Menus Plaisirs, Versailles, 485, 487 Salles, Jean-Baptiste, 514 n. Sallust, 43 Salons, in the Grande Siecle, 404- 409 ; under the Directory, 503 Salt tax, 185, 255, 372, 476-477 Saizbach, 377 San Domingo, 535 Sancerre, 279 Sans-culottes, 502, 508, 524 Sans-culottisme, 519 Saracens, Charlemagne's wars with, 35, 38 ; mentioned, 108, 114, 127 Saragossa, battle of, 544 Sardinia, 435, 443, 503 Sarto, Andrea del, 260 Satory, 569 Satire Minippde, La, 254 Saumur, 278, 316 Savonarola, 224 Savoy, 237, 243, 311, 441, 510; annexed by France, 577 Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of, 290, 293. 340 Savoy, Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of, 242, 243 Savoy, lyouis, Duke of, 194 Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, Duke of, 391, 394. 395 Saxe, Maurice de, 444 Saxons, 29, 31 ; Charlemagne's wars with, 35-36 Saxony, 377, 443, 445, 545, 547 Scaliger, Jules-C6sar, 248 Scarron, Paul, 382, 406 Sceaux, 436 Scheldt, the, 15 Schleswig-Hoistein, 578, 580 Schneider, Eugene, 579 Schola Palatina, Charlemagne's, 43 2 R Scholasticism, 136-138 Schonbrunn, Treaty of, 545 Schwartzenberg, Karl Phillip, Prince von, 549 Science, in the Grand Siecle, 413- 414 Scotland, 132, 158, 162, 435; France's alliance with, 1 50-1 51 ; Henri II makes an alliance with, 242 Scott, Sir Walter, 202 Scudery, Mile de, 405 n., 406 Sculpture, during the Renaissance period, 260 Secret Council — see Conseil d'l^tat Secretaries of State, lyouis XIV' s, 368, 422, 423, 433 Sedaine, Michel- Jean, 472 Sedan, 338, 348 ; capitulation of, 581 Seine, department, 57 Seine, river, 52, 58, no, 118, 286, 292, 295, 310 Seine-et-Oise, 57 Senate, under the Consulate, 530, 53i> 533. 537. 539 ; under the Empire, 550 ; recommends the establishment of the Second Em- pire, 571 Seneca, 43 Senecey, Baron of, 319 Senegal, 462 Seneschal, the, at the French Court, 117 Senez, Jean IV Soanen, Bishop of, 440 Senlis, 51 Senlis, Treaty of, 222 Senones, 2 Sens, 187 Sepet, M., 122 n. Sepmaine, La, of du Bartas, 253 Septimania, 46 Sequani, 5 Serfs, in the feudal system, 73-74 Seven Years' War, 445-447, 462, 463, 501 Sevigne, Mme de, 370, 389 Sforza, house of, 226 Sforza, Francesco, 237 Shakespeare, William, 169, 178, 251 n. Shelley, P. B., 521 w. Sicambrian lycague, 14 w. Sichel, Edith, 238 n. Sicilian Vespers, 147, 223 n. Sicily, 147, 223, 226, 435, 442 625 HISTORY OF FRANCE Sidcle de Louis XIV, Le, of Charles Perrault, 410 Siena, 247 Sierck, 349 Sierra I/eone, 462 Sieyes, Emmanuel- Joseph, Count, 485 n., 494, 528-529, 530, 531 Sigebert I, King of Austrasia, 22, 25 Sigebert, King of the Ripuarian Franks, 19 Sigismund, Archduke, 205 Silesia, 443, 445 Simon IV de Montfort, 115 ' Sixteen, the,' 284, 286, 293, 295, 300-301, 305-306, 312 Sixth Coalition, 549-550 Sixtus V, Pope, 284, 299 Slavs, 31 Sluis, battle of, 159 Smallpox, the epidemic of, in 1711, 400^ Smolensk, 548 Socialism, 572 Socialists, 564, 565, 566, 573 Soisson^, city, 16, 43, 321, 502 Soissons, kingdom of , 20 Soissons Cathedral, 143 Soissons, Jean II de Nesle, Count of, 124 Soissons, I^ouis of Bourbon II, Count of, 337 Somme, department, 567 Somme, river, 16, 198, 199, 292 Sorbon, Robert de, 135 Sorbonne, the, 135, 248, 249, 286, 295, 298, 415, 416, 428, 440, 458 ; hostility of, to the Reformation, 266 Sorel, Agnes, 191, 194 Sorel, Albert, 456, 461 Sorel, Charles, 406 Soubise, Benjamin de Rohan, Seig- neur de, 330, 331 Soubise, Charles de Rohan, Prince of, 446 Soult, Marshal, 545, 546 Southampton, 169 Spain. I. The country, 5, 12, 29, 30, 135, 147, 291, 346, 406, 560, 574 ; Charlemagne invades, 38 ; Fran- 9ois I a prisoner in, 234 ; I^ouis XVIII's invasion of, 556. II. The State, 196, 233, 279, 320, 324, 335, 349, 350, 376, 380, 390, 433, 438, 626 440, 532, 547 ; France gains ter- ritory from, 210 ; Henri II and, 242 ; Catherine de Medicis and, 276 ; helps the Iveague against Henri IV, 296-307 ; intrigues .^^ against Henri IV, 310, 311, 312 ; flj Marie de Medicis and, 315-316; * Richelieu and, 329-330, 331, 338, 339-340, 341 ; invades France and is defeated, 348 ; recovers territory from France, 360 ; sues for peace — the Treaty of Westphalia, 361 ; in the War of Devolution, 374- 375 ; in the Grand Alliance of The Hague, 377-378 ; the Vv^ar of the Spanish Succession, 392-400 ; war with (i 718-19), 434-436 ; in the War of the Polish Succession, 441-442 ; in the War of the Austrian Succession, 443 ; the Family Compact with, 446, 447 ; joins a coalition against France, 510 ; recognizes the Republican Government, 519 ; the Peninsular War, 544-545, 546 ; in the Fifth Coalition, 545 ; in the Sixth Coali- tion, 549 ; and the Mexican War, 577 ; and the origin of the Franco- Prussian War, 580 Spanish March, the, 38 Spectator, the, 473 n. Spenser, Edmund, 278 n. Stael, Mme de, 461 n. StafFarde, battle of, 391 Stanhope, James, Barl, 434 Stanislaus I of Poland, 438, 441, 442 States- General, 201-202, 215, 228, 229, 282, 285, 293, 296, 301, 302, 317, 320, 326, 354, 471, 475 ; beginning of, 150 ; growth in influence of, 154, 187-188, 190 ; of 1484, the first really national Assembly, 217-220 ; never con- vened by Fran9ois I, 241 ; of 1560, 270 ; of 1614, 318-320 ; ig- nored by Richelieu, 343 ; efforts to revive. 464-465, 467-468 ; the Third Estate demands increased representation in, 485 ; the meet- ing of 1789, 485-488 States- Provincial, 190 Steenkerke, battle of, 391 Stephen, King of England, 92 Stephen II, Pope, 34 INDEX Stephen of Blois, 84 Strassburg, 49, 380, 392, 398, 502 n, 567 Strassburg Cathedral, 439 Strauss, D., F., 408 n. Stuart, house of, 374, 391 Subinfeudation, 69, 72 Suessiones, 16 Suffolk, William de la Pole, Earl of, 173. 178 Suffren, Pierre-Andr^, 462 Suger, Abbe of Saint-Denis, 89, 90, 98, lOI Sully, Maximilien de Bethune, Duke of. Baron of Rosny, 299 n., 309- 310, 312, 316, 317, 318 n., 371 Superintendent of Finances, the office abolished by lyouis XIV, 369 Suresnes, 302 Swabia, Duke of, 106, 107 Sweden, 292, 375, 376, 377, 445 ; in the Third Coalition, 541 ; in the Fourth Coalition, 542 ; in the Sixth Coalition, 549 Swiss, 194, 205, 206, 207, 228, 230, 231, 284, 285, 488, 503 Switzerland, 38, 206, 248, 267, 547, 560, 566 S^'^agrius, 16 Syria, 98, 128, 129, 527 System, the Continental (' the Block- ade'), 543-544. 545, 547, 548 ' System,' lyaw's, 424-432, 437 Tacitus, ii, 14 n., 40 Taille perpetuelle, increased by I^ouis XI, 197, 215 ; Colbert's reforms and the taille, 372 ; the clergy and nobility exempt from, 476 n. ; mentioned, 475 Taillebourg, battle of, 120 Taine, Hippolyte, 455 n., 470, 474 n., 476 Talbot, John, Earl of Shrewsbury, 178 Talleyrand- P^rigord, Charles-Maurice de, 492, 539, 541, 545, 554 Tallien, Jean-I^ambert, 515 Tarn, department, 114 n. Tartars, 129 Tavannes, Gaspard de Saul de, 274, 278 n. Taxation, imposed to meet the expenses of the Second Crusade, 99; the salt tax, 185, 255, 374, 476-477 ; the feudal nobility de- prived of the right of taxation, 192 ; lyouis XI increases, 197, 215 ; the taille perpetuelle, 197, 215, 372, 475, 476 n. ; the States- General of 1484 and, 220 ; reduced by lyouis XII, 229 ; increased by Francois I, 242 ; the vicious system of Henri IV' s reign re- formed by Sully, 309-310 ; the paulette, 318 ; badly administered by Richelieu, 344, 351 ; the Sieur d'J^mery's extortion, 352 ; the Par- liament of Paris opposes !]^mery's taxation, 353 ; the condition of, in Colbert's time, and his reforms, 371, 381 ; increased by the War of the Spanish Succession, 400 ; the taxes farmed out to Ivaw's Company, 427 ; Turgot's reforms in, 459 ; the corvee, 459, 461, 476- 477 ; Necker's reforms, 461 ; Ca- lonne's scheme, 464-465 ; Brienne's edicts and the fall of the Old Regime, 465-468 ; under the Old Regime, 475-477 ; the Physio- crats and, 478 ; changes in, effected under the Constitution of 1791, 493 ; land tax imposed under the Second Republic, 565-566 Taxe des aises, 353 Taxe du toise, 353 Tegner, Esaias, 521 n. Temple, the, Paris, 504, 505, 528 n. Temple, Sir William, 375 * Tennis-court oath,' 487, 502 Terray, Abbe, 451, 453 Terreur Blanche, 519 Terreur Rouge, 519 Terror, the — see Reign of Terror Testament politique, Le, 341-342 Testry, 26, 28 Teutones, 5 Teutonic Knights, 149 Teutonic tribes, settlement of, in Gaul, 12, 27 Thabor, Mount, 527 Theodebald, King of Austrasia, 25 Theodebert I, King of Austrasia, 25 Theodebert II, King of Austrasia, 25 Theoderic, or Thierri, I, King of Austrasia, 20, 25 627 HISTORY OF FRANCE Theoderic, or Thierri, II, King of Burgundy and of Anstrasia, 25 TMot, Catherine, 517 Thermidorian reaction, the, 517-518 Thibaut II, Count of Champagne, 97 Thibaut IV, Count of Champagne, 113, 120, 139 Thierri — se& Theodoric Thierry, J acques - Nicolas - Augustin , 54, 318 n., 319 n. Thiers, I^ouis-Adolphe, 559, 561, 581 Thionville (Diedenhof en) , 349 Third Coalition, 540-541 Third Estate, 188, 301, 473 ; emer- gence of, as a political force, 150 ; I.cr: ;n'i';*";i.,f< fK:n«- lit. f^>-. .VI iL: ,mtt l^K /;ji.a:ti: ■".■4 ' i, . l■•^ . .... 8 -*'<■-. 'i •,--« .'tr..^jt»v«»>S»'' .4.. ,V ^' .i>*, .. Ly*» f'.*.* •»*-. ■ 'irWl***^ -z-i: .:.,., ,'„% ■:■■•'.•■• .•'.'I' ■jt.aor^nL-.^H ■.;r".f«trf: A;rv«i.' ..",'iaw;;,- v«ft