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HISTORY OF FRANCE, MENS

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HISTORY OF FRANCE
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PREFACE.
THE general march of French history, and the part
played in the work of civilization by the French nation,
have been faithfully, though briefly, traced in the fol-
lowing pages. Heavy misfortunes have lately befallen
France—a country which, with all its drawbacks, is still
one of the most cultivated of the world; and Frenchmen
of the present generation will probably carry to their
graves an incurable grief-the loss of military glory. No
political or theological bias has been suffered to colour or
efface any salient feature in the narrative which relates
to the past of one of the most illustrious of nations. In
spite of the passions, the ambitions, the cravings and
criminal errors of her citizens, it is to be hoped that the
spirit of order, conservative and reformative, will in the
end prevail; and in spite of factious demagogues, who
in the place of patriotism substitute a coalition of self-
seeking covetousness, the spirit of order will create a new
France sufficiently wise in thought and action to con-
tinue the glorious part which the old has played in the
progress of modern civilization. It may be earnestly
hoped that that lucid and sympathetic genius, which
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knows how to maintain, alike in the useful and the
frivolous, the traditions of art, and whose grievous politi-
cal trials, by sparing others the like cruel experiences,
may create even out of her follies the future wisdom of
nations.
April, 1875.
PREFACE.
*
SUTHERLAND Menzies.

CONTENTS.
FIRST PERIOD.
GAUL INDEPENDENT (1600-50 B. C.).
Primitive Populations-Manners and Customs,
Conquest of Gaul by the Romans (125-50 B.C.),
SECOND PERIOD.
MEROVINGIAN FRANCE (481-687).
Clovis (481-511),
The Sons of Clovis (511-561),
The Sons and Grandsons of Clothaire I. (561-613),
States of Gaul in the Sixth Century,
Clothaire II. and Dagobert,
Genealogical Table of the Merovingians,
THIRD PERIOD.
CARLOVINGIAN FRANCE (687-887).
Reconstruction of the Empire-Power of the Austrasian
Mayors (687-752),
Wars of Pepin the Short, and of Charlemagne (752-814),
Government of Charlemagne,
Dismemberment of the Empire of Charlemagne (814-843),,
FOURTH PERIOD.
FEUDAL FRANCE (887-1180).
Dismemberment of the Kingdom of France (843-887),
The last Carlovingians and the Dukes of France (887-987).
Genealogical Table of the Carlovingians,
The four first Capetians (987-1108),
The Dukes of Normandy,
France in the Eleventh Century-The Feudal System,
PAGE
9
10
12
15
16
16
17
21
22
23
24
28
239923
38
46
46
50
53
6
CONTENTS.
The First Crusade (1095-1099),
Louis VI., the Fat (1108-1137)-the Communes,
Louis VII., the Young (1137-1180),
FIFTH PERIOD.
THE FIRST VICTORY OF ROYALTY OVER THE FEUDAL
ARISTOCRACY.
Philip Augustus and Louis VIII. (1180-1226),
The Third and Fourth Crusades (1190-1204),
Saint Louis (1226-1270)-Regency of Blanche of Castile,
The Sixth and Seventh Crusades (1235-1270),
Philip III., the Bold, and Philip IV., the Fair (1270-1314),
The Three Sons of Philip the Fair (1314-1328),
Genealogical Table of the Elder Branch of the Capetians,
Charles V., the Wise (1364-1380),
Charles VI. (1380-1422),
Charles VII., to his entrance into Paris (1422-1436),
•
SEVENTH PERIOD.
THE LAST VICTORY OF ROYALTY OVER THE FEUDAL
ARISTOCRACY (1436-1491).
Expulsion of the English from France, and Government of
Charles VII. (1436-1461),
Louis XI. to the Death of his Brother (1461-1472),
The Reign of Louis XI. from 1472 to 1483,
EIGHTH PERIOD.
THE WARS IN Italy (1494-1515).
The Reign of Charles VIII. from 1483 to 1491,
First War in Italy (1494-1498),
Louis XII. (1498-1515),
PAGE
54
57
60
SIXTH PERIOD.
THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH (1328-1453).
Philip VI., Stem of the Capetian House of Valois (1328-
1350),
John the Good (1350-1364),
*UNIN:R
65
66
72
73
78
90
94
95
-104
117
124
138
146
154
161
163
169
1
W
P
L
Francis I. (1515-1547),
Henry II. (1547-1559),
CONTENTS.
NINTH PERIOD.
THE FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST THE HOUSE OF
AUSTRIA.
Government of Francis I. and of Henry II.,
A
TENTH PERIOD.
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
A
S
Francis II. (1559-1560),
Charles IX. (1560-1574),
Henry III. (1574-1589),
Genealogical Table of the Capetian House of Valois,
Henry IV. (1589-1598),
ܡܪܝ.
Reorganization of France by Henry IV. (1598-1610),
Louis XIII. (1610-1643),
ELEVENTH PERIOD.
RE - ESTABLISHMENT OF INTERNAL ORDER BY ROYALTY, AND
SECOND STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST THE HOUSE OF
AUSTRIA (1598-1659).
Minority of Louis XIV., and Administration of Mazarin
(1643-1661),
TWELFTH PERIOD.
THE TRIUMPH OF ABSOLUTE ROYALTY (1661-1715).
Louis XIV.; Internal Organization; Colbert, Louvois,
(1661-1663),
•
Foreign Affairs and Conquests (1661 to 1679),
Latter Part of the Reign of Louis XIV. (1679-1715),
PAGE
177
190
190
198
201
210
223
224
230
232
243
248
249
250
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THIRTEENTH PERIOD.
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY-DEVELOPMENT OF THE ABUSES OF
ABSOLUTE MONARCHY.
Minority of Louis XV., and Regency of the Duke of
Orleans (1715-1723),
Reign of Louis XV. (from 1723 to 1774),
State of France at the end of the Reign of Louis XV.,
Reign of Louis XVI. to the Revolution (1774-1789),
FOURTEENTH PERIOD.
ABASEMENT OF FRANCE-PROGRESS OF PUBLIC OPINION
(1715-1789)-CONSTITUTIONAL FRANCE (from 1789).
The Constituent Assembly (1789-1791),
The Legislative Assembly (1791-1702),
The Convention (1792-1795),
The Directory (27th October 1795 to 9th November 1797),
The Consulate (19th November 1799 to 18th May 1804),
Reign of Napoleon I. to Tilsitt (1804-1807),
The Empire, from 1807 to 1814,
The First Restoration, the Hundred Days, and Waterloo
(1814-1815),
Louis XVIII. (1815-1823),
Charles X. (1823-1830),
PAGE
Louis Philippe (1830-1848), .
The Second Republic. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte President
(10th December 1848), .
The Second Empire in favour of Napoleon III. (2nd De-
cember 1852),
War with Prussia (July 1870-February 1871),
Summary of Events from 1871 to 1874,
257
259
261
262
265
271
273
278
280
281
283
289
291
293
295
307
309
315
318
1
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
FIRST PERIOD.
PRIMITIVE POPULATIONS.
THE most ancient inhabitants of Eastern Europe were the
Gaulois or Gauls, sprung, like the Greeks, the Latins,
and the Sclaves, from those plains of Central Asia which
were the cradle of the human race. They gave the name
of Gaul to the country now called France-that country,
the ancient boundaries of which were comprised between
two seas, the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean; two
chains of lofty mountains, the Alps and the Pyrenees;
together with one of the greatest rivers of Europe, the
Rhine-a territory larger by one-fourth than the France
of the present time.
Three or four hundred primitive populations, divided
into three great families, the Kelts or Gauls, the Belgians
or Kymri, and the Iberians or Vascons (Basques),
anciently shared amongst them the Gallic territory. The
Kelts were located to the south of the Cevennes moun-
tains; the Aquitains to the south of the Loire; the
Allobroges, in Dauphiny and Savoy; the Helvetians, in
Switzerland; the Sequanes, in Franche-Comté; the
Eduens, in Burgundy and Nivernais; the Bituriges, in
Berry; the Avernes, in Auvergne; the Armoricans, our
neighbours of the sea, in Brittany and Normandy. Later,
there was to the north the powerful confederation of the
Belgians, between the Rhine, the Seine, and the Marne.
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The religion of the Gauls, like that of other pagan
nations, was a worship of the forces of nature. At first
they adored the thunder, the stars, the ocean, the rivers,
the lakes, the wind. The most terrible wind they
called Kirk; the spirit of thunder, Tarann; the god of
the sun, Bel; the genius of the Alps, Pennin; that of the
immense forest of the Ardennes, Arduine. Later, the
Druids (the men of the oaks), doubtless taught the people
to adore the moral and intelligent powers: Hesus, the
genius of war; Teutates, that of commerce and the
inventor of the arts; Ogmius, the god of poetry and
eloquence, who was represented with chains of gold
coming out of his mouth wherewith to seize and carry
away those who listened to him. The feast of Teutates
was celebrated on the first night of the new year in the
forests by torch-light. That night also, according to
tradition, the chief priests gathered with a golden sickle
the misletoe, a parasitic plant which grows upon the
branches of certain trees, and which played an important
part in the religious ceremonies and medicine of the
Gauls; but they made use only of that which grew upon
the oak, their sacred tree. To Hesus they often devoted,
before a battle began, the spoils of the enemy, and after
the victory they sacrificed to him what remained to them
of the cattle they had carried off.
Historians have recorded of this people that their
courage and fierceness rendered them so terrible to the
Romans, that, on the first intelligence of their march,
extraordinary levies were made, sacrifices offered, and the
law which granted an exemption from military service to
priests and old men was for the time suspended. The
Gauls even set fire to Rome itself; nor were they
subdued till Julius Cæsar, whose arms no race or nation
could withstand, defeated them in a series of great
battles.
Gaul was reduced by Cæsar, under subjection to the
Romans, about fifty years previous to the birth of Christ.
The country remained during two whole centuries under
their sway, troubled, nevertheless, during the latter half
PRIMITIVE. POPULATIONS.
11
of the period by the incursions, conflicts, and finally by
the settlement of barbarian invaders.
Of the natural and well-known boundaries of the
Roman province of Gaul, the Rhine was the most im-
portant. It was the great barrier which defended the
empire from the errant tribes and nations that swarmed
beyond. Wealth and civilization were on one side of the
stream; want and barbarism on the other.
The most formidable enemies which the Romans had
to contend with were a people who inhabited the German
forests and districts lying on the lower Rhine and the
Weser, and who called themselves Franks-an appellation
which it is said they had assumed to express their rooted
determination to be free. These people invaded Gallia,
Belgica, and, after a continued struggle of 130 years,
succeeded in making themselves masters of a considerable
tract of land, and established their capital at Treves.
!
1
SECOND PERIOD.
MEROVINGIAN FRANCE.
THE origin of the French monarchy is involved in utter
obscurity. Legendary chronicles record a Pharamond
and a Meroveus; the latter the head of the first race
of the Kings of France termed the Merovingian; but
the authentic history of the Franks commences only
with his grandson Clovis, the youthful chief of the
Salian Franks, in the year 481. He was a soldier from
his childhood, and, while only in the twentieth year of
his age, achieved the conquest of Gaul, by the defeat of
Syagrias the Roman Governor at Soissons; and marrying
Clotilda, niece (while some historians say daughter) of
the King of Burgundy, soon added that province to his
dominions by dethroning the king, and thus became the
true founder of the French empire. His territory at
first was much smaller than what we now call France,
as neither Anjou, Brittany, Touraine, nor Toulouse
belonged to it, but each of these countries was separately
governed.
An incident in this first campaign of Clovis deserves
notice, as illustrating the manners of the times, the rude
form of government which prevailed among the Frankish
tribes and the personal character of their leader. The
soldiers had carried off from one of the churches of Rheims
a consecrated vase of considerable beauty and value. The
bishop of Rheims sent a messenger to Clovis to entreat
that the vase might be restored. The king promised
satisfaction; and at a general division of the spoil which
took place at Soissons, he requested, as a favour, that the
precious vase might be placed at his disposal, in addition
to the portion which fell to him by lot. All consented,
MEROVINGIAN FRANCE.
13
with the exception of one soldier, who, raising his battle-
axe, struck a violent blow at the vase, exclaiming, "Never
shalt thou have more than thy allotted share.” Clovis
dissembled his resentment; but a year afterwards, at a
general review of his troops, he approached the soldier
who had thus insulted him, and taking his axe from his
hands, threw it at his feet, with a reproof for not keeping
his arms in better condition. The man stooped to pick
up his weapon, when Clovis, seizing the moment, cleft his
"It was
skull with a single blow of his own battle-axe.
thus,” cried the stern chief, "that thou didst cleave the
vase at Soissons.”
About the year 500 the little state of Armorica, a
part of which now forms the province of Brittany, was
extinguished by the victories of Clovis.
Clovis was educated in the pagan religion, though
Christianity had been introduced into Gaul in the second
century. Happily, Clotilda was a Christian, and used
all her influence with Clovis to persuade him to embrace
her religion; but although he probably listened to her
arguments, he did not declare himself a convert to Chris-
tianity till after the battle of Tolbiac. The manner of
his conversion is thus related :-The Franks of Gaul
being at war with the Franks of Germany, the two
armies met near Cologne. Before the engagement began
he made a vow that if the victory was on the side of
the Franks, the god Clotilda worshipped should be
acknowledged and adored by all the nation under his
rule. He was successful, and immediately after the
battle was baptized by St. Remigius, bishop of Rheims,
and his subjects became Christians after their sovereign's
example. The Visigoths were masters at this time of
Aquitain, the country between the Rhone and Loire,
and though, like the Franks, they also had been con-
verted to Christianity, yet, holding tenets opposed to
those of Clotilda, the intemperate zeal of Clovis prompted
the extirpation of these so-called heretics, who retreated
across the Pyrenees into Spain, and the province of Aqui-
tania became part of the kingdom of the Franks. They
i
14
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
did not, however, long retain it; for Theodoric the Great,
King of the Ostrogoths, and married to the sister of
Clovis, opposed him in this attempt, and defeating him
in the battle of Arles, added Aquitania to his own
dominions. The daughter of Theodoric, indeed, had
married the King of the Visigoths, so that he fought for
the interests of his grandson.
Clovis died in 511, having reigned thirty years. He
had first fixed his residence at Soissons, and was crowned
in the cathedral at Rheims, but about the middle of his
reign he transferred the seat of sovereignty to Paris.
Paris had been originally founded by the Kelts; but in
the time of Cæsar, who speaks of it by the name of
Lutetia, it consisted of only a few circular huts, built
of earth and wood and thatched with reeds. The Romans
adorned it with many noble buildings, the ruins of some of
which are still to be seen. When conquered by the Franks
the whole of it was contained within the limits of the little
island of the Seine, called the cité-the centre and smallest
portion of the present splendid metropolis of France.
At the death of Clovis, the kingdom of the Franks
extended from the German Ocean to the Adour, the
Cevennes, and from the confines of Brittany to the
Rhone and the Saone. The Rhine was their boundary
on the north-east. Burgundy and Brittany had been
reduced to a condition of tributary states, and were
bound to furnish a contingent to the Frankish armies.
Frankish Gaul, however, was very far from being brought
into a well-organised political unity.
The descendants of Clovis, or the Merovingians, as
they are called from Merovée or Meroveus, their supposed
founder, reigned over the Franks for nearly two centuries
and a half. That long period occupies but a brief space
in history; its annals offer but a succession of barbarism
and crime. From Clovis to Charles Martel, the grand-
father of Charlemagne, there existed not a personage
worthy of the reader's attention or memory; there is not
recorded an event or anecdote which could excite any
feeling save disgust,
MEROVINGIAN FRANCE.
15
The race of Clovis became effete from gross licentious-
ness, and was thinned by mutual slaughter. Monarchs
or monarch's sons could not long escape the sword of the
assassin; whilst to entrust an infant king to the care of
one of his own race, or of royal blood, even if such sur-
vived, was to deliver him to certain destruction. Hence
came the necessity of electing regents amongst the Frank
chiefs. The office fell to the only magistrate or minister
existing in that rude state of society. This was the mor-
dom or major domus, as it is rendered in Latin, who was
at once a royal judge and a kind of steward of the house-
hold.
The family of Pepin succeeded in rendering the office
hereditary in their race, and long wielded the power,
without assuming the name and honours, of royalty.
These belonged to the long-haired race (fainéants or
"do nothing" kings), as the descendants of Clovis were
called, from never cutting the locks of the young princes.
By Clotilda, Clovis had four sons, Thierry, Chlodomir,
Childebert, and Clothaire, between whom the kingdom
was divided. Queen Clotilda had long vowed vengeance
against the murderers of her father; and her three sons,
at her earnest entreaty, undertook, in 523, an expedition
against Sigismund and Gondemar, the joint kings of
Burgundy. The Burgundians were defeated, and Sigis-
mund, falling into the hands of Chlodomir, was barbar-
ously murdered, with his whole family. But in a second
campaign, Chlodomir was allured into an ambuscade, and
fell dead on the spot, pierced by a hundred wounds. The
Burgundian war continued, with some intervals, for ten
years longer; but in 534 the kingdom was finally subdued
and annexed to the empire of the Franks. Few crimes,
even in that age of barbarism, surpass in atrocity that
committed by Childebert and Clothaire against the orphan
children of their brother Chlodomir. Queen Clotilda had
taken these young princes under her own guardianship,
hoping to see them one day put in possession of their
father's kingdom. By a base artifice Childebert and
Clothaire decoyed their nephews into their power, and
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
then sent a messenger to Clotilda with a pair of scissors
and a naked sword, bidding her decide whether the royal
youths should be shaven, and thus made incapable of reign-
ing, or be put to death outright. The queen, almost beside
herself with horror, exclaimed that she would rather see
them dead than degraded. Clothaire, on receiving this
reply, murdered the two elder princes with his own hand;
and was about to poniard the third, Clodowald, when some
of his attendants rushed into the room, and by main force
bore away the child to a place of security. Clodowald,
on reaching the age of discretion, renounced his regal
inheritance, retired from the world, and died a priest.
He was afterwards honoured with a place in the calendar
of the Church; and his name, slightly altered, survives
in the ruins of the palace of St. Cloud, recently destroyed
during the Franco-German war.
After the death of Thierry, Clothaire became sole king
of France, but reigned only three years over the entire
territory of Clovis, and his end was as fearful as his
crimes had been enormous, for he was poisoned by his
own son. He died in 561, after a reign of fifty years.
Although the partition of the monarchy had led to so
much crime, yet upon the death of Clothaire I., it was
again divided between his four surviving sons-Charibert,
Gonthram, Chilperic, and Sigebert-into the several
kingdoms of Paris, Soissons, Metz, and Burgundy. The
reigns of these princes are only remarkable for the wicked-
ness of the wives of two of them. Sigebert had married
Brunehaut, daughter of the King of Spain, and Chilperic,
Fredegonde, a woman of low birth, but of great talents.
Brunehaut having shed the blood of two of her own sons,
and that of many other persons, and being at length
arrested, tried for her crimes, and found guilty, she was
tied to the tail of a wild horse, and dragged about until
she was torn in pieces. The guilt of Fredegonde was
equally great; for she caused her brother-in-law Sigebert,
and even her own husband, to be murdered; but, by the
protection of Gonthram, she escaped in this life the pun-
ishment due to her crimes,
MEROVINGIAN FRANCE.
17
18
On account of the youth of Childebert II., son of
Sigebert and Brunehaut, and Clothaire II., son of Chil-
peric and Fredegonde, the kingdoms of these princes were
governed by their two mothers. Fredegonde died in 597,
and Brunehaut was put to death by Clothaire II. in the
year 613. At this time the name of Neustria was com-
monly given to that portion of the French territory which
stretched from the Meuse and Loire to the sea; and the
name of Austrasia to the district which lay between the
Rhine, the Meuse, and the Moselle, and of which Metz
was the capital.
Gonthram died in 593. Childebert reunited the two
kingdoms, and attempted to seize upon that of his cousin
Clothaire II., the son of Fredegonde; but his troops were
defeated at Droissy, near Soissons, and before he had
time to repair that check, a sudden sickness carried him
off in 596. He left two sons, the eldest of whom,
Theodebert II., had Austrasia; the other, Thierry II.,
Burgundy. After their deaths, Clothaire II. reigned
alone till 628, when he died, leaving his kingdom between
his two sons, Dagobert I. and Charibert II.
Clothaire, in 622, had made his son Dagobert king of
the Austrasians, under the direction of the mayor, Pepin
de Landen, or the Old, and of Saint Arnoulf, bishop of
Metz. These two personages, ancestors of the Carlovin-
gian house, were closely allied by the marriage of their
children: Ansegise, the son of Arnoulf, had espoused a
daughter of Pepin de Landen, and of their union was
born Pepin d'Heristal.
Dagobert, by the murder of his brother, in 631, made
himself master of the whole kingdom. He was the most
powerful and the most popular of the Merovingian kings.
"A terrible prince," says his biographer, "towards rebels
and traitors, grasping firmly the royal sceptre, and stand-
ing like a lion against the factious." He founded the
abbey of St. Denis, wherein the greater number of the
kings of France lie buried; he encouraged the slight
vestiges of art then existing, and exhibited a luxury
unknown to his ferocious predecessors. For this he has
B
-
18
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
been called "the Solomon of the Franks," and the name
of the goldsmith, Saint Eloi, his minister, linked with
his own.
The reign of Dagobert was a short gleam of prosperity
between a period of conquest and another of rapid deca-
dence. Dagobert died in 638, and his successors, either
from their youth or from their imbecility, were incapable
All power
of taking any part in the government.
fell entirely into the hands of the "mayors of the palace."
Mention has been made already of those officers, who, at
first simple judges over all quarrels which arose within
the palace, became by degrees from chiefs of the aristo-
cracy, at the same time the principal ministers of the
kings. In 613, when the nobles delivered up Brunehaut
to the vengeance of the sons of Fredegonde, the mayors
of the palace took care to stipulate for themselves.
"Varnachaire," says the contemporary chronicler (Frede-
gaire), was instituted mayor of the palace of Burgundy,
and received from the king an oath that he should never
be degraded. Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy had
each their separate mayors of the palace, who all strove
to grasp the principal power.
Gaul now for some ages was characterised under the
incapable hands of the Merovingian dynasty by more
than ancient barbarism. On the death of Dagobert III.
(715), who left two infant sons, those ambitious men, the
mayors of the palace, founded a new power, which for
some generations held the Frank sovereigns in absolute
subjection, and left them little more than the title of
king. In their own names they assumed the power of
pardoning offences, of distributing offices, of filling vacant
fiefs, and of transmitting their honours and possessions
to their descendants. In all this, however, they were
obliged to proceed with much caution, having in the other
great feudatories not only equals, but rivals. Austrasia
and Neustria, the two great divisions of the Frankish
monarchy, the former including the territories bordering
on the Rhine, the latter the more central parts of modern
France, were nominally governed by Thierry IV., but
:
MEROVINGIAN FRANCE.
19
!
in reality by Pepin d'Heristal, mayor of the palace and
duke of France, who, restricting his sovereign to a small
domain, ruled France for thirty years with great wisdom
and good policy. His son, Charles Martel, succeeded to
his power, and, under a similar title, governed for twenty-
six years with equal ability and success. He was vic-
torious over all his domestic foes; his arms kept in awe
the surrounding nations; and he delivered France from
the ravages of the Saracens, who at that time were
making great progress in the parts bordering upon Spain,
and whom he entirely defeated, between Tours and
Poitiers (A.D. 732), and again near Avignon, in 737,
thereby, in all likelihood, securing Lombardy, Italy, and
eventually, perhaps, the Eastern empire from the pre-
ponderance of the Moslems; such a line of conquest,
according to their own writers, having been contemplated
by the Arabian commander. In the same year died
Thierry IV., the last of the "sluggard" kings (fainéant),
when Charles, no longer thinking it necessary to appoint
another nominal king, at his death, in 741, bequeathed
the kingdom as an absolute right between his two sons
Pepin and Carloman. Aquitania was not included in
this bequest. It was governed by dukes of its own, and
refused to acknowledge the authority of Charles. Pepin
and Carloman assumed the title and power of kings, and
thus put an end to the Merovingian dynasty, or that of
the race of Clovis, which had reigned from 481 to 741;
in all, 260 years.
The male members of the Merovingian royal family
were distinguished from the rest of the people, by the
custom of wearing their hair in long curls hanging down
over their shoulders, whilst all the other Franks had it
cut very short. From this custom they are sometimes
called the "long-haired kings" (les rois chevelures). The
Merovingian family, says Eginhard, had not for a long
time given proof of any virtue, or of anything illustrious
save the title of king. The prince contented himself
with the exhibition of his flowing locks and ample beard,
with sitting on the throne and representing the monarch.
3
:
20
He gave audience to ambassadors and made replies to
them, which he was taught, or rather ordered to make.
With the exception of an alimentary pension, badly
secured, and which the prefect of the palace regulated,
according to his good pleasure, he possessed only a single
villa with a very moderate income, wherein he kept his
court, composed of a very small number of domestics.
If it were necessary that he should go to any distance,
he travelled in a chariot drawn by oxen, led by a drover
in peasant fashion. It was thus he repaired to the gene-
ral assembly of the nation, which met once a year to
discuss the affairs of the kingdom. The end of this first
dynasty of the Frank kings neither excited regret nor
any worthy remembrance.
HISTORY OF FRANCE,
In the beginning of the sixth century some natives of
Britain fled from the persecutions of their Saxon con-
querors, and took refuge on the coasts of Armorica, which
from them acquired the name of Bretagne. These Bretons,
although they held themselves subject to the kings of
France, still remained a distinct people, were governed
by their own laws, and retained many of their own
customs. And, notwithstanding the length of time since
they settled in France, their posterity still retain the
manners and appearance of a separate race. The Gauls
adhered to their own code of laws, which was derived from
the Roman law; the Franks to the law which they had
brought out of Germany, and which was called the Salic
law, from the name of one of their ancient tribes. The
Salic law permitted the king's wife to have the name of
Queen, but allowed no woman to govern or be a queen in
her own right. In the variety of changes and revolutions
that have occurred in France during twelve hundred years,
since Clovis, this law has always been observed in its
original force, no woman having ever yet ascended the
throne of France.
A
MEROVINGIAN FRANCE.
21
Thierry,
King of Austrasia,
Theodebert I., 547.
Theodebald, 553.
、...
GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE MEROVINGIANS.
(The date following each name is that of the king's death).
Clodion, 448.
Merovce, 456.
Childeric I., 481.'
Clovis I., 511.
Clodomir,
King of Orleans,
524..
Charibert,
Gontram,
King of Paris, King of Bourgogne
567.
and Orleans, 593.
Dagobert II.,
King of Austrasia, 678.
Theodebert II.,
King of Austrasia, 612.
DAGOBERT I., 638.
Sigebert II.,
King of Austrasia, 656.
Clothaire III.,
King of Neustria and
Burgundy, 670.
Clovis,
supplanted by Ebroin.
Childebert I.,
King of Paris,
5.58
Sigebert I.,
King of Austrasia,
marr. Brunehaut, 575.
Childebert II.,
King of Austrasia, then of Burgundy
and Orleans, 596.
Thierry II.,
King of Burgundy, 613.
Clotaire I.,
King of Soissons,
sole king in 558,
died in 561.
Chilperic,
King of Soissons,
marr. Fredegonde,
584.
CLOTHAIRE II.,
King of Soissons, afterwards
sole king, 628.
CHILDERIC II.,
King of Austrasia,
afterwards sole king, 673.
CLOVIS II.,
King of Neustria and of Burgundy,
afterwards sole king, 656.
Chilperic II., 720.
Childeric III.,
ilderi
depcsed in 752.
Charibert,
King of Aquitania, 631.
Clovis III.,
695.
THIERRY III..
sole king, 691.
Childebert III.,
711.
Dagobert III.,
715.
1
Thierry IV.,
King of Neustria and
of Burgundy, 737.
÷


J
THIRD PERIOD.
CARLOVINGIAN FRANCE.
Origin of the Carlovingians.-The empire of the
Merovingians, which had reached its apogee under Dago-
bert, had, as has been shown, slowly crumbled to pieces
in the incapable hands of the "sluggard" kings. But
from amongst the Franks who preserved upon the banks
of the Rhine the warlike energy of the first conquerors,
there had sprung a family which combined all the con-
ditions then requisite for exercising a great influence. It
had very considerable possessions, for it reckoned amongst
them as many as one hundred and twenty-three domains,
and it had consequently a numerous band of adherents,
that is to say, many warriors attached to its fortunes.
The chiefs of this family during the seventh century had
possessed hereditarily the office of the mayor of the
Palace of Austrasia; first in the persons of Pepin de
Landen and Arnoulf; next in Grimbald, who thought
himself strong enough to place his own son upon the
throne; and at length in Pepin d'Heristal who, in 687,
usurped the whole power of the kingdom. (Landen and
Heristal were small towns in the neighbourhood of Liege.)
On the death of Pepin, in 714, he was succeeded in his
office and dignities by his son, Charles Martel, of whose
great valour and activity mention has already been made.
When, in 737, Thierry IV., the last of the "sluggard"
kings died, leaving the throne vacant, Charles had thought
it no longer necessary to keep up the form of appointing
another nominal king, and at his death in 741, he be-
queathed the kingdom, as in absolute right, between his
two sons, Pepin and Carloman. The first, named Pepin
CARLOVINGIAN FRANCE.
23
the¨ Short, had Neustria and Burgundy; Carloman,
Austrasia and the territories beyond the Rhine. This
division of the kingdom which Charles had made between
his two sons did not last long. Carloman, in 747, entered
the monastery of Mont Cassin, and Pepin thus became
sole monarch. Master of the western regions, and
desirous of gaining over the Neustrians, by flattering
their ancient attachment for the royal race of Meroveus,
he proclaimed Childeric III. But the nominal sove-
reignty of that prince was of short duration, for Pepin,
finding his own power firmly established, compelled him
to retire into a monastery, and caused himself to be pro-
claimed king before an assembly of the nation at Soissons.
By a decree of the Roman pontiff he assumed the title of
King of the Franks, and, in order to render his person
sacred and inviolable in that high dignity, he was anointed
with the sacred oil by the hand of Boniface, archbishop
and martyr; the church thus renewing, for the son of
Charles Martel, the long-disused Hebrew ceremonial of
consecrating that new royalty. However, as he was not
certain that such a revolution did not appear to some
scrupulous partisans of the legitimacy of the Merovin-
gians an usurpation, he hastened to justify it by render-
ing military services to the church. Troubling himself
very little about that country to which we will hence-
forward give its modern name-Germany, he undertook
only two expeditions against the Saxons, who promised a
tribute of three hundred horses and free entrance into
their country to the Christian priests. In that quarter
he seems not to have wished to trouble by his arms the
work of civilization which the missionaries were then
accomplishing. All his attention and all his strength
were directed towards the countries of the south, towards
Italy, Aquitania, and Southern Gaul. Pepin died at
Paris on his return from the expedition of 768, in which
he achieved the conquest of Aquitania; "and," says Egin-
hard, "with the consent of his nobles, divided, on his
death-bed, the kingdom of France between his two sons,
Charles and Carloman." Pepin was surnamed the Short
24
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
from the smallness of his stature, which detracted in
nowise from his physical strength, if a very doubtful
anecdote be credible that with one blow he fractured
the skull of a lion that no one dared to encounter. He
was a man of great activity of mind and body, and
reigned for seventeen years with dignity and success, the
founder of the second race of monarchs known as the
Carlovingian. In 759, he annexed to his own dominions
Narbonne and a great part of Languedoc, then called
Septimania, which had been conquered from the Visi-
goths by the Saracens. Upon Pepin fell a twofold task,
to reconstruct the empire of the Franks which was falling
to pieces, and to reconstruct the royal authority, then in
ruins. Of these two things, the second was more difficult
to accomplish than the first.
Charlemagne and Carloman (768-771). This division
of the empire existed for only three years, and those
three years were employed in finishing the work of Pepin
in Aquitania. In order to keep in check its turbulent
population, Pepin had already built the castle of Turenne,
and Charlemagne in the very capital, Bordeaux, placed
over the portal of the church of St. Croix a statue of his
father, as a sign alike of triumph and menace against the
great city.
Carloman had badly supported his elder brother in that
war, and a misunderstanding arose between those two
princes which threatened a civil war, when Carloman
died, leaving sons. The Austrasians having to choose
between those children and their uncle Charlemagne, who
had already shown himself a worthy successor of Pepin,
did not hesitate to proclaim him their king. The first
act of Charlemagne (or Charles the Great, Carolus
Magnus, though a name not given him till after his
death, it is now adopted as that by which his career is
recorded in history), showed the warrior eager for con-
quest. He raised an army, and advanced with it beyond
the Loire. For centuries barbarism had been continually
making war upon civilization, conquering, destroying, or
blending with it. The conquest was not yet over, the
.
•
CARLOVINGIAN FRANCE.
25
:
SUN
Fot
amalgamation not perfect. The rude Austrasians of the
Rhine had lately subdued the more polite Neustrians of
the banks of the Seine. But Aquitania and the southern
provinces were, with respect to Neustria, what Neustria
had been to Austrasia, far more civilised and Latinised,
and the hate on the one side equalled the desire of con-
quest and domination on the other. Pepin had van-
quished the Aquitanians. Upon his death they rebelled,
rallying round one of the family of their ancient dukes.
But the courage of the southerns failed before the
ap-
proach of Charlemagne and his northern army; their
troops dispersed, and their chief remained a prisoner.
Charlemagne, ere he retired, built the strong castle of
Fronsac, on the banks of the Dordogne, and garrisoned
it, to keep the malcontent province in subjection. The
Franks had hitherto a hatred of towns, and a contempt
of fortifications. This is the first instance among them
of dominating a country by means of a fortress, and
marks how advanced were the views of Charlemagne
beyond those of his time.
Charlemagne's next enemies were the Saxons-the most
formidable and obstinate that he encountered during his
reign. For the present, however, after a successful cam-
paign in their wild country, his attention was called away
towards Italy, where his conquests and alliances produced
events as important in their consequences, perhaps, as
any to be found in modern history. He had contracted
a matrimonial alliance with Hermongarde, a Lombard
princess; but had repudiated her within a year after the
marriage-apparently from mere caprice and sent her
back dishonoured to her father. Didier, exasperated by
this gross outrage, appealed to the pope, Adrian I., to
recognise the two young sons of Carloman as their
father's lawful successors; and upon the pontiff's refusal,
the Lombard army invaded the papal territory, seized
several cities, and threatened Rome itself. In the autumn
of 773, Adrian sent messengers in urgent haste to the
king of the Franks, to apprise him of his danger and
implore immediate succour. Charlemagne assembled his
↓
2
:
:
26
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
forces at Geneva, and crossed the Alps in two grand
divisions the first by the Valais and Mont Joux, the
second by Savoy and Mont Cenis. Checked for a moment
by the enemy in their descent from the mountains, the
Franks overpowered all resistance when once they had
reached the plain. Didier fled to Pavia; his son Adalhgis,
with whom were the widow and children of Carloman,
threw himself into Verona. Both cities were invested
by the Franks, and both, after some months, surrendered
at discretion. The Lombard king, with his wife and
daughter, the widowed queen of Carloman and the orphan
princes, all fell into the hands of the conqueror. Didier
was sent captive to France, and confined first at Liege,
afterwards in the abbey of Corbey. The fate of the
young princes is more doubtful, but it seems probable
that they were likewise compelled to bury themselves for
life in the obscurity of the cloister.

In the course of a reign of forty-five years, Charlemagne
extended the limits of his empire beyond the Danube;
subdued Dacia, Dalmatia, and Istria; conquered and
subjected all the barbarous tribes to the banks of the
Vistula, and successfully encountered the arms of the
Saracens, the Huns, the Bulgarians, and the Saxons.
His war with the Saxons was of thirty years duration,
and their final conquest was not achieved without an
inhuman waste of blood, through what has been con-
sidered a mistaken zeal for the propagation of Christianity,
by measures which that religion cannot be said to sanction
or approve.
All these wars were very nearly finished in the year
800. Charlemagne then found himself master of France,
of Germany, of three-quarters of Italy, and a part of
Spain; he had increased by more than a third the extent
of territory which his father had left him. These vast
possessions were no longer a kingdom, but an empire.
He thought he had done enough to be authorised to seat
himself on the throne of the west, and, as his father had
required at the hands of the pope his regal crown, so it
was from the pope that he demanded his imperial diadem,
•
CARLOVINGIAN FRANCE.
27
He was therefore, with great ceremony, created Emperor
of the West in St. Peter's, at Rome, by Pope Leo III.,
on Christmas day, 800. It was a great event, for that
imperial title which had remained buried under the ruins
wrought by the barbarians, was drawn thence by the
Roman pontiff, and shown to scattered nations and
enemies as a rallying sign. A new right was created
for those who should inherit that crown-the right of
ruling over the Italian, German, and French peoples,
who then found themselves united under the sceptre of
the first Germanic emperor. When circumstances arising
out of family rights, and through lapse of time, caused
this title to pass to the German kings, France found
herself strong enough to repulse the domination of a
foreign Cæsar, but not Italy. Thence sprung one half
of the evils which the peninsula was doomed to suffer.
Of these extensive conquests of Charlemagne, some
were durable, others ephemeral; some were useful, others
not.
In extending the outposts of his empire as far as
the Eyder, Charlemagne thought to have shut out from
Germany the men of the north. But a new enemy
sprung up in the Normans, a people who dwelt on the
northern shores of the Baltic, who, under the conduct of
a brave leader named Godfrey, manned their ships and
made a piratical descent upon Friesland in 808. The
emperor led an army against them, but finding this new
enemy more powerful than he had expected, he prudently
made peace and returned home.
Some writers have sought to represent Charlemagne as
a royal sage, a pacific prince who only took up arms in
self-defence. Truth compels a more faithful though ruder
portraiture. He had no invasion to dread. The Arabs
were scattered, the Avars (Bavarians) weakened, and the
Saxons impotent to make any serious war beyond their
forests and marches. If he led the Franks beyond their
own frontiers, it was that he had, like so many other
monarchs, the ambition of reigning over more nations
and of leaving a high-sounding name to posterity.
I
28
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
CANADA.
Charlemagne died 28th January, 814, in the seventy-
second year of his age. His reign lasted forty-four years,
and may be summed up as an immense and glorious effort
to bring under subjection the barbarian world and that
which survived the Roman civilization; to put an end to
the chaos born of invasion; and to found a settled state
of society in which the authority of the emperor closely
united to that of the pope should maintain order alike in
church and state. A very difficult problem, which it was
given Charlemagne to solve, but of which all the diffi-
culties did not become apparent until after his death.
The work of Charlemagne, in fact, did not last; and the
causes of its fall will shortly be shown. The name of this
powerful though rude genius is not the less surrounded
with a lasting glory; and it has remained in the memory
of nations with that of three or four other great men who
have done, if not always the greatest amount of good,
at least have made the most noise in the world. For
Charlemagne, the amount of good accomplished very far
surpasses that which was only vain renown and sterile
ambition. He created modern Germany, and if that
chain of nations, the links of which he had sought to
rivet, broke, his great image loomed over the feudal times
as the genius of order, continually inviting the dispersed
races to emerge from chaos, to seek union and peace under
the sway of a strong and renowned chief.

-

FOURTH PERIOD.
FEUDAL FRANCE.
THE glory of the Carlovingian race had departed with
Charlemagne. That great man had indeed been able to
found a great empire; but it was not within his power
to give those races of different origin, language, and
customs, interest and feelings in common-that is to say,
one and the same desire to remain united in a single and
great political family. There was material, but no moral
unity. But material order is not security. In moral
unity alone consists soundness and strength. When
Charlemagne disappeared, all that which had coloured
with a semblance of honour the subjection of the nations,
blended together under the name of Franks, became
effaced. Whilst the private ambition of the princes of
the imperial family aided the dismemberment of the
nations, those of the great proprietors and the imperial
officers likewise favoured the division of fiefs.
Charlemagne himself had recognised the necessity of
giving satisfaction to the nationalities the most deeply
concerned, and he had made his three sons kings. Louis
was set over the Aquitanians, Pepin over the Italians,
Charles over the Germans. The two last-named died
before their father, and that partition was annulled.
Later, Charlemagne allotted Italy to Bernard, son of
Pepin. It was the emperor's intention that those kings
should only be his docile lieutenants; and so they were
as long as he lived. But when the strong hand which
grasped that sheaf of nations relaxed in death, it broke
asunder of itself. The nations desired to have kings, but
kings of independence. To repress such ambitious desires,
an energetic will was required, and it was to one of the
ī
3
30
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
:
feeblest of men that the ponderous inheritance of the
powerful master of the West had fallen.
Louis, le Debonnaire, so named from his gentleness and
good nature, was then thirty-six years old. He was pious
and upright, but his piety was that of a monk, not of a
king, and his justice easily degenerated into weakness or
even cruelty. The people of France, however, joyfully
hailed his accession; for Charlemagne had been so much
engrossed with his foreign conquests that he had given
very little attention to his French subjects, whom he
rarely visited. It is indeed asserted that he not only
disliked them, but also their country, and that he would
not permit their language to be spoken in his court. On
his way to take possession of his father's capital, Aix-la-
Chapelle, Louis was everywhere received with acclama-
tions, the people hoping that all the grievances and
oppressions which they had undergone during the am-
bitious reign of Charlemagne would be redressed under
the milder sway of his son.
Louis began by acts of reparation, which must have
appeared to the old counsellors of Charlemagne an aban-
donment of the rights of the empire. He restored liberty
and their possessions to a host of individuals who had
been despoiled of both; he gave back to the Saxons and
Frieslanders the right of heirship of which they had been
deprived, and allowed the Romans to institute a new
pope, in 816, without waiting for the imperial confirma-
tion. When Stephen IV. afterwards came to France to
consecrate him, he suffered that pontiff to pronounce those
words which revealed the desire of the Holy Chair to
appropriate to itself the right of disposing of the imperial
crown. "St. Peter glorifies himself in making you this
gift, because you assure him the enjoyment of his free
rights."
In the following year he associated with himself in the
empire his eldest son, Lothaire. His two younger sons,
Pepin and Louis, he made kings of Aquitania and Bavaria.
In 823, there was born to him of Judith, his second wife,
a son, named Charles. That queen was desirous that her
FEUDAL FRANCE.
31
son should also possess a kingdom, and the emperor,
annulling, in 829, the partition of 817, gave him Germany;
thus depriving his elder sons of a part of the inheritance
previously assigned to them. This provoked the resent-
ment of these princes; they rose in rebellion against their
father, and the rest of the reign of Louis was nothing but
a succession of impious contests with his turbulent sons.
In 833, he deposed Pepin, and gave his kingdom of Aqui-
tania to the son of Judith.
Twice deposed himself, and twice restored, Louis only
emerged from the cloister, for which he was so well fitted,
to repeat the same faults. In his blind predilection for
his youngest-born, Charles, he was unmindful that the
cause of all his misfortunes was the redistribution of the
partition he had made between his other sons. After-
wards, Louis had Germany, while Burgundy, Provence,
and Septimania were given to Charles. Pepin predeceased
his father in 838, and the Emperor Louis died on the
Rhine, near Mayence, in 840, in the sixty-third year of
his age and twenty-ninth of his reign.
The middle ages, more regardful of the virtues of the
man than the faults of the prince, have been full of
indulgence for the memory of Louis the Good-natured.
Since the death of Charlemagne, the empire which he
founded had heaved with agitation, like a heavy body in
the throes of dissolution. Each prince struggled for the
possession of a kingdom, and each great division of the
empire was desirous of having a king in order to form a
state by itself. The Austrasian Franks, who were only
defending their own cause in sustaining that of the empire,
were seconded by the Italians, who had adopted the new
emperors as the legitimate heirs of Marcus Aurelius and
Trajan. Lothaire, the eldest son of Louis the Good-natured,
was their chief. He bore the title of emperor and wished
to consider his brothers merely as lieutenants. Louis,
now the second brother, sided with Charles, and their
subjects at length, wearied with these perpetual divisions,
met to decide the question solemnly by force of arms.
They encountered Lothaire on 25th June 841, at Fon-
+
#
2.
32
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
tanet, near Auxerre, where was fought one of the most
sanguinary battles that ever desolated France.
Lothaire, beaten, fled at the head of his troops, whilst
Louis and Charles deliberated upon what ought to be
done further against the defeated enemy. Though the
victory remained to Charles, his army was too much
enfeebled to enable him to reap further advantage from
it. Indeed, that fatal day so weakened the empire
generally, that bands of Normans, like famished wolves,
renewed their predatory attacks, and were allowed to
ravage the coasts with impunity.
The battle of Fontanet having proved indecisive, the
war continued. Louis and Charles met at Strasbourg to
reinforce their union against Lothaire, and swear alliance
before their soldiers, the one in the Teutonic or German
tongue, the other in the Romance or French language.
The Strasbourg oath is the earliest monument of the
French language, formed by the combination, in very
unequal quantities, of three idioms-Keltic, Latin, and
Gallic, as spoken in Gaul; the Latin predominating
greatly over the German, and the Keltic furnishing only
a small number of words. That renewed alliance was
celebrated by military fêtes, to which some writers have
attributed the origin of tournaments.
It being evident, therefore, that Louis and Charles had
firmly resolved to rend asunder the empire, Lothaire
decided to treat with them. At length the three brothers
agreed to terms of accommodation, and a treaty was con-
cluded at Verdun (843), by which the dominions of their
father were divided amongst them. The three principal
peoples of the empire, the Germans, Gallo-Franks, and
Italians were thus separated for ever; the first under
Louis, the second under Charles, and the third under
Lothaire. The name of emperor, a title without power,
remaining attached to the possession of Rome and Italy;
only, to render less unequal the portion of Lothaire, a
long and narrow strip of territory was given him, which
stretched from the Meuse to the Rhine, and from the
Saone and Rhone to the Alps. (Belgium, Lotharingia,
FEUDAL FRANCE.
33
or land of Lothaire, now called Lorraine, and part of
Burgundy, Dauphiny, and Provence.) This treaty reduced
Gaul by one-third, and removed from it, for the first time,
its natural limit of the Rhine and the Alps. Nor could
the efforts of Francis I., and Henry II., of Richelieu,
and Louis XIV., of the Revolution, and Napoleon I.,
entirely nullify it. Charles (surnamed the Bald), who
signed that fatal convention, was therefore, to speak
correctly, the first king of later France, as Louis was
first king of Germany; as for Lothaire, he continued the
kingdom of Italy, which was destined so often to become
extinct and revived. Thus was the dismemberment of the
empire accomplished, and the unity of Christian Europe
dissolved by the treaty of Verdun.
Charles the Bald (843-877).—Thus far has been related
the history of the Gauls, the Gallo-Romans, and the
Franks. Dating from the treaty of Verdun, the history
of the French commences. France, in fact, had now
received, with the exception of the Normans, who how-
ever had already shown themselves on the coast, but
only settled thereon in very small numbers, all the races
of which its population was formed, and all the Keltic,
Roman, Christian, and Germanic elements, from the com-
bination of which proceeded its civilization. The mixture
is even already sufficiently advanced so as no longer to be
able to distinguish the Gallo-Roman from the Frank, the
civilised from the barbarian-all have the same manners
and very nearly the same language. The French idiom
had shown itself in the treaty of Verdun; the law ceases
to become personal and becomes local; customs replace
the Roman or barbaric codes; there are but few slaves
and but few freed men; very soon no other than serfs
and lords will be seen. The empire of Charlemagne is
broken up into three kingdoms, and France in turn is
about to break up into feudal principalities, some of
which will even aspire to play the part of states com-
pletely independent, and the chiefs of the Basques and
those of the Bretons will assume the title of kings.
The son of Judith and Louis the Good-natured, Charles
с
•
!
<
11
..
34
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
the Bald, King of France since 840, was nothing more
than an ambitious vulgarian. During his reign of thirty-
seven years he had ample time, like Charlemagne, given
him, but he did not know how to utilise it. His embar-
rassments, it is true, were great. The same year in which
war was waged for and against the empire at Fontanet,
Asnar, Count of Jacca, assumed to himself the sovereignty
of Navarre, and the Normans burnt Rouen; in 843 they
pillaged Nantes, Saintes, and Bordeaux. At the same
time, the Aquitanians rose in arms, demanding a national
king; the Bretons had found theirs in Nomenoë, whom
Charles persuaded the bishops to excommunicate, but
who defeated his lieutenants; whilst Septimania chose
Bernard for its chief. The Saracens and Greek pirates
ravaged the south, whilst the Normans devastated the
north and west; at length, to crown the measure of evils
which that century had to undergo, the Hungarians,
successors of the Huns and the Avars, invaded the east.
(6
The Normans.-Formidable pirates, the Normans were
men whom hunger and thirst after pillage, and love of
adventures, urged year by year from the sterile regions
of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. In three days, an
east wind brought their two-sailed rigged barque to the
mouth of the Seine. Religious fanaticism mingling itself
with warlike fanaticism, these pirates loved to shed the
blood of priests, and littered down their horses in the
churches. When they had ravaged a Christian land:
"We have sung them," said they, our lance mass; it
began at early dawn and lasted till midnight." Charle-
magne had only beheld those terrible invaders from afar;
under Louis the Good-natured they grew bolder. Some
few established themselves, in 836, in the Isle of Wal-
cheren, and from thence issued to lay under contribution
the shores of the Meuse and the Waal. From 843, they
made their appearance annually. Sailing up from the
mouths of the rivers, by the Scheldt, the Somme, the
Seine, the Loire, and the Gironde, they penetrated to
the very interior of the country. Numerous cities, even
the most important, as Rouen and Orleans, were taken
FEUDAL FRANCE.
35
and pillaged by them, without Charles being able to offer
any defence. From the Rhine to the Adour, and from
the Atlantic Ocean to the Cevennes and the Vosges, all
was pillage. They abandoned even their former custom
of returning during winter to their own country. They
fixed their abode in the Isle of Oyssel, above Rouen, at
Noirmoutiers, at the mouth of the Loire; and even in
the river itself, on the Isle of Bière, near St. Florent.
It was there they deposited their booty, and thence they
set forth upon new expeditions. In 845, the Normans
sailed up the Seine to Paris, which they sacked, and even
carried off the timber of which the houses were built.
Charles tried, by a bribe of 7000 pounds weight of silver,
to prevail upon them to withdraw. It was the surest
means of inviting their return. The Roman empire had
acted in the same way with the barbarians, and we know
with what result.
The Normans were the greatest but not the only em-
barrassment of Charles the Bald: the Breton Nomenoë
repulsed all his attacks, caused himself to be crowned
king, and left that title to his son, Herispoë. The Aqui-
tanians had elected for their chief the son of their last
king, Pepin II., but he having disgusted his nobles by
his intemperance and other vices, they delivered him into
his uncle's power, who dispossessed him. Pepin allying
himself with the Normans and Saracens, in order to pillage
his former subjects, was taken prisoner and confined for
life in a cloister.
The Emperor Lothaire, who was of a restless and
capricious temper, and neither enjoyed peace nor suffered
others to enjoy it, died in 855, leaving his dominions
amongst his three sons. The eldest had Italy, the second
Lotharingia, and the third Provence; but all died young,
leaving no children, and Charles without difficulty shared
Lorraine with his brother Louis the German, made him-
self master of Italy, and was crowned emperor by Pope
John VIII. This prince, so feeble at home, was singu-
larly ambitious of aggrandising himself abroad; a king,
who could not wear securely his own crown, was enter,
ક્
36
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
+
3.
prising enough to gain those of others. Notwithstanding
the feebleness and disgrace of his reign, Charles the Bald
succeeded in recovering, at least on one side, that France
which the treaty of Verdun had mutilated. On his re-
turn out of Italy, in 877, he was seized with a sudden
sickness, and died in a wretched hut at the foot of Mont
Cenis, not without suspicion of having been poisoned by
his Jewish physician, Sedecias.
Charles had four sons: Louis, Charles, Lothaire, and
Carloman. The three last-named died young, and Louis,
made King of Aquitain in 867, who succeeded his father,
was a prince of very defective understanding.
Louis, surnamed the Stammerer (877-879), Louis III.,
and Carloman (879-884).-To conciliate the great nobles
Louis II. relinquished to them a great portion of domains
yet remaining to the crown concessions which his
two sons further multiplied. The uneventful reign of
Louis the Stammerer lasted not quite two years. At his
death in 879, Louis III., his eldest son, was crowned
King of Neustria, and Carloman had Aquitania and
Burgundy. The rest of the dominions of the late em-
peror were possessed by the sons of Louis the German.
Though Louis and Carloman reigned together with perfect
harmony, territorial disintegration still went on. Bozon,
Count of Provence, who had married a daughter of Louis
the Stammerer, seized on part of Burgundy, of which the
brothers failed to dispossess him. He was crowned King
of Provence by Pope John VIII., and proved a wise and
politic king. The one half of Lorraine which Charles
the Bald acquired in 870, was relinquished by his sons,
and it reverted to Germany. Two victories over the
Normans, however, threw a ray of glory upon the name
of these princes; but those momentary advantages did
not hinder fresh devastations. In 882, the celebrated
pirate Hastings, abandoning the province of Chartres
(which had been ceded to him by Charles the Bald), in
search of fresh adventures, Carloman was compelled to
purchase peace by the payment of another money tribute.
"They promised peace," says the chronicler sorrowfully,
FEUDAL FRANCE.
37
"for so long as they should be paid one thousand pounds
weight of silver annually." The two young kings died
within a short time of each other, from the results of
accidents; Louis in 882, Carloman two years later.
Charles the Fat, king and emperor (884-887). At
Carloman's death, a posthumous brother, being only five.
years old, was considered as too young to succeed to the
crown; it was therefore offered to a grandson of Louis
the Good-natured, Charles, surnamed the Fat, then em-
peror and king of Germany. Thus all the inheritance
of Charlemagne, with the exception of the newly-formed
kingdoms of Aragon and Provence, became reunited in
his hands.
Proud and cowardly, and rendered contemptible by his
gluttony, Charles the Fat was so regardless of his French
subjects that he did not come near them, but left them
to defend themselves as well as they could against the
Normans. He had already ceded Friesland to one of
their chiefs. Another, the famous Rollo, a man of gigantic
stature who always fought on foot, being unable to find
any horse capable of carrying his weight, took Rouen,
Pontoise, and slew the Duke of Mans. On the approach
of his countrymen, the old pirate Hastings hastened to
join them, and all together marched upon Paris, which
they had already thrice pillaged. But Paris, which was
then contained within the limits of the little island on
the Seine, had been strongly fortified, and its inhabitants,
encouraged by their bishop Gozlin and by their Count
Eudes, son of Robert the Strong, withstood a year's siege.
At length Charles, at the earnest instance of Eudes,
appeared before Paris with an army. The Parisians,
full of ardour, awaited the signal to begin the battle,
when they learned, to their great disgust, that Charles,
as his predecessors had done before, had bribed with a
large sum of money the retreat of that foe which they
had half conquered, and allowed him to winter in Bur-
gundy; that is to say, to ravage that province. The
Parisians, however, refused to have a hand in the dis-
graceful treaty, and when the barques of the Normans
}
38
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
sought to pass the bridges, they refused to let them pass.
The pirates were therefore compelled to drag their flotilla
a long way ashore to clear the heroic city (Nov. 886),
whose courage Sens in its turn imitated, for it braved
the Normans during six months. Paris had thus glori-
ously won her title to be the capital of France, and her
brave defender, Count Eudes, was about to found the
first national dynasty.
The contrast between the courage of that small city
and the cowardice of the emperor, turned every one
against the unworthy prince. He was deposed at the
diet of Tribur (887), became insane, and would have
wanted the necessaries of life had it not been for the
compassion of Liutbart, bishop of Mayence.
The un-
happy Charles the Fat died in 888. From this period,
Germany, Italy, and France have never had a common
master. The Carlovingian empire was irrevocably dis-
membered; its relics served to form seven kingdoms:
France, Navarre, Burgundy (cis-Jurane), Burgundy
(trans-Jurane), Lorraine, Italy, and Germany.
Establishment of the Feudal System.-But it was
not only the empire which was dismembered; so likewise
were the kingdom and royalty. The inheritance of fiefs
and benefices had covered France with a multitude of
little sovereignties. To the king there only remained
some few towns that he had not yet been constrained to
give in fief. This disruption of the state continued even
within the interior of the great fiefs. The dukes and
counts were all alike as powerless as the king against the
Normans and Saracens, and the populations whom their
chiefs could no longer lead to combine in a common
effort, formed by degrees the habit of depending upon
themselves alone.
Feudal France-The last Carlovingians and the Dukes
of France (887-987).-Three-quarters of a century only
had elapsed since the vaults of his basilica at Aix-la-
Chapelle had entombed the body of the famous founder
of the West, and already neither empire nor emperor
remained. Even royalty had signed at Kiersy its act of
FEUDAL FRANCE.
39
...
abdication. The King of France had little more than a
title. That title without power was, however, an object
long coveted. The tenth century was occupied by the
quarrel of two houses, who disputed for the paltry crown
of the last descendants of Charlemagne; discords doubly
fatal, for they favoured fresh invasions of the barbarians
and the progress of feudality.
Eudes, Duke of France (887-898).-After the deposi-
tion of Charles the Fat, Eudes, who had so well defended
Paris against the Normans, was chosen king, and who,
in recompense, had received from the emperor the dutchy
of France, or had been confirmed by him in the possession
of that great fief. He was the son of that Robert the
Strong, famous for his services against the same enemies
and ancestor of all the Capetians. But his dominions
only extended between the Loire and the Meuse. Beyond
the Meuse reigned an illegitimate son of Carloman,
brother of Charles the Fat-Arnulf, king of Germany,
who in 895 made of Lorraine a kingdom for his son
Zwentibold; and, to the south of the Loire, the duke of
Aquitania, Ranulf, took the title of king. At the same
time Provence was cut in halves: Burgundy cis-Jurane,
under Louis, son of King Boson, and Burgundy trans-
Jurane, under Rodolph, son of the Count d'Auxerre.
Thus France had five kings. She was shortly to have a
sixth in Charles the Simple, the posthumous son of Louis
the Stammerer, the only legitimate one of the race of
Charlemagne.
To the evils caused by the invading Normans, over
whom, however, Eudes gained two victories, were now
added those of civil war. The Count of Flanders refused
obedience to Eudes; another noble, a relation of the king,
seized upon Laon. Eudes retook the city, and to intimi-
date the factions, beheaded the rebel. He then found
himself face to face with another and more serious war.
The partisans of the Carlovingian dynasty put forward
the son of the Stammerer, Charles, whose imbecility ob-
tained for him the surname of the Simple, and had at
first caused his claims to be set aside. In 893, however,
40
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
the Counts of Vermandois, Poitiers, and Auvergne, seek-
ing only to consummate the ruin of royalty, and confirm
themselves in their usurpations, took advantage of the
absence of Eudes, on an expedition against the Duke of
Aquitania, to crown the son of Louis the Stammerer.
As Charles the Simple was then only fourteen years
old, his youth and incapacity made him unable to take
any share in the government of his party; and though
he was supported by some active and powerful nobles,
who, however, only made use of his name in order to
strengthen their own interests against Eudes, the country
for the next few years was greatly harassed by the rival
contentions. Around Eudes were ranged his numerous
vassals of the duchy of France, and those who desired a
national king, instead of that adventurous dynasty who
were much less anxious to save France from the pagans,
than of grasping one of the Carlovingian crowns. Eudes
appeared before Rheims with such a force, that his com-
petitor fled to seek the support of Arnulf of Germany.
The latter, unmindful of his conventions with Eudes,
commanded the counts and bishops of Lotharingia to re-
establish in the paternal kingdom the claimant who was
of his race.
But the counts refused. Zwentibold, who
had become their king in 895, embarked them in a war
which turned out badly for himself. He was compelled
to re-enter Lorraine, and Eudes terminated the quarrel
by according several domains to his competitor. This
brave and active prince was unhappily carried off by a
premature death at the age of forty. His brother,
Robert, inherited his duchy of France, and Charles the
Simple succeeded him as king without opposition.
Charles the Simple (898-922)-Establishment of the
Normans in France (912). This prince is memorable
for his misfortunes. In 911, after a complete blank in
the history for several years, of which there are no records
whatever, we meet with the first notice of the famous
Rollo, a leader amongst the Normans, who appeared on
the coasts of France, and threatened to desolate the whole
country. In 912, Charles ceded to Rollo an extensive
FEUDAL FRANCE.
41
territory between the Seine and the sea, stipulating that
he and his followers should forbear to molest any other
part of France. This province, which was a part of
Neustria, took the name of Normandy, and which its
new duke rendered flourishing by a wise administration.
That treaty, signed at St. Clair-sur-Epte, was a happy
convention, for it put an end to the devastating inroads
which had lasted for more than a century. The new
masters of the country mingled with the ancient inhabi-
tants, and, in course of time, forgot their own language,
lost their ferocity, but kept somewhat of that spirit of
adventure, that love of conquest, which had urged them
to make descents upon so many countries, and which led
them later to land in Southern Italy, and afterwards in
England. These men of the north (Northmans), are
henceforth the Normans of France.

Charles the Simple had promised Rollo his daughter
Giselle in marriage, on condition that he should renounce
Odin. The new duke was baptised at Rouen, and his
Normans followed his example. He partitioned the
land amongst them by measurement, and established
therein so good a police, that having forgotten, it is said,
one of his bracelets that he had hung on the branch of a
tree under which he had reposed during a hunting party,
the bracelet remained there three years without anyone
daring to touch it. Peace and order brought back culture
throughout that rich province, which had been reduced.
to the condition of a desert by the ravages to which it
had been so long exposed; slavery was speedily abolished,
and, by a singular change, these Norman dukes were the
first to speak the best French; and it was in Normandy
that the feudal system was constituted with the greatest
regularity, that the monastic schools were the most
flourishing; and thence, at length, it would seem, sprung
the new art which was about to raise such magnificent
monuments of Gothic architecture throughout Europe.
Rollo died in 932, and was succeeded by his son William
Longue-Epée (long sword), a brave and politic prince.
To return, however, to Charles the Simple. In the year
42
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
912, when Charles lost a province, he gained a kingdom.
The Lorrainers invited him to become their king; but
his folly and indulgence towards unworthy favourites
exasperated the nobles. In 920, they convened an
assembly at Soissons, in which they declared that they
would no longer obey the king, if, within the space of a
year, he did not alter his conduct, and dismiss his minister,
Haganon, a man of low birth who had obtained an undue
influence over him. The warning was useless. The great
nobles kept their word, and took back the crown they had
given him. At the same time (922) Robert, brother of
Eudes, was crowned Duke of France. In a rencontre,
however, which took place in the year following between
the two princes, near Soissons, Charles was beaten, but
his rival was slain. The king gained nothing by the
duke's death, as Raoul, Duke of Burgundy, Robert's
kinsman, replaced him. Thus, whether dukes of France or
Burgundy, we find them as chiefs of the centre of ancient
Gaul struggling to retain the crown, and they succeeded
in their object, notwithstanding the opposition of the
nobles of the north and south.
Germany, more loyal to the blood of Charlemagne,
furnished some aid to Charles the Simple against his new
adversary, but he met with no better success. Taken
prisoner through the treason of Herbert, Count de Ver-
mandois, he was confined in the castle of Peronne, where
in 929, Charles died, poisoned, as was supposed, by that
traitor. Raoul reigned seven years, but with little re-
nown, notwithstanding a twofold expedition into Aqui-
tania and Provence, whence he brought back promises of
fidelity, but nothing more.
Louis IV., surnamed the Stranger (d'Outre-Mer)
(936-954).-On Charles the Simple being taken prisoner,
his queen Elgiva, who was sister to Athelstan, King of
England, fled to her brother's court, taking with her Louis,
her only child, then a boy about nine years old. At the
death of Raoul, who left no children, Hugh the Fair
(le Blanc), his brother-in-law, Duke of France, unambi-
tious of sovereignty, recalled from England the son of
FEUDAL FRANCE.
43
Charles the Simple, Louis, surnamed Outremer, from his
having resided abroad. Far superior, both in ability and
courage, to any of his predecessors since Charlemagne,
the activity and courage of this prince, wanting as he was
in honesty and sincerity, proved but of little service either
to himself or his country. He obtained the support of a
few nobles jealous of the power of the Duke of France;
but when he endeavoured to extend his dominions, by
despoiling the sons of the Count de Vermandois, and
later, the youthful heir of the Duke of Normandy, Hugh
took up arms to arrest the flight of that unexpected
ambition; and Louis, conquered and taken prisoner, was
kept in captivity for an entire year. Hugh would not
unclose the gates of his prison until after he had ceded
the town of Laon, the only one which remained to the
unfortunate king. Louis complained to the pope and to
the King of Germany, and a council excommunicated the
Duke of France. The latter braved every threat, even a
formidable invasion led by the active and powerful Otho,
emperor of Germany, who penetrated as far as the walls
of Rouen (946). Louis was reduced to the humiliation
of saying at the Council of Ingelheim, assembled by order
of Otho, in 948: "If there be anyone who holds that my
misfortunes have happened through my own fault, I am
ready to accept the sentence of the Synod and of the
monarch here present, or to repel the accusation by the
judgment of God, in single combat." No champion pre-
sented himself on the part of the Duke of France. But
that appeal to a foreign prince, of which Charles the
Simple had given the example, sufficed to render national,
at least in the north of France, the opposition made by
the Capetian house to the last kings of the blood of
Charlemagne. Louis IV. died in 954, in the thirty-third
year of his age, from the effects of a fall from his horse,
as he was spurring after a wolf which crossed his road in
travelling between Laon and Rheims: thus suddenly
terminating "a life full of anguish and tribulation." He
left two sons, Lothaire and Charles.
. Lothaire and Louis V. (954-987).-Hugh the Fair,
i
:
44
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
brother-in-law of Louis IV., being still unwilling to
assume that crown of France of which he might easily
have possessed himself, and as Charles was only a few
months old, the undivided kingdom was conferred on
Lothaire; and from this time the custom ceased of
dividing the kingdom amongst the sons of the deceased
monarch, and was never afterwards revived. Lothaire,
who was only fourteen years old at the death of his
father, remained for some years under the tutelage of
his mother and her brother, St. Bruno. In 956, his
uncle, Hugh the Fair, died, having as his contempo-
raries said, reigned many years, though without the
title of king. In 973, the Emperor Otho the Great
died, and was succeeded by his son, Otho II. The
pretensions of this prince to restore the empire rallied
round the King of France the great vassals of several
countries, whose sole tactics then centred in hindering,
whether in France or Germany, the return of the ancient
imperial power which had compelled them to fall back
from the path on which they had advanced in the way of
usurpations from the time of Charlemagne. Lorraine
stood in this predicament: Lothaire claimed a part of
Lorraine in right of his mother, and the nobles of that
country summoned him to oppose Otho. Without wait-
ing to declare war, Lothaire marched directly to Aix-la-
Chapelle, where the young emperor kept his court. Otho
was taken so completely by surprise, that he was obliged
to rise from table where he was sitting at dinner. He
mounted a swift horse, and escaped out of one gate as
Lothaire and his army entered at another. Lothaire
stripped the palace of everything in it which was worth
carrying off, and then returned to France. Otho, burn-
ing with resentment against Lothaire, set out for Paris,
as he expressed it, "to return the visit," ravaging every-
thing in his way.
Hugh Capet, the son of Hugh the Fair, had put Paris
in such a thorough state of defence, that Otho was unable
to effect anything against it. He was compelled, there-
fore, to march back into Germany. But his retreat was
!
Catego
FEUDAL FRANCE.
Pages T,
45
disastrous. He reached unopposed the river Aisne, which
he crossed with a part of his army late at night. In the
morning it was found that the water had risen so con-
siderably that it was impossible for the second division
to pass. In this situation it was attacked by Lothaire;
and Otho, from the opposite shore, saw his men put to
the rout without being able to give them any assistance.
It was a great thing for Lothaire to have made head
against so powerful a monarch, and some time after this
a treaty of peace was made between the two cousins, and
Otho consented to give up lower Lorraine or Brabant to
Lothaire and his brother Charles. Lothaire died in 986.
His son, Louis V., perished in the following year by a
fall from his horse, having done nothing worthy of record.
With him ended in France the race of the Carlovingians.
The last descendants of Charlemagne had shown more
activity and courage than the last descendants of Clovis,
and they deserved a less ignoble end. The cause of their
impotence was the profound wretchedness into which they
fell in consequence of the transmission of fiefs by inherit-
ance. It has been seen that they were so far reduced as
to possess only the little town of Laon. As they had
nothing wherewith to pay for services, neither lands, for
they had no domains; nor money, for they received no
public taxes; nor functions, feudality having absorbed
everything, they were by degrees left helpless. In their
isolation they sought aid from without, they made friends
of the foreigner. The invasions of the Germans in their
favour ended by ruining their cause, and preparing the
peaceful advent of a new dynasty, more French and more
national.
Pa
46
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
4
1
鼽
​3
GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE CARLOVINGIANS OR
SECOND RACE OF KINGS.
(The date following each name is that of the king's death.)
Pepin de Landen, 639.
Saint Arnulf, 640.
1

Grimoald, 656.
Childebert III., 656,
Begga.
Lothaire, 855. Pepin, 838.
Louis III, 882.
Carloman, 747.
Louis, 876.
Charles the Fat, 888.
King and Emperor.
Ansegise, 678.
Pepin d'Heristal, 714.
Charles Martel, 741.
Charlemagne, 814.
Louis the Good-natured, 840.
Carloman, 884.
Pepin the Short,
(king in 752), 768.
1
Lothaire, 986.
Louis V., 987
Twelve kings who reigned 236 years.
Carloman, 771.
Charles the Bald, 877
Louis II., 879.
Charles the Simple, 929.
Louis IV. d'Outre-Mer, 954.
1
Charles, Duke of Lorraine, 99
THE FOUR FIRST CAPETIANS (987-1108).
HUGH CAPET FOUNDS THE THIRD RACE (987-996).
Louis V. had an uncle, Charles the Carlovingian, Duke
of Lower Lorraine (Brabant, Liege, etc.), and who was,
therefore, vassal of the King of Germany. But Hugh
Capet, eldest son of Hugh the Fair and Duke of France,
Count of Paris and Orleans, and moreover Abbot of St.
7
FEUDAL FRANCE.
47
Martin de Tours, of St. Denis and of St. Germain des
Prés; that is to say, disposing of the revenues and in-
fluence of three of the richest abbeys in France, decided
at length to take that title of king which his father had
disdained. The Duke of Burgundy, his brother, and the
Duke of Normandy, his brother-in-law, having met
together at Senlis, in conjunction with the principal
nobles and bishops of France, excluded from the succes-
sion Charles of Lorraine, whose close alliance with the
Germans caused him to be looked upon as a foreigner,
and proclaimed Hugh Capet, who was consecrated at
Noyon.
The title of king in the tenth century gave so little of
real power, that this end of the Carlovingian dynasty,
and this advent of a third royal race, caused very little
sensation in the distant provinces. It was, however, a
grave event.
The king became at least, as Duke of
France, Count of Paris, of Orleans, etc., the equal of the
most powerful nobles. But all the great vassals of France
did not make their appearance at the assembly of Senlis;
the Counts of Flanders, Vermandois, Troyes, among the
rest. They declared for Charles of Lorraine, but gave
him scant support. Charles, overcome after a war which
lasted two years and a half, was made prisoner, and con-
fined in the tower of Orleans, where he died in the
following year (992). Hugh now hoped that he should
have undisturbed possession of the kingdom, but the
restlessness and ambition of the nobles prevented him
from enjoying tranquillity. Eight powerful states or
principalities were all independent of the crown-Bur-
gundy, Aquitania, Normandy, Gascony, Flanders, Cham-
pagne, and Toulouse. Hugh Capet was less fortunate in
Aquitania. He conquered, however, the Count of Poitiers,
who did him homage, but that prince was again overcome
by the Count of Perigord, Adelbert, who marched as far
as the Loire to besiege Tours. Hugh commanded him to
desist from that enterprise, and Adelbert not obeying, he
despatched a messenger to him with this question: "Who
made you a count?” "Who made you a king?" replied
48
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
the haughty noble; a question which Hugh could not
easily answer.
Hugh Capet did not obstinately strive to obtain the
submission of the intractable Aquitanians. He permitted
them to accept as their king the son of his competitor
Charles of Lorraine, or rather in fact to sign their charter
in these words: Deo regnante, during the reign of God,
awaiting a king. For that king, France had to wait for
some two hundred years; until Philip Augustus, who at
length restored to royalty a portion of the rights and
power it had lost.
During the first half of that period
of two centuries, there were two kings, but they did not
reign; they had a title, a dignity rather than a power.
The three first successors of Hugh Capet occupied the
throne 112 years (996-1108), without history having
scarcely anything to record save their names.
Robert (996-1031).-Hugh Capet died in 996, in the
fifty-fourth year of his age, having reigned nine years.
Hugh resided principally in Paris, which from this time
became the seat of government. Robert, who had been
associated in the government during his father's life,
began his reign amidst an universal terror.
It was a
belief long and widely spread, that the world, according
to a passage in Revelations, would come to an end in
the year 1000. Donations to the churches, therefore,
multiplied, piety being increased by fear. Robert
never lost throughout his life the impressions made
during this gloomy period. He was a monk rather
than a king; busily occupied with the distribution of
alms and the services of the Church, he paid scant
attention to setting the state in order. He sometimes
fed as many as a thousand poor persons daily; and on
Holy Thursday washed the feet of several, and served
them on his knees. Those peaceful occupations were,
however, disturbed by an excommunication launched
against him by the pope for having married his cousin,
Bertha. Notwithstanding his piety, Robert resisted at
first the thunders of Rome. But the terror spread
amongst the people by the pontifical sentence, which
FEUDAL FRANCE.
51
}
provoked, and incontestable master of Normandy, inter-
vened between all his neighbours in their disputes. He
supported King Henry against his brother, and in return
was rewarded with the Vexin. He was desirous of
hurling from the throne of England Canute the Great, in
favour of the sons of Ethelred, his cousins; but a storm
having driven his fleet from the English shores to those
of Brittany, he invaded that country, and compelled the
duke Alain to do him homage (1033). In 1035, being
seized with remorse for his many crimes, and especially
for that of the fatal banquet at Falaise, he went on a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the hope of relieving his
conscience. He died on his return in Asia Minor. On
the Seine, near Rouen, in one of the finest sites of
Normandy, may still be seen a hill crowned with some
shapeless ruins. These are the remains of the castle of
Robert the Devil, which, according to its legends, were
long haunted by evil spirits; and not far thence was it
that John Lackland of England is said to have stabbed
to death his nephew Arthur.
The son and successor of Robert was the celebrated
William the Bastard, afterwards our William the
Conqueror, who had great difficulty in obtaining the
obedience of his vassals. When the news of Robert's
death reached Normandy, his brothers Mauger and
Henry tried to set aside the claims of young William;
but these were so well defended by Alain, duke of
Brittany, and so heartily espoused by the King of
France, that the battle of Val des Dunes, fought near
Caen (1046), rid him at length of all his adversaries.
King Henry, who had there fought for him, when he
saw the ambition and enterprising disposition of the
young duke, repented of the part he had taken in his
favour, and joined with Mauger and his other enemies.
This was the cause of numerous contests between the
Normans and the French (inhabitants of the Ile-de-
France), the latter habitually supported by the Bretons
and Angevins.
To lessen the evils caused by the continual wars of
H
›
1.
.-,:!:·‚·
!
"
A
52
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
the nobles with each other, the church proposed a pact
and forced its adoption upon several princes, which was
thus conceived:"From Wednesday evening to Monday
morning of each week, or on any festivals of the church,
and during Advent or Lent, all fighting to cease." This
league was called "God's Truce" (la trêve de Dieu). Its
operation lasted some fifty years, and obtained throughout
all Christian countries, proving highly beneficial and
reflecting great honour on the ecclesiastics and nobles
who promoted and enforced it.
Philip I. (1060-1108).-Philip was only seven years
old at the death of his father, who died in 1060, but
King Henry had taken care to have him consecrated
at Rheims during his lifetime, and appointed Baldwin,
Earl of Flanders, to be his guardian. That crown of the
first Capetians was however of so little account, that
even upon the head of a child it inspired no one with the
desire of seizing it. The reign of Philip I. would have
been still less important than that of his father, had the
nation been as inactive and somnolent as its head. That
prince saw a few gentlemen of Coutances subdue southern
Italy and Sicily, a Capetian of the house of Burgundy
found the kingdom of Portugal, the duke of Normandy,
William the Bastard, effect the conquest of England,
and, finally, all the chivalry of France rush upon a crusade.
He allowed those great things to be accomplished without
taking any share in them. At length, however, prompted
by jealousy against his too powerful vassal, the Duke of
Normandy, he manifested towards him, if not a very
dangerous enmity, at least a determined ill will. He
supported the Bretons against him, and compelled the
duke to raise the siege of Dol (1075); he aided his
eldest son Robert, who had revolted, and thereby drew
upon himself a serious war. The Conqueror entered
Philip's dominions, putting all to fire and sword. Mantes
was taken and burnt; even the churches, in which many
persons perished by the flames; and his scouts burned
the villages up to the very gates of Paris. Happily for
Philip, an accident which befell William at Mantes rid
FEUDAL FRANCE.
49
placed the whole kingdom under an interdict, was so
great, says a contemporary writer, that every one fled
at the approach of the king. There only remained two
poor slaves to perform any menial offices for Robert
and his queen; and they purified with fire every vessel
touched by them. At last, Robert submitted, repudiated
Bertha, who retired into a convent, and then he married
Constance of Provence. This imperious princess, whose
habits were totally different from his own, and whom
the king soon found cause to dread, was daughter of
the Count of Toulouse. She delighted in revels and
amusements, and loved to be always surrounded by the
minstrels and troubadours, who enlivened with their
songs all the courts and castles of the south. But
these Aquitanians, by their effeminacy, luxury, and loose
manners, singularly shocked the northern French, and
ample proof is furnished by contemporary writers of the
antipathy of the two races. This fact should be remem-
bered, when the crusade against the Albigenses is touched
upon; these old prejudices of the northern French against
those of the south serving to explain the atrocious char-
acter of that war.
At a distance, the title king of France had great but
illusive weight. When, at the accession of Conrad I.,
the Italians were desirous of getting rid of the German
domination, they offered the crown of their country to
Robert. At the same time the nobles of Lorraine pro-
posed to recognise him as their sovereign. Robert, ter-
rified at the prospect of so much honour, gave a hasty
refusal to both parties. But that refusal, doubtless, was
only the just sentiment of his weakness. That king,
however, acquired the duchy of Burgundy after a war
of five years (1016), and bestowed the title of duke upon
his eldest son. The royal house then found itself pos-
sessed of two of the largest fiefs, the duchies of France
and Burgundy. Unfortunately, Henry, who succeeded
his father as king, was unable to retain the latter.
Robert the Pious died of a fever at Melun (1031), as he
was returning from a pilgrimage to some of the principal
D
50
HISTORY OF FRANCE,
i
sanctuaries of France, in the sixtieth year of his age, and
thirty-fourth of his reign.
Henry I.(1031-1060) Foundation of the first Capetian
house of Burgundy. "We have seen," says a contem-
porary, the "sluggishness of King Robert, we are now
about to see that of his son, the petty King Henry, the
inheritor of the paternal weakness." Save, in fact, some
few expeditions into Normandy, for the most part
disastrous, Henry I. achieved nothing. When his mother
endeavoured to excite a revolt against him for the
purpose of placing her youngest son upon the throne, he
hastened to claim the assistance of Robert, Duke of
Normandy. Robert immediately marched to Paris, and
compelled Constance and her partisans to sue for peace.
Constance retired into a convent, and soon afterwards
died. Henry satisfied his brother's ambition by bestowing
on him Burgundy; and rewarded the services duke
Robert had rendered him by annexing to Normandy,
Pontoise, Gisors, and some other places.
The most remarkable act of this reign was the king's
marriage with the daughter of the grand duke of
Muscovy. Henry had taken a princess of a house thus
remote, then almost unknown in France, in order that
he might be sure of not finding in her a kinswoman
within the degrees prohibited by the church. Anne, it
is said, was descended through her mother, daughter of
the Emperor Romanus II., from Philip of Macedon.
Her first-born bore the name of the father of Alexander
the Great. Henry died in 1060, leaving three sons by
Anne of Muscovy.
x q
The Dukes of Normandy.-If at this period royalty
did nothing, the same cannot be said of its great
feudatories. Three especially then occupied France with
the noise of their ambition and of their wars. Robert,
surnamed the Magnificent by his nobles, and the Devil by
the people, had usurped the ducal crown of Normandy
by poisoning his brother Richard III., with his principal
barons, at a banquet at Falaise. By dint of energy and
courage he crushed all resistance which his crime had
FEUDAL FRANCE.
53
!
France of furthur devastation, for the great warrior went
back to Rouen only to die (1087).
Philip continued the same policy under the successor
of the Conqueror, but with the same sluggishness. He
still supported Robert, duke of Normandy, against
William Rufus, who had usurped his elder brother's
crown of England, and sold his defection to the latter.
He thoroughly well understood the danger to which
France was exposed with a King of England, master
through Normandy of the approaches to Paris; but had
not the courage to make the necessary effort to withstand
him. Philip's marriage with Bertrade, wife of the
Duke of Anjou, exposed him to another danger-
excommunication, with which the church, the guardian
of the moral law, assailed him; but during ten years he
took no heed of it. Under this indolent prince, however,
the domains of the Vexin, Gatinais, and the province of
Bourges accrued to the French crown. Under the
Capetians the national assemblies which Charlemange
had so often constituted, even those convocations of the
great nobles and bishops that were still held so frequently
in the tenth century, fell into desuetude by the progress
of feudalism and the ruin of the regal power. They did
not reappear until the fourteenth century, when the
monarch had decidedly prevailed over the nobility.
FRANCE IN THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.—THE FEUDAL
SYSTEM.
In the sixth century we find three societies in Gaul,
the Gallo-Romans, the barbarians, and the clergy; there
are still three in the eleventh, the nobles, the clergy, and
the serfs, each having its peculiar manners, organization,
and, to a certain degree, its language and literature: the
two first, rich, powerful, and active; the last, oppressed
and miserable. The eleventh century was a period of the
most ardent faith among the Christian nations. The
terror which the approach of the year 1000, when it was
believed that the world would come to an end, had just
.:
54
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
been escaped from, and the populations, rejoicing in their
existence, testified their gratitude by a redoubled religious
fervour. Churches were erected everywhere, or rebuilt
with greater magnificence. The remains of forgotten
saints were sought for, and monasteries established on
the site of their tombs. Pilgrimages to the shrines of
the apostles at Rome were made, and from thence to
Jerusalem was only a short sea passage. There now
arose a peculiar kind of crusade, that is to say, military
expeditions engaged in under the influence of the Holy
Chair, either to get rid of some danger with which it was
menaced, or to re-establish its forgotten authority. Thus,
some Norman pilgrims, who went to Rome about the year
1016, were employed by the pope against the Greeks, who
had attacked Beneventum. Others returning from Jer-
usalem, aided the inhabitants of Salerno to drive away
the Saracens who were besieging them. The report of
their success, and especially of the booty they obtained,
attracted other Normans to Italy. They came in such
numbers that they found themselves strong enough to
remain masters of the country; so that Pope Leo IX.
beginning to repent of having given himself such valiant
neighbours, marched against them with an army of
Germans. They took him prisoner: but they remem-
bered that the pontiff disposed of crowns, and that he
could give the right to him who had no other claim than
strength. They knelt before their prisoner, declared
themselves his vassals, and received from him in fief that
which they had conquered (1035). The pope emerged
from captivity suzerain of a new state. This was the
duchy of Apulia, to which the Normans soon added
Sicily: both being united, in 1130, under the name of
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies." A Norman dynasty,
having for its chiefs Robert Guiscard and Roger, the
sons of Tancred de Hauteville, a gentleman of Coutances,
reigned at Naples, where the Counts of Anjou also wore
the crown, and where the house of Bourbon was till
very lately still sovereign.
The First Crusade (1095-1099).—The Greek emperor,
66
FEUDAL FRANCE.
55
Alexis Comnenus, menaced by the Turks, who were en-
camped before Constantinople, on the opposite shore of
the Bosphorous, filled all the courts of Christendom with
his cries of distress. But the danger threatening this
last relic of the Roman empire failed to arouse the
Western Christians from their indifference. The first
French pope, Sylvester, had already addressed in vain an
eloquent letter to the European princes, in the name of
Jerusalem forsaken. The high-minded Gregory VII. was
desirous of placing himself at the head of 50,000 knights,
to go to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. That, in
which emperors and popes alike failed, was accomplished
by a poor monk, Peter the Hermit, a native of Picardy,
who had lately returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem,
and who made all France ring with his pathetic recital
of the treatment which the Christians there experienced
from the Turks. The people, seized with a pious enthu-
siasm, everywhere took up arms to rescue the tomb of
Christ from the hands of the infidels, shouting, "Dieu
veult" (it is the will of God). The Council of Clermont,
summoned in 1095 by the French pope, Urbain II.,
preached the Crusade, and the number of those who, in
that year and in the following, affixed to their breasts the
cross of red cloth, in token of their engagement to the
holy enterprise, amounted to more than a million.
In the universal zeal, crowds of the very dregs of the
people flocked to join the sacred banner; but the leaders
of the enterprise shrank from encumbering themselves
with such an useless and disorderly mob. It was there-
fore agreed that these people should proceed to Palestine
by themselves, Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penny-
less (a Norman gentleman) being their leaders; and, on
the 8th of March, Walter crossed the Rhine with the first
crusaders.
The greater part of this vast multitude fell a sacrifice
by the way to hunger, fatigue, or popular fury; the re-
mainder perished in the plain of Nicea by the sabres of
the Turks.
Whilst this rash vanguard was perishing thus miser-
56
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
ably, the nobles were preparing a second army,
and at
length, in the autumn of 1096, set out to the number, it
is said, of 100,000 knights and 600,000 foot soldiers, by
different routes and under different leaders. After suffer-
ing terribly in the solitudes of Asia Minor and the Taurus,
and especially during a seven months' siege of Antioch,
where they were decimated by the plague, they arrived
with a remnant of their host (scarcely 50,000 strong)
within sight of Jerusalem. They laid siege to the Holy
City, which they took (July 14th, 1099). The standard
of the cross was planted on the walls, and Godfrey de
Bouillon was proclaimed King of Jerusalem.
Ere long, wearied with their long sufferings, the greater
part of the crusaders returned home, leaving only some
300 knights with Godfrey and Tancred. On their arrival
in France they were reproached by their countrymen with
having abandoned their brave leader begirt with dangers.
Some of them resolved to return to Palestine, and a new
expedition was fitted out under the command of William
of Poitiers, duke of Aquitaine; but the fate of this army
was more unfortunate than that of the former one. The
crusaders were led into situations which exposed them to
the attack of the Turks, and they were defeated with
terrible slaughter. Their leaders and several of the
nobles saved their lives by flight; but the fervour of
Europe was chilled when it saw so few return from such
gigantic expeditions, and fifty years elapsed before a new
crusade was undertaken to succour the Christians in
Palestine.
This great movement, which continued for more than
a century and a-half, and which dragged into its vortex
every population of Europe, had first emanated from
France. The French, in fact, carried on almost alone the
first crusade. They shared the second (1147) with the
Germans, the third (1190) with the English, the fourth
(1203) with the Venetians. The fifth (1217) and the
sixth (1228) were without importance. The seventh
(1248) and the eighth (1270) were exclusively French.
At the present day even, in the East, all Christians, of
1
FEUDAL FRANCE.
57
!
whatsoever language, have only one appellation, that of
Franks.
At the same time that all these stirring scenes were
passing in the East, in France the king was sunk in sloth
and sensuality, and appeared scarcely to know that a
Crusade was going on. Philip had frequently been ex-
communicated by the pope for having married Bertrade,
whose first husband, Fulk of Anjou, was still alive. He
contrived, however, to pacify the indignant pope, by
making promises to repudiate her; but these promises he
never performed. His lethargic life was terminated in
1108, when he died, in the fifty-seventh year of his age
and fiftieth of his reign. Under Philip I., the French
monarchy had reached its lowest state of debasement, and
its sway did not at this time extend over more than a
territory of between thirty and forty square leagues, of
which Paris was the capital city, and Orleans the next in
importance. Dating from the accession of his son, Louis
VI., the sovereignty began to rise, and it will be seen
to increase in power and dominion in every succeeding
century.
Louis VI., surnamed the Fat (le Gros).-"It is the
duty of kings," said Suger,* "to repress with powerful
hand, and by the inherent right of their office, the auda-
city of the great, who rend the State by their ceaseless
wars, impoverish the poor, and rob the churches." Louis
VI. was exactly the king whom Suger desired. Always
on horseback, lance in hand, he was continually waging
petty wars against the marauding nobles who rifled
travellers or pillaged churches. Louis, who had been
associated with the crown at the age of eighteen or
twenty, had endeavoured, during his father's lifetime, to
repress these disorders, but found it a very difficult task,
for no sooner was one subdued than another rose up in
its place. As soon, however, as he felt himself firmly
seated on the throne, he set himself resolutely to punish
such offenders, and thereby succeeded in establishing
* The Abbé Suger, chief counsellor to Louis the Fat, and after-
wards to his son, Louis VII,
I
58
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
some degree of order and security in his narrow domains
of the Isle of France. But he did not limit his exertions
to that territory. "Unceasingly the king was seen," says
Suger, "marching at the head of a few knights to esta-
blish order as far even as the frontiers of Berry, Auvergne,
and Burgundy, in order that it might plainly appear that
the efficacy of the royal virtue was not confined within
the limits of certain places.' These efforts of Louis to
protect the weak and discipline feudal society were recom-
pensed. In his war against Henry I. of England, the
communal militia came to range itself round his ori-
flamme; and on the report of an inroad, projected by the
emperor of Germany, a numerous army of burghers and
vassals held themselves ready to defend him.
""
In the struggle with Henry I., it was the object of
Louis to secure Normandy to William Cliton, nephew of
the English king: a skilful project, the success of which
would have removed a danger ever menacing the crown
of France, so long as England was united to the Norman
duchy. But Louis was defeated at the battle of Brenne-
ville (1119), which terminated to the advantage of the
English. This check, however, was not attended by dis-
astrous consequences, because the English king, fighting
against his suzerain, dared not carry the war to extremities,
for fear that such an example of rebellion of vassal against
lord-paramount might encourage his own vassals to act in
the same way against himself. But the scheme of Louis
VI. was rendered abortive, for William did not obtain
Normandy.
A few days after the battle of Brenneville, the catas-
trophe of the White Ship, in which the sons of Henry of
England perished, proved as fatal to France as to England.
Henry was left with an only daughter, Matilda, whom he
declared his legitimate successor. She was the widow of
the emperor Henry V. In 1127, she espoused in second
marriage Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou. Until
then the French kings could rely on the support of Anjou
against Normandy. The marriage of Matilda put an end
to that policy, and carried as far as the Loire the Anglo-
FEUDAL FRANCE.
59
!
;
Norman dominion. Matilda's son, Henry II. of England,
as husband of Eleanore of Guyenne, carried it as far as
the Pyrenees.
In 1127, Louis bestowed on William, the young prince
of Normandy, the earldom of Flanders, to which, indeed,
he had a claim in right of his grandmother, Matilda, the
wife of the Conqueror; but he died shortly afterwards in
consequence of a neglected wound, while yet in the flower
of his age. In 1132, Louis, having had the misfortune to
lose his eldest son, Philip, who was killed by a fall from
his horse, crowned his next son, Louis, then only twelve
years old. It was upon this occasion that the peers of
France were reduced in number and limited to twelve.
By the death of Henry of England, in 1135, Louis was
delivered from his most formidable enemy; and Stephen,
who seized on England and Normandy, was too much
occupied in defending himself against Matilda and her
husband Geoffrey to have time to turn his attention to-
wards France.
In 1134, it became evident to Louis that his constitu-
tion was fast breaking down; and, after languishing for
three years in an alarming illness resulting from his ex-
cessive corpulence, Louis the Fat died (August 1, 1137) in
the fifty-eighth year of his age, and the thirtieth of his
reign, sincerely lamented by all classes of his subjects.
During his petty wars with the nobles, Louis discovered
that the strength of his government lay amongst the mer-
chants and townspeople, whose interests, therefore, he
protected from the tyranny of their immediate feudal
superiors, by granting the towns many valuable charters
and immunities. The citizens gladly availing themselves
of the king's favourable inclination towards them, procured
charters for forming themselves into communes, or associa-
tions for mutual defence. These communes elected from
amongst themselves a chief magistrate, whose function it
was to watch over the safety of the rest; who, on their
part, were bound to assist him in time of danger. The
formation of these communes was vigorously opposed by
the nobles, whose capricious and often cruel sway was
-
:
:
60
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
thereby greatly curbed, and in course of time deputies
were admitted from them into the general assemblies of
the nation, which previously could only be attended by
nobles and prelates.
Louis VII., surnamed le Jeune (1137-1180).-Louis,
the eldest surviving son of Louis the Fat, had contracted,
in his father's lifetime, a brilliant marriage. He had i
espoused Eleanore of Guyenne, heiress of Poitou, and of
the duchy of Aquitain. It had become, in fact, esta-
blished that women could inherit fiefs, receive homage,
oaths, and lead their vassals to war. That law, which
during 330 years the royal family of France had no need
to apply, and which it rejected when the direct line of
Hugh Capet became extinct, was one of the most active
causes of the ruin of feudal families which war pitilessly
decimated. Female heiresses brought by marriage fiefs
from one house into another, until they came, for the
most part, into that of the royal line of France, which was
permanent, whilst others became extinct. This time, the
dowry of Eleanore was by far the richest which any of the
French kings had received. It was nothing less than the
half of southern France. Unfortunately, Louis VII. did
not keep it.
Louis was only eighteen years of age at his accession.
In the early part of his reign the young king chiefly
occupied himself with chivalrous amusements, leaving the
care of State affairs to Suger. He was amiable and devout,
but unfortunately his piety was alloyed by superstitious
observances, and he was more like a monk upon the throne
than an active and resolute king. He continued the policy
of his father, however, and still supported the communal
movement, twenty-five charters bearing his name. Several
churches having implored his protection, "He covered
them with the buckler of his protection," says Suger,
"and wielded the rod of chastisement in their defence.”
A count of Chalons, a sire de Montjoi, and others, were
stripped of their fiefs on account of their violence. A war
against Thibaud, count of Champagne, had another cause,
and was of more consequence. The pope had nominated
{
FEUDAL FRANCE.
61
his own nephew to the archbishopric of Bourges, without
heeding the royal right of presentation. Louis drove the
new prelate out of the diocese, to whom the Count of
Champagne gave an asylum. The king had another
ground of anger against this noble. In an attempt which
he had made to lay his hand on Toulouse, the Count had
refused his services. Louis le Jeune, seizing the oppor-
tunity to humiliate this disobedient vassal, made armed
entrance into his territories, ravaging them and burning.
the little town of Vitry. Thirteen hundred persons who
had taken refuge in the church perished in the flames.
The king, who heard the shrieks of the dying wretches,
and saw their half-consumed bodies, was struck with so
much horror that he gave up the war and made peace
with Thibaud.
""
This was an occurrence only too common in those times;
but it weighed upon the king's conscience, and, in order to
expiate it, Louis resolved "to take the cross. His father
had owed his success in part to the circumstance that the
wealthiest nobles had exhausted all their resources to reach
Jerusalem, and that many of them had never returned
therefrom. Accounts came from Palestine that the Turks
had taken Edessa-a town situate to the north of the
Euphrates, and held under the new kingdom of Jerusalem
-and had massacred all the Christians there. Noureddin
threatened, indeed, all Palestine. Notwithstanding the
prudent counsels of the Abbé Suger, Louis determined
to place himself at the head of a second crusade to the
Holy Land. The crusade was preached in France and in
Germany by Saint Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, but
already the public zeal had grown cooler. A general tax,
levied throughout the kingdom, and upon persons of all
ranks-nobles, priests, and peasants-caused loud mur-
murs. At Sens, the townsmen killed the Abbé of St.
Pierre-le-Vif, lord of a part of their city, on account of a
tax which he sought to raise. "The king," says a con-
temporary, "set forth on his march in the midst of impre-
cations." The command of the expedition had been offered
to Saint Bernard, but he remembered Peter the Hermit
62
HISTORY OF FRANCE,
and refused. Eleanore, as well as Louis, "took the cross,'
and all were to be in readiness to depart for Palestine in
the spring of 1147.
The Feast of Pentecost was the day fixed for the depar-
ture of the army; and on the eve of that day the oriflamme,
or sacred standard, was presented to Louis with great
solemnity by the Abbot of St. Denis. The next day the
king and queen set out by way of Metz and Germany for
Constantinople. Conrad and his Germans were already
in Asia Minor; but, misled by their Greek guides, they
lost their way in the defiles of the Taurus, and were cut
to pieces by the Turks; Conrad and his nephew Barba-
rossa, with a few followers, escaping by the superior swift-
ness of their horses. Louis, warned of the danger, took
the longer but safer way by the sea coast, and his army
was encouraged by a victory over the Turks on the
Mœander; but beyond Laodicea they entered on narrow
defiles, where, through the incapacity of the commanders,
they marched in two separate bodies. The Turks fell
upon the rear, made a terrible slaughter, and the king
having fought for a long time alone-all the nobles of his
escort having been slain-escaped with the greatest diffi-
culty, with the loss of his baggage and provisions.
At Satalia, a small seaport, about three days' sail from
Antioch, it was thought impossible to proceed further by
land. The king and his nobles, therefore, embarked in
the few Greek vessels available, to finish their pilgrimage
by sea, abandoning the rest of the army a prey to fatigue,
hunger, and the swords of the Turks. All perished
miserably, with the exception of three thousand, who,
renouncing their faith for that of Mahomet, by that
means escaped death.
Arrived at Antioch, Louis no longer thought of fight-
ing, but of accomplishing his pilgrim's vow, to offer up
his prayers at the holy sepulchre, and to terminate as
soon as possible that unlucky enterprise. Without listen-
ing to entreaties of the Counts of Antioch and Tripoli, to
undertake some enterprise against the Turks, he hurried
forward on the march to Jerusalem. His vow accomplished,

FEUDAL FRANCE.
63
there was nothing now to detain him in the Holy Land,
but he lingered one year there, as though unwilling to
return to France without once drawing his sword in
Palestine. He therefore encamped before Damascus, but
dissensions amongst his nobles caused him to raise the
siege; and Europe again saw but very few of those return
who had set out on this second rash expedition. The first
crusade had at least attained its object, it had delivered
Jerusalem; the second had uselessly shed Christian blood.
After it, Palestine found itself weaker, Islamism stronger,
and the Crusaders derived nothing from it but shame and
dishonour.
Louis, on his return to France in October, 1149, found
his territories in peaceful condition, thanks to the able
administration of Suger; but his subjects bitterly rc-
proached him as the destroyer of the flower of the French
chivalry. This reflection, as just as it was grievous,
together with the disagreement which had arisen between
him and his consort during the crusade, rendered him
morose. At length, in 1152, they were divorced, and
Eleanore carried her Duchy of Guyenne, and all the rest
of the vast dowry Louis had received with her, to Henry
Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy, and
heir to the English crown, whom she married very soon
afterwards. When two years later, Henry, by the death
of King Stephen, had entered into possession of his
heritage, and had added thereto Brittany by the marriage
of one of his sons with the only daughter of the count of
that country, he found himself master of almost the whole
of western France.
The King of France might well tremble for his crown,
superior as he soon found Henry both in territorial power
and mental qualities, and the records of the next twenty
years are occupied with little else than a series of wars
between these rival monarchs. Louis, moreover, found a
means of defending himself by taking part in the con-
tinued rebellions of Henry's four sons against their father;
and there was another ally whom the vehemence of the
King of England gave him in the saint, Thomas à Becket,
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
assassinated by four of Henry's courtiers. The dead pre-
late proved more formidable than he had ever been whilst
alive. Louis called upon the pope to avenge the martyr's
death. To prevent an excommunication, Henry con-
sented to all the humiliations imposed upon him, and
passed the rest of his days in fighting against his subjects,
his sons, and the King of France.
In 1179, Louis, while languishing in a painful state
between life and death under an attack of palsy, had his
son, Philip Augustus, crowned with extraordinary splen-
dour, and, shortly afterwards, finding himself on his
deathbed, he caused his money, clothes, and jewels to
be brought to him, and distributed them with his own
hands amongst the poor. He died, 18th September 1180,
in the sixtieth year of his age, and the forty-third of his
reign. He had been married three times: First, to
Eleanore of Guyenne; second, to Constance of Castile;
third, to Alice of Champagne, by whom he had Philip,
who succeeded him. In early life, Louis had shown a
certain degree of courage and animation, which served to
conceal the deficiences of his understanding; and, notwith-
standing his many errors and weaknesses, he was greatly
beloved by his subjects. The order which he strove to
maintain throughout his dominions was favourable to the
progress of the urban populations. During his reign the
number of the communes was increased, and freedom con-
tinued to advance by gradual steps. Under him, says a
contemporary, a great number of towns were built, and
many old ones enlarged. Forests were cut down and
large spaces cleared. He confirmed the ancient privi-
leges of the hanse, or society of merchants of Paris; and
Pope Alexander III. laid, in 1163, the first stone of the
cathedral of that city (Notre Dame). On the occasion of
the coronation of his son and successor, Louis attached
the privilege of consecration to the cathedral of Rheims,
and the peers took their seats at the ceremony. The peers
of France were the possessors of the great seignories held
directly from the crown, and their number was limited
by Louis VII, to twelve,
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FIFTH PERIOD.
THE FIRST VICTORY OF ROYALTY OVER THE FEUDAL
ARISTOCRACY.
Philip Augustus (1180-1223)-Character of the
Period. From the ninth to the twelfth century, there
was always a king on the throne of France, but there
was no royalty; the public powers, which ought to have
remained in his hands, having become territorial powers
exercised by all the great proprietors. It was a kind of
confederation of princes governed by a feudal chief. To
that revolution, which had broken during three centuries
the unity of the country, succeeded another which strove
to reunite the scattered members of French society, and
to deprive the nobles of the rights they had usurped, in
order to restore them to royalty, so far as to make the
king the sole judge, the sole administrator, and sole
legislator of the realm. That revolution began with
Philip Augustus and St. Louis, who reconstituted a
central government, and was only accomplished under
Louis XIV., because divers incidents, the hundred years'
war in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the
religious wars of the sixteenth especially, suspended that
great interior work.
Philip II., surnamed Augustus, from having been born
in the month of August, ascended the throne in the
fifteenth year of his age.
His relations and vassals
thought that they could treat him like a child, but he
quickly undeceived them by his activity and resolution.
His chief adviser had been the Count of Flanders, but,
as soon as he became his own master, he cast off his
control, as he had already done that of his own relations.
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
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He early showed a determination to rule alone, had great
confidence in his own powers, and ere long made himself
an absolute monarch. The result of the wars which he
had to sustain was the acquisition, in 1185, of the counties
of Amiens, Vermandois, and Valois. Artois, which had
fallen to him, in 1191, through the inheritance of his wife,
carried as far as the frontiers of Flanders the immediate
domain of the crown. The Duke of Burgundy, the sire
de Beaujeu, the Count of Chalons, who pillaged the
churches, were constrained to respect them. He drove
away the Jews, by depriving them of their lands and
houses (1182), and caused a number of heretics to be
burnt at the stake.
The Third Crusade.—Philip, like his father, undertook
a crusade, with the object of rescuing Jerusalem, which
had again fallen (1187) into the hands of the infidels.
Eight kings, all Frenchmen, had reigned there since God-
frey de Bouillon. The last, Guy de Lusignan, had just
been made prisoner by Saladin at the battle of Tiberias.
Christianity made a powerful effort; Richard Cœur de
Lion, King of England, and Philip Augustus set out
together. The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had pre-
ceded them. It was determined to pass the winter at
Messina, and this arrangement proved fatal to the expedi-
tion. Philip and Richard had hitherto been great friends,
but, during that period of inaction in Sicily, heart-burn-
ings arose between them which turned their friendship
into mortal hatred. Their mutual animosities broke out
during the two years' siege of Acre, and Philip, eclipsed
by his brilliant rival at the taking of that town, hastened,
on the plea of ill health, to return to France, there to
work the ruin of the too powerful King of England. He
entered into a compact with the brother whom Richard
had left behind, John Lackland, who was aspiring to the
throne, and both hoped to share the spoils. Philip lost
no time in attacking Normandy, and in exciting John to
seize upon England. But both these attempts failed;
for Richard, having escaped from the prison into which,
contrary to all good faith, the Emperor of Germany had
ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
67
flung him, hastened to take revenge on both brother and
rival. The former purchased his pardon by putting to
the sword a French garrison he had introduced into his
castle; the latter accepted the alternative of making war.
It broke out with violence in Normandy. Richard de-
feated Philip, near Gisors, without, however, deriving
great results from his victory. Pope Innocent III. inter-
posed and made them sign a truce of five years (January,
1199). Two months afterwards, Richard was killed by
being wounded in the shoulder by an arrow at the siege
of Chalus in the Limousin.
**: {*.
On John Lackland succeeding his brother,. Coœur de
Lion, Philip immediately became the enemy of his old
ally by taking up the cause of young Arthur of Brittany,
son of an elder brother of Lackland; and when John had
stabbed his nephew with his own hand, Philip, as suze-
rain, cited the murderer to appear in Paris before the
twelve peers of France. Upon his refusal, he confiscated
his fiefs, marched an army into Normandy, which John
did not defend, and took Chateau Gaillard, the bulwark
of that duchy, built by Richard, after a six months' re-
sistance. Pope Innocent III. wished to impose a peace
upon the two kings, but Philip was gaining too much by
this war against a cowardly enemy not to resist it.
He
sent the pontiff a haughty reply, and rapidly following
up his success, seized upon all the towns of the province,
even upon Rouen, "the very rich city, full of the nobles
and all the chief men of Normandy." Anjou, Touraine,
and Poitou, were also easily reunited to the royal domain.
These were the most brilliant conquests a king of France
had ever made (1203-1204). John was the last of eleven
dukes who had governed Normandy during a period of
293 years. Jersey and Guernsey, and some other small
islands, are all that is left of that ancient dukedom in the
possession of the English crown.
The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204).-Since the bad suc-
cess of the third crusade, Jerusalem had been forgotten;
and, instead of those pious expeditions, nothing was seen
throughout Christendom but wars waged between kings
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
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and peoples. England, Germany, and France, formerly
united for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre, were
now armed one against the other. Otho IV. was excom-
municated, Philip Augustus had been, John was threat-
ened. All these excommunicated monarchs thought little
about the Holy Land. The great pope, Innocent III.,
wished them to remember it, and caused a crusade to be
preached, promising remission of sins to those who should
serve God for a year. Foulques, curate of Neuilly-sur-
Marne, was the preacher of it. He was present at a
tournament in Champagne, and his fiery eloquence so
stirred the princes and knights who attended it that they
"took the cross. On this occasion the kings held them-
selves aloof, and the people also. It was resolved to go
by sea, and the Venetians agreed to find vessels and money
on condition that the crusaders should aid them in taking
Zara, in Dalmatia. The Venetians persuaded their allies
that the keys of Jerusalem were in Cairo or Constan-
tinople. There was some truth in that assertion, but
there was more especially a commercial interest. The
possession of Cairo would give the merchants of Venice
the route to India, that of Constantinople would secure
to them the commerce of the Black Sea and the Archi-
pelago. Constantinople was decided on, whither a young
Greek prince, Alexis, offered to conduct them, on con-
dition that they should re-establish on the throne his
father Isaac, who had been deposed by his brother,
Alexis III., and had his eyes put out. On the 18th
July 1203, the city was carried by assault, and the old
emperor, released from his dungeon, restored to the throne.
Alexis had made the crusaders the most brilliant promises,
and to keep them, he created new imposts, which so ex-
asperated the people that they strangled the emperor,
elected another, named Murtzupple, and closed the gates
of the city. The crusaders attacked it immediately.
Three days sufficed for its capture (March, 1204); and
this time they put it to the sack, and a whole quarter, a
league square in extent, was reduced to ashes.
Constantinople taken, the conquerors divided the
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ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
69
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empire. Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was elected em-
peror. Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, was made King
of Macedonia; Villehardouin, Marshal of Romania, and
his nephew, Prince of Achaia. Venice had a quarter of
the city, with all the islands and ports of the empire.
It was a new France which had carried its feudal customs
to the extremity of Europe. But those crusaders were
not sufficiently numerous to long retain their conquest.
In 1261, the Latin empire crumbled to pieces.
ever, until the end of the middle ages and the conquests
of the Turks, there subsisted, in certain parts of Greece,
the relics of those feudal principalities so strangely estab-
lished by the French of the thirteenth century upon the
classic soil of Miltiades and Leonidas.
How-
The crusade against the Albigenses, so called from
Alby, a city in Languedoc (1208), was more directly
profitable than that of Constantinople. The south of
France had long been separated from the north. It had
another language, different manners and customs. Com-
merce had brought prosperity amongst the citizens, luxury
amongst the nobles; and both classes, the one and the
other united without jealousy or hatred in municipal
offices, secured peace to the country. But in those rich
cities, and in those brilliant courts, enlivened by the
songs of the troubadours, religious doctrines were as
lightly regarded as were morals. Heresy, as it was then
called, everywhere existed. Pope Innocent III. organ-
ised the Inquisition against it, a tribunal charged to seek
out and try heretics by the use of torture: a tribunal
which immolated innumerable human victims without
succeeding in the extirpation of heresy, because the stake
is the worst means of obtaining the triumph of truth.
The Inquisition, however, having failed, the pope
caused a crusade to be preached. The knights of the
north, rude and barbarous compared with those of the
south, seizing the occasion of avenging themselves of a
hateful superiority, enrolled themselves in crowds, in the
hope of pillaging the rich cities of which they had heard
so many marvels. The war was carried on with the most
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
savage ferocity under the direction of Simon de Montfort,
who, in 1214, had the sovereignty conferred on him of all
the country conquered from the Albigenses. At Beziers,
15,000 persons were put to the sword, and elsewhere in
the same proportion. The powerful Raymond, Count of
Toulouse, and his nephew, the Viscount of Beziers, were
dispossessed (1209); and the King of Aragon, who had
come to their aid, was slain at the battle of Muret (1213).
The civilization of the south, stifled by those rude hands,
perished, and the "gay science," as the troubadours termed
their poetry, was hushed amidst such sanguinary scenes.
After the death of De Montfort, killed before Toulouse, in
1218, the war subsided for a time, though it was often
renewed at different periods.
Expedition against England (1216).-After the battle
of Bouvines (near Tournay), John Lackland, on re-enter-
ing his island dominions, defeated and humiliated, found
the barons in open insurrection. All England was in
arms; whilst nobles and citizens, clergy and laity, giving
to feudal Europe the great example of their union, forced
their king to sign the Great Charter of English liberties
(1215). John had recourse to Pope Innocent III., who,
by his authority, declared the Great Charter null and
void, and released the king from his oaths. John there-
upon commenced a war against the barons, who_sum-
moned to their aid the son of Philip Augustus, Louis,
nephew to John by his wife, Blanche of Castile. Inno-
cent III. threatened Philip Augustus with excommuni-
cation, and that monarch, not choosing to get into any
dispute with the pope, affected to be displeased with his
son for acceding to the wishes of the English nobles.
Louis, notwithstanding, continued his enterprise, and
landed in England (30th May 1216), the inhabitants of
London receiving him with great appearance of cordiality.
The pope's ban would not have hindered the French prince
from claiming the throne of England had not the death
of John in the following October totally changed the
aspect of affairs. The latter left as his successor a child,
Henry III. The barons, comprehending that the boy-
·
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ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
71
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king was much more useful to their cause than a foreign
prince little disposed doubtless to respect, after victory,
their privileges, and who would be in case of need aided
by the forces of France, deserted Louis, and swore allegi-
ance to the youthful Henry. As a last effort, Louis
marched his army into the north, but on 19th May 1217,
it was defeated in a bloody battle at Lincoln, after which
he was constrained to return to France.
Under Philip Augustus, Paris was embellished, paved
and encircled by a wall flanked with 500 towers, pierced
with 13 gates, and defended by a ditch. The city was
provided with markets, and watched over with a better
police; the construction of Notre Dame was actively
carried on; the Louvre commenced; the University of
Paris constituted with great privileges, and the archives
founded. He was the first King of France who main-
tained a standing army.
Thus Philip Augustus had gloriously accomplished his
reign of forty-three years: doubling the royal domains by
the acquisition of Vermandois, Amienois, Artois, Nor-
mandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Poitou, and part of
Auvergne. He attacked feudalism in one of its most
dangerous privileges, the right of waging private war,
by the establishment of "the king's quarantine." He
confirmed the authority of the court of peers by a memor-
able example, the condemnation of John of England. In
fine, royalty appeared once more as a legislative power,
and its ordinances reassumed the character of generality
for the entire state, which they had not possessed since
the last capitularies of Charles the Simple; such are the
results which have merited for Philip Augustus the
gratitude of posterity. He died at Mantes, 14th July
1223, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and the forty-
fourth of his reign. By his first wife, Isabella of Hain-
ault, he had only one child, Louis, who succeeded him.
By Ingeberge of Denmark, who survived him, he had no
children.
Louis VIII., surnamed the Lion (1223-1226).-Louis
VIII. had been for an instant, in his father's lifetime,
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
proclaimed king in London, by the revolted English
barons, and had fought twice against the Albigenses.
Become King of France, he continued to prosecute those
two wars. From the English he conquered that part
which Philip Augustus had not taken of Poitou, with
l'Aunis, la Rochelle, Limoges, and Perigueux. Together
with Avignon, the country, from the Rhone to within
four leagues of Toulouse, submitted to him. Thus all
the south, except Guienne and Toulouse, recognised the
royal authority; the work of territorial unity had so far
advanced that France was no longer divided into two
equal parts. Only Gascony and Bordeaux now remained
to the English of all their former great possessions in
France, and these would have probably fallen to Louis
had not the war against the Albigenses been urged upon
him by the exhortations of Pope Honorius III.
Louis the Lion died in Auvergne, on his return from
that expedition, of a fever, caught during the siege of
Avignon (October, 1226). He had only reached his
thirty-ninth year, and had reigned little more than three
years.
Saint Louis (1226-1270)—Regency of Blanche of
Castile (1226-1236). For upwards of a century, the
sword of royalty, which was that of France, had been
valiantly wielded; but the son of Louis the Lion was a
boy only eleven years old. A coalition of great vassals
was immediately formed to take advantage of his minority.
'The majority of them were greatly offended that a woman,
and more particularly a Spanish woman, should presume
to reign over them, and they conspired against her
authority. Happily the regent, Blanche of Castile, the
queen-mother, possessed strength and vigour of mind,
and was both skilful and courageous. She won over one
of the confederates, Thibaud, the powerful Count of Cham-
pagne; and then saved him with the royal army from
the attacks of his old allies. In gratitude for this service,
she obtained from Thibaud, become by inheritance King
of Navarre, the important provinces of Blois, Chartres,
Sancerre. A treaty signed in 1229, secured to the king's
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ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
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elder brother the reversion of the county of Toulouse;
and a marriage, arranged between a second brother of
Saint Louis and the heiress of Provence, prepared for
another epoch the reunion of that country with France.
Already the royal seneschals were established at Beau-
caire and Carcassonne, so that the king became master
by himself or by his brothers of a great part of the south
of France. The majority of Saint Louis was proclaimed
in 1236; but the wise regent maintained the greatest
influence over her son's mind, and over the direction of
the government.
Saint Louis was the true hero of the middle ages, a
prince as pious as he was brave; who loved feudalism,
and yet dealt it the most sensible blows; who venerated
the church, and yet knew on fitting occasions how to
resist its head; who respected all rights, but followed
above all justice. Frank and gentle, with a heart full
of benevolence and Christian charity, and who yet con-
demned the sinner's body to the torture for the salvation
of his soul; who on earth looked only towards heaven,
and who made his office of king a magistracy of order
and equity. Rome has canonised him, and the French
people see him still sitting under the oak at Vincennes
dispensing justice to all comers. That saint, that man of
peace, did more in the simplicity of his heart for the
progress of royalty than the most subtle counsellors or
ten warlike monarchs, because the king after him ap-
peared to the people as the incarnation of order and
justice.
The Sixth Crusade.-The great pontificate of Innocent
III. had restored new energy to the church and the re-
ligious sentiment. The spirit of the crusades, which had
become extinct during the rivalry of Philip Augustus
with Richard Coeur de Lion and John Lackland, was
again revived. In 1235, the Holy War began again to
be preached in France, and, as too frequently, before
setting out for Jerusalem, the expedition was inaugurated
by the massacre of those whose forefathers had nailed the
Divine victim upon the cross at Golgotha. There was a
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HISTORY OF FRANCÉ.
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slaughter of the Jews everywhere; and the council of
Tours was compelled to take those unfortunate people i
under its protection. Still less mercy was shown to-
wards heretics. Thibaud, Count of Champagne, burned
on one single occasion 183 upon Mont Aimé, near Vertus.
After all, this crusade, of which Thibaud himself and
the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany were the chief
leaders, failed of success. The crusaders were defeated
at Gaza, in Palestine, and those who came back could
only boast of the honour of having broken a few lances
in the Holy Land.
!
Previous to his war with the English, there are few
actions to record of Saint Louis; but, in 1241, the Em-
peror Frederick II. having forcibly detained certain
French prelates who had gone to Rome to attend a
council, Saint Louis demanded so firmly that they should
be set at liberty, that the emperor at once released his
prisoners. Shortly before, Louis had refused to receive,
either for himself or for one of his brothers, the imperial
crown of Frederick II., which the pope offered him. He
had equally refused the pontiff's request to modify a
royal ordinance of 1234, which restrained the jurisdiction
of ecclesiastical tribunals; a necessary measure, for those
courts had come at length to try many more civil causes
than the lay tribunals.
The man who spoke so firmly, acted equally so, when
he was forced to take up arms. Attacked by the Eng-
lish, in 1242, who favoured the revolt of certain of his
barons, Saint Louis defeated them at Taillebourg and at
Saintes. Probably he might eventually have driven
them out of France, but he refused to follow up his
victory. The acquisitions made during half a century
had tripled the extent of the royal domain; but they
seemed to him sullied by violence. By a scruple of con-
science, he ceded to the King of England, in virtue of a
treaty which was only signed in 1259, on his return from
the crusade, the duchy of Guyenne and Gascony, under
homage to his crown. In order to prevent perjury, he
compelled the nobles who held fiefs from the two crowns
R
ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
75
}
i
to choose between the two sovereigns. The limits of his
prerogative being equally uncertain in the south, he fixed
them by a treaty with the King of Aragon, and the
county of Barcelona ceased to be held from the French
crown.
In 1245, Pope Innocent IV., driven out of Italy by
the Emperor Frederick II., sought refuge in Lyons, and
there held the thirteenth Ecumenical Council, at which
140 bishops were present. The pope therein solemnly
deposed the emperor, and exhorted the Christian princes
to march to the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. The
Christians in Palestine had been crushed during the pre-
ceding year by the Turks in the battle of Gaza, and Jeru-
salem had anew fallen into the hands of the infidels.
Saint Louis did not wait for the appeal from the council
to "take the cross." During an illness which brought him
to the brink of the grave, in 1244, he made a vow that if
he recovered he would go the Holy Land. His mother
and his counsellors vainly strove to dissuade him from
such a rash resolution. But it was not until four years
after he had taken the cross, that, having set all his
affairs in proper order, and appointed his mother regent
during his absence, he embarked in August, 1248, at
Aigues-Mortes, a Mediterranean port, with part of his
forces, taking with him his consort, Margaret of Pro-
vence, and his three brothers, the Counts of Artois, of
Provence, and of Anjou.
During two years Saint Louis had collected great
stores of provisions in Cyprus, where he remained till
the following June, waiting the arrival of the rest of his
troops. The army, amounting to above 50,000 men, set
sail thence in 1800 vessels, great and small, for Egypt.
Damietta, on one of the mouths of the Nile, was taken
possession of (7th June 1249), but precious time was lost
before marching upon Cairo. A delay of five months
and a half served to revive the courage of the Mame-
lukes. The crusaders lost another month in traversing
some fifteen leagues, entangled amongst the canals with
which the country was intersected. An unskilful attack
A
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76
HISTORY OF FRANCE:
upon the town of Mansourah cost the lives of many
knights, the Count of Artois also being slain who led them
(Feb., 1250). The army was soon surrounded by enemies
on all sides, cut off from procuring provisions, and deci-
mated by the plague. The Turks attacked the camp,
and although the king was so ill that he could scarcely
mount on horseback, he rode amongst the ranks until he
fainted, and was thus taken prisoner. The defeat of the
whole army followed, and all who were not slain were
made prisoners. Saint Louis, after a captivity of two
months, was liberated on payment of a heavy ransom,
and passed into Palestine, where he remained during
three years, employing his zeal and ascendency in main-
taining concord between the Christians, and his resources
in strengthening the fortifications of places which they
still occupied.
The tidings of his mother's death (the regent Blanche)
recalled Louis at length to France, from which he had
been absent about six years (2nd July 1254), and where
he was received with every demonstration of joy.
The good king's reputation for justice was so well
established, that the English barons in arms against
Henry III. accepted Louis as arbiter of their differences.
He blamed both sides—the barons for not treating their
sovereign with more respect, and Henry for not observ-
ing the terms of the Great Charter.
Neither party
followed this temperate advice, and civil war raged as
fiercely as before. When, however, Henry's brave and
politic son had at length succeeded in restoring peace to
England, his warlike spirit hating inactivity, urged him
to join Saint Louis in another crusade.
Louis, who had returned from the East wearing the
cross on his shoulder, in token that it was his intention to
go again to Palestine, never lost sight of that solemn vow.
Early, therefore, in July 1270, having a fleet and all
things in readiness, he again embarked at Aigues-Mortes,
accompanied by his three eldest sons, by his brother
Alfonso, his nephew Robert of Artois, Thibaud, King of
Navarre, Guy, Earl of Flanders, and many other dis-
ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
77
tinguished persons.
Prince Edward of England and
Charles of Anjou were to follow, with a numerous army
from Sicily.
Before proceeding to the Holy Land it was determined
to attack Tunis, and the Crusaders anchored off the shore
of ancient Carthage. Carthage was soon taken, and the
French encamped under the walls of Tunis. In a few
weeks, the plague having broken out in the camp, the king
perished with the greater part of his army. When on the
brink of death, Saint Louis sent for his eldest son, and
gave him an earnest exhortation to govern his people with
justice and equity, and to make the fear of God the rule
of all his actions. "Fair son," he added, "I pray that
thou wilt make thyself beloved by the people of thy
kingdom, for of a truth I would much rather that a
Scotsman would come out of Scotland and govern the
nation well and loyally, than that thou shouldst govern it
badly." He then desired to be lifted from his bed, and
laid amongst ashes on the floor of his tent. He expired
with these words on his lips: "I will enter thy house;
I will worship in thy sanctuary."
At the very moment of the king's death, Charles of
Anjou landed from his fleet and sounded his trumpet.
Surprised that no answer reached him from the camp, he
mounted a horse and galloped to the royal tent, where
the first object he saw was his brother's corpse extended
upon the ashes. Charles of Anjou had the flesh of his
brother's body separated from the bones. The bones were
conveyed by Philip, his successor, to France; the flesh
being retained by Charles, who, when he returned to
Sicily, had it interred in the abbey of Montereale, near
Palermo.
Saint Louis died, 25th August 1270, in the fifty-fifth
year of his age, and forty-fourth of his reign. By his
queen, Margaret of Provence, he had four sons and four
daughters. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Philip.
His fourth son, Robert, married Beatrice of Burgundy,
whose mother was heiress of the lords of Bourbon. Robert
took the title of Bourbon, and it was by descent from him
78
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
that, three hundred years afterwards, Henry IV. claimed
and obtained the crown of France.
Philip III. (le Hardi), and Philip IV. (le Bel), 1270-
1314.—The reign of the eldest son of Saint Louis is but
little known, notwithstanding its duration of fifteen years.
Its commencement was marked by events of a melancholy
character. It began under the walls of Tunis, where he
lay so totally incapacitated by illness that he was obliged
to give up the command of the army for a time to his
uncle, Charles of Anjou. Having regained his health,
and imposed a treaty upon the Saracens that the French
should be indemnified for all the expense they had been
at—a tribute paid to Charles by Tunis, and all Christian
slaves set free-Philip raised the siege and embarked for
Europe at the close of the year 1270, landing in Sicily.
There his first wife, Isabella of Aragon, died, through a
fall from her horse; and soon afterwards Thibaud, king
of Navarre, was carried off by the plague,-the same dis-
order also causing the death of Alphonso, the king's uncle,
and of his wife, the Countess of Provence. Philip re-
turned to France in the following spring, taking with
him the remains of his father and queen, whose obsequies
were attended with great solemnity in the abbey of St.
Denis.
Philip, on his accession, was twenty-five years old, and
though inferior to his father in mental capacity, he re-
sembled him in many respects, being pious, liberal, and
just. Under the reign of this prince we may still follow
the ascending march of royalty, which, without new wars,
but by the extinction of divers feudal races, reunited to
his dominions Valois, Poitou, and the counties of Toulouse
and Venaissin. But Philip III. gave up the last-named
fief and one half of Avignon to the pope. The Count of
Foix, defeated and made prisoner in his own capital, was
forced to promise faithful obedience and to give up a
portion of his territories. The sway of the French king
thus approached the Pyrenees; it even went beyond
them. Henry the Fat, king of Navarre, died in 1274,
leaving an infant daughter; the kings of Castile and
}
79
Aragon each tried to obtain the young heiress for one of
their own sons; but her mother fled with her to France,
and placed her under the protection of Philip III., and,
in 1284, she married Philip, the king's then eldest son,
who assumed the title of King of Navarre.
ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY,
Pedro III. of Aragon, who had married the daughter
of Manfred, King of Sicily, claimed that crown in her
right, and formed a conspiracy to drive out Charles of
Anjou from the island and place Pedro on the throne.
This conspiracy led eventually to the horrible design of a
general massacre of the French. The chief agent in the
plot was John of Procida, lord of the small island so
named, in the Gulf of Naples. It was conducted with
the utmost secrecy, and Easter Eve, 1282, being the day
fixed for its execution, the vesper-bell was to be the signal
to begin the slaughter. In the space of two hours there
was not a Frenchman left alive in Palermo; and in the
other towns of Sicily the slaughter was so ruthlessly
carried out that 8000 Frenchmen are said to have
perished in this massacre, known as the Sicilian Vespers.
Charles, who was absent from Sicily, on hearing of
these atrocities, hastened to Messina, and laid siege to it.
The city, however, was defended with such desperate
bravery that Charles found himself compelled to retire to
Calabria, and there recruit his forces.
Pedro, in the meanwhile, under pretence that he was
going on a crusade, had borrowed money from Philip III.,
wherewith to equip a fleet and army; and landing at
Palermo, in August, 1282, was proclaimed king. The
pope and the king of France were now highly incensed
against Pedro, and the former, to mark his sense of the
latter's treachery and unknightly conduct, degraded him
from his kingly dignities, and bestowed Aragon on
Charles of Valois, Philip's second son. Pedro collected
a numerous fleet, and appeared before Naples, which
Charles the Lame governed in his father's absence. The
young prince, rashly engaging Pedro's admiral with un-
equal forces, was taken prisoner and carried to Messina.
This event caused Charles such agitation of mind as
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
threw him into a fever, of which he died (12th Jan.
1285).
Philip now set out for Spain, with the intention of
securing the crown of Aragon to his son Charles. Pedro,
however, who laughed at the pope's anathemas, marched {
to meet the French army, and was killed in an ambus-{
cade. Philip was at first somewhat successful in this
war, but becoming broken by sickness and greatly dis-
heartened by the loss of a fleet bringing provisions for his
army, he determined to give up further attempts on
Aragon, and quitted Catalonia. On his return home he'
could get no farther than Perpignan, where he died (6th
Oct. 1285), in his forty-first year, and sixteenth of his
reign. How he acquired the name of the Bold is not at
all clear, for none of his actions would justify the sur-
name. It is, however, only just to add that in spite of
certain defects of character, his people were happy and
prosperous, and French historians esteem him as one
amongst their very few good kings. The first instance of
a plebeian being ennobled by a French king is to be found
in the letters patent of nobility granted by Philip III. to
his silversmith, Raoul, in 1272.
(
Philip IV. (1285-1314).-Philip IV., surnamed the
Fair, was only seventeen years old when he succeeded
his father (1285). He disembarrassed himself as soon as
possible, by treaties, of useless wars; and, instead of con-
quests, occupied himself with aggrandizing his dominions
by acquisitions within his reach. His marriage with the
heiress of Navarre and Champagne had already brought
him two great provinces. A sentence of the Parliament,
which stripped the heirs of Hugh de Lusignan, further
secured to him Marche and Angoumois. Moreover, his
second son married the heiress of Franche-Comté. Thus,
by marriages, failure of lawful heirs or conquest, all France
was by degrees swept within the royal dominions. But
powerful vassals still remained: the Duke of Brittany,
the Count of Flanders, and especially the Duke of
Guyenne. Philip first attacked the latter. He was a
formidable adversary, since at the same time he was King
81
of England. Fortunately Edward I., who had just con-
quered the Welsh, and threatened the independence of
Scotland, was too much occupied with his island affairs
to pass over to the Continent. Thus the royal army was
able to make rapid progress in Guyenne; a French fleet
even pillaged Dover; and another army, led by the king
in person, entered Flanders, the earl of which had de-
clared himself the ally of the King of England, and
defeated the Flemings at Furnes (1297). The interven-
tion of Pope Boniface VIII. brought about a peace be-
tween the two monarchs, which was sealed by two
marriages. Edward I. married Margaret, the French
king's sister; and a daughter of Philip the Fair, Isabella,
espoused (1299) the son of Edward I. (afterwards Edward
II.), and carried into the house of Plantagenet rights to
the crown of France, which Edward III., it will shortly
be seen, knew how to turn to account.
ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
By this peace, the two kings set free their allies: Philip
the Scots, Edward the Earl of Flanders.
That earl,
through fear, proceeded to swear fealty to Philip, and
Flanders was united to the French dominions (1300).
All the French court went to visit the new conquest,
and was received with great pomp. The Flemings, to
do honour to their noble visitors, put on their finest
clothes, and displayed all their wealth. The entry into
Bruges was especially magnificent. The citizens' wives.
exhibited such a profusion of gold and jewels in their
costumes that the womanish vanity of the queen was
wounded. "I thought," she said, "that there was only
one queen in France, but I have seen six hundred."
Flanders, in fact, was the richest country of Europe,
because it was that one which was the most industrious.
Upon that plentiful soil the population had sprung up
like its harvests; the towns were numerous, the people
active, industrious, and well-affectioned towards England,
whence she obtained the wool necessary for her manu-
factories; as the towns of Guyenne, especially Bordeaux,
were, because England bought their wines. The cloths
of Flanders were sold throughout Christendom, even at
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HISTORY OF FRANCE,
Constantinople; and the towns of the Low Countries were
the markets in which provisions from the north, from the
shores of the Baltic, were exchanged for those from the
south, coming from Venice and Italy, by the Rhine.
In a country intersected by a thousand canals, amongst
so many well-fortified cities, and still more by a popula-
tion accustomed to labour and fatigue, but also proud of
its numbers, its strength, its wealth, chivalry had not
much chance or favour, so that there was very little
feudality in Flanders. All these towns had their privi-
leges, and it was not prudent to assail them.
For th
Philip appointed Jacques de Chatillon governor of
Flanders, who thought that he had no reason to spare
the conquered, especially as they were so rich. The
Flemings intolerant of such tyranny, and accustomed to
more prudence on the part of their earls, rose up in arms
and made a general massacre of the French. In Bruges
alone 3000 Frenchmen were slain. Philip despatched
Robert d'Artois with a numerous army to avenge that
injury. The Flemings were destitute of military skill
and of experienced officers. However, 20,000 of them
bravely awaited the onset of the French chivalry, near
Courtray, posted behind a canal. Before the action began,
the Flemings confessed their sins, and, after hearing a
solemn mass, all stooping down took some earth in their
hands and carried it to their mouths. So doing, they
swore to fight to the death for the freedom of their
country. Their
Their assailants advanced in a disorderly
manner, confident of victory, and not deigning to believe
that those base shopkeepers dare look them in the face.
In vain did the constable Raoul de Nesle recommend
prudence. He was asked whether he was afraid. Sire,"
was his reply to Count Robert, "if you follow me, you
will be well in front." So saying, he spurred his horse
to its utmost speed. The French had not even taken the
precaution to reconnoitre the position of the Flemings.
The first ranks of the heavy column of knights, launched
from the main point of the attack, rushed into the canal
which covered the enemy's line. Those who kept ahead,
((
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ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
83
...
urged forward by those who followed, were hurled one
'upon another, and the Flemings had only to thrust their
long lances into that confused mass of men and horses to
slay them easily and without danger. A sortie which they
made from both ends of the canal completed the route.
200 noblemen of high lineage and 6000 men-at-arms
perished; and what was still more sad, the Duke of
Burgundy, together with the Counts Saint Paul and de
Clermont and 2000 men in mail, had fled, leaving the
constable, the Count d'Artois, and a crowd of noble
warriors, overthrown, unentrenched, and slain by base-
born hands. The Flemings collected 4000 gilt spurs,
of the kind only worn by nobles and knights, and hung
them up in the church at Courtray as a trophy of their
victory (9th June 1302).
S
ANN
**

During the crusades, the battle of Massoura had
already shown the undisciplined impetuosity and mili-
tary unskilfulness of the knights; but that was fought in
the East, and distance had veiled the disgrace of the
vanquished. The battle of Courtray, lost by the flower
of the French chivalry against an army of churls, created
a profound sensation, without, however, curing the nobles
of their foolish presumption. The defeats of Crecy,
Poitiers, and Agincourt, it will be seen, were due to the
same causes; and, stripped by royalty of its privileges,
the feudal nobility will lose, upon the field of battle, the
prestige which had so long surrounded it, and will see, in
order to achieve its fall, arise beside it another army, that
of the king and people.
Philip the Fair took energetic measures to repair the
disaster of Courtray, and in two months he raised 10,000
men-at-arms and 60,000 foot soldiers. It was a great
effort on the part of royalty; and on the other side it was
greater still, for the Flemish towns sent forth this time
80,000 combatants. With such armies on both sides, the
struggle promised to be terrible and decisive. It was felt
to be so, and, unwilling to run any risk, the year 1302
passed in mutual observation. The quarrel between Philip
and Boniface VIII. was then at its height: another defeat
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
might prove fatal to him. He even allowed the Flemings
in the following year (1303) to take the offensive; but the
pope having died in that year, Philip attacked Flanders
by land and sea (1304). His fleet defeated near Zirickzee
that of the Flemings, and he himself avenged at Mons-en-
Puelle the disaster of Courtray. He thought that he had
effectually overcome them; but a few days afterwards
they returned in the same strength to renew the fight,
demanding peace or instant battle. "Why, then, it
rains Flemings!" exclaimed the king; and he concluded
that it was better to treat with than fight them again.
Philip, therefore, granted them a peace—one of the con-
ditions of which was that their earl should be restored to
them, whom with his two sons Philip had kept in prison
since 1299; Earl Guy merely promising feudal homage.
Thus French royalty gave way before Flemish democracy,
as did German royalty almost at the same epoch before
the Helvetic democracy. The communes of France having
remained isolated, succumbed. In Flanders and Switzer-
land they were united, and triumphed.
An angry war of words had arisen between Philip and
Boniface VIII. as early as 1295, when that pontiff com-
manded Philip to make peace with the King of England,
on pain of excommunication. Philip replied that it was
the function of the pope to exhort and not to command,
and that he would allow no one to dictate to him in the
government of his kingdom. Concord, however, appeared
to be established between them in the year following, and
Boniface sealed his reconciliation by pronouncing the
canonization of Saint Louis; but the quarrel burst forth
again through the haughty intervention of the pontiff on
the subject of the imposts laid by the king on the churches
of France. The reproaches of the pontiff touching the mal-
administration of Philip were well founded; but neither
the king nor the pope had then a clear idea of the limits
of the temporal authority of the former, and of the spiritual
authority of the latter. In this state of obstinate ignor-
ance, not content with thwarting and injuring each other,
they descended to personal abuse. The pope called Philip
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ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
85
a fool, and the king retorted by accusing the pope of
heresy, immorality, and even of magic. At last Philip
threatened to cite Boniface before a general council, and
the pope on his side prepared a bull pronouncing the
deposition of the king. The latter anticipated it. He
despatched an agent, William de Nogaret, whose grand-
father had been burnt in the crusade against the Albi-
genses to Italy, to bring Boniface by force before the
council at Lyons. He allied himself with Sciarra Colonna,
a noble Roman and mortal enemy of the pope. Boniface
was then at his native town of Anagnia, in the Abruzzi.
Nogaret, having bribed the commander of the troops at
Anagnia, entered that town at the head of 400 men-at-
arms and a few hundred foot soldiers. At the noise they
made, shouting "Death to the pope! Long live the king
of France!" Boniface thought his last hour was come.
But recovering himself, notwithstanding his advanced age
(he was eighty-six), with surprising energy, he clad him-
self in his pontifical garments, seated himself on his throne
wearing the tiara, and holding the crosier in one hand and
the keys of St. Peter in the other, he thus awaited the
assassins. Nogaret summoned him to abdicate.
"Be-
hold my neck, behold my head," he exclaimed; "betrayed
like Jesus Christ; if I must die like him, I will at least
die pope." Whereupon Colonna dragged him from his
throne, and struck him a violent blow on the face with
his steel gauntlet, which instantly covered him with
blood, and would have killed him, had not Nogaret pre-
vented it. The latter, hesitating to drag the old man
out of Anagnia, gave time to the townspeople to recover
from their stupor. They rose and rescued him, and drove
Nogaret and Colonna out of the place.
Boniface, in dread lest poison should be mixed with his
food, having fasted for three days, died from shame and
rage at the affronts to which he had been subjected, having,
in the paroxysms of his frenzy, gnawed off his fingers. His
successor, Benedict XI., wished to avenge him by excom-
municating Nogaret, Colonna, and all those who had aided
them. The excommunication included even the king. A
86
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
2.
month after the publication of the bull, Benedict died,
probably from poison. This time, Philip took measures
to make himself master of the election of the new pope.
Bertrand de Goth, archbishop of Bordeaux, was chosen,
when he had promised the king to comply with his desires.
The new pope, who took the name of Clement V., was
consecrated at Lyons, and abandoning Rome, transferred
the papal chair to Avignon (1308), where his successors
remained until 1375. This sojourn of the popes at
Avignon, which shook the church to its foundations, was
termed "The captivity of Babylon."
į
Villani relates a sinister interview between the pope
and the king as taking place in the forest of St. Jean-
d'Angely, near Avignon, where one sold the tiara, and
the other bought it. That interview never occurred, but
the conditions were certainly made and accepted. One of
them was nothing less than the destruction of the mili-
tary Order of the Templars. The riches of these military
monks, now useless, since they no longer expended them
in armaments against the infidels, had tempted the avidity
of the king, always in want of money, and their power
overshadowed his despotism. Partly on this account,
and partly for the sake of getting possession of their
riches, Philip had marked them for destruction. They
mustered 15,000 knights, with an infinite multitude of
brethren affiliated and servants, that is to say, that as-
sembled together they could defy all the royal armies of
Europe. They possessed in Christendom more than
10,000 manors, numerous fortresses — amongst others
that of the temple at Paris, wherein Philip had found a
safe asylum during an insurrection which had raged in
vain around its massive walls. The treasury of the Order
contained 150,000 golden florins, without counting silver
or precious vases. A powerful organization, which kept
the knights friendly under the despotic control of the
Grand Master, rendered that body yet more formidable
than its valour and its riches. Nothing was known as to
what passed in their houses. Everything therein was
kept secret; no profane eye had ever penetrated their
ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY
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mysteries. But vague rumour spoke of orgies, scandals,
impieties. Some of the knights had disappeared, because,
it was said, they had threatened to make compromising
revelations. Their pride irritated the populace, and odious
crimes were imputed to them. They were, at most, cul-
pable in a great relaxation of morals, and their religious
ceremonies had probably caught from the East some im-
pure alloy and fantastic customs.
Under pretence of holding a conference with the Tem-
plars on the subject of a new crusade, Philip summoned
the Order to appear at Paris in October, 1307. The
knights taken by surprise had no time to resist or concert
together. The grand-master, De Molai, was then in
Cyprus; but he and sixty of his knights obeyed the sum-
mons. As soon as they arrived they were arrested, and
torture wrung from them avowal of crimes of which they
were innocent. Philip, anxious to associate the nation
in this great trial, as he had associated it in his differences
with Boniface III., assembled the States-General at Tours.
The accusations and avowals were produced before them;
and the deputies pronounced the knights worthy of death.
The pope dissolved their Order, and fifty-four of the
knights who had retracted what they had confessed during
their torments, were burnt alive in the Faubourg St.
Antoine at Paris. Nine also were burnt at Senlis. De
Molai and three of his chief officers were flung into
prison, and, after a detention of some years, apparently
forgotten in their dungeons, underwent a mock trial.
De Molai, who could not read, was made to affix his seal
to a corfession of crimes; but when he and his companions
were placed on a scaffold in front of Notre Dame to hear
their confessions and their sentence read, the grand-
master exclaimed, with a loud voice, that their confes-
sions were false, and had been extorted from them whilst
under the torture. On this the king flew into a violent
rage, and ordered them to be put to death by a slow fire,
their place of execution being the recess on the Pont-
Neuf, where the statue of Henry IV. now stands. The
Templars underwent the agonies of their lingering death
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
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with incredible constancy (1st March 1314). Their large
possessions were nominally transferred to the Order of
Hospitalers (knights of Rhodes); but the royal treasury
did not readily relax its grasp of what it held. All the
money found in the Temple, two-thirds of the movable
effects and active debts, with a considerable number of
their domains, remained in the hands of the king. In
Italy, England, Spain, and Germany, the Order was sup-
pressed, and its possessions in part confiscated by the
princes; but in no country were the Templars treated
with so much cruelty as in France.
The latter years of this reign were more gloomy than
those of its commencement. Even in the bosom of the royal
family itself sanguinary tragedies were enacted. Philip's
three sons' wives, accused of scandalous misconduct, were
arrested and placed in strict seclusion. One of them,
Margaret of Burgundy, wife of Louis, was imprisoned in
Chateau Gaillard and there strangled. Blanche, the wife
of Charles, died from despair; the third, Jeanne, wife of
Philip, the least guilty of the three, was restored to her
husband and family after a year's confinement. Their
accomplices, Philippe and Gaultier d'Aulnay, were flayed
alive on the Place de Grève, and many others, noble and
ignoble, were tortured, sewn up in sacks, and flung into
the Seine.
The government of Philip became every year more and
more oppressive, and the public irritation betrayed itself
in murmurs, and murmurs led to executions. The general
oppression very nearly caused an insurrection, when Philip
had established a new tax upon the sale of every kind of
merchandise. Symptoms of a compact between the nobles
and citizens became manifest, like the league which, in
England, proved the foundation of her liberties, and forced
from John Lackland the Great Charter. Philip, this once,
gave way. He abandoned the tax, summoned to Paris
the deputies of forty good towns to confer with him, and
promised for the future never to debase the coinage.
The preceding considerations apply not only to the
reign of Philip the Fair, but affect the entire fourteenth
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}
century. All its kings were coiners of base money, because
they all had continual need of money, and knew of no
other means of finding it. But that did not excuse their
fraud, exactions, or violence. To escape from a difficulty
by practising dishonesty is not good government; and,
notwithstanding the explanation given, the memory of
Philip IV. cannot thereby justly escape from its evil.
repute.

But now that sinister man, the hardest and harshest-
ruling king which France had hitherto had, although he
had only attained the age of forty-six, was about to termi-
nate suddenly his contentious life. As Philip was hunt-
ing in the forest of Fontainbleau, his horse fell with him,
and he was so much hurt that he expired, 4th Nov. 1314.
The main policy throughout his entire reign was to
depress the nobles and to raise the middle classes. He
allowed persons of low birth to purchase fiefs, the posses-
sion of which elevated them to the rank of nobles. And
to raise the condition of the middle classes in general,
Philip allowed the communes to send deputies to the
States-general, which previously had only comprised
nobles and prelates. Thus the most important measure
of his administration was the convocation, in 1302, of the
first States-general composed of three Orders of deputies,
clergy, nobles, and towns-people. And it was thus that
the most despotic of French kings revealed to the people
their rights and future destiny.
As the States-general have often had the term of Par-
liament misapplied to them, it is necessary to distin-
guish between those two different bodies. The Parlia-
ment of Paris appears to have taken its origin from a
supreme council, which, under the Capetian kings, com-
prised the immediate feudal vassals of the crown, the
prelates and officers of the royal household. This was
the great judicial tribunal of the French crown. St. Louis
made a considerable alteration in its constitution, and it
acquired in his time the title of Parliament. Philip the
Fair fixed its seat at Paris. Several of the provinces had
also separate parliaments. Such were those of Toulouse,
90
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
i
Rennes, Dijon, Grenoble, and other places. The consti-
tution of the States-general has been already defined.
Their meetings were frequent, till the year 1614, from
which time they were discontinued till 1789, when they
were again summoned at the eventful crisis of the Revo-
lution.
The Three Sons of Philip the Fair (1314-1328)-
Louis X. (1314-1316).-Three sons of Philp the Fair
reigned one after the other: Louis X., surnamed the
Quarreller, from 1314 to 1316; Philip V., surnamed the
Long, until 1322; Charles the Fair, until 1328. The
first of these princes wore the crown only eighteen months,
and there are only three facts to record during his reign:
the murder of Marguerite of Burgundy, whom her hus-
band caused to be strangled; an expedition against Flan-
ders which failed, for it could do nothing against Courtray,
the siege of which was raised, and almost all the army,
from want of provisions, perished in the Flanders bogs;
lastly, a sharp feudal reaction directed against the minis-
ters of Philip the Fair in an attempt to destroy his work.
Enguerrand de Marigny, the minister of finance of the
late king, was hanged on the Montfaucon gibbet which
he had himself caused to be erected, without being per-
mitted to speak in his own defence. Raoul de Presle,
advocate-general, and Pierre de Latilly, were tortured,
Nogaret ruined, and the nobles of several provinces
reinvested themselves with the privileges of which they
had been stripped-such as the re-establishment of their
ancient laws, trial by battle, the right of private warfare,
abolition of procedure by written depositions, which ren-
dered lawyers necessary, destitution of royal judges, etc.
At the same time Louis, as a means of raising money,
issued a solemn declaration, that "according to the law
of nature, every man should be free-born," and he thence
concluded that all Frenchmen being naturally free, the
serfs of the royal domains might redeem themselves on
paying a certain sum. But the greater part of them
preferred their money to their freedom. Whereupon
Louis made a law compelling them to purchase their
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ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
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91
enfranchisement, whether they would or not. Villanage
steadily declined from this epoch; contrary to that which
prevailed in the preceding centuries, liberty became in
turn the rule amongst the rural, as it long had been among
the urban populations, and that was the villanage which
remained the exception. The last serfs were only enfran-
chised under Louis XVI. Philip the Fair had driven
away the Jews; Louis permitted them to return, on con-
dition that they should abandon two-thirds of their credits.
The Jews were then looked upon
as sponges that might
be arbitrarily squeezed." They were expelled in order to
confiscate their possessions, and they were recalled with
a view to future confiscation.
(C
As Louis X. died suddenly, his death was at the time
ascribed to poison, but it was with greater probability
attributable to his own imprudence in drinking cold
water when heated by playing at tennis, and then sitting
down to rest himself in a damp grotto. He was seized
with a sudden chill, and died next day, in his twenty-
eighth year. He left an only daughter; but his queen,
Clemence of Hungary, gave birth some months after-
wards to a posthumous son, John, who lived only eight
days. It became a question whether his sister should
wear the crown. As a text of the evangelist runs:
"Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they
spin not,” etc., that would evidently mean that the
kingdom of the lilies should not fall to the distaff. In
the fourteenth century that was a logical reason.
There
were others also; it was not desirable that a foreigner
should gain France by a marriage; and the States-general,
applying to the crown the law of succession anciently
affecting Salic domains, excluded from the throne the
daughter of Louis X. Thus the right of female heirship
to fiefs was recognised, without, however, admitting its
application to the crown.
Philip the Long, after a regency of five or six months,
was proclaimed king in the place of his niece (1316).
That decision operated against his own house; for he
himself had only daughters, who were disinherited in
...
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
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favour of Charles IV. their uncle. This latter prince
was predeceased by his two sons, and his widow gave
birth to a daughter who was equally excluded. He had
remarked to his barons on his deathbed: "If the queen
brings a son into the world, he will be your king; if a
daughter, the crown will belong to Philip of Valois,
whom I declare your regent" (1322). The way to the
throne was thus opened to a new branch of the Capetians,
that of Valois.
The whole of Philip's short reign was, from various
causes, a period of turbulence and inquietude. He ap-
pears to have been a man of good abilities, and desirous
of remedying the disorders in the state, but found him-
self powerless to stem the tide of corruption which pre-
vailed so generally. He died of a lingering disorder at
the Château de Vincennes, 3rd Jan. 1322, aged twenty-
nine.
Few military events are recorded during the reigns of
Philip V. and of Charles IV., but many measures for the
regulation of the government of the country. Philip V.
thrice convoked the States-general, and seemed anxious
to fix their meetings periodically, and he again excluded
churchmen from the Parliament, in order to have all its
members under his full authority; but they were re-
admitted afterwards under the name of clerical coun-
sellors. He was already desirous of establishing a
standard of monies, weights, and measures, "in order
that the people might merchandise more securely," and
he made in finance, in the organization of the chamber
of accounts, and in the administration of woods and
waters, etc., several ordinances which indicate a remark-
able spirit of order and economy. The royal domains
were declared inalienable and imprescriptible. Under
this reign a cruel persecution was carried on against
lepers and Jews; and one of the first acts of Charles was
to banish the Lombards, who had acquired enormous
wealth by money lending, taking care to first seize on
their effects, and sending them back to their own country
"just such beggars as they had come out of it." But
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ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
93
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10
he gave a great example of just severity. The baron
of L'Ile-en-Jourdain, convicted of several crimes, was
hanged, in spite of the supplications of all the nobility
and the intervention of the pope, his uncle. Abroad,
this king at first favoured the revolution in England
which hurled Edward II. from the throne. That weak
prince had married Isabella, Charles's sister, and on a
revival of the old claim of doing homage for Guyenne,
Edward sent his queen to France to arrange the matter
with her brother. Charles agreed to excuse Edward
from appearing in person, and to receive the homage of
the young Prince of Wales instead. Whilst resident at
the French court, with her favourite and confident Morti-
mer, she openly planned the destruction of her wretched
husband, soliciting her brother's aid for that purpose.
But Charles entirely disapproved of her conduct, refused
her any assistance, and desired her to quit France. In
Germany, Charles was on the point of obtaining the im-
perial crown. But a sort of fatality was attached to the
three sons of Philip the Fair. These princes, tall and
handsome, and who seemed destined for a long career,
died in the flower of their manhood: Louis X. at twenty-
seven, Philip the Long at twenty-eight, Charles the Fair
at thirty-four. The people saw in these premature deaths
a sign of the divine vengeance upon that family, which
had caused Boniface VIII. to be struck in the face, per-
haps poisoned Benedict XI., and burnt the Templars.
The middle ages were even at this moment, at least in
France, nearly verging to their close, for all that they
had specially cherished, crusades, chivalry, feudality, was
at an end or expiring; the papacy, reviled in Boniface
VIII., was captive at Avignon; the successor of Hugh
Capet was a despot, and the sons of serfs sat in the
States-general of the kingdom, face to face with the
nobles and clerics,
94
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
+
GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE ELDER BRANCH
OF THE CAPETIANS.
(The date following each name is that of the king's death.)
Robert, the Strong,
Son-in-law of Louis the Good-natured, 865.
EUDES,
Count of Paris and King, 898.
Hugues the Great,
Count of Paris
and Duke of France, 956.
HUGUES CAPET,
UES
King, 996.
ROBERT, 1031.
HENRY I., 1060.
HENRY
PHILIP I., 1108.
LOUIS VI.,
Surnamed the Fat, 1137.
LOUIS VII.,
Surnamed the Young, 1180.
PHILIP II.,
Surnamed AUGUSTUS, 1223.
LOUIS VIII.,
VIII., 1226.
|
LOUIS IX.
Surnamed Saint Louis, 1270.
PHILIP II., 1285.
PHILIP IV., 1314.
Surnamed the Fair.
LOUIS X.,
Surnamed the Quarreller, 1316.
Robert,
Duke of France, 923.
Emma.
Wife of RAOUL, or Rodolph,
King of France.
Robert,
Stem of the first Capetian House
of Burgundy.
Charles,
Head of the first House of Anjou,
King of Naples, 1285,

+
Robert.
The sixth son of Saint Louis,
Count of Clermont, Stem of the Bourbons,
PHILIP V.,
the Long, 1322.
Fifteen Kings, who reigned 331 years,
Charles,
Count of Valois and Alençon,
Stem of the House of Valois.
CHARLES IV.,
the Fair, 1328.
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SIXTH PERIOD.
THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH
(1328–1453).
Branch of the Capetian-Valois-Philip VI. (1328-
1350).-Philip IV., of Valois, cousin of Charles IV.,
nephew of Philip the Fair, and grandson of Philip III.,
came to the throne in virtue of the Salic law, interpreted
thrice in twelve years against female succession. Edward
III., king of England, grandson of Philip the Fair, by
his mother Isabella, protested against that exclusion, and
claimed the crown, but the external troubles of England
obliged him to dissemble for a time his ambitious designs,
and recognise the rights of Philip VI., to whom he did
homage for his duchy of Guyenne. The victory of Cassel,
which Philip won for the Earl of Flanders over his
revolted subjects, gave the illusion of military glory to
the new royal house (1328). The Flemings had taken
their position upon a hill in the environs of Cassel, but
the French were too prudent to attack them there. The
former were the first to lose patience on seeing their
country delivered up to the flames, and descended into the
plain where the French chivalry slew 13,000 of them.
Never, since Charlemagne, had a king of France found
himself so potent. Master, directly, of three-fourths of
the realm; suzerain, for the fiefs which they possessed in
France, of the kings of Majorca, of Navarre, and of Eng-
land; the ally of the kings of Bohemia and Scotland;
kinsman of those of Naples and Hungary, an interested
protector of the pope, whom he kept prisoner at Avignon,
Philip VI. extended his influence far and wide, and
thought to place himself, as the chief of Christendom, at
.
···
1
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
:
the head of the European chivalry for a new and last
crusade. It was during that prosperous position, amidst
the splendours and pleasures of a magnificent and chival-
rous court, when the country, already habituated to an
absolute monarchy, saw, favoured by peace and order, its
industry and commerce fast increasing, that that disas-
trous war broke out which cast back France for more
than a century into chaos.
Edward III. acutely regretted the non-possession of
that brilliant crown of France to which his birth appeared
to give him rights. Circumstances had compelled him, in
1838, to acknowledge Philip of Valois, but circumstances
might change; and, in 1336, they had already changed.
Philip well knew of that slumbering ambition, and did
not fail to increase the embarrassments of the English
king, aiding the Scots in their war against him. France,
to the very last day of the independence of Scotland,
sought and ever found devoted friends in that country.
But Edward defeated the Scots, and surely promised him-
self to give to the first enemy of France that support which
Philip VI. had given to his. When Robert d'Artois,
accused of having attempted the king's life, fled to Eng-
land, he was perfectly well received in Edward's court.
This Robert was a prince of the blood, one of the royal
family of France. He had pretensions to the earldom of
Artois, withheld by his aunt, and after her by her daugh-
ters. To support his claim, he fabricated false evidence
and bribed false witnesses. Robert had probably poisoned
his aunt and the eldest of his cousins. A sentence of the
court of peers condemned him to the loss of his posses-
sions, and to perpetual banishment (1332). He withdrew
into Brabant, and in revenge "bewitched" the king's son.
It was a superstition of the middle ages, that one might
get rid of any one by causing a waxen image of him to
be made by a sorcerer. That image if well-moulded and
once baptized, with mass and religious consecration, and
left to melt in the sunshine, or if pricked to the heart
with a needle, the person whom it represented died slowly,
but surely. The affair was discovered, Robert, terrified
..:
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HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 97
at a trial for sorcery, found himself too near France, and
fled to England, where he urged Edward to enter upon a
war against Philip (1334).
Edward had a more serious reason for taking up
arms. The Flemings were then the most industrious, the
wealthiest, and most independent people of Europe. The
Earl Louis de Nevers, ever in want of money, violated
their privileges to procure it, and cruelly punished all
resistance. The cloths of Flanders were manufactured
from the wool of England, so that if the Earl was French
at heart, the Flemings were English through interest.
In 1336, they drove out Earl Louis; and their popular
leader, the brewer Arteveld, immediately invoked the
support of Edward III., by giving him the fatal advice
to assume the title of King of France, to rid the Flem-
ings of any scruple, who would probably have hesitated
to fight against their liege lord, and who no longer hesi-
tate when Arteveld had thus cloaked their taking up
arms with a shadow of right.
The war, commenced in 1337, from the side of Flan-
ders, languished several years. The French, defeated in
the sea fight off Sluys, through the want of skill of their
admirals, who had not before commanded at sea, were
conquerors at St. Omer. A truce agreed upon between
Edward and Philip for some time interrupted the struggle.
In 1341, a war of succession broke out in Brittany,
where the two kings each supported a different candidate
to the ducal throne. Duke John III., having just died
childless, it became a question whether the duchy should
pass to the daughter of his eldest brother who had pre-
deceased him, to Jeanne de Penthievre, married to Charles
of Blois, or to his youngest brother, Jean de Montfort.
The legists were fertile in precedents, but policy decided
the question. Charles of Blois was nephew of Philip VI.;
with him Brittany would be in greater dependence upon
the crown; a decree of Parliament therefore decided in
his favour. John de Montfort hastily crossed over to
England, prominent to acknowledge Edward III. as King
of France, and to hold from him Brittany in fief, on con-
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98
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
dition that he should aid and defend him as his liege-man
or vassal, with all his power loyally. A war then broke
out, all the incidents of which are narrated with great
spirit by Froissart. Charles of Blois, supported by a
numerous French army, first besieged his adversary in
the town of Nantes. Thirty Breton knights had been
taken prisoners in the neighbouring castle. Charles of
Blois, notwithstanding his piety, which gave him the
reputation of a saint, and Duke John, in spite of the sur
name afterwards attached to his name of the Good, caused
these thirty knights to be beheaded, and had their heads
thrown by engines called balistas into the city. The
terrified citizens capitulated; and John de Montfort was
imprisoned in Paris, in the tower of the Louvre. The
traitor Robert d'Artois perished about this time in a skir-
mish near Vannes.
Shortly afterwards, Olivier de Clisson and fourteen
Breton knights, who had pledged their faith to the King
of England, were invited by Philip VI. to a great tourna-
ment at Paris, arrested there, and, without any form of
trial, also beheaded. Edward, regarding the death of the
Breton knights as an infraction of the truce, immediately
renewed the war; at first in Guyenne, where the Earl of
Derby took, after a vigorous resistance, La Reole, Porte
St.-Marie, and penetrated as far as Angoulême, whilst
Prince John vainly led his forces against the small town
of Aiguillon. Meanwhile, Edward had collected a con-
siderable armament, but was uncertain whither to direct
it. In Brittany, the French party had regained the
ascendant; Guyenne was far off; and, finally, a tragic event
had just closed Flanders to him. Arteveld, his "gossip,"
as he called him, was desirous of delivering up the country
to Edward's sway, so that Edward's eldest son, the Prince
of Wales, might reign over Flanders. The Flemings were
equally unwilling to belong to the English as to the
French, and Arteveld was murdered in his own house by
the same people whose idol he had been.
The English fleet, however, set sail for the mouth of
the Gironde, but was driven back into the channel by a
Y
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH.
99
storm. Another traitor, Geoffrey d'Harcourt, advised a
landing in Normandy, promising the support of his own
vassals and of the whole province. The king, therefore,
disembarked with 32,000 men (20th July, 1346), at La
Hogue St. Vaast, in the Contentin. He took one after
(another easily-Barfleur, Cherbourg, Valogne, and St. Lô;
and on the 26th, he was under the walls of Caen, “a city
larger than any in England save London." The towns-
men at first came out boldly, but on approaching the
English forces, drawn up in three lines of battle, they
fed precipitately, and the English entering the town
along with the runaways slew them, without giving any
quarter. The townsmen, however, regaining courage, and
defending themselves in their houses, more than 500 Eng-
lish were killed or wounded, when Edward ordered the
"fighting to cease, promising the inhabitants their lives.
The town of Louviers was next taken; but an attempt
upon Rouen having failed, he directed his march along
the left bank of the Seine, burning Pont-de-l'Arche,
Vernon, Poissy, and St. Germain. His scouts penetrated
almost to the gates of Paris, burning and pillaging Bourg-
la-Reine and St. Cloud.
Philip, however, had mustered a large army of 120,000
and marched to meet the English. Edward rebuilt the
bridge of Poissy in order to cross the Seine, retreating
upon Ponthieu, his inheritance, to place himself in safety
behind the Somme. Philip had caused all the fords of
that river to be fortified and guarded. At that of Blan-
quetaque, he had placed 1000 men-at-arms and 5000
Genoese archers; Edward cut his way through that pass-
age, but perceiving that he could not retreat further, he
halted, and, on the 27th of August, drew up his army
in battle array, upon the slope of a hillock near Crecy,
keeping his troops in good order and well supplied with
rations.
Philip had set out from Abbeville at day-dawn to go
in search of the enemy, who was some five leagues off. A
heavy rain fell during the whole of the march. Four
knights sent forward to reconnoitre the position of the
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100
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
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English, returned to say that they had found them drawn
up in the place where they had chosen to make a standi
and they had advised the king to give his soldiers a night's
repose. Philip ordered a halt. But the great nobles of
France, who commanded the different corps of the army,
vied with each other, in their vanity, as to who should
station his force the nearest possible to the enemy.
"Neither the king, nor his marshals, therefore, could
be masters of their troops, for there was a crowd of great
lords, and each was eager to show his power. They
pricked forward in that state, without array or disposi
tion, so far forward that they found themselves in presence
of their enemies. The English, so soon as they saw the
French approach, rose up in good order, without any
alarm, and ranged themselves in order of battle. When
King Philip had reached a spot whence he could see the
English thus drawn up, it stirred his blood, for he hated
them much, and he said to his marshals, 'Send the
Genoese forward, and begin the battle in the name of
God and Saint Denis.'"*

The rain which had not ceased to fall up to that moment,
had so relaxed the bow-strings of the Genoese, that their
arrows fell short of their mark. So, when they were
ordered to begin the attack, "they were sorely tired and
harrassed from having marched that day more than six
leagues, fully armed, and with their cross-bows to carry,
and they therefore told their constables that they were
not half fit to do any great deed of arms." When the
Count d'Alençon heard those words, he shouted angrily,
"Treason! treason!" and ordered his men to ride over
the Genoese and drive them off the field. In spite of
their representations, and further that the day was already
far advanced, the Genoese having the order to attack, they
did so with much resolution. But the English, who had
awaited them in silence, and who, during the rain, had
hidden the strings of their cross-bows in their hoods, let
fly a shower of arrows. Edward had intermingled with
his archers "bombards, which, by means of fire, darted
* Froissart,
+
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 101
:
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small iron balls to terrify and destroy the horses; and
the reports of these bombards caused such a shaking and
noise, that it seemed as if the heavens were thundering,
with a great massacre of men and overthrowing of horses."
The Genoese, fifteen thousand strong, lost heart and gave
·way, "but a hedge of French men-at-arms barred their
passage. The King of France, when he saw their broken
ranks, and that they were discomfited, cried aloud, “Slay
all these rascals, for they block up our way uselessly."
ļ
The execution of such an order necessarily entailed the
loss of the battle, for it caused immense confusion, of which
the English profited. The rout being thus begun by the
French themselves, there was an end of all order and
command of the whole army. Each man pressing for-
wards, they overset one another; and those who were
down could not rise because of the press. The English,
meanwhile, stood firmly together, and discharged such
thick and steady flights of arrows, that they made a
dreadful havoc. When the old King of Bohemia, blind
as he was, sitting on horseback in the midst of his fol-
lowers, heard that the action had begun, he said to two
of his nobles, "I beg and require of you very specially,
that you lead me so far forward that I may strike one
stroke against the enemy." They obeyed him, and tying
the reins of his horse's bridle to the bridles of their own,
galloped with him into the thickest of the fight, where
they met a speedy death. Their three bodies were found
with their horses tied together, and a small stone cross
still marks the spot where they fell.
The French princes, who had hurried on the battle by
their imprudence, paid bravely for it in their persons.
They cut their way through the first English division,
composed of archers, and attacked the line of men-at-arms
commanded by the Prince of Wales. At one moment
the efforts of the French appeared so formidable, that
Edward was asked to advance with the third division to
the aid of his son, but the stern soldier-king, who, from
the top of a windmill, where he had placed himself, was
better enabled to judge of the fortunes of the fight,
"
d
102
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
refused to send any succour to the prince's relief.
“Tell
my generals," said he, "that he shall have no assistance
from me; the honour of the day shall be his; let him
show himself worthy of the profession of arms, and let
him be indebted to his own merit alone for victory.'
These words, being reported to the prince and his attend-
ants, inspired them with new courage; they made a fresh
onset against the French chivalry, and Count d'Alençon,
their bravest leader, was slain. The cannon which Edward
brought into action for the first time produced more terror
than slaughter; but the arrows of the English archers,
and the lances of the men-at-arms, overthrew a great
number of knights, who, with wearied horses, attacked
in a disorderly manner men well posted and disposed.
Philip had remained within arrow-shot, and had his horse
killed under him. Although he saw the battle was lost,
he would not quit the field till his attendants forced him
from it. Under cover of the darkness, he reached the
castle of Broye, and demanded to have the gates opened
to him. The governor refused to admit him till he knew
who he was. "It is the unfortunate King of France,"
was the reply.
France had never sustained such a terrible defeat: 11
princes, 80 bannerets, 1200 knights, and 30,000 soldiers,
were left on the field of battle, without reckoning two
bodies of militia, who lost their way and fell next day into
the hands of the English, and were entirely destroyed.
Edward III., instead of following up his victory after
that glorious day, continued his retreat; for he had not
a single stronghold wherein he could establish himself, or
a port in which reinforcements from England could be
landed. With a view, therefore, of securing an easy
entrance into France for the future, he laid siege to Calais,
then defended by John de Vienne, an experienced soldier.
It was a strong place, but the operations, though slow,
were at last successful. It was taken after a defence of
eleven months had reduced the inhabitants to the last
extremity of famine. Edward expelled all the inhabitants
and peopled the town with his own subjects.
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH.
103
The two adversaries at length became equally wearied
of the war, when Pope Clement VI. offered a mediation,
of which one side was as desirous as the other; and on
28th September 1347, the two kings signed, for them-
selves and for their allies, a truce to last six months,
leaving each in possession of what he held. Edward
retained Calais, as well as several places which the Earl
of Derby had gained in Guyenne.
To the calamities of war was now added a scourge still
more terrible. The plague, called the Black Death, after
having ravaged the greater part of Europe, penetrated
into France. "In many places," says a contemporary
writer, "out of twenty men not two were left alive. In
the Hôtel Dieu at Paris, the mortality was such, that for
a long time 500 dead were carried daily in carts to the
cemetery of the Innocents." The people accused the
Jews of having poisoned the wells and fountains, rushed
upon them in several places, and dragged them to the
stake without the government taking the trouble to inter-
vene. The Black Death, it is said, carried off in Europe
a third of its population, and in Paris alone 80,000 per-
sons. In the guise of a sanitary measure, Philip of Valois
made a law against blasphemers, decreeing that, for each
repetition of the offence, a lip should be first cut off, then
the other, and next the tongue.
It was from Philip VI. that a tax called Gabelle took
its origin, which remained peculiarly odious throughout
the old monarchy. All the salt that was made in France
was stored in the royal warehouses, and thence sold at
whatever price the king and his ministers chose to fix.
The right of exportation was taken away, and another
tax, ruinous to commerce, was placed upon all commo-
dities sold in the interior, and upon all drinks sold in
towns.
}
One of the last acts of Philip VI. was the important
acquisition of the province which afterwards bore the
name of Dauphiny. Humbert II., the dauphin of Vienne,
(so called because his house bore a dolphin (dauphin) in
its coat-of-arms), having caused the death of his only child
3
104:
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
by letting him fall out of a window, was so inconsolablę
for his loss, that he entered a monastery, having first sold
his territories to Philip for 120,000 florins (1349), on con-
dition that the eldest son of the kings of France should,
in future, bear the title of Dauphin. This acquisition was
of great importance, because the new province covered
Lyons and extended France to the foot of the Alps. The
annexation of Provence was from that moment only a
question of time. Montpellier was in like manner bought
of the King of Majorca.
John the Good (1350-1364).—The death of Philip of
Valois, which occurred in the fifty-seventh year of his
age, and the twenty-third of his reign (12th Aug. 1350),
caused no change in the situation of the kingdom. John,
who succeeded him, was in his thirty-first year. Like his
father, he was impetuous and violent, brave and prodigal,
altogether a very bad king; but as he had on many occa-
sions shown an extraordinary degree of personal valour
—a quality at all times possessing an irresistible charm
for the French people—it is probable he owed to that his
surname of the Good. During the first months of his suc-
cession he distributed amongst his nobles the money he
found in the treasury, and, when money grew scarce,
accorded them dispensations of payment for the debts
they had contracted. Money very quickly became scarce;
and to procure it, the king had recourse to tampering
with the coinage, and other very strange expedients.
Such recourses were still far from sufficing to a prince
who, on one occasion, in a moment of distress, gave
50,000 crowns to one of his knights. John, proposing
to ask the nation to grant the money of which he stood
in need, convoked the States-general at Paris in 1351.
Very little is known of what passed therein: there were
many complaints, a few promises, and no reforms. The
war continued in Brittany between the knights of both
sides, but the kings no longer took part in it; they even
signed a fresh truce. Besides the two princes who dis-
puted between themselves the title of King of France, a
third was found who pretended that he had more right
C
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 105
1
thereto than any other-Charles, king of Navarre, whose
turbulence and love of intrigue had earned for him the
name of the Bad. Son of a daughter of Louis X., he
would have inherited the crown but for the operation of
the Salic law. Whilst awaiting the realization of his
hopes, he claimed Champagne, and next Angoumois; and
the latter province having been given to the Constable de
Lacerda, a particular friend of the king, he caused him to
be assassinated. John seized his fiefs in Normandy, and
Charles crossed over to England.
The English had gained so much in their first expedi-
tion (40,000 pieces of cloth in the town of Caen alone),
that they were eager to return to France. Edward brought
them in by way of Calais, in 1355, and ravaged Artois.
His son, the Black Prince, entered therein by Bordeaux,
and carried off from Languedoc 1000 carts laden with
booty. John did not once venture to give battle during
this pillage. What he had expended in levying troops to
oppose the English with had, however, ruined him; and,
the treasury being empty, he again summoned the States-
general, hoping that they might fill it. But this time the
deputies grew bolder. Accustomed to order, to economy,
and honesty in the management of municipal monies, they
were indignant at the frightful waste to which the finances
of the State had been subjected, and loudly demanded
various reforms. The States-general, moreover, engaged
to furnish 30,000 men-at-arms, and five million livres
wherewith to pay them during the year; to meet which
sum taxes were imposed upon the three orders in common.
The idea of paying a tax deeply offended the nobles;
and among the most active of the opponents was the King
of Navarre, whom a treaty with John had brought back
to France, and the Count d'Harcourt, his friend. On
hearing this, John exclaimed, "that he would have no
master in France, save himself;" and one day that the
Dauphin Charles, then aged nineteen, had invited the
King of Navarre and his friends to a banquet, John, well
informed of the time, rode into Rouen to surprise them,
and arrested them himself at his son's table. In spite of
1
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106
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
the tears and prayers of the young prince, who seemed to
have drawn the victims into a snare, John caused the King
of Navarre to be cast into prison "after dinner," and the
Count d'Harcourt and some others to be taken to a field
called the Field of Pardon, where they were beheaded.
He delighted in that sort of summary justice. At the
commencement of his reign he had beheaded in the very
courtyard of his palace the constable Raoul de Nesle,
under pretext of his holding communication with the
English. A few months after he was himself a prisoner.
John was besieging the small town of Breteuil, a pos-
session of the King of Navarre, when he heard that the
Prince of Wales had once more taken the field with 2000
men-at-arms and 6000 archers; that he had crossed the
Garonne and the Dordogne, and had sacked the Rouergue,
Auvergne, the Limousin, and Berry. The Prince of
Wales marched onwards thus, burning everything on his
way, as far as the small town of Romorantin. The town
opened its gates at the first summons; but the castle was
defended by three brave knights, who thought not of
surrendering, however weak their defences might be.
Irritated at having lost, before the walls of such a paltry
fortress, a favourite knight, the prince swore an oath
that he would not quit the place until he had taken it.
In the end the castle surrendered; but the obstinacy of
its defenders had somewhat compromised the English
army.
The Battle of Poitiers (1356).—The King of France,
meanwhile, had crossed the Loire, and had reached
Poitiers before the English army, so as to bar the way to
Bordeaux. The Black Prince, on approaching Poitiers,
posted his forces on the summit of a steep hillock, thickly
planted with vineyards and intersected with strong hedges
and bushes, at a distance of two leagues north of the
city, near Beauvoir. Having strengthened the natural
defences of his position with palisades and trenches, he
ranged his baggage-waggons so as to form a rampart
where the ground was more open. The top of the hillock
could only be reached on horseback by a path scarcely
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 107
wide enough to admit three horses abreast. The prince
lined the hedges which flanked this path with archers;
and upon the level summit he ranged in order of battle
his men-at-arms, whom he dismounted, scattering in front
of them the rest of his archers among the vines.
King John commanded one of the most splendid armies
that France had ever raised. Without reckoning his four
sons, he had under him 26 dukes or counts, 140 lords-
bannerets, and about 50,000 fighting men, of whom a
great number were knights clad in complete armour.
John had only to refrain from fighting to subdue the
English by famine; but the king was anxious to efface
the disgrace of Crecy, and doubled it.
{
The two French marshals, d'Audenham and Jean de
Clermont, at the head of 300 chosen knights, instead of
turning the English position by attacking the rear, rushed
into the narrow way which led to the plateau; but the
horses were soon pierced through and through by arrows
aimed at them from behind the hedges, and, rendered
furious with pain, became ungovernable and unseated
their riders. The English foot-soldiers then issued from
their cover and slew those who lay on the ground. In a
few moments the whole of that troop was defeated; and
the runaways falling back upon the corps commanded by
the Dauphin, threw terror and disorder into their ranks.
The Prince of Wales profiting by this moment of con-
fusion to charge, crying, "St. George and Guyenne!" with
600 men-at-arms he had kept hidden at the back of the
hillock, fell upon the flank of the shaken column, cut it
in two, and dispersed it. Dismayed at this repulse, the
French fled the Dauphin one amongst the first, taking
with him more than 800 lances, who formed his escort.
The second corps, under the orders of the Duke of Orleans,
followed his brother's example.
¿
Thus two-thirds of the French army were already routed,
almost without having struck a stroke. Nevertheless, the
third division, commanded by the king, was more than
double that of the whole English army. John was not
wanting either in courage or skill, and still continued
:
108
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
confident of victory. But he had committed the error of
dismounting his knights. That manœuvre, profitable to
the English so long as they remained on the hillock and
among the vineyards, was most destructive to the French
on the open plain. The Prince of Wales, on the con-
trary, ordered his men-at-arms to remount; and when his
2000 horsemen charged upon the plain, no troops on foot
could resist the shock of those heavy horses wearing
armour, as did also those they carried.
John, who had placed himself, battle-axe in hand, in
front of his followers, struck down a number of his
enemies, and was himself twice wounded in the face.
His youngest son, Philip the Bold, remained near him,
notwithstanding the flight of his eldest brothers, and at
each fresh assault shouted to the king, "Father, guard
yourself on the right; father, guard yourself on the left!"
Every effort in the fight had, in fact, fallen upon the king.
At last, John, entirely surrounded by the enemy, found
that his troops had given way on every side, and that the
field was lost. The brave English knights were emulous
of securing so rich a prize, but John at length surrendered
to a knight of Artois, de Morbec, who had enlisted in the
English army. ·
The action which began at daybreak was ended at noon.
The French left 11,000 dead upon the field of battle.
The English, who had only lost 2500, took prisoners 13
counts, an archbishop, 70 barons, and 2000 men-at-arms,
without reckoning combatants of lower degree; so that
they soon found themselves with twice as many prisoners
as they numbered soldiers. The charge of a band so
numerous caused them some uneasiness: they hastened,
therefore, to put them, for the most part, to ransom, and
release them on parole. Those prisoners engaged to appear
at Bordeaux at Christmas, or to return into captivity.
As for the chief prisoner, the Prince of Wales considered
him of too great importance to think of humiliating him.
He treated him with all respect, and waited upon him
himself at supper, and would not sit down at the king's
table without being first bidden. Impatient to place his
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH.
109
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prisoners and his immense booty in safety, he repaired
immediately to Bordeaux, and shortly sailed for London.
John was there received by Edward and his queen,
Philippa, with every mark of respect, and the Savoy
palace allotted for his residence.

CAFE, OF AED THE QUAN
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104
BOURDEAUX.
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WENGURUT
During John's captivity, France fell into the greatest
misery. The fermentation was already great, when the
Dauphin Charles came to Paris ten days after the battle.
He took the title of lieutenant of the King of France,
and convoked the States-general. Many stringent mea-
sures were passed against abuses, and probably the most
important was to give the States the faculty of assembling
twice a-year to be assured that the laws were observed,
and to permit them to name thirty-six commissioners
(twelve of each order), who, in the absence of the States,
should assist the Dauphin in the government of the king-
dom. He possessed much talent and great activity, but
was too young and inexperienced to govern that dis-
110
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
}
tractea country. Moreover, he was misled by evil coun-
sellors, and lost the confidence of the people by making
promises of redressing their grievances, which he did not
perform. Among the most active and skilful of the
States' commissioners was one Etienne Marcel, provost
of the merchants of Paris, who at first professed a great
desire to protect the liberties of his fellow-citizens, though
he soon declared himself a strenuous partisan of the King
of Navarre. Among other promises which the Dauphin
failed to keep was one-the accomplishment of which the
citizens had most at heart-that he would not tamper
with the coinage. On the 22nd Feb. 1358, he issued an
ordinance for the alteration of the coinage. Great exas-
peration was immediately felt in Paris, and the citizens
proceeded to those extremities which ruin the best of
causes-to violence. The next day Marcel assembled in
arms all the trade corporations, and with them entered
the Dauphin's palace, and forced his way to the presence
chamber. After an interchange of acrimonious words,
Marcel at length said to the Dauphin: "Sire, do not be
dismayed at what you are about to see, since it must be
so."
Then, turning round to some of his followers:
“Come,” said he, "make short work of that which you
came here to do." Those thus addressed fell upon the
marshals of Champagne and of Normandy, the principal
counsellors of the Dauphin, and slew them so near him
that his robe was spotted with their blood. Charles,
terrified, begged Marcel to spare him. The provost
assured him that he was in no danger, and justified
himself by saying that those counsellors had given the
Dauphin bad advice. He then snatched the barrette cap
from the prince's head, and flung his own parti-coloured
hood of red and blue in its place, which was the badge of
Navarre. Charles, powerless to punish such insolence, or
even the murder of his ministers, took the first oppor-
tunity of escaping from Paris.
The deputies of the nobility and the majority of those
of the clergy were already estranged from the assembly,
which was nothing more than a representation of the
•
7
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH.
111
towns subjected to the ascendant of the deputation and
of the municipality of Paris. After the murder of the
two ministers, the nobles manifested a lively irritation
against those citizens who were desirous of ruling the
State, and whose plebeian hands had just shed illustrious
blood. The Dauphin going to open the States-general
of Champagne at Provins, the Count de Braine asked
him whether the Marshal of Champagne had committed
any crime deserving death. Charles replied that the two
marshals had always served him well and loyally. Then
the count threw himself upon his knees before him and
supplicated him to do justice upon a crime so heinous.
At the States of Vermandois, held at Compiegne, the
nobles offered him their services against the rebels of
¡Paris, and he accepted them.
This was a declaration of war: civil war, indeed, began.
The Dauphin mustered a band of 7000 lances, with whom
he lived by making forced exactions upon the country,
occupying by turns Meaux, Melun, St. Maur, and inter-
cepting all the traffic on the Upper Seine and the Marne.
Marcel, on his part, had seized on the Louvre; he had
repaired and completed the circumvallation of Paris,
placed balistas and cannon on the fortifications, and
fixed chains in all the streets, which might be stretched
across them instantly, and kept in pay mercenaries.
At the same time that the nobles and the citizens were
attacking each other, the peasants, on their part, rose up
in arms. Upon them had fallen almost the entire weight
of the country's misfortunes. The towns and castles had
nothing to fear from pillagers; but the villages were the
prey of the smallest chief of a band. When the enemy
had passed onwards with his booty, the friendly troops
came who pillaged to live, and the nobles took the rest.
They had to fortify and victual their castles, to pay their
men-at-arms, find money for their ransom or that of a
relative or friend. They seized upon the movables, the
crops, the cattle, the horses, and ruined the French to
enrich the English, whom they had not known how to
conquer, although ten to one.
*
:
4
112
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
2
When the peasants learned that the townsmen had
begun to make war against the nobles, they thought it
good opportunity to avenge themselves for their long
sufferings. Agreeing that it would be a justifiable deed
to exterminate the whole race of the nobility and gentry,
they seized on scythes, pitchforks, or any weapon avail-
able, and rushing to the nearest château, they set it in
flames and murdered all the inmates. The signal was
first given in Beauvais. This insurrection, which was
called the Jacquerie, spread with frightful rapidity, and
the most hideous scenes took place. Pity was shown to
neither age nor sex: they tortured their prisoners, out-
raged the noblest women, burned the little children, and
left only blood and ashes on their track. In Champagne
and Picardy alone they mustered more than 100,000,
with the resolute intention of not leaving one noble
alive in the land. The latter, seized at first with a
panic, fled to the nearest fortified place, but afterwards
uniting with the English, an atrocious and merciless war
began.
}
Marcel was himself too much pressed to despise the
allies which presented themselves. He knew well that
the citizens alone were unable to make a revolution, and
therefore had an understanding with the revolted peasants;
and when they marched upon Meaux, wherein many noble
families had taken refuge, he sent them two companies of
town militia, and the inhabitants of that city also made
common cause with them. Thus commenced the union
of the townspeople with those of the country. Meaux,
however, had a strong fortress which held out. The
peasants were defeated, hunted down in all directions,
and exterminated. For some weeks there was a frightful
massacre. The gloomy remembrance of that abomination
has existed through centuries, and the word Jacquerie
held to denote a union of the savage enemies of all
society.
(6
Marcel had reckoned upon the peasantry, but the
Jacques" were hanged, burnt, and hunted down like
wild beasts. He had also reckoned upon a prince, think-
!
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH.
113
1
EX
ing to win over with him a part of the nobles, and to
have cavalry and men in armour wherewith to oppose
the Dauphin's knights-upon Charles the Bad, whom he
had released from prison. This new ally of the citizens
had often allowed that hatred of the plebeians to be per-
ceptible, which was then professed by all the nobility.
Quite recently he had massacred, in a rencontre, 3000
"Jacques," and caused Caillet, the king of the Jacquerie,
to be crowned with a trivet of red-hot iron. Horrible as
that war had been, the citizens had a confused notion that
there was a certain bond of union between them and the
peasantry, and that the destroyer of the one could hardly
be the sincere friend of the other. Marcel had, therefore,
chosen a dangerous auxiliary.

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KORU
THE
MEAUX.
On the 8th July 1358, the Dauphin having advanced
upon Paris, Marcel entreated the King of Navarre to
repulse the enemy. Charles the Bad went out of Paris;
but instead of attacking the Dauphin, he had a long con-
H
114
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
ference with him-in fact, they concluded a treaty. Full
satisfaction was promised him for all his wrongs, and
400,000 florins if he delivered up the city and Marcel.
These secret dealings got wind in Paris; cries of "Treason."
were raised, and the sheriffs deprived Charles the Bad of
his title of "Captain." He immediately quitted Paris,
and fell upon the surrounding country, burning and pillag-
ing all around like the Dauphin.
The position of Marcel became critical, for food in Paris.
became scarce. The bold and clever provost, through
having attempted an impossible revolution, was thus
daily driven to adopt resolutions more and more despe-
rate. The King of Navarre was his only resource, and,
to save the revolution, he did what Mirabeau wished to
do in 1789, and what was done in 1830-not change the
government, not even the dynasty, but the reigning
branch. He promised to deliver up Paris to Charles,
and proclaim him king. His plot was, however, sus-
pected by some of his fellow-citizens, and a watch set
upon his movements. On the night fixed for the execu-
tion of the design, Marcel was found near the Bastile St.
Denis, with the keys of the gate in his hands. On being
accused of treason by his friend Maillart, a sheriff who
had countermined the plot, a tumult arose, in which Mail-
lart struck Marcel dead with one blow of his axe, and six
of his followers were slain with him. (31st July 1358.)
The victory of the royalists was complete, and two
days afterwards the Dauphin re-entered Paris; upon which
the King of Navarre himself proposed a treaty of peace,
by which he relinquished all pretensions to the crown of
France, without stipulating for any personal advantage,
declaring only that he wished to be a good Frenchman;
and Paris, after numerous executions, seemed to become
once more the loyal and docile city which it had been
previously. Royalty had, indeed, received a serious
warning; and John and Charles V. renounced thereafter
any alteration of the coinage, and the latter endeavoured
to render the States-general useless, by making himself
some reforms, especially by governing wisely.
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 115
na
Though the restoration of the Dauphin's rule had been
accomplished, the state of the kingdom seemed desperate.
French and English pillagers still overran the country,
and famine threatened to add yet one more scourge to
unhappy France. However, peace with England was
discussed. Weary of the magnificent hospitality of
Windsor, John had treated with the King of England.
He offered to give up one-half of France, and that the
better half, comprising the mouths of all the rivers, be-
sides four millions of gold crowns for the personal ransom
of the king.

When this treaty was brought to Paris, its terms were
thought to be so severe that the States-general were firm
in their rejection of them. Five months afterwards,
Edward, with a view to enforce compliance with his
demands, landed at Calais (28th Oct. 1359), with his
four sons, the greatest nobles of his realm, 6000 men-
at-arms and 6000 baggage-waggons, "with everything
necessary for living comfortably." The weather thwarted
the expedition, for it rained incessantly. The Dauphin,
warned. by previous disasters, cautiously forbore to come
to any decisive engagement. He left all the country
open, but garrisoned the cities, and strongly fortified
himself in Paris. Thus the citizens shut up in their
towns, the nobles in their castles, allowed the storm to
pass onwards without reaching them within their walls.
Again the peasantry had to bear the brunt of the war,
and dared not even defend themselves. At length,
Edward marched direct to Paris, and encamped within
two leagues of that city; but in vain attempted to pro-
voke the Dauphin to an engagement, who would not suffer
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any of his knights to answer the insults of the English.
At last Edward broke up his camp and advanced towards
Chartres, still meeting no opposition, and amusing him-
self with his hawks and hounds, as though hunting rather
than fighting were his object. Edward, in fact, had
grown tired of that inert but invincible resistance; with
the lassitude of a war in which no glory was to be found,
since there were no battles wherein to reap it; no more
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116
HISTORY OF FRANCE.

A
booty, because all was taken or hidden in the fortresses,
The Dauphin was still more concerned to get rid of the
English, for "France was in an agony, and would perish
were her malady to continue ever so little longer." ~ Con
ferences were opened at Bretigny, near Chartres (1st May
1360). The English negotiators at first claimed the
crown of France; and next confined themselves to that i
territory which had belonged to the Plantagenets.
The king's ransom was fixed at three millions of gold
crowns. It was to be paid by three instalments; and at
the first payment Edward promised to set John at liberty,
on receiving as hostages the king's three youngest sons,
with the Duke of Orleans and thirty French noblemen,
to guarantee payment of the remainder. Edward agreed
to withdraw his pretensions to the crown, retaining, how-
ever, Calais, and all his son's late conquests in Guyenne.
son.
Edward III. sailed for England towards the end of
October 1360, and John returned to France after a
captivity of four years. John's second wife, Jane, widow
of the Duke of Burgundy, had one son by her former
marriage, who died in 1361. In him ended the Capetian
dukes of Burgundy. The King of Navarre claimed the
duchy in right of his grandmother, who was aunt to the
late duke; but John, although he had a more distant
claim, took possession of it, and gave it to his youngest
Having visited the duchy for that purpose, he
thence went south, as far as Avignon, where he passed
six months in banquetting and projecting a marriage with
the celebrated Queen Joanna of Naples. During this
visit, the pope proposed to John a scheme for a new
crusade, by which France might be rid of all those armed
bands which infested it, whilst he would render himself
illustrious. It is not improbable that John might have
flung himself into such a mad enterprise, but he was in-
terrupted in this scheme by the news that one of his sons,
the Duke of Anjou, having escaped from the hands of
the English, to whom he was a hostage, had arrived in
Paris, and refused to return. John regarded it as a
breach of his own honour, which could only be redeemed by
\

HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 117
surrendering himself again as a prisoner to Edward. He
therefore returned to England, and thereby escaped in a
chivalrous manner from his embarrassing position, and
the spectacle of the miseries of France. He passed part
of the winter in London, "in great rejoicings and recrea-
tions," says Froissart, "in dinners and suppers and other
things." These feasts and banquets killed him, he died
at London, 8th April 1364, aged forty-four. Due credit
must be accorded him for the example he gave of fidelity
to his word. The King of England gave him a royal and
magnificent funeral.
One of his last acts, more fatal to France than the
battle of Poitiers, was the cession which he made to bis
son, Philip the Bold, of the Duchy of Burgundy. Philip
founded in this great fief the second house of Burgundy,
which, in the following century, very nearly caused the
ruin of the kingdom.
Charles V., surnamed the Wise (1364-1380).--The
son of John the Good, Charles V., justly surnamed the
Wise, was in his twenty-eighth year. His previous con-
duct was not of a nature to inspire very great hopes. As
a warrior, he had given but poor proof at Poitiers, when
he was one of the first to flee; as a politician, he had not
cut a better figure at Paris during the revolution. The
feebleness of his constitution, even his moral qualities,
did not announce him as the man capable of repairing
the misfortunes of the preceding reign.
The treaty of Bretigny had not settled everything.
Charles the Bad maintained his pretensions and cherished
his rancour. Brittany had not ended its war of succes-
sion, which had lasted for more than twenty years, and
the kingdom was horribly trampled upon by the free
companies. Charles V. managed to treat separately each
of those serious matters.
The Norman fiefs of Charles the Bad gave the king
the deepest anxiety. With his two towns of Mantes and
Meulan, he barred the Seine, and he could by that means
bring the English into the heart of France. Charles re-
solved to take those towns from him; and that first war

118
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
:
was conducted like every other during this reign, by
means of craft and perfidy. Though Charles did not him-
self lead his troops, he luckily possessed good generals,
and whilst he kept himself shut up in his palace, St.
Pol, or in the Castle of Vincennes, his armies were led
by such first-rate soldiers as the constable Du Guesclin,
Boucicault, Olivier de Clisson, and others.
One morning, Boucicault presented himself, as ten of
his followers had previously, at the barriers of Mantes,
apparently terror-stricken and as pursued, and besought
the townsmen to admit him, for the brigands of the
Castle of Rolleboise had defeated him, he said, were pur-
suing him, and spared the Navarrese no more than the
French. The townsmen were not without distrust, but
Boucicault reassured them, by pledging them his faith,
and so obtained entrance. Other pretended runaways
arrived, and more after them, until, finding themselves
in a considerable number, they seized the gates, cut their
defenders in pieces, and took the town. An equally
base perfidy delivered up Meulan to the French king,
and the treatment inflicted upon the credulous townsmen
was the same.
Bertrand Du Guesclin was a Breton gentleman who
had already distinguished himself in the wars with the
English. At the battle of Cocherel, in Normandy (1364),
he put in practice the following stratagem. He ordered
thirty knights, the bravest in his army,. mounted upon
thirty of the fleetest horses, to occupy themselves with
one thing only, the seizure of the Captal de Buch, the
Navarrese general. Having discovered that he was fight-
ing on foot in the front rank, battle-axe in hand, they
pounced upon him all at once, and bore him off the field
at full gallop. This capture, and the English general
having fallen mortally wounded, decided the defeat of the
Navarrese army. Charles the Bad hastened to treat, or
rather accept the essential condition which the King of
France offered him, the exchange of his Normandy fiefs
against the barony of Montpellier. There, at least, he
would be far away from the English.
-
I
1
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH.
119
The war in Brittany which, with intervals, had con-
tinued so long, was at last brought to an end by the
battle of Auray. In 1343, a truce had suspended hosti-
lities till the end of 1346. In the following year, the son
of De Montfort being still a child, Charles de Blois was
taken prisoner; but, in 1364, the latter had regained his
liberty. The young De Montfort had grown into man-
hood, and the war was renewed. The kings of France
and England had reserved to themselves the right of
aiding, without infringing the peace, the two pretenders
who were disputing possession of the duchy. By virtue.
of this singular stipulation, the King of France placed at
the service of Charles de Blois 1000 lances, with his good
captain, Bertrand du Guesclin. The English, being de-
sirous of doing their share, Jean de Montfort received
from the Prince of Wales 200 lances, 200 archers, and a
good number of knights, under the brave and prudent
Chandos. The meeting took place near Auray (13th
Sept. 1364). The English, with Montfort, posted them-
selves on an eminence, as at Poitiers and Cocherel. Du
Guesclin would not have had the imprudence to attack
them in that position, but was overruled by Charles de
Blois, who was obstinately bent on fighting.
Thus forced to give battle, Du Guesclin made such a
skilful disposition of his troops, that the English com-
mander could not refrain from expressing his admiration.
But Chandos was also an excellent soldier, who, besides
the advantage of the position he had taken up, had pro-
vided a reserve to support those of his men who might
fail. That precaution secured him the victory. Du
Guesclin, in spite of all his valour and prudence, fell a
prisoner into the hands of the enemy, and only obtained
his liberty by payment of the heavy ransom of 100,000
livres (six million francs.) Charles was slain with the
majority of the great nobles who surrounded him. This
defeat, however, of the French party in Brittany had
no very serious consequences. The king negotiated a
treaty, by which Jean de Montfort was recognised as
Duke of Brittany, and the widow of Charles of Blois
•
+
·
11
་
*=2
•
--
120
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
had only the province of Penthièvre with the viscounty
of Limoges.
In proportion as hostilities ceased in Normandy and
Brittany, another scourge made itself seriously felt, that
of the free companies, increased by all the disbanded
soldiers. To rid the country of them, an attempt was
made to entice them into a crusade against the Turks
under the King of Hungary. But they found the dis
tance too great, and retraced their steps. Another
expedition suited them better: Castile was then groan-
ing under Pedro the Cruel, who had poisoned his wife,
Blanche de Bourbon, sister-in-law to the King of France.
So, when a natural brother of Don Pedro, Henry of
Transtamare, claimed the protection of France, Charles
V. hastened to offer him, in order to dethrone his brother,
the free companies, of which Du Guesclin, redeemed
expressly from captivity, took the command. Pedro
applied for aid to the Black Prince, who marched into
Spain, and, on 3rd April 1367, encountered the army of
Du Guesclin, near Najara. The superiority of the Eng-
lish archers, and the skill of John Chandos, secured to
the Black Prince and his ally a victory which the French
alone disputed with them for some time. Du Guesclin
was again taken prisoner, Henry de Transtamare routed,
Don Pedro re-established, and the Prince of Wales found
himself master of a great part of Spain, as he had been,
after Poitiers, of a large portion of France. This battle,
though fatal to the cause of Transtamare, was a gain rather
than a loss to Charles, who had entered into the war chiefly
with a view of delivering his own country from the oppres-
sion of the free companies.
·
After this victory, difficulties beset the Black Prince
through want of provisions and money to pay his Gascon
troops. Being thus forced to impose heavy taxes upon
his French subjects, they appealed to Charles V. for
redress. The French king, as feudal superior, summoned
the English prince to appear in Paris on a certain day,
to answer the complaints before the peers. We will
keep our appointment in Paris," replied Edward, "since
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 121
we are bidden by the King of France; but it shall be
with bassinet on head, and 60,000 troops for company."
Charles V., however, as though he had no intention of
breaking the treaty, even sent to Edward III., in token
of firm friendship, a present of 50 pipes of wine. The
English bravely refused to accept them. War was
evidently inevitable.
The reason of Charles having the audacity to take such
a decisive step was that he was ready, and his enemies
were not. In 1369, he had accumulated money enough,
established sufficient order in his realm and discipline in
his armies, to venture to recommence the war. Charles
V., therefore, sent Du Guesclin once more into Spain,
where he defeated Don Pedro at the battle of Montiel
(14th March 1369), and replaced upon the throne of
Castile Henry of Transtamare, who, in gratitude, placed
the Castilian fleet at the service of France.
Charles V. had carefully renewed that ancient and
useful alliance between Scotland and France, to which
the two nations attributed an existence already of 600
years. He made his brother Philip the Bold, duke of
Burgundy, marry the heiress of the Flemish provinces,
preferring to have a prince of his own blood in those ter-
ritories to an English prince; and he secured to his side
the King of Navarre, until then undecided, and over-
threw in Castile the ally of England, Pedro the Cruel.
.
With this sheaf of alliances strongly bound together,
Charles thought that the moment had come for France to
tear up at last the shameful treaty of Bretigny; and, even
believing himself strong enough to insult the English, he
sent his defiance by a varlet of the kitchen, who presented
himself at Westminster, and handed the letter to Edward
III., as he sat in full Parliament. It intimated that the
peers of France and the States-general had declared that
Edward and his son not having appeared to Charles' sum-
mons, the duchy of Aquitaine and the other provinces of
France ought to be and were confiscated.
The English landed at Calais (1369). A great French
army, under the command of the Duke of Burgundy,
|
122
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
|
went to meet them, bnt refused any engagement, and
steadily retreated as they advanced. The towns were
carefully closed and well defended, so that the English
being unable to capture them, their expedition was con
fined to uselessly ravaging the country. They returned
in 1370, but the same system was inexorably followed out.
The last expedition of the Black Prince was directed
against Limoges, the bishop of which had treacherously
betrayed the city to the French. This last treason greatly
exasperated the English, and the prince swore a solemn
oath that the traitors should pay dearly for it. Arrived
before the place, he had a portion of the walls blown up,
and the soldiers rushed through the breach into the streets.
The prince, whose health was completely broken down,
owing, it was suspected, to poison having been given him
when in Spain, by the ungrateful Pedro the Cruel, was
carried into the town on a litter. His temper, formerly
mild and forgiving, had now, from the fever which preyed
upon him, become irritable and vindictive. He ordered
the town to be sacked, and showed no mercy to the inha-
bitants, 3000 of whom (men, women, and children) were
put to the sword. The fury of the English was at length
somewhat abated by the interest they took in a combat
of three French knights who, with their backs against
the corner of an old wall, were fighting, as in the lists,
against the Duke of Lancaster and the Earls of Cam-
bridge and Pembroke. The Prince of Wales stopped his
litter close to them to enjoy the spectacle, and ordered
quarter to be given them. He showed the like mercy to
the bishop, the author of the treason. This melancholy
exploit was the last in which the Black Prince figured
(1370). He returned to England, where he languished
for some time, and died in 1376.
From this time the power of the English rapidly de-
clined in France. Another invasion, however, was under-
taken in 1373, which proved worse than fruitless. The
Duke of Lancaster landed at Calais with 30,000 men,
thinking to conquer France, but only marched through
it. It fared well enough whilst in the rich provinces of

HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 123
T
the north, but in the poor and meagre central country
privations and maladies commenced. In Auvergne, not
a horse was left in the army; at Bordeaux, 6000 men
only remained, and the knights, as well as the soldiers,
begged their bread from door to door.
This time the English were disgusted with such a war.
They did not return in the following year, but, in 1375,
hey demanded a truce, which was prolonged until the
death of Edward III., in 1377. Charles then broke the
ruce, and struck blow upon blow. He brought five
armies into the field and conquered all Guyenne, whilst a
Castilian fleet, manned by Frenchmen, ravaged the coasts
of Kent and Sussex. In 1380, the English had lost
everything they possessed in France, excepting Brest,
Bayonne, Bordeaux, Cherbourg, and Calais.
Charles essayed fruitlessly in Brittany the same policy
which had been so successful in Guyenne. He summoned
Duke John IV. to appear before the chamber of peers,
and the duke not having presented himself, his fief was
declared forfeited to the royal domains. But all the
Bretons in the service of the French king, in great num-
bers abandoned him, and those even who at first promised
to second his projects turned against him. The aged Du
Guesclin, himself a Breton, returned him his constable's
sword, and a treaty of alliance was signed at Westmin-
ster (1st March 1380) between England and Brittany.
An English army landed at Calais under the Earl of
Buckingham, and marched through the whole of northern
France with impunity. It had not reached Brittany
before Charles died at Vincennes, 16th September, 1380,
in the forty-third year of his age, and sixteenth of his
reign. He was one of the very few good kings France
has had. By his great prudence he delivered his country
from all its worst grievances, and left it in a more pros-
perous condition than it had for a long time known. The
valiant Du Guesclin had died whilst besieging Randon, in
the Lozere, two months before the death of Charles. The
king was deeply grieved at the loss of the great soldier, and
raised a magnificent monument to his memory in St. Denis.

124
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
T
In this reign Pope Gregory V. removed the papal see
from Avignon to Rome.
!
Charles VI. (1380-1422).-The death of Charles the
Wise was a calamity for France, his son being only twelve
years old; and that boy fell into the hands of his uncles
Anjou, Burgundy, and Berry, greedy princes, entirely
preoccupied the one with the kingdom of Naples, of
which Joanna had named him as her successor; the
other, with the great fief of Flanders, of which he was
destined to be heir; the third with his pleasures and his
treasures. Charles VI. had another uncle on his mother's
side, the Duke de Bourbon, an excellent prince, without
influence, and a brother, the Duke of Orleans.
During the last moments of the late king, the Duke
Anjou, the eldest of his brothers, and who by that title
was about to become regent, had kept himself concealed
in an adjoining chamber. Scarcely had Charles expired,
when the duke caused to be delivered up to him the
crown jewels, the royal treasure, and by threatening with
death the treasurer Savoisy, a hoard of ingots of gold and
silver which had been sealed up, like stones, in the walls
of the château of Melun, by masons who immediately
afterwards disappeared. The year preceding, being
governor of Languedoc, he had there caused an insurrec
tion by his rapine; and, in Montpellier alone, he had con-
demned 200 citizens to the stake, 200 to the gibbet, 200
to be beheaded, 1800 to confiscation of goods, and the
remainder of the city to a fine of 600,000 francs. The
king had modified that atrocious sentence, and recalled
the duke. It was, however, to this prince that the
regency by right reverted. His brothers were equally
grasping: the Duke of Burgundy adjudged to himself
the government of Normandy and Picardy; whilst the
Duke of Berry took Languedoc and Aquitaine. He had
already Berry, Auvergne, and Poitou as an appanago:
that is, one-third of the kingdom was delivered up to his
rapacity.
The Duke of Berry had scarcely shown himself in his
government ere civil war broke out. The pope inter-
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 125
2
i
osed and put an end to it; but he could not stop the
xecutions and cruelties of the prince. The peasantry,
despoiled by his soldiers, recommenced a sort of jacquerie.
They fled to the mountains, especially on the side of the
Cévennes, and thence, organised in armed bands, they
rushed upon the nobles and rich, giving no quarter to
those who had not hardened hands. They were called
tuchins. The Flemish insurrection was still more serious.

It has been already said that Joanna, Queen of Naples,
a descendant of Charles of Anjou, had adopted the Duke
of Anjou as her heir. She did so in order to revenge
herself on Charles Duzazzo, her nearest relation, who had
dethroned her. Duzazzo was in the possession of the
kingdom of Naples, but the Duke of Anjou resolved to
assert his claim by force of arms.
With his craftily
obtained wealth he raised an army, and marched into
Italy, where at first he gained some slight advantages;
but they were soon followed by fatal reverses. By the
destruction of his army, and the loss of his baggage, he
was reduced to actual poverty and distress; one small
silver cup being the only valuable remaining of the im-
mense quantity of gold and silver that he had brought
from France. The duke died some two years afterwards
of vexation and disappointment. His son, however,
assumed the title of Louis II. of Naples.
Meanwhile, the Duke of Burgundy had assumed the
reins of power, and used them, as his brother had done,
for his own purposes.
His wife was heiress of the Earl
of Flanders, against whom the Flemings had risen in the
preceding reign on account of their French earl attempt-
ing to violate the municipal franchises of the country.
Pierre Dubois and Philippe Arteveld, the son of the
famous brewer, had directed with success the insurrection
of the White Hoods, and the battle of Bruges, fought
3rd May 1382, had overthrown the last hopes of Earl
Louis.
It appears that, for a quarter of a century, the spirit
of revolt had throughout Europe stirred up the middle
and lower classes. The enterprise of Rienzi at Rome,
126
HISTORY OF FRANCE.

that of Wat Tyler in England, then that of Etienne
Marcel at Paris, next the "jacques," the "tuchins,” and
the White Hoods! The insurrection, stifled at one place,
broke out in another, and it was to be feared, as Froissart
said, "that all the gentility and nobility would have been
slain and lost in France, and also in other countries.”
!
The Dukes of Burgundy and Berry now engaged the
young Charles VI. in a war with the Flemings, to quell
the insurrection against Earl Louis. The French army
won a great victory at Rosebec, leaving 26,000 dead on
the field, and among them the entire battalion of Ghent
with Arteveld. Flanders, however, was not crushed, but
the French nobility had at length avenged the defeat at
Courtray; and, to efface even the remembrance of it, they
carried away from the churches the gold spurs of the
knights slain in 1302, and set fire to the town, having first
pillaged it. Charles, who had accompanied his army in
person, was much elated at this his first success. In
1384, the Earl of Flanders died, and the Duke of Bur-
gundy, his kinsman, inherited his vast domains. Hence-
forward, the house of Burgundy concentrated all its
affection upon those rich provinces, and as it found means
of aggrandising itself on that side at the expense of the
small German princes, it forgot by degrees both the blood
from which it sprung, and the France in which its
grandeur had commenced.
The following year was employed in immense prepara-
tions for a descent upon England. Vessels enough were
collected, says Froissart, to make a bridge from Calais to
Dover: there were 1400. An entire town of wood even
was constructed capable of being taken to pieces, in order
that the French might carry with them an entrenched
camp. But the favourable moment for the passage was
allowed to pass by, and the project was forced to be
abandoned after an enormous expenditure. Another ex-
pedition against the Duke of Gueldreland, who for a
pension of 400 livres paid him by England, had sent the
French king a challenge, cost still more, and produced
nothing (1388).

HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 127
The young king's uncles had purposely neglected his
education, encouraging him in frivolous pursuits in order
that they might carry on their ambitious schemes the
more uninterruptedly. Charles was of a gentle and
affectionate nature, though hasty and impetuous, and it
is said that he never forgot a kindness, nor broke & pro-
mise. In 1388, being of age, he took the government of
the realm into his own hands, deprived the Duke of
Burgundy of his offices, and gave them to his brother,
the Duke of Orleans. He recalled several of his father's
old servants, and displaced the creatures of the dukes,
his uncles. The voice of public opinion was then very
feeble; he listened to it, however, and revoked several
unjust laws and oppressive taxes, and showed every wish
to rule his people with justice.
On his return from the German war, Charles summoned
a great council at Rheims, and the young king demanded
of those present to give him their advice touching the
conduct of public affairs. Pierre de Montaigu, Cardinal
of Laon, spoke first in praise of the king's good qualities,
and exhorted him to thus commence the exercise of his
omnipotence, in disposing at will, without taking counsel
of any one, of all which related to the ministry of war
and the economy of his household. Others supported the
cardinal's advice: Charles VI. declared that he was de-
termined to follow it, and thanked his uncles for the good
services they had rendered him. The king had scarcely
left Rheims, when the Cardinal of Laon died poisoned.
The old advisers of Charles V., "the little folks," the
marmosets, as the great nobles disdainfully called them,
headed by the Constable Olivier de Clisson, resumed as
ministers of State the direction of affairs.
The new
government was wise, economical, the friend of order
within and peace without the realm; but the king was
only the more prodigal on that account. Deprived of
the pleasures and excitement of war, he needed those of
feasts and tournaments, and the court festivities were
incessant. Enterprises the most serious became occasions
for rejoicing: a journey made by the king in the southern
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ke

128
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
provinces, in order to put an end to the great schism
which rent the Church, and to have an eye upon_the
disastrous administration of the Duke of Berry in Lan-
guedoc, was nothing more than a long festival in which
excess of expense vied with excess of scandal. The
ministers made efforts to combat these disorders, or lessen
their disastrous effects; they economised the expenditure
of the State to supply the prodigality of the king, and
the State was still the gainer by that arrangement.
For four years these "little folks" had thus governed
the kingdom, and during those four years the king's
uncles and the greatest nobles of France had been re-
moved from the management of affairs. These latter
earnestly desired to put an end to such a system. An
Angevine nobleman, Pierre de Craon, a mortal enemy of
the chief of the "marmosets," the constable De Clisson,
devoted his personal hatred to the service of the political
resentments of the aristocracy, One night, on quitting
the palace St. Pol after a banquet, the constable was
attacked in the streets by Craon, who believing that he
had slain his victim, fled for protection to the Duke of
Brittany. Clisson, however, was only severely wounded,
but the king swore that Craon should pay dearly for his
treachery. The Duke of Brittany was summoned to
give up the assassin; and, on his refusal, the king greatly
exasperated, resolved to march in person into Brittany to
punish his rebellious vassal.
Charles, early in August 1392, against the advice of
his physicians, had led his army as far as Mans. The
fierce summer's heat acting upon his impatient spirit, had
thrown him into a feverish condition. As he traversed
the forest apart from his troops, to avoid the dust, he was
attended by only two pages, one of whom carried his
lance and the other his helmet. Suddenly, a tall man
clothed entirely in white rushed out of a thicket, seized
the horse's bridle, shouting, "Stop, noble king!" pass not
onwards, you are betrayed!" The figure then as quickly
disappeared.
This sudden apparition greatly agitated Charles, A
:
…ཨཔ
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 129
little further on, the page who bore the lance falling
asleep as he rode, the lance fell from his hand and struck
the king's helmet with a clanging sound. The king,
startled at the noise, and seized with a sudden frenzy,
drew his sword, crying: "Upon the traitors!" He rushed
with his drawn sword upon his brother the Duke of
Orleans, who with difficulty avoided him, and would have
killed or wounded several of his attendants had they
not fled. At length, one of his knights sprang up behind
him, and held him firmly by the arms until the rest had
bound him tightly with cords, when he was placed in a
cart and taken back to Mans, without having recognised
any one.

Charles remained for some months in a state of frenzy.
Some attributed his madness to sorcery, when they ought
only to have accused the king himself. Master at twelve
years old of that unlimited power which has often ren-
dered delirious the strongest minds, he had, at twenty-four,
exhausted every pleasure, every emotion, from the excite-
ments of revelry to those of the battle-field; his constitu-
tion was ruined, his reason shaken: a violent shock
deranged him wholly.
When some one expressed fear lest the king might be
the victim of poison or sorcery: "No," replied the Duke
of Berry, "he is neither poisoned nor bewitched, save by
evil counsels." Those words embodied the fate of the
"marmosets." Clisson was declared guilty of extortion
and banished the realm, and a fine imposed upon him of
100,000 silver marks. The Sire de Montaigu, warned
by his example, fled to Avignon, whilst others of his
colleagues were arrested and flung into the Bastile.
The king's uncles, therefore, were again placed in full
possession of the government; what did they do? The
"marmosets" had greatly busied themselves with putting
an end to the great schism, the princes laboured at it also,
but with such success that very soon, instead of two
popes, there were three. They signed a truce with
England for twenty-eight years, in 1396, and gave in
marriage to Richard II. a daughter of Charles VI.; but,
I
IN
:
.*
C
..
130
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
in 1399, the English deposed, then strangled, it is said,
their king, and that useful alliance was lost.
The government of the aristocracy was not successful;
its acts discredited it abroad; its divisions weakened it
at home.

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AVIGNON.
Isabella of Bavaria was not fifteen when she left Ger-
many to be married to Charles VI. Without parents or
guide in the midst of a corrupt court, she caught its manners
sooner than she learned its language, and was devoted to
nothing but luxury and pleasure. Years neither rendered
her conduct more regular, nor her thoughts more serious.
Charged, after the king's insanity, with the guardianship
of his person, she made use of the authority which the
sad condition of her husband gave her to satisfy her
passions, her vices, and her revenge. It will shortly be
seen to what extent this queen was fatal to France.
The Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bold, maintained
himself in power until his death, in 1404. His son, Jean
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 131
the Fearless, desired to combine with his inheritance his
influence in the government; but the Duke of Orleans,
the king's brother, all-powerful with the queen, and
master through her of the king and the Dauphin, head
of the nobility, and a brilliant knight himself, had no
idea of yielding power to any one.
Between him and
John the Fearless a rivalry soon arose, which threatened
to merge into a civil war, even in the heart of Paris
itself: each assembled his men-at-arms and fortified his
palace; but as they were on the point of attacking each
other, the old Duke of Berry interposed, brought Jean
to the bedside of the Duke of Orleans, who was ill,
made them embrace, take the holy communion, and eat
together. This reconciliation took place on the 20th
November 1407: on the 23rd, Louis of Orleans was
assassinated by John the Fearless.
The Duchess of Orleans, Valentina of Milan, and her
children called loudly for justice on the murderer, and
Duke Jean was summoned to answer for his crime. He
came, but attended with such a strong force of armed
men, that the council found it necessary to acquit him.
Afterwards, however, not feeling himself safe in Paris
he withdrew to his possessions in Flanders, whence he
caused it “to be said, preached and written" that he had
only anticipated the snares of the Duke of Orleans.
Charles, the young duke, entered a protest against the
acquittal of his father's murderer, and called on all France
to avenge his death. But the duke had made himself so
odious, that the appeal of his son was unheeded: on the
contrary, Jean the Fearless returned to Paris, promising
the people a speedy abolition of taxes, and extorting
from the king letters of pardon, by which Charles VI.
was made to declare that he did not retain any displeasure
against him for having put his brother to death. The
Duchess of Orleans, the gentle and beautiful Valentina
Visconti, took this injustice so much to heart, that she
actually died of grief and shame.
The Duke of Orleans was not deserving of much
regret. His government had been as deplorable as his
132
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
manners. He had declared war against England, but not
waged it, merely using it as a pretext to increase the
taxes, which he appropriated to himself. The Duke of
Burgundy to render himself popular, strenuously opposed
the new imposts; and to make the people have patience,
but more especially to lay his hands on the rich spoils, he
sent to the scaffold the minister of finance, Jean de
Montaigu (1409), and restored to the Parisians their old
free constitution. Thus he became extremely popular,
and that popularity he increased, by showing the citizens,
on every occasion, favours to which they were not accus-
tomed. The party of the Burgundians, therefore, now gained
the ascendancy in affairs; the opposite party were called
Armagnacs. The young Duke of Orleans had married a
daughter of the Count of Armagnac, and allowed him-
self to be governed by his father-in-law. Both parties
endeavoured to possess themselves of the king's person,
and to govern in his name. Thus, the king out of his
senses, the queen despised and incapable, the Dauphin
threatened by his excesses with the same fate as his
father, the first prince of the blood sullied by an in-
famous murder, no government other than an oppression
of the people, but parties in arms, war within and with-
out-such was the state of France. She could only emerge
therefrom by means of a catastrophe.
Whilst Armagnacs and Burgundians were fighting, the
King of England, Henry V., was of opinion that the
time had come for him to mingle in the fray. He had,
moreover, need of a foreign war to strengthen him on the
throne which his father had usurped.
Since the great pillaging of the previous century, a
war with France was always popular in England. When,
therefore, Henry proposed to revive the almost forgotten
ら
​pretension of Edward III. to the crown of France, and
undertake a serious expedition, he obtained easily from
Parliament 6000 men-at-arms, and 24,000 archers, with
whom he landed near Harfleur (14th August 1415).
After an heroic defence, which lasted an entire month,
Harfleur, unsuccoured, surrendered. But Henry V. had
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 133
lost 15,000 men, the half of his army. Too weak now
to undertake anything, he determined to reach Calais by
á march across the country, and thence to fling a new
and insolent defiance to the French chivalry.
The English set out from Harfleur on the 8th October
1415, and traversed the country nearly to Calais without
meeting with any serious molestation; but the heat of
the weather, and the quantity of fruit which they had
eaten on the march, had occasioned so much illness among
them, that before Henry came up with the French army,
his troops were greatly reduced in numbers. The French
princes sent a herald to Henry to fix the day and place
of battle, to which the king simply replied, "that it was
not necessary to fix day or place, as every day would
find him in the open country.
""
Notwithstanding this reply, the French feared that
their enemies would escape them, and the more surely to
intercept them, the French princes posted themselves
between the villages of Tramecourt and Agincourt, at a
spot which the English must necessarily pass--in a nar-
row valley between two woods, recently ploughed up and
soaked with rain. The French outnumbered the English
four to one. Henry expected instant battle; he exhorted
his troops to do their duty; but the sun set, and there
was no attack.
};
Early next morning, Henry, after hearing three masses,
mounted his small grey horse, and made a judicious dis-
position of his little force, placing his archers in the front.
The Constable d'Albret formed his army into three corps,
reversing the English alignement, his files being from
twenty to thirty men in depth. When the action began,
the French knights and nobles rushed to the front in a
disorderly manner, and being met by showers of arrows
from the English archers, which pierced their horses, they
were thrown into the utmost confusion. The archers
then flung aside their bows, and fell upon them sword in
hand. Henry advanced with his main body, a deadly
struggle ensued, the first French line was broken, the
second was soon reached. The contest becoming more a
}
"
134
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
slaughter than a battle, this terrible fight was soon over.
The French nobles, who had borne the chief brunt of the
day, suffered much more than the common soldiers. The
Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, the Counts d'Eu, de
Vendôme, and de Richemont, with 1500 other gentlemen,
were taken prisoners; the constable himself and two of
the Duke of Burgundy's brothers, with the Duke of
Alençon, were amongst the slain. To these must be
added 8000 knights, including 120 nobles bearing banners,
besides thousands of common soldiers: of the English,
only a few scores were killed. Too weak to improve his
prodigious victory, Henry led his wearied troops to
Calais, and thence, with the Duke of Orleans and other
noble prisoners, he embarked for England.

The Duke of Burgundy had taken no part in the battle
of Agincourt; it was his enemies who had undergone that
disgraceful defeat. If he had made haste, he might have
entered Paris as its master. The Count of Armagnac, the
new constable, showed more promptitude. He took pos-
session of the capital, of the king, of the Dauphin, who
was still a youth, that is to say of the entire government.
Charles, though only sixteen when he became Dauphin,
took an active part in affairs; he joined the Armagnacs,
and by his advice his mother, who had become infamous
by her vices, was shut up in the castle at Tours.
The Count of Armagnac, in order to restore some
popularity to his party, showed a laudable activity. He
hired ships of the Genoese, and proposed to lay siege to
Harfleur (1416). But money was wanting; he had re-
course to the great resource of that day-the alteration
of the coinage, and forced loans. John the Fearless be-
came the patron of the poor.
Paris murmured. John the Fearless, to increase the
fermentation, prevented the arrival of provisions into the
great city. He had succeeded in carrying off from Tours
Queen Isabella, and had declared her regent of the king-
dom; he forbade the good towns, in his name, to pay the
taxes imposed by Armagnac, and he negotiated with the
English,

HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 135
The latter had returned to France. Henry V. had
taken Caen, Rouen, and several other towns, and as a
conqueror who had nothing to fear, he had divided his
army into four corps, in order to march faster if neces-
sary. What had he, in fact, to fear? The Dukes of
Brittany, Anjou, and Burgundy had signed treaties of
neutrality with him. Armagnac could do nothing, for
he was reduced to borrow of the saints, by melting their
shrines. The men of his party forsook him, because they
were not sufficiently paid; he was forced to let Paris be
guarded by the Parisians, who hated him, and who be-
trayed him.
In the night of 29th May 1418, the wicket of the St.
Germain gate was secretly opened by a partisan of the
Duke of Burgundy, and a band of his followers entered
the town, headed by the sire de Lisle-Adam, who rode
through the streets shouting, "Peace and Burgundy!"
A few of the Armagnacs succeeding in escaping, carry-
ing with them the Dauphin; but the majority, and the
constable among others, were thrown into prison. This
was only the prelude to a general slaughter of all the
Armagnacs. A few days afterwards, the populace attacked
the prisons and slew indiscriminately all they found
therein. Armagnacs or not, 1600 persons perished. The
count himself was amongst the victims, and by way of
amusement, the mob cut a large strip of skin from the
constable's body to represent by way of mockery "the
white scarf of the Armagnacs."
These terrible scenes had just taken place, when Duke
John the Fearless returned with the queen to Paris,
amidst the enthusiastic clamours of the multitude, who
thought that they saw peace and abundance return with
him. Vain hope! Neither the one nor the other de-
pended upon the Duke of Burgundy. To all the other
evils, on the contrary, was added an epidemic which
swept away in Paris and its environs 50,000 victims.
The populace arose once more and furiously attacked
those unfortunates who had been overlooked in the
prisons, or had been flung into them since the month of

136
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
June. On the 31st of August an immense mob was
collected under the orders of the headsman Capeluche,
whom the Duke of Burgundy confronted, entreated, and
went so far as to grasp his hand without gaining any-
thing. A fresh massacre took place. A few days after-
wards, the duke sent this ferocious horde to besiege the
Armagnacs shut up, he said, in Montlhéry, and as soon
as they had marched out, he closed the gates of Paris
behind them and had Capeluche beheaded.
John the Fearless found himself again the master of
the capital and of the government, but charged also with
the overwhelming responsibility which that position in-
volved. How was he to grapple with famine, and curb
a populace broke loose? How resist those Armagnac
partisans, who had the Dauphin in their hands, and who
occupied all the country round Paris? How make head
against the English who were steadily making a conquest
of the kingdom?
On learning the fall of Rouen, all the towns and places
in the province opened their gates. The infatuation of
the English reached its height by the conquest of that
large and wealthy province. In a conference held near
Melun between Henry and Isabella, to proposals of peace
which the Duke of Burgundy made him, Henry V. re-
plied by imperious demands: a daughter of Charles VI.
in marriage, and with her, Guyenne, Normandy, Brittany,
Maine, Anjou, and Touraine, and as the duke hesitated,
Henry said rudely: "Fair cousin, know that we will
have the daughter of your king, and the rest, or will put
you, him and you, out of this kingdom."
Repulsed on that side, John the Fearless turned once
more towards the Armagnacs, and had a friendly inter-
view with the Dauphin (afterwards Charles VII.). But
his doubts and his rancour reviving, he addressed himself
again to the English. Then the determined men who
surrounded the Dauphin resolved to make an end, in their
own way, with a prince who might at any moment deliver
up the kingdom to a foreigner. On the 10th September
1419, the Duke of Burgundy, invited to an interview
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HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 137
with the Dauphin on the bridge of Montereau at the
onfluence of the Yonne and Seine, was there stabbed to
death by Tanneguy Duchatel and the servitors of the
prince.
The English king was at hand to gather the results of
he crime which he had not committed. That which
Heither Crecy, nor Poitiers, nor Agincourt had done, the
assassination on the bridge of Montereau did: it gave
he crown of France to a king of England. That atro-
cious deed roused to revenge Philip the Good, the son of
the murdered duke. He entered into a treaty with
Henry V., in conjunction with Queen Isabella, who dis-
inherited her son to crown her daughter. Philip, in the
hope of for ever excluding the Dauphin from the throne
of France, procured Henry to be declared regent during
the life of Charles VI., and entitled to the succession
after his death. Henry married the Princess Catherine;
and the two kings of France and England, with their
two queens, made a triumphant entry into Paris.
But the country did not sanction that base abandon-
ment of its rights and the treason of that unnatural
mother. The long and vigorous resistance experienced by
the English before Sens, Meaux, Melun and other strong-
holds, taught Henry V. that he must possess himself of
the whole of France. He foresaw the embarrassment of
his position, and, when he should be no more, the fate of
a conquest so laborious. When, already ailing, it was
announced to him, during the siege of Meaux, that his
young queen had given birth to a son at Windsor Castle,
he remarked sorrowfully: "Henry of Monmouth will have
reigned little and conquered much: Henry of Windsor
will reign long and lose all. The will of God be done."

}
Both parts of the prediction were destined to be accom-
plished, and the first ere long. Although still young,
Henry expired on the 14th August 1422. Seven weeks
afterwards, Charles VI. in his turn, died, wept and re-
gretted by the compassionate populace to whom, however,
his reign had been so fatal, but who had seen him suffer
like themselves.
138
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Charles VII., surnamed the Victorious (1422-1461)-
Henry VI. and Charles VII.-On the 10th November
1422, the body of Charles VI. had descended almost
without ceremony into the vaults of St. Denis. He had
lived fifty-five years and reigned forty-two, thirty of
which he had passed in a state of almost constant insanity,
The king, proclaimed at St. Denis, was an infant ten
months old, grandson, on his mother's side, of Charles VI,
and in whose name his uncles were about to govern: the
Duke of Bedford, France; the Duke of Gloucester
England.
K
The king proclaimed in Berry, the only surviving son
of Charles VI., was a young man of nineteen, of gracefu
manners but feeble frame, pale-faced, of little courage,
and always dreading a violent death; for the rest, says a
contemporary, "he was a good Latinist, a lively story-
teller, and very wise in council." He might have beer
the latter later on, but at nineteen, and during many
years afterwards, he merely showed alacrity for pleasure,
and dullness in the face of danger or business. His
authority was only recognised in Touraine, the Orlean-
nais, Berry, the Bourbonnais, Auvergne, Languedoc,
Dauphiny, and the Lyonnais.

Two defeats, the one at Crevant, the other at Verneuil,
inaugurated the reign of Charles VII., and served to ruin
all his hopes in the north of France. He seemed indif-
ferent to it, and resigned to hear himself called derisively
"the King of Bourges." He had transported to Poitiers
his council, parliament, and university. But Bourges
and Poitiers were still cities too large for him; he trailed
his little court from château to château, devoted entirely
to the sires de Giac, de Beaulieu, and de la Trémouille,
submitting willingly to the all-powerful influence of his
mother-in-law, Yolande of Sicily, and notwithstanding
that precarious position, still formidable to the English.
The regent Bedford had for some time vigorously carried
on military operations, and the English were becoming
more and more masters of the country. In June 1428,
the Earl of Salisbury had landed at Calais with 6000 good
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 139
English troops. To them Bedford added 4000 soldiers
from the garrisons of Normandy, and this army reducing
stronghold after stronghold on its march, thus fought its
way to Orleans.
!
Orleans was now the only remaining town of import-
ance which Charles possessed. It was the portal of Berry,
Bourbonnais, and Poitou. If taken, the King of Bourges
would be left king only of Languedoc and Dauphiny. On
12th October 1428, the English forces, commanded by
the Earl of Salisbury, laid siege to it. He began opera-
tions by erecting a number of towers round the place, the
command of which was confined to the Earl of Suffolk,
the English Achilles, Lord Talbot, and others among the
bravest leaders of the army. From the imperfect invest-
ment of the town, however, the Count Dunois, who com-
manded Charles's troops, contrived to throw in succour
from time to time, until by degrees the garrison numbered
7000, under some of the best French knights. By this
means Orleans was enabled to hold out many months, dur-
ing which the brave Salisbury was slain by a chance cannon-
shot, and his command given to the Earl of Suffolk.
However, neither the lucky cannon-shots nor the jeers
of the Orleannais disconcerted British tenacity. The
English added each week a new tower to those which
they had constructed, and were rapidly enclosing the
town all round, in order to reduce it by famine. Pro-
visions, had for the last four months, been scarce on both
sides, and Lent being near, the Duke of Bedford de-
spatched from Paris, under the conduct of Sir John Fal-
staff, 2500 soldiers and 300 waggons of provisions and
munitions, with great store of salted herrings. The
Count of Clermont, eldest son of the Duke de Bourbon,
sallied out of Orleans, at the head of 5000 men to attack
the convoy, but was driven back with great loss. This
skirmish was called the battle of the herrings, and the loss
of it reduced the French to despair.
The position of the town becoming daily more serious,
the besieged began to treat for a surrender, but that they
might not fall into the hands of the English they offered
•
Al
4
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140
HISTORY OF FRANCE,
to yield up their city to the Duke of Burgundy. Philip
the Good very willingly agreed to the proposal, and hast
ened to transmit it to the Duke of Bedford. To this,
however, the regent would not consent, remarking acri-
moniously that "he did not understand beating the bushes
in order that another might take the birds."
At this moment, when the fortunes of Charles VII.
seemed utterly hopeless, a sudden revolution was effected
in them by one of the most singular occurrences recorded
in history.
I
The sufferings France was then enduring proceeded
from a variety of causes, but the people believed in one
only-the English. To drive out the English, therefore,
became the daily engrossing thought, and man proving
incapable, they looked to Heaven to do it. That opinion
established itself by degrees from one end of France to
the other: that the kingdom-betrayed, delivered up to
the foreigner by a woman, by a queen, by the unworthy
Isabella of Bavaria-should be saved, delivered by a
daughter of the people, by a virgin from Lorraine. That
heroic daughter of the people, that liberating virgin, was
Joan of Arc.
In 1429, Joan appears to have been fully convinced
that to her was given the power to restore the kingdom
to Charles VII. She was remarkable for her early piety,
and her talents, though uneducated, were considerable;
and she evidently believed herself divinely commissioned
to rescue her fallen country. By her enthusiastic and
almost superhuman exertions, Charles VII. did, in a
series of skirmishes and battles, obtain full possession of
his kingdom; and in eleven days she had stricken dismay
into an army which had been the terror of France for
eleven years.
Charles VII. was crowned in her presence
in the ancient church of Rheims (17th July 1430). This
heroic girl afterwards fell into the hands of the English,
and to their lasting shame, was delivered up for trial to
an ecclesiastical tribunal, on a charge of heresy and schism,
and burnt at Rouen, as a witch, in her nineteenth
(30th May 1431).
year
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH.
141
Although the war still went on, it was no longer waged
with its former vigour. Charles had many brave captains,
but no generals; and though he had shown himself at
intervals capable in the field, his habitual indolence made
the occasions very rare. The inactivity on the part of
the English was mainly owing to a quarrel between the
regent's brother, Gloucester, and the Duke of Burgundy,
whose alliance had been of great importance to them. To
render the young King Henry popular, the regent had him
crowned a second time in Paris. But the ceremony was
injudiciously conducted: English nobles alone presided,
not a single French prince being present. There was no
liberation of prisoners, no reduction of taxes, no largesse
to the people. A universal discontent was the result of
a ceremony intended to arouse a favourable feeling towards
Henry VI.; and the Parisians once more fixed their hopes
upon their own monarch.
•
The tide of war now turned in favour of the French.
The Duke of Burgundy deserted the English, and made
a separate peace with Charles. The treaty of Arras gave
Paris to the King of France. Lord Willoughby and the
15,000 English who formed the garrison shut themselves
up in the Bastile. The French commander was very
desirous of making the English noblemen prisoners, esti-
mating their ransom at 200,000 livres, but he had none
of the materials necessary for a siege. The English
offered to deliver up the Bastile on the condition that
they should be allowed to retire with their belongings,
and those who desired to follow them. The capitulation
was accepted. They marched out by the gate St. Antoine,
made the tour of the ramparts, amidst the hootings of
the populace, and embarked on the Seine, on their way
to Rouen.
The peace of Arras was welcomed throughout France
with the liveliest expression of joy. On the other hand,
to the regent Bedford it proved such a blow, that the
vexation consequent upon the frustration of his policy
caused his death shortly after its signature. Paris having
thus thrown off the English yoke, and returned to a sense
..
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142
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
of its duty, Charles VII. made his public entry into the
capital, after a banishment of seventeen years.
From this time the English affairs became totally irre-
trievable. Thus ground was steadily, though slowly,
gained by the French. A reformation in the royal forces
now seemed so urgent that Charles, being aroused from
his torpor, did not even wait until the end of the war
to take it in hand. He convoked the States-general at
Orleans, and demanded their co-operation with him in an
enterprise the boldest and most difficult, the reorganiza-
tion of his army. The States voted a perpetual tax of
1,200,000 livres for payment of the soldiery, and an
ordinance, moreover, conferred most extensive powers on
the king in other respects. This ordinance of 1439 was
a complete revolution, for it brought back the military
forces of the kingdom under the grasp of the sovereign.
Thus many intrigues were set on foot. The barons and
the captains of the free companies declared that it was
the reversal of all order, and that it was necessary to
replace at the soonest possible opportunity such a prince
by the Dauphin Louis, his son, a young man of seventeen,
who showed, they said, precocious talents. They little
suspected the sort of talents he would one day show!
Impatient to reign, the Dauphin lent himself willingly
to these intrigues. This young prince (afterwards Louis
XI.) had early shown a disobedient and malignant temper.
When not more than sixteen, he had joined some discon-
tented nobles in a conspiracy against the king. Charles
forgave him for this treason on account of his youth, and
received him into favour as before. He now joined the
the dukes of Bourbon and Alençon, the counts of Ven-
dôme and Dunois, and the chief captains of the free com-
panies, who, together, placed themselves at the head of
the rebellion. It was an insurrection of all the nobility
against royalty, headed by the Dauphin. Charles acted
with great promptitude and vigour, marching instantly
against the rebellious strongholds. Throughout Poitou
the citizens declared for the king, and those places fell,
one after another, into his hands. In the Bourbonnais,
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH. 143

in Auvergne, as in Poitou, the citizens were for the king
against the nobles. The states of Auvergne declared that
they would devote themselves body and goods to that
Sovereign who was the protector of the poor against the
vexations of the licentious soldiery, and furnished him
with money.
The dukes of Bourbon and Alençon, and
the Dauphin saw plainly that they must not only submit.
but implore pardon. They went in search of Charles
VII., knelt down before him, and entreated his mercy.
He generously told them that he would allow them to
return to their several abodes without molestation. This
prompt submission of the rebels, and this agreement
between the townspeople and royalty was a warning to
the whole aristocracy.
The king, to prove that he was ready for any event,
marched his forces towards the north, and made his royal
justice felt upon the frontier. He did this without re-
laxing for a moment the war against the English, taking
from them Meaux and Pontoise in the centre, Dieppe in
the north, and separating from them their allies of the
south, the Counts d'Albret, de Foix, and Armagnac;
obliging the hitherto disdainful English to solicit a truce
(1444), and the hand of a French princess, Margaret of
Anjou, for their young King Henry VI.; placing finally
at their gates a new enemy by the marriage of the
Dauphin Louis with Margaret of Scotland, daughter of
James I.
Two expeditions, the one directed against the Swiss,
the other against Messina, served to rid Charles of the
most mutinous of the free adventurers, and allowed him
to subject the rest to a rigorous discipline. He thus
found himself in possession of a chosen body of 9000
cavalry, embodied in regiments. By another ordinance,
the king also gave to France a force of which it had great
need, a regular and permanent infantry. All these re-
forms had been subordinate to another, that of finance,
commenced by Jacques Cœur, in 1443.
}
These reforms accomplished, Charles found himself
strong enough to bring the war with the English to an
144
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
end. All Normandy was conquered within the space of
a year. The government of Henry VI., or rather that
of Margaret of Anjou, had need of a great success abroad
in order to restore its influence at home. Talbot, then
in his eightieth year, who alone remained of all Henry's
brave generals, made a last effort to redeem the honour
and interests of his country by bringing Guyenne once
more under English sway. He was at first successful
the inhabitants of Bordeaux themselves admitting the
English into their city, and as almost all the country
followed that example, the King of France had to recom
mence its conquest. In July 1453, an action was fought
under the walls of Castillon, in which Talbot and his son-
were slain. This defeat was followed by the complete
ruin of the English. On the 19th October, Charles VII.
entered Bordeaux in triumph. The hundred years' war
was ended, and of all their conquests in France nothing
remained to the English except Calais and two small
neighbouring towns.
Though Charles the Victorious had thus at length re-
conquered his realm, he had yet to contend with the
enmity of certain feudatories, who looked with no favour-
able eye upon the progress of French royalty; that royalty
which, instead of tournaments and festivities, made laws,
organised finances, reformed armies, and drove out the
English. Without breaking openly with the king, the
Duke of Burgundy had become the protector of all the
malcontents. But a more dangerous enemy was the heir
to the throne, that Dauphin Louis who, as has been seen,
figured when sixteen years old only, as the head of a
great aristocratic conspiracy against his father. Charles,
to give occupation to that restless spirit, sent him into
Dauphiny, his appanage. There he busied himself with
what he considered ameliorations, very often changing
things merely for the sake of change, intriguing with
everybody, with the king's ministers, with the dukes of
Alençon and Burgundy, and surrounding himself with
all those who were odious to Charles VII.; as dangerous,
in short, in Dauphiny as he had been in France.
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH THE ENGLISH.
145
The government of Charles acted promptly and vigor-
ously, despatching a body of troops under Chabannes, the
King's favourite, to the frontiers of Dauphiny, whilst
Charles himself marched with an army to Lyons. Dis-
concerted by this promptitude, the Dauphin mounted his
horse, and with six attendants fled into Franche-Comté,
whence he went to seek an asylum in the court of the
Duke of Burgundy.
At the French court great uneasiness prevailed. Louis,
from his retreat at Genappe, intrigued throughout the
kingdom, wrote the most submissive letters to his father,
but in reality with the intention of estranging his
ministers from him. The league of the dukes of Alençon
and Burgundy with the Dauphin threw Charles into a
settled melancholy. He was enfeebled by disorders which
had not ceased with his mature age. He had an incur-
able abscess in the mouth, the agony of which was at
times intolerable. In the wanderings of delirium, mingled
with the apprehensions of poison which he had conceived,
he refused all nourishment, or probably from the nature
of his malady he was unable to take any, and died, 22nd
July 1461. He was fifty-nine years old, and had reigned
thirty-nine years. He married Mary of Anjou, daughter
of Louis II., titular King of Naples, and had two sons
and four daughters.
K
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SEVENTH PERIOD.
THE LAST VICTORY OF ROYALTY OVER THE FEUDAL
ARISTOCRACY.
Louis XI. (1461-1472).-Louis was in his thirty-ninth
year when the news of his father's death reached him in
Brabant, whilst the guest, the friend, the "gossip" of the
Duke of Burgundy. From that hospitable court he took
his instant departure, lest any attempt should be made to
place his younger brother on the throne. All the Bur-
gundian nobility mounted on horseback to escort that
"king of the nobles" to his realm, for feudality fancied
itself saved by the accession of the Dauphin. "I will do
my best," said Philip the Good, "to conduct the French
king to his consecration at the head of 100,000 men;"
and forth the king and duke rode attended by a valiant
court and most magnificent retinue to Rheims, where
Louis was crowned by the archbishop.
Louis had re-entered France so poorly clad, and with
words so humble, that the real king, to all appearance,
was Duke Philip the Good. At least, he was protector
of the king, he who had welcomed him in his extremity:
therefore Louis refused him nothing. To do him honour,
he made him nominate eighty members of Parliament,
of which, it is true, not one ever took his seat. He
granted to him the free transmission of merchandise from
one frontier to the other, under the condition that Par
liament should register the concession, but the Parliament
never did. He granted a pardon to the Duke of Alençon,
but kept possession of the children and strongholds of
that prince. The Duke of Burgundy returned home,
loaded with honours and fair words, but ruined.
SAT
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147
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From Rheims, Louis went directly to Paris, escorted
by a force of thirteen or fourteen thousand soldiers, which
secured him from all opposition.
ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
Then Louis XI. found himself at home, set to work
and began in earnest that reign which, in whatsoever
manner we may judge of the king himself, must be
reckoned as one of the most important in history. That
reign opened amidst circumstances the happiest externally.
Not one of the states bordering on France was in a con-
dition to thwart Louis XI. in what he was about to
ndertake. England, engaged in the terrible War of the
Roses, was for a long time unable to intervene seriously
in the affairs of France. Spain was divided; Germany
powerless, thanks to its anarchical constitution; Italy
had not been for several centuries formidable to any
state.
But if Louis XI. was secure from encountering any
great embarrassment from without, the interior of his
realm offered him much: for feudalism still possessed
(considerable strength. It had at its head an aristocracy
of appanaged princes, related more or less to the French
kings, powerful families, rich by their vast domains,
proud of their origin, and formidable by their pretensions
to a royal independence. The first political act of Louis
was to deprive his brother of everything his father had
given him, excepting the province of Berry. He dis-
missed his father's ministers, as well as the chief officers
of the household, and replaced them by men of low birth
and mean habits, who, he thought, would be more sub-
servient to his will than he could expect persons of higher
station to be.
The aristocracy was still more menaced. It saw the
king confer titles of nobility on consuls of small towns,
on mayors of boroughs, and to defend agriculture against
seigneurial recreations, attacked the privileges of seigno-
ries by forbidding any one to hunt, except the princes,
under corporal and pecuniary penalties. These and many
other inimical measures excited the indignation of the
nobles, and a league, called the League of the Public Good,
,
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
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was formed against the king, at the head of which we
the dukes of Berry and Brittany. Louis had not reigned
four years when every one's hand was against him.
The
people burdened with many taxes, levied for the exigencies
of a government which they did not yet understand; the
middle class injured in its particular interests, of which
it was unwilling to make the sacrifice for the general
good; the clergy threatened as to their property, the
small nobles in their most cherished rights and customs,
the high aristocracy in its sovereign pretensions, all these
classes, so widely different, so often hostile one towards
another, were momentarily about to agree on one point-
to limit and shackle the royal authority.
The Count of Charolois, the Duke of Burgundy'
eldest son, also joined this confederacy. His father
Philip the Good, in 1465, having sunk into a condition of
imbecility, from which he never recovered during the last
two years of his life, the Count of Charolois, Charles the
Bold, had taken the direction of affairs. His fiery and
impetuous nature revolted against the cold-blooded, un-
grateful Louis, who unmindful of all his obligations to
the house of Burgundy, secretly tampered with the duke's
ministers to weaken and impair it.
Louis having written to the Duke of Bourbon, begging
him to hasten to his assistance with 100 lances, the duke
wrote the king a significant refusal, and circulated copies
of his letter (13th March 1465). On the 15th, the Duke
of Berry issued a manifesto against the government of
his brother; and on the 22nd, the Duke of Brittany,
Francis II., declared himself the enemy of every enemy
of the Duke of Burgundy, "without excepting my lord
the king." Next came the hostile declarations of the
nobility. Every one was eager to take part in the League
of the Public Good.
This coalition agreed to assemble its forces before
Paris. The king, after crushing an insurrection in the
Bourbonnais, was at this time hastening to Paris with
his army, with the intention of throwing himself into the
capital before the confederates should have joined their

ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
149
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forces. His army and that of Charolois met unexpect-
edly near Montlheri, and a battle ensued. The victory
was so undecided that both parties claimed it. Louis,
whose main object was to reach Paris, did not stay to
follow up any advantage he might have gained, and left
Charles in possession of the field, boasting of being the
victor. Once inside Paris, he armed the citizens, and
accepted a council of their own choosing, six being
citizens, six members of Parliament, and six clerks of
the university. He also decreed a reversion of taxes, and
took every other means of gaining over Paris, believing
that if he had Paris he would have France, whatsoever
might happen.

Although the confederates at length mustered 100,000
men, they neither acted in unison nor promptly. Per-
sonally brave as Louis XI. was, his combats by choice
were those fought out by strength of mind, finesse, and
cunning. Thus he negotiated, parleyed incessantly;
seeking to divide by stratagem those princes who agreed
so badly together, and sparing neither money nor pro-
mises; so the league came to nothing, some of them
already feeling sure of selling themselves to the king.
The name of "market" was given to the theatre of these
negotiations between Charenton and St. Antoine; each
might there make his price; and several had it. One
required money, another domains, and one the constable's
sword; nothing was refused: and the king already saw
the League dissolved by his address, the dukes of Brit-
tany and Burgundy isolated, perhaps enemies.
Having accomplished this great object, and at little
more expense than that of a few promises, and with no
other loss than that of his honour-a loss which he but
little regarded-Louis made a treaty with the confederates,
called the Peace of Conflans (1465). "The Normans
desire a duke,” said the king; "eh, well! they shall have
one." That duke was his brother. And all the rest
shared as largely. All this was not exactly for the
Public Good.
Such a treaty strictly executed would have been the
..
150
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
ruin of royalty and of France. But it was very certain
that Louis XI. would not execute it, if there were any
possibility of his doing otherwise; and already the Par
liament, gained over by him, refused to register it
Warned by the hard experience which he had just under-
gone, Louis determined not to work so fast in future, and
to take only one thing in hand at a time. He had relied
too much on his strength; the League of the Public Good
had shown him the covetousness and treason by which
he was surrounded. Hereafter it was necessary to be
prudent, but his prudence shaped itself in every form of
trick, perfidy, and cruelty.
The Duke of Berry had hardly taken possession of
Normandy than he was driven out of it by his brother,
and forced to take refuge in the court of the Duke of
Brittany, who, by sheltering him, drew on himself the
lasting enmity of the vindictive king.
No one thought, therefore, of disputing Normandy
with Louis. Charles the Bold, who had become that
year, by the death of his father, Duke of Burgundy,
stood alone, and whatever his power might be, being
alone, he could do nothing. He then sought an alliance
abroad. Although he was of the house of Lancaster by
his mother, he married Margaret, the sister of Edward of
York, then King of England. Edward sent him 500
English, offered him more, and a fleet. Charles found
another ally in Duke Francis II. of Brittany, who, after
having aided Louis XI. in retaking Normandy from his
brother, became alarmed at the rapidity of the king's
success, and again turning against him had occupied Caen
and Alençon, whence he threatened the rest of the pro-
vince, called also the English to his aid, and offered them
twelve places for their choice.

As soon as Charles had settled affairs in Flanders, he
took up the cause of his friend and ally, the Duke of
Berry, Louis's ill-treatment of whom he violently resented;
but before he was ready to act, Louis had compelled, by
the rapidity of his blows, the Duke of Brittany to enter
into the treaty of Aucenis (10th September 1468). The
ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
151
V
then disembarrassed of the Bretons, having an excellent
army and superior artillery, might have, as it seemed,
accepted the struggle with the Duke of Burgundy; but
an English fleet and army were collected at Portsmouth,
ready to cross the channel. He was conscious, moreover,
of his superiority over his ardent and impetuous antagonist
in diplomacy, and reckoned on obtaining by negotiation
all the results of a victory. He was, therefore, desirous
of a personal conference with Charles. Some of the
king's friends thought that there might be some danger
in Louis thus placing himself in the hands of Charles
the Bold; but the king had no fear. A meeting was
therefore agreed upon to take place at Peronne, a town
on the Somme, belonging to the Duke of Burgundy.
Thereupon, the king trusting to a safe conduct, repaired
almost alone to Peronne, where Charles received him with
respect (8th October); but around the duke he saw col-
lected some of his most violent adversaries. He began
to think of the bridge of Montereau, and he requested of
the duke that, for his greater security, he might be lodged
in the castle.

However, whilst the conditions of the treaty were
being peaceably discussed, news came that Liege was in
open insurrection; that the bishop, Louis of Bourbon,
had been slain with all his chapter, and the Burgundian
envoy, Humbercourt; and that at the head of the rebels
were two envoys of the King of France. The facts were
widely exaggerated, for neither the bishop nor the envoy
were killed, and it seemed improbable that this riot was
the act of the king, he having no interest to cause the
bishop'to be murdered, a deed which would have embroiled
him with the house of Bourbon, having on the contrary
much interest to attach himself to it by promising him
the cardinal's hat. Moreover, a rising in that city so
rudely treated by Charles the Bold was the most natural
thing possible; and further, the movement had begun on
the 8th of September, whilst the interview took place on
the 9th of October; that the relations of Louis with the
Liegois dated from the commencement of his reign; and
!
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152
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
:
finally, if the news were perfectly true, the safety of.
Louis XI. was still guaranteed by the terms of the safe
conduct.
The fiery Charles, nevertheless, became furiously angry,
and instantly ordered the gates of the castle to be closed
and strictly guarded, thus making the king a prisoner.
Louis, however, did not let his presence of mind forsake
him in this emergency. He began to consider how he
might extricate himself, and found means to send tempting
messages and rich presents to those of the duke's attend-
ants who, he supposed, had most influence with their
master. Meanwhile, Charles was in a state of mind
scarcely more enviable than that of Louis. On the first
day he was almost like a madman, and it seemed as if
nothing would appease him but the death of his prisoner.
On the second day he became more calm, and held a
council on the conduct to be observed towards Louis XI.
The council lasted during the greater part of the day,
and part of the night, but without coming to any deter-
mination. Charles was sometimes inclined to keep the
king a prisoner for life, at other times he seemed as if he
only wanted a little encouragement from his council to
put him to death at once. But then his brother Charles
(duke of Berry) would ascend the throne in his place,
and that brother at that moment was the friend, the ally,
the guest of the Duke of Brittany. Was it worth while
to render himself guilty of such a crime merely to place
the crown on the head of a prince devoted to Breton
influence? It were better to extort important concessions
from the king, humiliate him, and by that humiliation,
ruin him in public opinion: the calculation was as bad
as the action was disloyal.
Charles at length became more reasonable, and so far
pacified as to consent that the king should have his
liberty, on conditions which were sufficiently humiliating,
but with which Louis was glad enough to comply. One
of these conditions was, that he should give up to his
brother Champagne and Brie; another was, that he
should accompany the duke to Liege to suppress the
ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
153
4

revolt. To cede Champagne to his brother was to give
it to Charles the Bold, who would thereby find that
communication, so desirable for him, between his states
of Flanders and of Burgundy. To march against Liege,
which bore his flag, was a baseness. But the princes of
that age placed success in the foreground, honour behind.
Louis XI., therefore, followed Charles to the siege, and
there fought bravely.
Once more safe in Paris, Louis thought only of effacing
the remembrance of his captivity by annulling the unlucky
treaty necessity had forced from him at Peronne. Not
choosing to give to his brother Champagne and Brie, a
territory which would place him near his ally Charles
the Bold, he persuaded him to accept the rich and fertile
province of Guyenne instead. Charles was violently
enraged at this infringement of the treaty, and was on
the point of enforcing the observance of it, when the
death of the Duke of Berry, in 1471, removed the object
of the dispute, although it did not prevent the war
breaking out.
The Duke of Berry's death was attributed to his having
eaten part of a poisoned peach, and Louis was strongly
suspected of having contrived, or at least connived at it.
Nothing was ever proved to confirm or remove that
suspicion, but Charles acted on the belief that it was a
true one, and to avenge his friend's death, swore that he
would carry on the war ruthlessly. He kept his word.
Having halted before the small town of Nesle, he effected
an entrance by declaring a capitulation, already com-
menced, broken, and gave an order to slay every soul
therein. Men, women, and children, having taken refuge
in the great church, they were therein massacred. The
duke rode into the edifice on horseback, and seeing how
thoroughly his order had been obeyed, made the sign of
the cross, exclaiming, "By St. George, my lads, you have
made here a glorious butchery!" The floor of the church
was six inches deep with blood. Such was the atone-
ment made by the unoffending inhabitants of Nesle, for
a crime imputed to their cold-blooded monarch.
A
I
154
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Charles next attacked Beauvais, but suffered a repulse,
the townspeople having valiantly sustained an assault
which lasted eleven hours. He thought to have carried
the place at the first blow, but not being prepared for a
siege, he struck his tents and marched towards Normandy,
burning all the small towns on his way, but closely fol-
lowed by the French, who cut off his supplies. Having
reached Rouen, where he expected to be joined by the)
Duke of Brittany, he remained four days under its walls;
then, accusing François II. of having failed in his pro
mise, he withdrew into his own territories.
This war, with the interruption of occasional truces,
continued many years. The treaty of Peronne, by which
it was thought to bring the king so low, was torn up;
the disgrace of Liege was compensated, in the eyes of
Louis XI., by the shame of Beauvais. And if the crafty
king had succeeded in emerging with so much address
from such an evil strait, what dare he not do in future
with greater resources and less embarrassment?
Charles the Bold, nevertheless, continued to wage his
wars of aggression with more or less success on all sides.
In 1475, he had engaged himself in one in which he
strove to sustain against the pope and the German
emperor, Frederick III., the Archbishop of Cologne,
Robert of Bavaria, who had named Charles protector of
his electorate. The latter was besieging the small town
of Neuss, near Cologne; but, situated on a rock and well
defended, Neuss resisted eleven months. The arrival of
an immense German army forced the duke to raise the
siege.
Thus the terrible prince fell back baffled and insulted.
The Swiss had defied him, the Duke of Lorraine defied
him. The King of France had stripped him of his towns
in Picardy, and was advancing in Artois; and he upon
whom he had reckoned to keep Louis XI. in check,
signed a treaty of peace with France.
On setting out for Germany, Charles had pressed
Edward IV. of England to make a descent upon France.
War suited the latter as a means of rallying round him
!
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ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
155
all those parties whose contentions were troubling his
kingdom; and, with the concurrence of the Duke of
Burgundy and the constable Saint-Pol, he reckoned upon
a short and glorious campaign. He landed at Calais at
the head of a magnificent army, demanding the French
crown as belonging to him by inheritance, and thinking
to find the duke there with all his forces. Charles joined
him shortly afterwards, almost alone, to tell him that he
would attack on another side, by Lorraine, and that the
constable would throw open to him his fortresses, the
gates of France; and thereupon he departed. The
English king, upon this assurance, marched forwards
as far as the Somme, and on halting before Saint Quentin,
was fired upon by the constable. This perfidious man
had sold himself to two masters, betraying the secrets of
the one to the other, and deceiving both. His chief
object was to promote the war between France and
Burgundy, because during a time of war his emoluments
as constable were enhanced. At last his treachery
became so evident, that both Charles and Louis were
equally convinced of it. They therefore mutually agreed
that whichever of them should first seize upon the con-
stable should either put him to death in eight days, or
else give him up to the other. Hearing of this, Saint-
Pol had shut himself up in St. Quentin, where he
remained for some time in security. At last, thinking
he was not safe from Louis in that town, he determined
to throw himself upon the generosity of the Duke of
Burgundy, and obtaining a safe-conduct from him, he
sought refuge in his territories. Louis instantly claimed
the traitor, and Charles delivered him up. He was taken
to Paris, condemned, and executed (19th Dec. 1475).
Edward IV. of England was greatly irritated against
those who, having invited him abroad, had given him
such a reception. Louis also trembled at the thought
of an English army in his kingdom, and resolved to
spare no pains to get rid of it. He began by bribing
the herald who had brought Edward's defiance, with 300
crowns and 20 ells of velvet, and fine promises, if peace
4
156
HISTORY OF FRANCE,
were made; next some of the English nobles, and at
length the king himself. After feasting the English
right royally at Amiens, a treaty was concluded at
Pecquigny, in which Louis agreed to pay Edward 75,000
crowns for the expenses of the war, and an annuity of
50,000, and that the Dauphin should marry the King of
England's eldest daughter. These feasts and stipulations
had nothing heroic in them, but they proved very useful.
Louis looked only to the result-the departure of Edward
and his host. The French people gave this peace the
name of the Merchant's Truce.
As this treaty greatly offended the Duke of Burgundy,
he refused to be a party to it. He, however, soon after-
wards made a truce with Louis for nine years.
He was
urged to this by his ambition prompting him to turn his
arms against his other neighbours. He attacked the
Duke of Lorraine, and dispossessed him of his dominions.
He invaded Savoy, and next attempted to subjugate the
Swiss; but from those "cow-herds of the Alps," as he
contemptuously called them, he met with an unexpected
repulse. He attacked them in midwinter with an army
of 18,000 men, who had just made two fatiguing cam-
paigns. On 18th Feb. 1476, he assailed the little town
of Grandson; but the place still held out on the 28th.
To induce the defenders to surrender, he promised them
their lives, and when they gave themselves up, he caused
them to be hanged upon a walnut tree.
The news of this perfidy aroused the whole of Switzer-
land. The confederated army of the cantons went in
search of the Burgundian troops, and found them massed
in a narrow plain, where neither artillery nor cavalry
could manœuvre. The Swiss foot soldiers, armed with
pikes 18 feet long, made short work of their hampered
enemies. An unexpected arrival of cantonal forces
changed the movement to the rear of the Burgundians
into a panic, and all the efforts of the duke could not
suffice to stop the rout. Though the loss was inconsider-
able, his prestige was gone: Charles of Burgundy was
no longer Charles the Invincible; he had fled. His
ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
157
..!
sword, his tent, his diamonds, his ducal seal, his collar
of the Golden Fleece, remained in the hands of the Swiss
"those rustics," as he called them.
This defeat, instead of checking his ambitious projects,
merely made him pursue them more rashly. He thought
only of vengeance. With an inadequate force, against
all advice, he made another impetuous attack on the
Swiss, and was defeated with a loss of from 8000 to
10,000 men.
Conquered and a fugitive, he convoked the states of
Franche-Comté, Burgundy, and Flanders; but only to
receive on all sides humiliating refusals, to hear bitter
and insulting words. His enemies took advantage of his
disaster, and he had now to make head against the Swiss,
Louis XI., and René de Vaudemont all at once. An
attack upon Nancy by the latter, his feeblest adversary,
he felt most acutely. He had intended Nancy to be the
capital of his future kingdom. He hastened to save the
place, and arrived under its walls on the 22nd October.
He was too late: the town had been taken three days
previously. But it had neither garrison nor provisions,
and by keeping a strict blockade, Charles hoped to retake
it shortly.
His enemies displayed as much activity as he did
obstinacy. René hired Swiss and German mercenaries.
The Duke . Lorraine joined him with 20,000 men.
Charles had only 4000 soldiers. Nevertheless, no remon-
strance could induce him to raise the siege. "If it must
be," said he, "I will fight alone." On Sunday, January
5, 1477, he marched to the encounter during a heavy
snow-storm, expecting to perish rather than conquer. In
a few moments the little Burgundian army was dispersed,
taken, or slain. The duke himself was killed by an
unknown foe. The next day one of his pages recognised
his mutilated body.
The Flemings, ill-treated by Charles the Bold, looked
upon his death as a veritable deliverance.
By it his
vast possessions, which extended from the northern limits
of Holland to the frontiers of Switzerland, descended to
#
158
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
his only child Mary, then in her twentieth year. Of
the news of the duke's death arriving at Ghent, the
citizens took the government into their own hands, slew
the magistrates, and refused to acknowledge the young
duchess's authority. Young and inexperienced, Mary
placed her chief confidence in her mother-in-law, Margaret
of York, and a few old adherents of her family. The
Flemings thought to marry the young princess as they
chose, and at the outset, made her promise that she would
only govern by the Council of the States of Flanders.
She promised, but at the same time she wrote to her
godfather, Louis XI., that her two counsellors would be
two Burgundians, servants of her late father, the chancellor
Hugonet, and the sire d'Humbercourt. Louis, acting
with his wonted treachery, showed that letter to the
deputies of Ghent, and the populace, infuriated against
the two counsellors, clamoured for their death. The
duchess implored and entreated that their lives might be
spared, but her prayers were useless. They were executed
almost in her sight. She never forgave Louis XI. the
humiliation he made her undergo, and, in spite of the
King of France, and of her own subjects, who wished to
make her marry the parricide, Adolph of Gueldres, she
gave herself and her rich inheritance to Maximilian of
Austria, one of the numerous princes to whom her father
had promised her hand.
•
Amongst those princely marriages which history sig-
nalises on account of the greatness of their consequences,
figures in the first rank that of Maximilian of Austria
and Mary of Burgundy. Their son, Philip the Fair,
married the heiress of Castile and Aragon; thus the
Spanish, Burgundian, and Austrian possessions were
found united in one single hand, whence arose the mon-
strous power of Charles V., the struggle of France, the
struggle of Europe against the house of Austria.
Louis XI., now stricken with palsy, and declining
rapidly in bodily health, had formed so great a dread of
the nobles and princes of the blood, that he shut himself
up in his prison-fortress of Plessis, near Tours. Here
3
ROYALTY AND THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY.
159
the crafty old king, although conscious that death was
approaching, still filled Europe with his activity of mind,
increasing in his mistrust and cruelties as he became more
enfeebled, and clinging with all his might to life and
power. His right hand paralysed, this moribund monarch
touched with his left hand or right elbow, the treaties
which gave him the four fine provinces of Picardy and
Artois with the earldom of Boulogne, the duchy and
earldom of Burgundy with Charolais and Auxerre. A
lawsuit had brought him the duchy of Alençon and
Perche; the death of his brother, Guyenne; and his
intervention in the affairs of Spain, Roussillon and
Cerdagne. Thus eleven provinces were reunited to the
domains of the crown during a single reign. It was an
immense step towards unity of territory, and a decisive
blow dealt against the power of the great feudatories.
Aristocracy was vanquished, royalty released from thral-
dom; and to avoid fresh troubles, the king employed only
mean persons about him, his barber and his hangman,
whom he could easily replunge into the obscurity whence
he had drawn them.
Thus the King of France, dying in his sixty-first year,
made incredible efforts to attach himself to life. But the
time had arrived when, instead of enjoying, as he had
hoped, the fruits of his labours, he was to pay the penalty
of his crimes. The nearer death approached, the more
his dread of it increased. To ward it off he had recourse
to every kind of superstition. He induced the King
of Naples to send him "the good holy man, Francis
de Paule," before whom he threw himself upon his
knees, praying him to prolong his life. The remedies,
the prayers, the longing for life were alike useless. Those
who surrounded him, and whom he had always told to
announce gently to him the approach of danger, told him
bluntly that he must die. Then at last he resigned him-
self to what was inevitable, sent for his son, the Dauphin,
gave him excellent advice, and expired on the 30th
August 1483.
/
The first wife of Louis, to whom he was married when
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+
160
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
1
+

Dauphin, Margaret, daughter of James I. of Scotland,
died of grief, it is said, at his harshness and neglecte
nor, from the same reason, was his second consort,
Charlotte of Savoy, more happy. By her he had three
children: Charles who succeeded him; Anne, married
to Pierre de Bourbon, lord of Beaujeu; Joan, married
to the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII.
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15.
•
EIGHTH PERIOD.
THE WARS IN ITALY.
S

Charles VIII. (1483-1498).-Charles, the youngest of
the children of the defunct king, was short of stature,
with a large head, very short neck set upon broad and
high shoulders, and long lank legs. Such is the unflat-
tering portrait contemporaries have left us of his person.
His father, who had but little affection for a sickly and
unintelligent boy, kept him away from his court at
Amboise. It is doubtful whether he ever knew how to
read. This unhappy prince was now, as King of France,
in full possession of authority, for he had entered upon
his fourteenth year, the law fixing the age of thirteen as
the majority for its kings.
This legal fiction deceived no one. It was well known
that the royal authority, vested apparently in a boy, had
fallen entirely into the hands of his sister, Anne of
France, married to Pierre de Beaujeu, of the house of
Bourbon. This nobleman, younger son of a great family,
did not bring a very solid support to a princess of twenty-
two,who had neither the will of her father nor the affec-
tion of her brother, neither the laws of the realm nor
the benefit of experience; but only the advantage of
reuniting in her person many of the qualities of Louis
XI. Louis, who said of her, "She is the least silly
woman in the world, for of wise women there are none,
had confided to Anne the care of the education and health
of the young king.
19
The princes of the blood, and more especially the
Duke of Orleans, envious of the power Anne had thus
L
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162
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
acquired, convoked the States-general at Tours, in th
hope of displacing her. The Duke of Orleans did no
doubt that they would aid him in supplanting his sister
in-law, and Anne reckoned correctly on making use o
them to bridle all that youthful ambition. The States
after deliberation, did not arrive at a very definite deci
sion, remitting everything to the king, with the singl
recommendation that he should strictly have taken th
advice of his council, to be composed of twelve deputie
of the States. In the king's absence, the Duke o
Orleans was to preside over that council, and in hi
default, the Duke of Bourbon, and after him the Lord o
Beaujeu.
i
"The Lady of Beaujeu" was not even named in thai
decree; the Duke of Orleans, on the contrary, remained
the ostensible head of the government, and thought to be
it. However, Anne, who had accustomed her brother to
obey and fear her, in making him preside over the coun
cil, reduced the duke's office to a mere nullity. Thus was
found constituted, without any one foreseeing it, what
was called "the government of Madame," destined to con
tinue the firm and energetic government of Louis XI.
...
The Duke of Orleans had shone brilliantly in the feasts
and tournaments celebrated in honour of the consecration
of Charles VIII. His good looks, his chivalrous man-
ners, his inclination for pleasure and dissipation made a
deep impression upon the young king, his brother-in-law,
over whom he was gaining an ascendancy which soon
gave Anne of Beaujeu the liveliest uneasiness. She
heard whispers, at the same time, of secret plots of the
princes against her authority. She cut the knot of that
difficulty like a true daughter of Louis XI., by despatch-
ing suddenly to Paris a body of men-at-arms with orders
to arrest the Duke of Orleans. The Duke was at the
moment playing at tennis with the Count of Dunois and
some other courtiers. The princes had only time to
mount the first horses they could find and flee at their
utmost speed. Louis of Orleans, declared a rebel, fled to
the court of Brittany, formed an alliance with Francis
T
163
THE WARS IN ITALY.
IL. and with Maximilian, and solicited even the assistance
of the King of England, Richard III.
Anne of Beaujeu frustrated all those plans. She kept
Richard III. at home by giving the aid of men and
money to his competitor, Henry of Richmond, destined
shortly to succeed him as Henry VII. She treated
against Maximilian with the States of Flanders, acting
in the name of their young prince, Duke Philip of
Austria. She made an alliance with the nobility of
Brittany, in arms against Landais, the detested minister
of Francis II. Landais was seized and hanged. At the
same time La Tremoille hastened to besiege the Duke of
Orleans in Beaugency, took him there, compelled him to
return to the court, and promise that he would henceforth
only occupy himself with his amusements. To keep him
to his word, Anne separated him from Dunois, whom she
exiled to Italy, but he soon broke it.
Having arrested the inroad of Maximilian in Artois,
Anne turned her attention to Brittany. La Tremoille
entered therein at the head of a well-appointed army, and
encountered the Breton forces near St. Aubin.
The re-
sult of this battle was fatal to the Bretons. The Duke
of Orleans was taken prisoner in a wood whilst trying
to rally the runaways, and the Prince of Orange was
recognised as he sought to conceal himself amongst the
slain. The capture of these two leaders proved the ruin
of the cause.
The Duke of Orleans and the Prince of
Orange were led back to France, well guarded, and there
imprisoned. The Lady of Beaujeu caused the perjured
Orleans to be closely confined in the donjon of Bourges;
and, to make his captivity doubly sure, she had him, heir-
presumptive to the crown as he was, shut up every night
in an iron cage.
Matters went not less favourably in the north. The
Flemings, having risen against Maximilian, drove hist
German troops from their country, and forced him to sign
a new convention, based upon the treaty of Arras. Thus
the Lady of Beaujeu frustrated every coalition, and main-
tained the conquests of her father.
10
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164
HISTORY OF FRANCE.,
+
The Duke of Brittany had made peace with Charles
VIII. on very disadvantageous terms, and died three
weeks after from vexation, leaving two daughters-one
of whom did not long survive him. The marriage of his
daughter, Anne, now sole heiress of the duchy, became a
question of European policy. Should Brittany, the last of
the great fiefs, be reunited or not to the domains of the King
of France? The sovereigns of Europe took the liveliest
interest in the independence of that province. Henry VII.
promised troops and money; Ferdinand of Arragon sent
both; competitors for the hand of the young princess were
numerous. In much perplexity she resolved to choose
for herself, and selected the Archduke Maximilian from
amongst the list of her suitors. One marriage had already
given to that prince the rich provinces of Flanders, and
if he had gone himself to take the hand of the young
princess, he would have threatened on three sides the
independence of France. Maximilian, to conceal the
mysteries of his policy from the public eye, repaired to
Insprück, whilst his ambassador contracted for him, in
Brittany, the marriage by procuration; but he neither
came to claim his bride, nor sent troops to her aid. The
King of France showed greater activity and proved more
fortunate.
Anne of Beaujeu had skilfully worked upon her
brother's mind in order to lead him to desire that union.
To mount his horse, take lance in hand, and sally forth
to conquer at once a province and a fair princess, was, for
the young king, to imitate the paladins-the heroes of
those romances of chivalry which he caused to be read to
him so frequently. Already his troops occupied a great
portion of the province; they had undertaken, early in
August 1491, the siege of Rennes. At the beginning of
October, the king himself approached; and when the
secret negotiations, which the event alone made known,
had reached their term, the king made pretext of a
pilgrimage to Notre Dame, near Rennes, and his devo-
tions paid, accompanied by 100 men and 50 archers of his
guard, he entered the city, saluted the duchess, and con-
THE WARS IN ITALY.
165
ferred long with her. Three days afterwards they entered
:?
chapel, where, in presence of the Lady of Beaujeu, the
Duke of Orleans, the Chancellor of Brittany, and others,
the king was affianced to the duchess; and the marriage
was celebrated in Touraine, in the château of Langeais,
the 6th December 1491. The king was in his twenty-
first year, whilst the duchess was only in her fourteenth.
This marriage was the last act of the Lady of Beaujeu,
or, as she was justly called, Madame la Grande. That
princess had the rare merit of relinquishing by degrees.
the regal power from her hands, in order that it might
return without a shock to those to whom it belonged.
After having governed the realm with virility during
eight years, she returned simply and without effort to her
duties as a wife, and therein devoted herself.
The marriage of Charles VIII. with the Duchess Anne
brought back, under royal authority, the last refuge of
princely independence. By annexing Brittany to the
crown, the whole of France, after a lapse of many cen-
turies, was again united under one sovereign.

Louis XI., who had given the Genoese to the Duke of
Milan for a few crowns, had taken good care to duly
estimate the claim he derived from the house of Anjou to
the kingdom of Naples. Charles VIII. drew it from
abeyance, in order that he might strike some strong blows
in the assertion of his right on the other side of the moun-
tains. Anne of Beaujeu tried in vain to induce him to
listen to the counsels of prudence. The impulsive young
king paid no attention to them. He longed to under-
take a brilliant and famous expedition, like those of
Charlemagne's paladins. The irrepressible ardour of the
nobility, pent up for thirty years in the interior, and
rejoicing to embark in a foreign campaign, carried
everything before it. Italy, moreover, came to throw
herself into the arms of France. Ludovic, menaced by
the King of Naples, appealed to Charles VIII.; as did
also the Neapolitan barons, exasperated against their
king, Savonarola, and the cardinals, who were enemies
of Pope Alexander VI.
1
166
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
However, in regard to the position of France, the
moment was ill chosen for a distant expedition. The
neighbouring powers, discontented with the reunion of
Brittany, formed a new league. The founder of the
house of Tudor, Henry VII., landed an army at Calais;
Maximilian, whom Charles VIII. had so signally sup
planted, attacked Artois; the King of Spain, Ferdinand
the Catholic, threatened to cross the Pyrenees. Here,
then, was occasion enough for carrying on war. But
Charles, in haste to set out, preferred to treat. The
avaricious Henry VII., on promise of a sum of 745,000
gold crowns, payable in fifteen years, re-embarked his
army. Maximilian and Ferdinand received territorial
compensations. What did it matter to Charles VIII. ?
The submission of Italy was certain, and that conquest
was only the commencement of still higher fortune.
It
was with such imprudence that France was led into those
hazardous expeditions which diverted her from internal
ameliorations and aggrandisements within her reach.
Charles crossed the Alps in the autumn of 1494. He
found himself in want of money at the very outset of the
enterprise. After having danced and revelled at Turin
with the Duchess of Savoy and the Marchioness of Mont-
ferrat, he was obliged to borrow their diamonds and raise
money on them to continue his march. At Genoa, he
borrowed 100,000 francs, at a rate which, duly reckoned,
came to 42 for 100. Having fallen ill at Asti, he was
there joined by his faithless ally, Ludovico Sforza, who
stayed with him till he was assured of the success of a
dose of poison, which he had a short time before found
means to give to his nephew. As soon as he heard
Galeazzo was dead, he hurried to Milan and took posses-
sion of the dukedom, in violation of the rights of the
infant son of the deceased duke. Galeazzo and Charles
were sisters' children, and some of the council urged the
king to proceed instantly to Milan to avenge his cousin's
death. But fully bent on the conquest of Naples, he
allowed nothing to divert his attention from it. Ludovico
had great dread of the Neapolitans; he therefore returned
THE WARS IN ITALY.
167
;
to the French camp, and eagerly conducted Charles across
the duchy of Milan as far as the frontiers of Tuscany.
The two fortresses of Sarzana and Pietra Santa could have
stayed the French army; Pietro de' Medici opened their
gates in the hope of being maintained in Florence, which
the Dominican monk, Savonarola, was raising against
him. The monk-tribune, who looked upon Charles VIII.
as an enemy sent from heaven to scourge Italy, went in
search of the young king, and escorted him into the city.
At Rome, the nobles and cardinals, who had been ill-
treated by Alexander VI., opened the gates to the French,
as liberators, and pressed the king to depose that iniquit-
ous pontiff, who took refuge in the castle of St. Angelo.
In January 1495, as Charles approached the frontiers
of the Neapolitan territories, Ferdinand I. died, and his
son, Alphonso II., terrified, had abdicated. The new king,
Ferdinand II., was more courageous, and wished to fight;
but, at San Germano, he found himself menaced by a
double treason-the one in his army, the other in his
capital, and was forced to take refuge in the island of
Ischia.
Meanwhile, Charles and his followers entered Naples
amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants, who strewed
the way with flowers. With the exception of Brindisi,
Reggio, and Gallipoli, every place yielded to him, and he
achieved this great conquest without a single lance having
been splintered.
The object attained, the conquerors thought only of
enjoying their easy victory. Charles VIII. had himself
crowned King of Naples, Emperor of the East, and King
of Jerusalem. He exhibited himself to the Neapolitans
with a purple mantle on his shoulders, a globe of gold in
his hand, and celebrated his new acquisition by a succes-
sion of tournaments and revels. Every kind of business
and affair of state was neglected; nothing was attended
to but diversions and feasting. But, at the end of two
months, the future conqueror of the East received a letter
one evening from his ambassador at Venice, Philip de
Comines, the historian. A formidable league of European
ATEN

I
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168
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
}
sovereigns had been concluded against him with the inten-
tion of barring his return from Italy, and of making
France remain within its proper limits. Ferdinand the
Catholic, Maximilian, and Henry VII., were the instiga-
tors of it; and the Italians themselves who had invited
the French, or who had promised them fidelity, Ludovico,
Alexander VI., Venice, etc., were parties to it; 40,000,
men were to be collected by the Italian powers in the
valley of the Po, whilst the French frontiers should be
attacked by the other confederates. Already, the Duke
of Orleans was closely blockaded by Ludovico in Novara.
The jealousy of Europe against France revealed itself for
the first time. Charles thought it necessary to take care
of himself, and resolved to retrace his steps to France.
Leaving some 4000 troops with Gilbert de Montpensier,
whom he named viceroy of Naples, he took with the rest
the route to the Apennines. Great difficulty was found
in crossing that chain by a narrow defile; the Swiss
soldiers were harnessed to the guns, and the nobles them-
selves carried the munitions. On the other side of the
mountains, the French discovered, in the valley of the
Taro, the confederated army, 35,000 strong, which barred
the way. The French were less than 10,000. Charles
resolved nevertheless to pass. He had here his first
opportunity of showing himself to be a soldier. Whilst
he was pushing his vanguard along the Taro, he was
attacked in the rear; he faced his assailants; and in an
hour, 3500 of them strewed the field; the rest disbanded.
The Italians attributed that prompt success to the furia
Franchese rather than to their own cowardice. After
all, the victory of Fornova served only to open the path
of retreat to the French (6th July 1495).
Once again in France, Charles seemed to forget Italy.
Ferdinand II., setting out from Sicily with a few Spanish
troops, surprised Naples the day after the battle of Forn-
ova, and shut up Montpensier in Atella, where he died
of the plague. Ferdinand was reinstated in Naples, and
before the end of the year nothing remained of Charles's
boasted conquests in Italy.
THE WARS IN ITALY.
169
deyakina
Warned by experience and the complaints of his sub-
jects, the young king now pursued an entirely new course
of conduct. He no longer gave himself up to his former
frivolous amusements, but set about reforming the abuses
of his government, and seemed bent on living only for
the good of his people. Unfortunately for them, a fatal
accident suddenly put a stop to this laudable reformation.
Early in 1498, he was at Amboise, in the château of
which he was superintending certain improvements being
carried on by several excellent workmen, whom he had
brought from Naples, when one day, in passing through
dark gallery, the door of which was very low, he struck
his head against it so violently, that in a few hours
afterwards he expired (7th April 1498). He was in
his twenty-eighth year, and had reigned fifteen years.
Comines says of him: "he was but little understood,
but so good that it was not possible to behold a better
creature." The direct branch of Valois terminated
with him, and was replaced by that of the Orleans-
Valois.

Louis XII. (1498-1515).-Charles VIII. having left
no children, the crown reverted by right to Duke Louis
of Orleans, then aged thirty-six, grandson of a brother of
Charles VI. Louis XII. sprang from an amiable, stir-
ring, and witty race, who pleased alike by their good
qualities and their defects. His grandfather had figured
as a brilliant knight, his father as a poet, who left some
charming verses to posterity; and his uncle Dunois was
the bravest amongst the captains of Charles VII., and
one of the names of old France which have remained
popular. Louis, without possessing superior qualities,
was distinguished by great kindness of heart.
He began his reign by diminishing the taxation, and
refused the gift called "donation of the joyous accession,"
which amounted to 300,000 livres. Formerly head of
the nobility against the royal authority, he cherished no
spite against the faithful servants of Anne of Beaujeu,
who had so well beaten him at the battle of St. Aubin.
He welcomed La Tremouille and others by saying that it
170
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Į
did not become the King of France to avenge the quarrels
of the Duke of Orleans.
A grave matter at first occupied his attention. The
widow of Charles VIII., queen Anne, had retired to the
château of Nantes, in her duchy of Brittany, and might
carry it, by a second marriage, into a foreign house.
Louis, married upwards of twenty-two years to a daughter
of Louis XI. whom he did not love, demanded, in spite
of the tears of that virtuous princess, a divorce. Pope
Alexander VI. (Borgia), having need of the king, granted
it, and Louis married immediately his predecessor's widow.
Brittany was thus once more reattached to France (1499),
this time for ever.

It was the age of foreign conquests. The facility of
the first expedition into Italy, the descriptions given of
that lovely country, revived the taste for distant adven-
tures. Louis XII., heir of the claim of Charles VIII.
to Naples, derived further from his grandmother, Valen-
tina Visconti, rights to the Milanese usurped by Sforza.
He sacrificed to the prevailing passion of the time, but
not with the rashness of his predecessor. Moreover, if it
were absolutely necessary to return to Naples, and fix
himself at that extremity of the peninsula, it would be
wise to lay hands on some strong position in the north.
Naples has been always fatal to France, because that city
is too far away from it; Milan, though he set no value
upon it, was indispensible to him from the moment that
his army had to operate in the centre or the south of
the peninsula. At first, indeed, no difficulties presented
themselves. In July 1499, Louis sent an army into Italy
under Trivulce, an Italian who had entered his service.
That general made an easy conquest of the Milanese and
Genoa, and Ludovico, repulsed by everyone, fled to the
Tyrol. On hearing of this success, the king himself
crossed the Alps, and entering Milan spent three weeks
there in regulating affairs.
The bad administration of Trivulce, an old Guelph,
who persecuted his adversaries, restored the chances of
Ludovico. He came back with a horde of Swiss and
THE WARS IN ITALY.
171
German adventurers, and surprised Milan. But a fresh
army from France, under the brave La Tremouille, soon
regained possession of the city, and took Ludovico
prisoner. On account of his crimes, he was kept closely
confined for ten years in a dungeon at Loches, where
he died.

France having thus become preponderant in the north,
next won over the Florentines by aiding them against the
revolted Pisans. But Louis was bent on going further
still. He bethought himself of taking the kingdom of
Naples without striking a stroke, and with that object he
formed an alliance with the crafty Ferdinand of Aragon.
By the treaty of Grenada (1500), he reserved to himself
the title of king, with Naples, Gaëta, the Abruzzi, and
Terra di Lavoro. Ferdinand was contented with Apulia
and Calabria with the title of duke. The unfortunate
Frederick III. of Naples, finding himself unequal to
contend with the united forces of France and Spain,
abandoned his kingdom, and leaving his children to the
mercy of Ferdinand, trusted himself to the generosity of
Louis, who gave him a pension of 30,000 livres and the
Duchy of Maine. Frederick died in 1504.
The conquest achieved, its partition was not effected in
a like friendly manner. As might be expected, neither
party was contented, each desiring more than his share.
Thus the two kings were soon in arms against each other.
The son of Mary of Burgundy, the Archduke Philip, had
married Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of
Spain. Philip, to reconcile Louis and his father-in-law,
had an interview with the French king at Lyons, and
there agreed with him for a cessation of arms. The
French faithfully kept the contract; but the Spanish king,
disavowing the act of his son-in-law, sent reinforcements
to his general, Gonzalvo, with orders to continue the war.
The latter attacked the French army in Naples, which he
defeated in two battles. As a result of these defeats, the
whole of the kingdom of Naples, with the exception of
the town of Gaëta, fell into the hands of the Spaniards.
Louis XII, made great preparations for inflicting ven-
Į
172
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
geance for this treason. He sent two armies into Spain,
which were unsuccessful, and beyond the Alps a third
with no better result. La Tremouille, who commanded
it, was detained for some time in the environs of Rome
by the strange death of Alexander VI. (Borgia), and by
the intrigues to which the election of his successor gave
place. This gave Gonzalvo time to complete his de
fences. Posted on the Garigliano, he arrested the march
of the French, no longer commanded by La Tremouille,
who had fallen dangerously ill, and had been replaced by
the Marquis of Mantua. The rout of the French army
was complete, the artillery, baggage, and a great number
of prisoners fell into the hands of the enemy (1503).
It was to be feared that the loss of the Milanese would
follow that of Naples. Maximilian was already about to
assert his imperial rights beyond the Alps, and Gonzalvo
was marching towards the north of Italy. Louis XII.
divided his enemies and disarmed them by three treaties
signed at Blois on the same day (22nd Sept. 1504).
The two surviving children of Isabella of Castile, wife
of Ferdinand of Aragon, were the Archduchess Joanna
and Catherine the wife of Henry VIII. of England. On
Isabella's death (1504), the Archduke Philip took posses-
sion of Castile in his wife's name. He died in 1507,
when Joanna's eldest son Charles, afterwards the Emperor
Charles V., was acknowledged as sovereign of Castile.
Ferdinand, however, contrived still to retain the chief
power, and governed Castile in the name of his grandson,
then only seven years old. A few months after the death
of Isabella, Ferdinand married Germana de Foix, niece
to Louis XII., who gave as part of her dower all his
right to the kingdom of Naples.
Alone of the Italian powers, the republic of Venice, in
allying herself sometimes with one, sometimes with
others, had prospered amidst the disasters of the penin-
sula. But that wily policy could not always succeed; a
moment must come when all the world would turn against
one who aggrandised herself at the expense of all.
1508, a league was formed by Pope Julius II., Maximilian,
In
M
THE WARS IN ITALY.
173
VF?
and the King of Aragon, all of them professed enemies of
Louis XII., against Venice, Louis's only sure friend and
ally on that side the Alps. Louis, who had most unwisely
entered into the league of Cambray, gained a great vic-
tory over the Venetians in the battle of Agnadel (May 14,
1509), and the republic was stripped of a considerable
portion of its territory, but afterwards in part recovered
its losses.

The forces of Julius II. having sustained a series of
defeats from the French in 1511, the warrior-pope fell
back fighting towards the south, until again beaten at
Casalecchio, he returned to Rome suffering from illness.
Louis XII. thought the moment had arrived to attack
even the pontiff himself. He convoked a general council
at Pisa to examine the pope's conduct with a view to his
deposition—a grave error, because that measure changed
the nature of the struggle. Above the enfeebled temporal
prince there still existed the all-powerful spiritual prince.
Julius II. placed Pisa under an interdict, excommunicated
the dissident cardinals, summoned a council, and invoked
the aid of the Catholic powers of Europe. All responded;
Ferdinand of Spain, Henry VIII. of England, Maximi-
lian, the Venetian republic, and the Swiss, formed a holy
league for the avowed object of preserving the church
from a schism, but in reality to drive the French beyond
the Alps. Though treason did its work amongst the
German troops and garrisons still in the service of Louis
XII. in Italy, and whilst even the frontiers of France
were menaced on the north, the east, and the south, the
French army, commanded by the king's nephew, the young
Gaston de Foix, aged twenty-two, defeated the united
forces of the league on the 11th April 1512, in a great
battle at Ravenna.
It would have been better for Louis XII. and for
France had that battle been lost, rather than the young
and valiant general slain in it. With him perished all
the vigour of the French army. La Palice succeeded
him, but without replacing him, notwithstanding his in-
trepidity. Julius II. took courage and pronounced
..}
174
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
1
against Louis, amidst the Lateran council, a sentenc
worthy of the middle ages. The French army, abandoned
by its German auxiliaries, fell back before Cremona, allowed
Bologna to be retaken, and La Palice, after a combat in
the very streets of Pavia, retired into Piedmont. Several
detachments were unable to join him, and were remorse-
lessly butchered. At Ravenna, four French officers were
buried alive, their heads being left above ground in order
to prolong their sufferings. At this juncture, Julius II.
died. He had laid hands on Parma and Placentia, and
his dying glance had seen the French in full retreat; he
had succeeded in wresting Italy from them, but merely to
give it to the Spaniards; it was only a change of masters,
and passing from bad to worse. His successor, Leo X.,
continued his policy. He renewed the holy league, which
the Venetians had abandoned in order to return to Louis
XII., and the invasion even of the French territories was
resolved upon.
Ferdinand, already master of Spanish Navarre, on the
south of the Pyrenees, awaited only a favourable occa-
sion to seize upon French Navarre, to the north of those
mountains, and an English army was ready to land at
Calais. Louis XII. faced the storm. Menaced in his
own kingdom, he did not abandon Italy. La Tremouille
and Trivulce descended thereon with a fine army, and
hemmed in the Swiss with Maximilian Sforza in Novara,
but a succour sent by the cantons enabled them, after a
short but sanguinary struggle, to put the besieging army
to the rout. Genoa profiting by the disaster revolted.
On every side Louis was defeated and disappointed. All
his conquests in Italy had vanished from his grasp.
For many years, the French provinces had not seen a
foreign army. Two now entered therein, the English
under the young and inconsiderate Henry VIII., who,
eager to display his spirit and activity in a war with
France, had espoused the quarrel of the Emperor Maxi-
milian. An action was fought near Guinegate, in which
a panic having seized the French army, 10,000 cavalry
fled headlong before a small body of English. The
THE WARS IN ITALY.
175
celebrated knight Bayard, and the Duke de Longue-
ville were taken prisoners. This affair, which on the
part of the French was rather a flight than a battle, has
been called the Battle of the Spurs. The Swiss, to the
number of 20,000, penetrated as far as Dijon; their
further advance was stayed by La Tremouille, only by
much money and more promises. The sole ally of France,
James IV. of Scotland, shared his evil fortune, being
conquered and slain by the English at Flodden (Sept. 9,
1513).

UNT SHOU
RUWOUDH
E
WAT
PORT OF CALAIS.
The treaty
Anne of Brittany died in January 1514.
of Dijon had already rid France of the Swiss. Louis
disavowed the council of Pisa to regain the pope, and
agreed, with the emperor and the King of Aragon, upon
the truce of Orleans (March 1514). Henry VIII. re-
fused for some time to lay down his arms; the treaty of
London, however, which left him Tournay, and secured
him an annual tribute of 100,000 crowns during ten
years, re-established peace on that side also. It was sealed
፡
:
1
176
by the marriage of Louis XII. with the young and
beautiful sister of the King of England.
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Thus, after fifteen years of war, many men slain and
much treasure lost, France was no further advanced
beyond the Alps than at the end of the reign of Charles
VIII.; the kingdom of Naples and the Milanese, several
times conquered, still mocked its claim to their possession.
The peace which Louis XII. had realised after the
dangers of 1514, contributed doubtless to render his
reign more fertile in beneficent institutions and great
works of art, but he did not long survive them. He
had loved his Bretonne, as he called her, with sincere
affection, had wept eight days unceasingly for her loss.
On the 7th August of the same year, however, he con-
tracted the politic marriage with Mary of England, then
only sixteen, who compelled him to change his simple
and regular life. Feasts and tournaments were held
daily for several months. It had been his custom to dine
at eight o'clock in the morning, but to please his young
bride, he adopted the late hour of twelve at noon; and
instead of retiring to rest at six in the evening, it was
often midnight before they quitted the dances and festivi-
ties of his court. He had never enjoyed good health
after his serious illness in 1504, and these altered habits
killed him. He died on the 1st January 1515, at the age
of fifty-three, sincerely lamented by his subjects, from
whom he acquired the title of "The Father of his people.
"
By his second wife, Anne of Brittany, he had two
daughters: Claude, who married her cousin the Count
d'Angoulême. Renée, married to Hercules d'Este, duke
of Ferrara. Mary of England left no children.

1
NINTH PERIOD.
FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST THE HOUSE OF
AUSTRIA.
Francis I. (1515-1547).—The successor of Louis XII.
was his cousin Francis, count of Angoulême, descended
from a third son of that Duke of Orleans, who had been
assassinated in 1407. After "the father of the people,"
this was "the king of the gentlemen.' Stalwart and
handsome, and with an air and demeanour at once
chivalrous and princely, his disposition was so frank and
unreserved, that he was incapable of craftiness or
duplicity. His gay and open character won all hearts.
Unsparing of himself in battle as of the substance of
his subjects in the festivities with which his court was
incessantly enlivened; imperious in command, yet easily
prevailed over; the friend of arts and letters, and well-
educated himself, Francis I. carried his defects as well as
his good qualities to extremes. "That big boy will spoil
everything," said Louis XII., a witness of his wild and
exuberant youth. It did not so happen. With the
pride of power, Francis I. had a sentiment of the grandeur
of France. He often repaired by dint of courage, and
sometimes even, which is more difficult, by dint of pru-
dence, the errors which his favourites of all sorts made
him commit. He conquered nothing, but he kept France
intact, under perilous circumstances, and in face of the
greatest adversary that she ever had. He increased the
taxes, but dispensed them with open hands. He reformed
the laws and gave a vivid impulse to letters and arts. In
short, he concealed his errors and vices by a certain
splendour of chivalrous generosity and sovereign grandeur,
M

""
178
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
so that he has taken rank, if not among the best, at least
among the most remarkable of the French kings.
Francis had often felt indignant at the complaisance
shown by Louis XII. for the Parliament and clergy. He
had resolved to give to the administration, as soon as
he should become the master, a more energetic impulse.
Duprat, a skilful but unscrupulous minister, whom he
made chancellor, was charged with applying the new
maxims of government.
1
Francis, like Louis XII., seemed to overrate his claims
in Italy. The last treaties tried his patience. One of
them was only a truce for a year; he did not renew it,
and made ready to cross the Alps, after having given the
constable's sword to the Duke of Bourbon, a man of an
impetuous spirit, capable of great things, but unfitted to
be a subject; and the regency to his mother, Louisa of
Savoy, a woman of wit, beauty, and talent, but wholly
without principle. She was vain, avaricious, and vindic-
tive, and who, to excuse her many faults, had only one
good quality—her love for her son.
A formidable army was collected near Lyons and in
Dauphiny, with the avowed object of obtaining possession
of Milan. Venice, at war with the Spaniards, and Genoa
menaced by the Duke of Milan, summoned Francis I. to
Italy.
The Emperor Maximilian, the Swiss cantons,
Ferdinand of Aragon, and Pope Leo X., entered into a
confederacy with Sforza against him; and 20,000 Swiss
soldiers guarded the passes of Mont Cenis and Mont
Genevre, the two only routes by which it was supposed
that an army could emerge from the defiles of the Alps
upon Piedmont. As those two routes met at Susa, the
Swiss established a camp there of 10,000 men.
Francis I. began by a master-stroke. The chamois-
hunters and herdsmen of the Dauphiny Alps acted as
guides to Trivulce, Lautrec, and the skilful engineer,
Navarro; and it was found that it would be possible, at
the cost of great efforts, to ascend from the valley of
Barcelonnette and to descend into that of Stura, by
crossing the neck of the Argentière, until then judged

FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST AUSTRIA. 179
L
22.
impracticable. The descent was made with such rapidity,
that a body of cavalry, with La Palice, d'Aubigny, and
Bayard, surprised at table, in Villafranca, the general of
the pontifical troops, Prosper Colonna, who was made
prisoner with 700 of his knights; an exploit chiefly accom-
plished by the gallantry of the chevalier Bayard. The
enemy's positions on the left were turned. The Swiss,
astonished, fell back upon Milan, in order to effect their
junction with the Spanish army which was watching
the Venetians. The French followed them as far as
Marignan.
Francis, highly elated with the news of this success,
hastened to join his troops, who were now in sight of
Milan. Discouraged by the capture of Colonna, the
confederates were desirous to treat for a peace. The war
seemed about to terminate without a battle, when 20,000
fresh Swiss debouched from the Alps; who, eager for
plunder, demanded to be instantly led to battle. About
four o'clock in the afternoon of September 13, 1515, the
Swiss pikemen rushed impetuously upon the French
artillery, thinking to capture it. But the flower of the
gendarmerie was there, all clad in steel, men and horses.
Thirty charges vigorously directed against that peasant-
soldiery could not check it. With their pikes, eighteen
feet in length, they resembled the Macedonian phalanx
which was so long invincible. The artillery admirably
served, mowed down whole files of them, but the impas-
sive column still advanced. Thrice did it capture the
foremost batteries, around which "a battle of giants
was waged. The constable, the princes, the nobles
spared themselves no more than the rest, the king him-
self charged at the head of his staff and received several
blows upon his armour. The sun set, but the struggle
was kept up by moonlight, until the night closed in dark-
ness. Friends and foes did not separate, but lay down
together to snatch a brief repose. The king slept on a
gun-carriage, a few paces from the enemy; Bayard was
lost amongst the thickest of the Swiss, and was obliged
to crawl upon his hands and knees to rejoin his friends.
""
I

180
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
The fight recommenced at daybreak, but between nine
and ten o'clock in the morning, the Swiss heard in their
rear the shout of "Marco! Marco!" raised by the Vene-
tian vanguard who had hurried forward to take part in
the battle. "The tamers of princes" fell back in good
order, and recrossed their mountains without halting, but
with the loss of 10,000 slain.
It was a brilliant inauguration of a reign. The French
army was intoxicated with joy. The young king, desirous
of giving the honour of the victory to the hero of Brescia
and Guinegate, demanded to be dubbed a knight upon
the field of battle by the hand of Bayard, who performed
all the rites of that ancient ceremony.
}
Italy lay at the feet of Francis I. He used his victory
with moderation, thought not of conquering Naples, but
of securing to himself strong positions in the north of
the peninsula. The doge of Genoa gave him possession
of that city; Maximilian Sforza did not make any further
attempt at resistance. He gave up his duchy in exchange
for a pension of 30,000 ducats, and the promise that
Francis should solicit for him a cardinal's hat. The
emperor was forced to deliver up Verona to the Venetians;
the pope, the duchies of Parma and Placentia to the
Milanese. A little later, Henry VIII. of England agreed
that Tournay, St. Amand, and Mortagne should be ran-
somed. Finally, a firm peace closed Italy against the
Swiss, and the confederation renewed the treaty made
with Louis XI. in 1474, engaging to allow the king to
levy troops amongst them at need. Francis I. paid to
the Swiss the 700,000 crowns which he had offered them
before the victory. This peace, concluded at Geneva
(Nov. 1515) with eight cantons, and accepted by the five
others at Fribourg (Nov. 1516), was rightly called the
Perpetual Peace, for it lasted as long as the old French
monarchy.
Until 1519, France and Europe enjoyed peace. In
1516, had died Ferdinand the Catholic, retaining his crafty
and fraudulent character to the last. That death gave to
Charles of Austria, already sovereign of the low countries
FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST AUSTRIA. 181
・
and king of Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Naples, Sicily,
and Sardinia. Francis did not seek to hinder his succes-
sion to that magnificent inheritance. He signed with
him the treaty of Noyon (1516), which stipulated, between
the two princes, an alliance offensive and defensive, with-
out other advantage for France than the restitution to
Joan.d'Albret of Navarre, of which Ferdinand the Catholic
had possessed himself. Another death, that of Maximi-
lian, Charles's paternal grandfather (1519) was about to
change everything.
Francis I. saw in that event a new perspective of
grandeur. He hoped to re-erect the empire of Charle-
magne, and thought to have only to demand the imperial
crown to obtain it. Germany had need of a prince cap-
able of defending her against the Turks, whose power was
then like a rising tide, irresistible, which lashed alter-
nately its two shores of Europe and Asia. And who
could better arrest them than the brilliant victor of
Marignan? But the German princes thought also on the
condition to which the kings of France had reduced the
great nobles of their country, and they dreaded a similar
fate. Henry VIII. of England also entered the ranks of
the competitors, but his islands were far off, and his can-
didature could not be serious. All the candidates had, in
fact, scattered gold amongst the electors; but although
Francis had given the most, Charles of Austria was
elected and became Charles the Fifth. Two centuries of
war sprang from that simoniacal election.
Francis I. had written very chivalrously before the
election to Charles V., “We are as two suitors to the
same mistress; the more fortunate will gain her, but the
other must remain contented." The disappointment,
however, weighed heavily on Francis; for besides wounded
ambition, he quickly saw the danger France and Europe
ran from a reunion of so many crowns on the same head.
From that moment the policy of France changed. To
win a province beyond the Alps was no longer the ques-
tion, but to save the menaced liberty of the continent.
Master of Spain and Naples, of the low countries, and of
51
182
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Austria, Charles V. held, so to speak, Europe by its
four corners. He was further Emperor of Germany,
a title to which were attached the rights of suzerainty
over Italy; he soon dragged into his alliance the pope
and Henry VIII. of England; Cortez and Pizarro
achieved for him the conquest of Mexico and Peru.
What then did the new Charlemagne want further?
France, which he threatened already on three sides, by
the Pyrenees, Franche-Comté, and Flanders. But France
neither gave herself to him nor allowed herself to be
taken.
The two rivals contended together for an alliance with
the only formidable sovereign after themselves, Henry
VIII. of England. Francis offered him festivities of
extraordinary magnificence at a meeting called "the Field
of the Cloth of Gold," between Guines and Ardres (7th
June 1520). He therein expended enormous sums, and
forced his courtiers to ruin themselves likewise. re
Many
lords," says Du Bellay, "carried thither their mills, their
forests, and their meadows upon their shoulders." Francis
eclipsed his guest by his magnificence, by his address, and
by the rare elegance of his mind and manners. But he
wounded the self-love of the English monarch instead of
winning him over. Charles V., more adroit, went to
meet Henry at Gravelines, in modest guise, like a suitor,
saluted him with the name of "father," pensioned his
favourite minister, Cardinal Wolsey, to whom he pro-
mised the tiara, and thus secured the English alliance.
Beaten in diplomacy, Francis hoped for more success in
war. Both Francis and Charles were eager to commence
hostilities, and an invasion of Champagne, frustrated by
the noble efforts of Bayard, was the commencement of
open war between them, in spite of the remonstrances of
Henry VIII., who, in his office of umpire, affected a
great anxiety to preserve peace.
The first serious blow was dealt in Italy. Lautrec,
who commanded in the Milanese, had irritated the people
by his hard and rapacious government. Francis confided
the execution of his military operations chiefly to Lautrec
FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST AUSTRIA. 183
and Bonnivet, men who in rash bravery and presumption
resembled himself, while he slighted the advice of the
constable Bourbon, the only general in France possessing
superior military talent. The civil government was not
in better hands than the military. With such a govern-
ment at home, and with such commanders abroad, no
wonder that the war in Italy, though prosperous at first
by the bravery of the French soldiers, was in the end a
series of defeats and disasters. Inferior in strength to
the Spanish troops of Pescara, Lautrec had the mortifica-
tion of seeing his Swiss soldiers desert for want of pay;
and before the end of 1522, the French were stripped of
the Milanese, and of every conquest they had made in
Italy, with the exception of the castle of Milan, and of
a few inconsiderable forts which held out for a while
through the valour and obstinacy of the several governors.
Francis I., believing that he could repair everything by
his presence, directed the march of 25,000 men upon the
Alps, but at the moment when he was about to take the
command a conspiracy developed itself, the success of
which would have ruined France. This was the defection
of the constable Bourbon, who, driven to desperation by
the neglect of the king, and the malice of the regent-
mother, forgot in the violence of his resentment, that there
was then a France which required to remain united, and
that a treason against its king was a treason against his
country. Francis went to see him at his château of
Moulins, hoping to draw from him an avowal, an act of
repentance, a word of affection and of devotedness.
Bourbon remained cold and impenetrable. Scarcely had
Francis quitted him ere he fled through byeways to
Germany, where the emperor received him with open
arms.
It was probable that the constable might have left
accomplices behind him, and Francis had the prudence
not to quit his kingdom till all danger therein had sub-
sided. Moreover, the triple invasion projected to lend a
hand to Bourbon, and to the provinces which he had
promised to raise, was accomplishing. Francis sent
184
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Lautrec into Guyenne against 25,000 Spaniards, who
attacked Bayonne in vain; the Count Claude of Guise
against 12,500 German lansquenets, who were driven out
of Franche-Comté and Champagne beyond the Meuse;
finally, the veteran Tremouille against 35,000 English
and Flemings, who penetrated to within eleven leagues
of Paris, but who were stopped and driven back by his
skilful manœuvres.
Successful in France, because he had well-chosen gene-
rals, the king's forces were worsted in Italy, because he
gave his finest army, 40,000 men, to a clever courtier,
personally brave, but a very bad general, the admiral
Bonnivet. The latter, instead of marching strait upon
Milan, then defenceless, and carrying it, allowed the
enemy time to fortify himself therein, and to Lannoy
and Bourbon to effect their junction. He then fell back
as far as Biagrasso upon the Ticinella, compromised
Bayard at Rebecco, and, forced to retreat still further
from fear of being cut off from France, he retired upon
the Sesia. He was wounded at the passage of that river,
near Romagnano. Bayard, to whom he had confided the
task of saving the rear-guard, there received a mortal
wound from a musket shot. Whilst the French were
fleeing towards the Alps, Bourbon found the good knight
stretched at the foot of a tree, with his face towards the
enemy, and expressed his grief at seeing him in that con-
dition. "You need not pity me," said Bayard, “for I
die a loyal subject; but I pity you who are serving
against your king, your country, and your oath."
This rout and the death of Bayard left the French
frontier unprotected, which Bourbon crossed. He was
impatient to stifle his remorse under the greatness of his
success. Provence lay open to him with the exception of
Marseilles, which was tolerably well fortified. He thought
that the city would surrender at the first cannon-shot.
Marseilles, on the contrary, gave him a very rude recep-
tion. He carried on the siege obstinately during forty
days, until he heard that Francis was advancing with
8000 horse, 34,000 foot, and a good artillery. The
FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST AUSTRIA. 185
imperial army, demoralised, retraced its route towards the
Alps (August 1524).
The King of France, finding himself within reach
of the theatre of his first exploits, could not resist the
temptation of reappearing thereon. No enemy presented
an obstacle to him. Francis seized upon Milan without strik-
ing a blow. He entered at one gate as Bourbon and Pescara
escaped at another. Francis then thought himself strong
enough to detach a body of 10,000 men to conquer the king-
dom of Naples whilst he should press the siege of Pavia.
The imprudence of weakening his army, which the king
had committed after the battle of Marignan, brought
about a terrible disaster. Bourbon, animated with hatred,
had found unsuspected resources. In the beginning of 1525,
with a large army, he rallied Pescara and Lannoy, and all
three advanced upon Pavia, placing Francis I. between
them and the town, garrisoned by 6000 men, commanded
by a resolute soldier, De Leyva. The position was peril-
ous. The old generals, Tavannes, Lautrec, and Tremouille,
advised the raising of the siege and choosing other ground.
Bonnivet maintained that the king ought not to fall back
before a traitor, and Francis I. found that reason suffi-
cient.
On the day of battle (25th Feb. 1525) the French
artillery did wonders. Wide gaps were made momentarily
in the enemy's battalions, so that "nothing was to be
seen but arms and heads flying into the air." But as
they began to waver under that murderous fire, the king
thought that the day was won, and threw himself upon
them at the head of his cavalry, having first masked his
artillery. Profiting by that, the Spanish infantry rushed
upon the Swiss, who gave way on seeing De Leyva issue
from the citadel in their rear. The French cavalry was
thus left almost alone on the field of battle. La Tre-
mouille, La Palice, and the best generals fell round the
king. Ten thousand French were slain. Bonnivet, the
author of the disaster, had for an instant a chance of
flight, but he returned and was killed. The king him-
self, wounded and surrounded by the slain, still fought
3

cyd
186
HISTORY OF FRANCÉ.
on.
He
#
He refused to surrender to Bourbon. A French
gentleman recognised him, drew him out of the melée,
and conducted him to the viceroy of Naples, who knelt
down to receive his sword. "I hope," said Francis to
him, "that I shall be treated as a king," and demanded
to be taken to Madrid to his cousin the emperor.
"To
let you know," he wrote that same evening in a long
letter to his mother, "what misfortune has happened, of
all things nothing remains except honour and life."
History has attributed to him the shorter and more
heroic phrase of—" All is lost save honour."
Francis I., however, did not find Charles V. at Madrid
as magnanimous as he had expected.
The emperor
affected to forbid all rejoicings, "seeing that no one
ought to rejoice in a king's misfortune;" but he did not
the less for all that keep him prisoner, and refused for
a long time to see him. Sinking under the disappoint
ment of protracted hope, Francis fell into a fever which
threatened to put an end to his life. At one moment he
formed the design of abdicating in favour of his son, in
order to leave in his enemy's hands only a brave knight
instead of the King of France. His resolution was not
lasting. He consented to sign a disastrous treaty (Jan.
1526), after having protested secretly against a moral
violence, which, according to him, struck with nullity
every act of the captive. He ceded Burgundy to Charles,
under the reserve of homage, renounced Naples, Milan,
and Genoa, and agreed to reinstate Bourbon in his rights,
and to espouse the emperor's sister, the queen-dowager of
Portugal. Leaving as hostages his two eldest sons after
a hasty embrace on the banks of the Bidassoa, he leaped
on horseback the instant he landed on the French side
exclaiming: "I am still a king!" and then he galloped off
towards Bayonne, where he found his mother and sister.
An assembly of notables decided that the king could not
cede the first principality of the kingdom, whilst the
Burgundian deputies invoked the consecration oath, and
declared that they would remain French in spite of king
and emperor. Charles accused Francis of disloyalty, but
bas
FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST AUSTRIA. 187
the king excused himself, alleging that promises made in
durance were not binding, and proposed to settle their
differences by duel in the lists.
Francis I., as though he were stunned by the blow
dealt him at Pavia, did not recommence the strife with
vigour. He negotiated much, ratified all that the regent
had done, confirmed the treaties which she had concluded,
and signed with Pope Clement VII., who absolved him
from his Madrid oath, with Henry of England, Venice,
Florence, and the Swiss, a holy league for the deliverance
of Italy. That unfortunate country, during thirty-two
years the theatre of war, was at that moment the prey
of mercenary bands, which their chiefs rather obeyed
than commanded. The Italians made an effort to rid
themselves of those ferocious foreigners. An army wholly
Italian assembled under command of the Duke d'Urbino.
But the Constable de Bourbon descended the Alps at the
head of a fresh body of 10 to 15,000 fanatical Lutherans
and pillagers; and these mercenaries becoming mutinous
for want of pay, he resolved to march upon Rome, and
let them satisfy their appetite for plunder by the sack of
the papal city. At the approach of the imperial army,
Clement shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo,
leaving the citizens to make the best defence they could.
The assault was given early in the morning of the 6th of
May 1527, and as Bourbon was in the act of placing a
scaling ladder against the walls, he was killed by a ran-
dom shot from the town. His soldiers, by whom he was
much beloved, cruelly avenged him. The city was taken
and given up to plunder. During nine months, Rome
was subjected to tortures and outrages which even the
Goths and Vandals had not inflicted upon her. It was
the army of Charles V. which profaned thus the capital
of Christianity, and which kept the pope a captive in St.
Angelo. The emperor, it is true, in order to conceal the
part he had taken in this great scandal, caused masses to
be said for the deliverance of the Holy Father; but the
robbers were only driven from their prey by a pestilence,
and the approach of Lautrec, who after reducing the
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
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Milanese, had advanced rapidly to the succour of the
pope.
The King of France accused Charles V. of these
horrors, by which the emperor profited, whilst he repudi-
ated them. Francis, however, had also sent Lautrec into
Lombardy, to again attempt the conquest of Naples, the
possession of which was so useless to France. Lautrec
had at first a brilliant success; he made himself master
of nearly the whole kingdom. But he was left without
money; offence was given to the Genoese admiral, Doria,
who declared against him; a pestilence broke out which
carried off the general, discouraged the soldiers, and the
expedition was ruined. Another army was destroyed in
the spring of the following year at Landriano, in Lom-
bardy. Italy was then left to Charles V., and it remained
more than three centuries under the power or the influ-
ence of the house of Austria.

It seemed as though Charles V. were now going to
enter upon France; but a religious war was on the point
of breaking out in Germany; Soliman, the secret ally
of Francis I., pushed his formidable janissaries up to the
very walls of Vienna, and Henry of England threatened
to renounce the Austrian alliance, by threatening to repu-
diate his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, aunt of Charles
V. The emperor, finding thus two new wars behind his
triumphs of Pavia and Landriano, was desirous of secur-
ing peace in the west, when he was about to have so
much to do in the east and north. A peace was there-
fore negotiated, chiefly by Louisa of Savoy and Margaret,
the emperor's aunt, at Cambray, and thence called "The
Ladies' Peace.”
Francis had now an interval of peace. This suspension
of hostilities lasted until the end of 1535, during which
he devoted himself to the works of peace, without neglect-
ing measures of prudence. He renewed his alliance with
Henry VIII., between whom and the tiara a rupture
had just occurred (1532), and at the same time he re-
gained the pope by demanding for the young prince,
afterwards Henry II., the hand of Catherine de' Medici,
?
M
FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST AUSTRIA. 189
niece of the pontiff. The king renewed also the ancient
friendship with the Scots, by giving his eldest daughter
Madelaine in marriage to their youthful monarch, James
V. (1536), who had come to his aid, unsolicited, when
Charles invaded Provence unsuccessfully that year with
an army of 50,000 men.

The novel tenets of Luther had early insinuated them-
selves into France; and their first conquests were amongst
the learned. All the great French jurisconsults of the
time, either in secret, or openly accepted the reformation.
A portion of the court leaned that way. Louisa of Savoy
appeared to be favourable to it. The daughter of Francis,
Margaret, Queen of Navarre, openly professed the princi-
ples of the German reformers, and the Duchess d'Etampes,
the king's mistress, prided herself on protecting them.
But when the German peasants, drawing social con-
sequences from the new doctrines, aimed at overthrowing
all authority, Francis I. thought that the Reformation,
which was a revolt against the pope, was very nearly
leading, in politics, to a revolt against the king; and if
he remained the interested friend of the German Protes-
tants, he did not desire that their doctrines should prevail
in his territories.

In 1538, a truce for ten years was signed between
Francis and Charles. Shortly afterwards, the emperor
being desirous of going through France on his way from
Spain to the Low Countries, obtained the permission of
Francis by offering to give up the Milanese to him in
return for that favour. Charles, in passing through
France, was treated with the courtesy due to an imperial
visitor. But when called upon afterwards to fulfil
his promise, he refused, and in 1542 the war recom-
menced. Henry VIII. of England joined Charles in an
invasion of Champagne and Picardy. Fortunately for
France, Henry did not adhere to the plan agreed upon.
Instead of marching upon Paris, where all was confusion,
Henry obstinately besieged Boulogne, leaving his ally
isolated with a mercenary army, without money or pro-
visions. The Dauphin had already thrown himself upon
•
190
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
the rear-guard of the imperial army; so that at the
moment when Charles V. thought to reduce his enemy
to the last extremity, he was obliged to sign the peace of
Crespy. Henry VIII. refused to accede to that; and
only consented to treat on seeing a French fleet threaten
the coasts of England. Henry, however, kept Boulogne,
which he promised to restore in eight years for the sum
of two million crowns (June 1546). It was released in
1550 for 400,000 crowns.
Francis was now becoming enfeebled. He was no
longer the brilliant knight of Marignan or Pavia, the
friend of Leonardo da Vinci and of Erasmus. Ruined
prematurely in health by his excesses, he was at fifty-one
a morose old man. In the belief that his reverses and
even his sufferings were attributable to his relaxation in
punishing the converts to Lutheranism, he now treated
them with greater severity, and many suffered martyrdom.
Francis did not live to witness the great success of his
rival in gaining the battle of Mühlberg, which seemed to
place the empire at his feet. He died three weeks previ-
ously at the château of Rambouillet, aged fifty-two (31st
March 1547).
Henry II. (1547-1559)-Henry II. carried to excess
the defects of his father and had none of his better
qualities, neither wit nor grace. He was heavy in per-
son, wanting in intelligence; delighting only in athletic
exercises, so much so that it eventually proved the cause
of his death. Though she was forty-eight years old,
Diana of Poitiers, by her wit and a beauty which defied
time, exercised an influence over him which his astonished
contemporaries attributed to some enchanted ring. He
created her Duchess of Valentinois, and allowed her to
govern his court, wherein the queen was powerless. The
highest ministerial power was in the hands of the Con-
stable de Montmorency, Marshal Saint-André, the king's
favourite, and the Guises, a younger branch of Lorraine,
poor in possessions, but rich in hopes. Francis, Duke
d'Aumale, was the eldest son of Claude, Duke of Guise,
the second of the seven sons of that Duke of Lorraine
FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST AUSTRIA. 191
who vanquished Charles the Bold at the battle of Nancy;
and amidst the struggle for place, honours, and pensions,
on Henry's accession, Guise was loaded with favours.
In a few weeks the king squandered 400,000 crowns
which he had found in his father's coffers destined for the
German war.
"There were only," says a contemporary,
"the doors of Montmorency and Guise whereby to enter
the court with credit; those who rested only on his
majesty fared badly.”
The new reign commenced by severities, one of which
was the tardy reparation of the most iniquitous act of
Francis I.-the odious extirpation of the inoffensive
Vaudois. The slaughterers were brought to trial for the
capital crime, but, thanks to divers influences, they
escaped conviction. However, one of them, the advocate-
general Guérin, was hanged. The Sire de Vervins, who
had surrendered Boulogne to the English in 1544, con-
trary to the wish of the inhabitants, was beheaded.
It was doubtless to the influence of Duke Francis of
Guise and of his brother Charles, Archbishop of Rheims,
that was due the better direction given, under this reign,
to the foreign policy of France. The Lorraine princes
turned the king's attention towards Germany, in recalling
to his mind that there had formerly existed a Frank king-
dom of Austrasia, the capital of which was Metz, and
they sent assistance to the queen-dowager of Scotland,
their sister, who refused to betroth her daughter, Mary
Stuart, to the young King of England, Edward VI.
Montmorency, against the advice of the majority of his
colleagues, recommenced hostilities against England, and
meditated a descent upon its shores. Plans were pro-
cured of all the English fortresses, and soundings taken of
the Thames, and an understanding come to with Ireland,
as had already been done with Scotland. The execution
of these measures was not carried so far, Boulogne alone
being vigorously pressed, and the English restored it for
the fifth part of the sum stipulated in the treaty. Edward
VI. also renounced the pensions which Henry VIII, had
claimed.
Det=p_-
wi
•
-+
1
+
192
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
In 1552, another war commenced with the emperor.
Henry II. leagued himself secretly with Maurice of Saxe,
one of the emperor's generals, and an alliance was made
with the Protestant princes of Germany, who joined with
each other to defend their rights and liberties against
the unjust usurpations of Charles V. The emperor,
taken unawares by Maurice of Saxe, was nearly made
prisoner in Innsprück, and was forced to flee at night by
torchlight in a litter, in spite of a terrible storm (May
1552). At this news, Henry marched with 38,000 men
into Lorraine. Toul opened its gates, but Metz, a free
and flourishing city, would only admit the chiefs of the
army; the soldiers, however, followed, and Metz became
French. From that day until the recent misfortunes ip-
curred by France in the Franco-German war (1870),
Metz was her bulwark on that frontier. An attempt
was made upon Strasbourg, another great free city, by
the same means, but the Strasbourgers replied by cannon
shots. Henry could only boast of having watered his
steeds in the Rhine. On his return, he entered Verdun,
and those three cities have figured since that epoch in
the list of French provinces under the name of the three
bishopricks.
That audacious advance on the part of France towards
her ancient limits irritated the emperor more than the
treason of Maurice. He signed with the Lutherans the
treaty of Passau, which secured their liberties from
future invasion, and left him free to return with all his
forces, and all his hatred against his eternal enemy. He
entered Lorraine at the head of 60,000 men. Francis de
Guise threw himself into Metz, with the most brilliant
chivalry of the kingdom. The place was large and
straggling, and the fortifications weak; but defences, at
which the nobles worked with their own hands, were
hurriedly raised. Charles appeared before it, 19th of
October 1552, with the entire confidence of quickly re-
gaining it. After firing 14,000 cannon shots against the
walls, he opened a breach one hundred feet wide, but
could not even give the assault, for behind each mass of
FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST AUSTRIA. 193
crumbled wall the besiegers found another, with ditches,
barricades, and mines, which frustrated their labours and
exhausted their efforts. With November the rains had
come, with December the cold and typhus. The imperial
army had lost a third of its effective strength, when
Charles decided on raising the siege. On the 15th of
January 1553, the last corps quitted the camp, leaving
behind a host of wounded and dying. D'Aumale, now,
by his father's death, Duke of Guise, showed great
humanity to the prisoners who fell into his hands, a
quality which, at that time, was rare in the bloody annals
of war.

CHEED
FILMI
znati.
TIL
1114
000
METZ.
Several campaigns made by Charles did not repair the
repulse sustained at Metz; and France appearing to grow
young again under its new king, the emperor became
weary of that struggle which he had carried on for thirty-
five years. His mother, Joanna, lied in April 1556, and
N
194
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
in the autumn of that year, Charles V. put into execu-
tion the extraordinary act he had for some time meditated,
that of resigning his vast dominions and retiring from
the world. He ceded to his only son, Philip II., Flanders,
Italy, and Spain, and in the October following he also
resigned the empire to his brother Ferdinand, retiring
into Estremadura, and seeking, in the monastery of St.
Justus, that repose which is never found by the inor-
dinately ambitious.
The house of Austria thus became divided. But at the
moment when Philip II. lost Germany, he seemed to gain
England by his second marriage with the queen of that
country, Mary Tudor. France was now, and in the
future, threatened seriously by that domination which
compressed her on three sides, and which might again
bring upon her an English invasion, against which she
could no longer expect aid from Germany. Henry II.
had signed with Charles V. in 1556 the truce of Vaucelles;
he broke it the same year, not to allow Philip II. the
time to strengthen himself. The pope who then wore
the tiara, Paul IV., was a fiery old man, who became
alarmed at seeing the Spaniards so near him as at Naples
and Milan. The king and the pontiff united. An army
under Montmorency was sent towards the Low Countries,
and another under Guise into Italy. It was sought to
confine Philip to Spain. Henry II. aimed at aggrandis-
ing himself on the north with neighbouring provinces
easy to hold, and one of his sons received the promise of
the crown of Naples, which the Duke of Guise, a de-
scendant on the female side of the house of Anjou,
hoped to take for him. The plan was well combined.
The energetic Paul IV. placing his spiritual power at the
service of France and the Italian cause, launched an ex-
communication against the very Catholic king.
Philip II. opposed to Montmorency, the Duke of
Savoy, Philibert-Emanuel, who, despoiled of his states by
France, expected everything from Spain; and to Guise,
the Duke of Alba, a true Spaniard, thoroughly devoted
to the church, but more to his king. Guise, received in
+
FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST AUSTRIA. 195
!
PINION?)
10.35%
triumph at Rome by Paul IV., penetrated into the
Abruzzi, but failed near Civitella, before the skilful
tactics of his adversary. He was saved from further
mortifications by a hasty recall to France, where his
presence was required to avert still greater disasters.
Philibert-Emanuel, after a feigned attack upon Cham-
pagne, marched suddenly upon St. Quentin, where he

ST. QUENTIN.
was joined by 7000 Englishmen. It was a place without
walls, munitions, or provisions. Admiral Coligny, nephew
to the constable Montmorency, threw himself into it
with 700 men. Montmorency was approaching to victual
it, but posted himself so near the enemy with an army
very inferior in numbers, and took such little precaution
to secure free movement, that he was compelled to fight
without having joined up his rear. He was attacked by
the Spaniards with so much celerity, that he had not
time to range his troops in order of battle, and Philibert-
Emanuel turned his position, assailing him in front and
rear, and completely defeating him, Four thousand men
196
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
:
were slain, six hundred of whom were gentlemen. All
the artillery was taken except four pieces, and the con-
stable, with many other noblemen, were made prisoners.
There were more than 10,000 killed or wounded.
"Is my son in Paris?" inquired Charles V., on learn-
ing in the depth of his retreat that disaster of France.
But Philip, unskilled in war, and no less obstinate than
ignorant, instead of allowing the Duke of Savoy to march
directly upon Paris, commanded him to carry on the siege
of St. Quentin. Coligny knowing that the safety of
France depended upon his holding out, made heroic efforts
to prolong the defence. Seventeen days after the battle
the town was taken, but the interval enabled Henry tc
assume a posture of defence, and Philip II. after having
taken Ham and Catalet, returned to the Low Countries
with those small results of a victory, which promised to
be as disastrous for France as Poitiers or Agincourt.
Henry II. had recalled Guise in all haste from Italy.
The duke's return greatly revived the spirits of the
French, and the nobles received him with open arms.
Guise did not disappoint the universal expectation. Whilst
a movement of troops drew the attention of the enemy
in the direction of Luxembourg, the duke filed off towards
Calais, which he unexpectedly invested (1st Jan. 1558).
The English, reckoning upon the defences of the place,
and on the marshes by which it was surrounded, had left
only 900 men therein. Two forts covered the town; that
of Nieullay on the land side, and that of Risbanck towards
the sea.
Guise furiously attacked the first and carried it
(Jan. 3), and the other fell on the same day into his
hands. The body of the place was bombarded on the
6th, and on the 8th the garrison capitulated. The last
disgraceful remembrance of the Hundred Years' War was
then effaced; and the English no longer possessed an inch
of ground in France. It was a terrible blow to Mary of
England. She was heard to say that, when dead, the
name of Calais would be found engraven upon her heart.
The same blow destroyed the Anglo-Spanish alliance.
Elizabeth, who succeeded her sister Mary, caused Protes-
FIRST STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST AUSTRIA. 197
=
!
tantism to triumph throughout England, and became the
irreconcilable enemy of the King of Spain.
In April 1559, the ascendancy of the Duke of Guise
was raised still higher by the marriage of the Dauphin
to his niece Mary, the young Queen of Scotland. Shortly
afterwards, a peace was concluded at Chateau-Cambresis
between Henry and Philip. It was in order to be free
to wage a cruel war against heresy that Henry showed
that fatal precipitation. But time for it was not given
to him. To cement the peace, two marriages were stipu-
lated for by the treaty. Henry's daughter, the Princess
Elizabeth, was to espouse Philip II., already twice a
widower; and Henry's sister, Margaret, the Duke of
Savoy. Brilliant festivities were given before the de-
parture of the princesses. Tournaments at this period
were in great favour, and Henry displayed much address
in those military sports. On this occasion three days'
splendid tournays and carousals were given. On the
third day, after several brilliant passes, and when the
games seem finished, the king wished, before he retired,"
to run a last course against the Count Montgomery, the
captain of his Scottish guard. The latter was very un-
willing to accept the king's challenge, and excused himself
as well as he could; but Henry would take no denial.
Both ran their course valiantly, the lances shivered into
splinters, but the count did not lower quickly enough the
truncheon which remained in his hand, and which striking
the visor of the king's helmet raised it, and a splinter
entered his eye. Henry fell mortally wounded; and
eleven days afterwards he expired, at the age of forty-one.
This was a great loss, less for Henry II. individually,
than because he left by his death the royal power to
children. The authority of the king was then absolute;
held by a strong hand it would have conjured the perils
into which theological novelties and ambitions of all sorts
were about to plunge the state; three kings, minors by
age or in mind, were going to deliver up France a prey,
during thirty years, to the horrors of a religious and poli-
tical war.
Nga ana
!
;
5
TENTH PERIOD.
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
Francis II. (1559-1560).-Francis II. and his three
young brothers were the sole remaining descendants of
the house of Valois. They were all minors, Francis
being only in his seventeenth year at his accession. The
law declared the king of age at thirteen; but at sixteen,
Francis was still without a will of his own, and under
the tutelage of his mother, Catherine de' Medici. The
character of the widow of Henry II. had not yet developed
itself. She was known to be witty but superstitious, full
of taste for the fine arts and delicate modes of life, but
without much moral severity. The many outrages which
she had had to suffer from the triumphant Diana of
Poitiers, had effaced in her all distinction between good
and evil, and had left in her heart only one good feeling,
her affection for her children. All her efforts were em-
ployed to preserve power to her sons; and, to succeed
therein, she made use, without hesitation, of every means,
from gallantry even to assassination.
That perverse
policy was destined to meet with its chastisement. In
the hands of this Italian princess, the crown of Valois,
stained with blood, fell and was nearly broken in pieces
on the pavement of the streets.
The young bride of Francis II., Mary Stuart, kept for
a short time Catherine de' Medici from power. Henry
II. had married his son to that daughter of James V.
and Mary of Lorraine, to secure to himself the aid of
Scotland against England. Beautiful, full of grace, wit,
and varied acquirements, the happy influence which the
youthful queen exercised over all, together with the
F
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
199
empire she had over the king, might have been turned to
the good of the state, if she had had skilful advisers
around her; but wholly devoted to pleasure, she entrusted
state affairs to her two uncles, the Cardinal of Lorraine
and Duke Francis of Guise. To the first was confided
the charge of the civil affairs, and to the second all that
belonged to the war department. It was placing the
entire government of the country in their hands. Cathe-
rine de' Medici had, however, "the general superintend-
ence of the government," an imposing title, nothing more.
There were other candidates for power, some on account
of their birth, others through ambition; the Bourbons
and the Montmorencys. The house of Bourbon had for its
chief, Anthony, who had married Jane d'Albret, heiress
of the kingdom of Navarre, and his two brothers, Charles,
cardinal of Bourbon, and Louis, Prince of Condé. They
were the nearest kinsmen of the Valois, and Anthony,
in the case of a minority, could claim the regency; but,
since the constable's treason, the Bourbons had been in
some disgrace. The old and stubborn Constable de Mont-
morency was no longer able to bear the burthen of office.
The two Guises remained, therefore, masters of the king,
the court, and the executive power.
Ere long, murmurs arose at the authority usurped by
the Guises, exercised as it was with arrogance and par-
tiality. The princes of the blood, Anthony of Bourbon
and Condé, were indignant at being excluded from the
government. The higher nobles angrily beheld all power
in the hands of foreigners, the Scottish queen, the Italian
queen-mother, the Lorraine Guises; and several plots,
chiefly fomented by the Huguenots, were formed to dis-
place the latter. The most formidable of these plots was
the conspiracy of Amboise, the object of which was to
carry off the king from the Guises in order to deprive
them of their authority. The plot being discovered and
frustrated, the parties concerned in it were punished with
ruthless severity.
The Guises had gained one of those victories which
weaken the victors. So many executions for a conspiracy
i
-Fett
f
A tak
!!
į
<... AT
200
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
which might have been easily stifled, excited a widespread
horror. The Duke of Guise, appointed lieutenant-general
of the kingdom on this occasion, with illimitable powers,
had shown himself to be most merciless. He went so
far as to demand the introduction of the Inquisition into
France in order to suppress the Huguenot heresy. The
Chancellor l'Hôpital, the only honest minister at that
corrupt epoch, had frequently used his best endeavours to
oppose the violent and pernicious counsels of the Guises.
To struggle against the duke and cardinal, he convoked
the notables at Fontainebleau. Coligny repaired thither,
knelt before the king, and presented a petition from the
Huguenots of Normandy, who asked for liberty of con-
science. The Cardinal of Lorraine fiercely opposed that
concession; but the bishops of Valence and Vienne brought
about a decision to suspend all pursuit of the Huguenots
until after the convocation of the States-general (Dec.
1560). It was urgent that the voice of the nation should
make itself heard above the tumult of rival ambitions
and jarring creeds. The Guises linked themselves with
the pitiless policy of the King of Spain, who wrote to
them: "If you wish to chastise the rebels, I am at your
disposal;" and they assembled an army. The Bourbons
and the Colignys raised troops of gentlemen, and by the
aid of the emissaries of Calvin, organised resistance in
the southern provinces. Fighting was already going on
in several quarters.
The deputies of the states arrived at Orleans in the
midst of this effervescence. The king of Navarre and
the Prince of Condé had gone thither, against the advice
of their friends. The Guises who had this time proofs
against Condé of his complicity in the Amboise plot,
caused him to be arrested as soon as he entered the city, and
to get rid of his brother, against whom nothing could be
proved, they sought to have him killed in the king's anti-
chamber. The young king's heart failed him, and he
dared not give the signal. This idea of assassination was
destined to be realised one day against those who had
conceived it; both Guises became its victims.
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
201
A commission, however, was named to rapidly instituto
the trial of Condé; the prince's fate was fixed before-
hand; he was condemned to death, and would have
perished but for l'Hôpital, who refused to sign the sen
tence, and thus gained time. To gain time was to save
Condé's life, for the young king was then dying: he expired
on the 5th December, after a reign of seventeen months.
France might have quickly forgotten that unhappy
young prince, if his reign had not had attached to it two
remembrances: the one terrible--the power of the Guises,
and the beginning of the wars of religion; the other
pleasant, that of the young and lovely Mary Stuart.
Charles IX. (1560-1574)-Regency of Catherine de'
Medici.- Death, which had just deprived the queen-
mother of one of her children, gave her power, since her
second son, Charles IX., was only in his eleventh year.
She utterly repudiated the policy which had recently
triumphed, confirmed the Guises in their offices, but
named Anthony of Bourbon, who had deserted the Hugue-
nots, lieutenant-general of the realm, and released Condé.
Her chief adviser was l'Hôpital. The latter proposed to
restrain the ambitious and weaken the factious by a wise
religious tolerance and by civil reforms. Catherine
adopted this programme of an honest man, thinking that
she saw in it a means of opposing one party to another.
But it was in vain that the venerable chancellor ex-
horted to patriotism and religious toleration, as both
Catherine and Guise were alike bent on the exercise of
supreme authority. L'Hôpital proceeded resolutely, how-
ever, with his reforms, hoping to take the nation along
with him. The Duke of Guise, the Constable Mont-
morency, and Marshal St. André, threatened with a recall
of large sums of money which they had extorted from
the easy good nature of the preceding kings, quitted the
court and formed a secret alliance, a triumvirate, to defend
their monies, not, as they said, their religion then in peril.
L'Hôpital, without allowing himself to be distracted by
these intrigues, continued his policy of conciliation. The
queen supported the chancellor; she even went further at
I
202
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
氰
​this moment than he. Thus she ordered l'Hôpital to
issue the edict of Jan. 1562, which authorised the Cal
vinistic worship in the open country, whilst prohibiting
it in the walled towns; suspended all penalties levelled
against heretics, but interdicting them from troubling the
ancient religion. It was the first real act of tolerance.
The Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine were
recalled to Paris to act against l'Hôpital by St. André
and by the King of Navarre, who had abandoned the
Protestant party, in the hope of obtaining from Philip II.
the restitution of his little kingdom. On the 1st of March
1562, the Duke of Guise passed through Vassy in Cham-
pagne. It was Sunday, and he stopped there to hear
mass. The devotional singing of six or seven hundred
Protestants collected together in a neighbouring barn
reached his ears. Some of his attendants sought to stop
what they considered an insult and a bravado to their
duke, and, upon the refusal of the Protestants, drew
their swords. The latter defended themselves with stones.
The duke, hastening to the assistance of his followers,
received a blow in the face from a stone; whereupon all
his suite rushed upon those unarmed men, killed sixty of
them, and wounded more than two hundred, without dis-
tinction of age or sex. Some few days afterwards, at
Sens, of which the Cardinal of Lorraine was archbishop,
others were massacred on returning from their worship.
First Civil War (1562).-This was the signal for a
series of wars which, seven times suspended by precari-
ous treaties, were seven times renewed, and, during thirty-
two years, covered France with blood and ruins. At the
news of the Vassy massacre, the Huguenots everywhere
took up arms; the Duke of Guise carried off the king by
main force, with his mother, from Fontainebleau, and
brought him to Paris, where the Protestants were in
small numbers. But out of Paris, it was believed that
they could reckon upon one-tenth of the population, and
they had with them the best part of the provincial nobles.
"If any one were to relate," says Mezerai, "all that
passed at this time in different parts of France, all the

THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
203
taking and retaking of towns-the infinity of little com-
bats the furies-the massacres, it would take up a great
many volumes."
The chief events can only be briefly
mentioned.
In the north the Catholic army, which Anthony of
Bourbon had joined, was led by the Duke of Guise to
the attack of Rouen. At the end of a few days the
place was carried, but the King of Navarre received a
wound there of which he died soon after. In the same
year (1562) a battle was fought at Dreux, in Normandy,
between Guise and Condé. Condé broke through the
Catholic centre, wounded and took prisoner the Constable
Montmorency; but the Swiss restored the fight, and Guise
gained the victory by a flank movement. The Prince of
Condé was also taken prisoner. It was a great success
for Guise. Of his two influential rivals, one, Marshal
St. André, was killed; the other, Montmorency, was a
prisoner, and he even held in his hands the chief of the
Huguenot army. Coligny too, who had then taken com-
mand of the Huguenots, was obliged to retire from the
field. Guise treated Condé very chivalrously, made him
share the same bed with himself, and slept soundly beside
that mortal enemy who owned that he could not close his
eyes all night.
In February 1563, in order to cut off communications
between the Protestants of the north and those of the
south, Guise laid siege to Orleans. The city would not
have long resisted, had it not been for the crime of a
fanatic. One evening, as the duke was returning alone
to the camp from visiting his family, he received a mortal
wound in the shoulder by a pistol-shot fired at him by a
Protestant named Poltrot de Méré. He was put to death
with savage cruelty. Guise survived his wound only six
days; but before he died, he exhorted Catherine to make
peace with the Huguenots. She accordingly made peace
with them, granting them very favourable conditions;
but though the conditions were never fulfilled, hostilities
did not break out again for about five years.
Guise dead, Condé and Montmorency prisoners, the
204
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
I
queen-mother was left mistress of the government. She
well knew what those ambitious men mainly wanted—
the triumph of their faith doubtless, but more especially
that of their power. She saw that civil war had shaken
respect for the royal authority. It was that considera-
tion which chiefly prompted her to offer peace to Condé.
In order to ascertain, if possible, the real strength of
the Huguenots, Catherine made a royal progress with the
young king through different parts of the kingdom. At
Bayonne she had a conference with the Duke of Alva,
the most terrible instrument of Philip II., and who, like
his master, believed in the lawfulness of useful crimes.
The Protestants easily persuaded themselves that an
alliance between the two crowns, concluded under the
auspices of such a man, had no other object than the
extirpation of heresy; and this conviction impelled them
once more to unsheath the sword. Their first enterprise
was an unsuccessful attempt to possess themselves of the
person of the young king, who was then at Meaux. This
was an overt act of war. Condé next boldly blockaded
Paris. The Parisians compelled the veteran Montmorency,
contrary to his judgment, to march out and repel him in
the plain of St. Denis. A brave soldier, but a bad
general, the constable made an unskilful disposition of his
troops, and was slain. The field of battle remained to
the Catholics, but the Huguenots returned next morning
to again offer battle, which the royal army did not accept
(1567). Catherine looked upon the result of the day as
a great victory. "I have two great obligations to
Heaven," said she: "the one, that the constable has taken
vengeance upon the king's enemies; the other, that the
king's enemies have taken vengeance upon the constable."
She had now got rid of all whose influence she was afraid
of, and hoped to rule undisturbed for the future.
Shortly afterwards, Condé received a reinforcement of
9000 German infantry, and the queen-mother, finding the
royal forces too weak to contend with the Protestants,
was persuaded by l'Hôpital to sign the peace of Longju-
mean (March 23, 1568). This peace was of short dura-
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
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tion and ill kept. Catherine de' Medici became desirous
of ending a war, so continually renewed, by a stroke of
Italian state-craft. It was proposed to seize upon Condé
and Coligny in Burgundy, and also the widow of Anthony
of Bourbon, Jane d'Albret, in Bearn, in order to subject
them to the same fate as that of the Counts de Horn and
d'Egmont, beheaded at Brussels by the sanguinary Duke
of Alva. All three escaped. Condé and Coligny, after
a flight of one hundred leagues, reached La Rochelle,
which in the last war had taken part with them; and
were there joined by Jane d'Albret with her son, Henry
of Bearn.
Catherine had missed her aim, but thought herself
prepared for war. She declared it by launching an edict
which forbade, under pain of death, the exercise of "the
pretended reformed religion," and ordered the Protestant
ministers to quit the kingdom in fifteen days. The royal
army was placed under the young Duke of Anjou, whom
Catherine sought to put forward, with a view to be able,
if necessary, to oppose him to his brother Charles IX.;
Tavannes and Biron had the direction.
A first campaign, during a very severe winter, was
without result. In the following spring, Tavannes sur-
prised Coligny with the rearguard only, near Jarnac
(13th March 1569). Condé, at the head of 300 horse,
entered the field of battle with his arm in a sling, suffer-
ing from a wound received on the previous evening. At
the moment of charging, a kick from a restive horse broke
his leg; but, heedless of the accident, he rushed upon the
enemy, shouting to his followers:-" Remember in what
state Louis of Bourbon entered into battle for Christ and
his country!" This impetuous charge made at first a gap
in the enemy's lines, but the prince's horse being killed,
Condé fell, and a terrible combat was waged around him.
An old man named Vergue, who had led into battle
twenty-five men -at- arms — his sons, grandsons, and
nephews, made the most desperate efforts to cover the
prince. He was slain, and fifteen of his family with him,
"all in a heap." Condé gave his gauntlet to a gentleman,
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when one of the captains of the Duke of Anjou's guard,
Montesquiou, who recognised him, levelled his pistol
point-blank, and shot him through the head. The death
of that brave and energetic prince was a great loss to the
party of which he had for nine years been the head and
right arm.
The Protestants thought of abandoning the campaign,
and of shutting themselves up in La Rochelle, but a
woman raised their drooping spirits. Jane d'Albret pre-
sented herself in the midst of the discouraged army with
her son and the young prince of Condé. "My friends,"
said she, "here are two new chiefs whom God gives you,
and two orphans whom I confide to your care." Henry,
Prince of Bearn, then fifteen years of age, became the
declared head of the Protestants; but, on account of his
youth, the command of their forces was given to Coligny.
Coligny had many of the qualities necessary for the leader
of a party in such a war. An austere and conscientious
Protestant, he was loved alike by ministers and soldiers.
In the following October, the Catholics gained another
victory at Moncontour, which, however, was as useless as
that of Jarnac. In 1570, Coligny carried the war into
Burgundy, where he obtained the advantage, cut his
way through the Catholic army, and drew near Paris.
Catherine triumphed in the council-chamber, as events
clearly showed. Unable to make an end, by war, of that
party-often beaten but never subdued some other
means, she thought, must be resorted to. To disarm the
Protestants, she accorded the peace of St. Germain under
very favourable conditions. At the news of this peace,
a universal cry arose amongst the Catholics, both at
home and abroad. Catherine de' Medici was unmoved
by it, and followed up her new policy. She contrived a
deep-laid plot to calm the suspicions of the Protestants,
and then get rid of them. The marriage of the young
Prince of Bearn with Margaret, sister of Charles IX,, she
averred, would lastingly cement the peace. It was for
the interest of France to employ abroad the warlike and
mutinous spirit of the Protestant nobility; she accepted,
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
207
therefore, the propositions made to her by Coligny, to
conduct his co-religionists into the Low Countries, where
the Duke of Alva had caused 18,000 persons to perish
under torture. Such an enterprise was agreeable to the
Huguenots, and seemed a return to the old foreign policy,
forgotten since the death of Henry II. Coligny saw, in
a war with Spain, a means of maintaining gloriously and
surely peace in France.
Charles IX. was then in his twenty-first year.
Of a
character at once feeble and violent, spoiled by absolute
power, and by his Italian favourites who perverted his
heart, he had played sufficiently well, and for some time
unknown to himself, the part which his mother desired.
But now he had become impatient of her yoke, and
envious of the victories attributed to his brother. Fickle
and excitable, he entered with ardour into those new pro-
jects, wrote to Coligny, to Jane d'Albret, and urged the
prompt celebration of the marriage of Henry of Bearn
with his sister. The Queen of Navarre decided to visit
Paris, and the admiral followed her thither. After their
chief, a number of Huguenot gentlemen hastened to take
their share in the festivities and good graces of the
king.

Catherine herself was terrified at having succeeded but
too well. The king saw matters no longer save through
the eyes of Coligny. He pressed the legate for a dispen-
sation for his sister's marriage, which the pope was un-
willing to grant: he caused troops to be raised for Coligny,
and assembled a fleet against Flanders. Catherine re-
monstrated with her son, but was received with a bad
grace: he seemed then decided to "acquire glory and
reputation in the Spanish war," and answered his mother
that he had no greater enemies than herself and her son,
the Duke of Anjou.
In the midst of the preparations for the marriage of
the young prince and princess, the Queen of Navarre
died suddenly—not without a suspicion of poison. When
the marriage was celebrated, a riot was with difficulty
suppressed. All the pulpits thundered maledictions
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against the Huguenots, and the latter were not wanting
in bravado in the streets.
Catherine then determined upon a most Machiavelian
plot: this was to have Coligny assassinated by the Guises,
reckoning that the Huguenots would avenge their chief
upon the latter; then the royal troops should be held in
readiness to fall upon both parties as violators of the
public peace. On the 12th August, as Coligny was
returning from the Louvre, he was fired at from behind a
grated window by one Maurevel, an assassin by profession,
in the pay of the Duke de Guise. He was wounded in
two places, but it was thought not dangerously. At the
first report of the outrage, the king visited Coligny in
his bed-chamber, and expressed his concern at the acci
dent, and swore that he would avenge him.
Next day, the king seemed to hold the same sentiments,
but the queen-mother represented to him that both parties
were ready to attack each other; that each would choose
a chief; and that there would be nothing left to the king
save his title, if even that. The king still resisted. His
mother cited the Italian proverb, that "gentleness is often
cruelty, and cruelty gentleness." Then she threatened to
quit the Court with her other son, the Duke of Anjou,
that she might not witness the ruin of their house, nor
longer behold such weakness and cowardice. She had
well calculated the effect of that last word upon a violent
temper. Charles, until then gloomy and immovable,
suddenly exclaimed that, since it was found advisable to
kill the admiral, he wished that they would slay all the
Huguenots in France, "in order that not one should
remain to reproach him afterwards."
The municipality of Paris was ready. It had for some
time meditated this grand blow, and was quite prepared to
secure its success. The bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois
was to give the signal at three o'clock on the morning of
the 24th August 1572-St. Bartholomew's day. They
did not wait so long. At two o'clock the bell tolled,
and, shortly after, the tocsin of all the other churches
answered it,
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THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
209
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Henry of Guise, d'Aumale, and others rushed to the
house of Coligny at the first sound. A German, one
Besme, a servant of the duke, was the first to enter the
admiral's chamber, with his sword drawn. " Young man,
said Coligny, in calm and intrepid tones, "you ought to
reverence these grey hairs; but do what you think proper;
my life can be shortened but very little." Besme an-
swered by plunging his sword into Coligny's breast.
Guise shouted from below: "Besme, hast thou finished
him?" "He is done for," was the reply. "Throw him
down, then, from the window." Coligny still breathed.
Besme and the others threw him down into the court,
where Guise, after having contemptuously spurned him
with his foot, abandoned the body to the outrages of the
populace. The head was cut off and carried as a trophy
to the queen, who, it is said, had it embalmed, and sent
it as a present to the pope.
The houses of the Huguenots had been marked with
chalk, and a list had been drawn up of those who in-
habited them. "Bleed them," shouted Tavannes, as he
galloped through the streets; "blood-letting is as good in
this month of August as in May." The greater number
of the Protestants were butchered in their beds. The
King of Navarre and the Prince of Condé were brought
before the king, who menaced them with death if they
did not abjure their faith. All were slain with the
exception of the two princes. The slaughter was carried
on even inside the Louvre, and the Court ladies went in
the morning to view the bodies. The number who perished
is variously stated-some writers say 10,000, others 4000,
others 2000 — the last estimate being the most probable
one.
When morning had dawned, the king stationed him-
self at one of the windows of the Louvre, which looked
on the Seine, and, with a long arquebuse, fired upon the
miserable Protestants who sought to save themselves by
crossing the river; but, later in the day, when he saw so
many corpses floating on the Seine, his thirst for blood
left him he felt horror at what he had done, and wrote
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
to the provinces in order to stop the contagion of the
example, casting all the blame upon a quarrel which he
said had broken out between the Guises and Colignys.
The murders, notwithstanding, went on daily until the
17th of September.
The king, however, adopting his mother's advice, went,
on the 26th, to take in full Parliament the responsi-
bility of that dreadful night, and sent fresh orders to the
governors of provinces, which extended the massacre to
Meaux, Orleans, Saumur, Lyons, Bourges, Toulouse,
Bordeaux, etc., where fifteen to twenty thousand victims
perished. This great crime was useless, as crimes always
are. The Protestants had lost their chiefs; but when the
first moment of stupcr had passed, they took up arms
again in several cities with infuriate rage; and their per-
secutors found that instead of extirpating heresy they had
only made the heretics desperate. This the royal army
experienced to its cost at the sieges of Sancerre and La
Rochelle. The latter place was defended with so much
vigour, that the Duke of Anjou found it expedient to
negotiate, and a treaty was concluded with the entire
Huguenot party (1573), granting them liberty of con-
science at the very moment when Charles was receiving,
for the St. Bartholomew, the boisterous and enthusiastic
felicitations of the courts of Rome and Spain.
The shame of this reverse, remorse, the vehemence of
a fiery nature and violent exercise in hunting, to which
he devoted himself with frenzy, undermined the young
king. A horrible malady consumed him—he was fre-
quently attacked by convulsions, with an access of furious
delirium, during which blood would gush from the pores,
the nose, and ears. Bloody visions terrified him, and he
heard lamentable cries in the air. This homicidal Valois,
who died in his twenty-fourth year (30th May 1574)-his
mind distracted by horrible phantoms, abandoned by
every one (save by his old Huguenot nurse)-what a
shocking spectacle does it present; what a proof of the
impotence of crime to cheat the conscience of the guilty!
Henry III. (1574-1589).—The Duke of Anjou, heir-
THE RELIGIOUS WARS,
211
presumptive of Charles IX., was in Poland at the moment
of his brother's death. In consequence of negotiations
prepared long beforehand, Catherine de' Medici had ob-
tained from the Polish nobility a crown for her favourite
son-for him who had been called the Victor of Jarnac
and Montcontour. No sooner did he possess it than he
took a disgust to that "Sarmatian land," the rude but
energetic nobles of which were strangers to those refine-
ments of luxury and depravation with which the corrupt
civilization of Italy had inoculated France. On the news
of his brother's death, he fled from his capital by night,
like a malefactor. Pursued by his subjects who wished
to retain him, he never stopped until he reached the
Austrian territories. The pleasures of Vienna and Venice
long held him captive, so that he did not set foot in his
new kingdom until two months had passed since furtively
quitting the old one.
This prince was the king the least fitted to dominate
the state of things his brother had bequeathed Lim. The
victories obtained in his name by Tavannes had exacted
too much from his reputation. The abuse of pleasure
had extinguished within him those early sparks of valour
which had rendered him at first as brave as his ancestors;
his sole occupation was now centred in childish or wo-
manish amusements, when he was not given up to extra-
vagant debauchery. The depravation of his heart had
vitiated the brilliant qualities of his mind - he was
eloquent only in lying, and skilful only in deception.
It would be severe, perhaps, to denounce his ostentatious
devotion as an impious imposture; but all his religion
consisted in certain exterior formalities. He thought
that by fasting and a few strokes of discipline he could
salve his conscience and settle accounts with heaven.
His brother, Charles IX., had sometimes had thoughts
and projects worthy of a king. Henry had little else
than puerile pursuits; and d'Aubigné knew not, on seeing
him so careful of his toilette, of his complexion, of the
whiteness of his hands and face, whether he saw a king-
woman or a man-queen." Charles IX. was wicked
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through anger, and occasionally; Henry, by principle,
and continually; and, moreover, he never knew that
which, perhaps, may be urged in mitigation of his
brother's crimes-remorse.
His first acts showed what might be expected of him.
At Turin, he repaid with a prodigal magnificence the
hospitality of the Duke of Savoy, by giving up to him
Pignerol, Perouse, and Savigliano, the last remains of the
conquests of Francis I. beyond the Alps. Scarcely had
he entered France, ere he commanded the Protestants to
become Catholic, or quit the kingdom. Those were men-
acing words; but the reformers were reassured on seeing
all overt action limited to the despatch of certain officers
into the southern provinces, then in great agitation, and
to processions, in which the king figured, of flagellants
who went through the streets flogging their shoulders
"for the remission of their sins." Henry next made a
solemn entry into Paris, when he greatly scandalised the
seriously-minded inhabitants by having around him a
great number of monkeys, parrots, and little dogs.
Massacre and war had swept away the great Protes-
tant chiefs: the Calvinists had no longer any others to
guide them save men like the King of Navarre, who
placed their interests foremost, their religion last. Thus,
amongst people in whose breasts ambition or patriotism
extinguished religious ardour, it was easy to understand
one another. Already, during the malady of Charles
IX., the Duke of Alençon, the King of Navarre, the
new Prince of Condé, and the Montmorencys had formed
the project of securing to themselves the government.
At the decisive moment, Alençon's heart failed him and
discovered all. Condé alone succeeded in escaping. Alen-
çon and the King of Navarre were detained in a sort of
custody, but made their escape the one in September
1575, the other in the February following, and joined
the Huguenots. The new king was greatly irritated at
the secret dealings of his brother, and on several occa-
sions Alençon stood in great peril of his life. A treaty
with the Huguenots, however, was soon after concluded,
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
213
2
but the terms were considered much too favourable to
the Protestants. As this peace seemed, indeed, a treason
to the Catholic cause, the Catholics formed themselves
into a league for the defence of their religion.
The chief promoter of this league was the Duke of
Guise, a man in every way fitted to be the head of a
party. The house of Lorraine had been restored to
favour at court, and the king had just married a princess
of that family. Henry of Guise, inferior to his father as
a great soldier, and less magnanimous, had loftier and
better-framed designs, and much greater skill in making
religion serve as an instrument of his policy. He knew
how to gather together into his own hands all the threads
of that great Catholic conspiracy framed for the defence
of the faith. It was he who drew up and circulated
throughout France the constitutive act of the Holy
League. Like his father, he was the idol of the Catholics.
In the battle of Dormans, when he defeated the Pro-
testants, he had been wounded in the cheek, an accident
which increased his popularity, and obtained for him the
surname of Balafré, or "the scarred." The king was in-
duced to declare himself the head of the League, although
the principles of the party were in reality subversive of
his authority, but this Henry did not at first discover.
Though among the Catholics the worthy heir of the
great Guise had been chosen their chief beforehand in
this great religious contest, yet Henry of Guise carried
his views much further; the League was only to be for
him a stepping-stone to the throne. Henry III. was
already lost in public opinion: pamphlets, the most
audacious, lashed his hypocrisy and branded his manners.
The Duke of Alençon was decried as an accomplice of the
Huguenots, and moreover menaced with a brief existence.
After them there were no other heirs but the Bourbons,
heretic princes, unworthy to occupy the throne of the
very-Christian king. Those set aside, the way was open
to the faithful allies of Philip II. and the Holy Chair,
to the murderer of Coligny, to the man who had signed
a pact of blood with orthodoxy-the day of the St. Bar-
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tholomew. New genealogies linked the house of Guise
to the dynasty of Charlemagne. The descendants of
Capet had only reigned by usurpation; Henry of Guise.
was called upon to strengthen the monarchy and the
faith, by causing the Valois to be shut up in a cloister,
as Pepin, his ancestor, did Childeric." At least, so
said a memoir found amongst the papers of an advocate
who died at Lyons on his return from Rome.
،،
The peace promised to the Huguenots was not kept,
nor was war waged vigorously against them. Henry III.
would not employ Guise therein through fear of aggran-
dising him still further. He really desired peace, and
to win over some of his adversaries, he instituted the
order of the Holy Ghost, in remembrance of having been
raised to the two thrones of Poland and France on the
day of Pentecost. He reckoned that, by giving the riband
of his order to the principal partisans of Guise and Bour-
bon, he would bring them back to himself. It was too
much to expect from a mere whim. So the clash of arms
and the flames of civil war again broke forth, and again
died away.
7.
But the king's conduct tainted his best acts. Merciless
pamphlets unveiled the turpitudes of that licentious and
ferocious court of the last Valois, in which murder alter-
nated with pleasure. The evenings devoted to feasts and
balls, the mornings to murderous duels, when the meet-
ing was not forestalled by an ambush. Thus the royal
favourite, St. Mégrin, was assassinated by the followers
of Guise; Dugast by those of the King of Navarre;
Bussy d'Amboise by the Count of Montsoreau. Another
minion of the king, Villequier, killed his wife; a court
lady killed her husband; and one Cimier slew his brother.
Each prince had his hired assassins, who stabbed their
victims in the back, and his favourites who struck face
to face. Three of the king's minions fought on one occa-
sion against three friends of Guise. Four were left dead
on the ground, and among them two of the king's friends.
Henry showed signs of a scandalous grief, and replaced
his slain favourites by Joyeuse and d'Epernon, who were
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
215
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no better. On the marriage of the former, he expended
the enormous sum of 120,000 crowns. To meet such
outrageous expenditure, the taxation was increased
annually, and discontent became general.
A short war between the king of Navarre and Henry
III., which broke out without cause, and which ended
without reason, showed the progress which the ideas of
disorder had made; unprincipled ambition, and the irre-
ligious spirit of revenge, appeared solely to absorb and
guide men's minds. It was necessary to arrest these
turbulent spirits by some great thought, to push them
upon some serious enterprise, to resume, in fact, the pro-
ject of Coligny, and make war abroad in order not to
have civil war at home. France had then a choice of
two battle-fields, one of which was within her reach and
entire convenience. The King of Spain, Philip II., was
invading Portugal, and Catherine de' Medici had preten-
sions to that crown; the Low Countries were trampled
on by the Spaniards, and several provinces called for a
liberator. Henry sent a fleet to Antonio de Crato, a
candidate for the throne of Portugal, and in aid of the
Flemings an army to his brother (Alençon), to whom he
was reconciled, and on whom he conferred the dukedom
of Anjou, but both quite insufficient, and both of those
enterprises being officially disavowed by him. The fleet
was totally destroyed; the Duke of Anjou, after having
been proclaimed Duke of Brabant and Count of Flanders,
left without money, was forced to evacuate the country,
and died a few months after his return to France. He
long indulged the hope of marrying Elizabeth, Queen of
England, and desired to make himself King of the
Netherlands, but all his great projects were destined to
fail, and he died, humiliated and dejected, in June 1584.
The provinces of the Low Countries, which lost at the
same time William of Orange, assassinated by an emis-
sary of Spain, made a seductive offer to Henry III.; they
gave themselves to him, to France, if he would deliver
them from the Inquisition and Philip II. But it was
too late.
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
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The death of the Duke of Anjou, brother and heir of
Henry III., had mooted definitively a question calculated
to rekindle in France all the religious and political pas-
sions. Until then it had not been dreamed of, save
vaguely, that a Bourbon, a relapsed heretic, could
become the heir of Valois; now the danger existed. For
Henry III., the last surviving son of Henry II. had no
children, and it was believed that he had but few years
to live. The League had been for some time in disorder:
"Some," says l'Etoile, "cursing it openly, others ridicul-
ing it." Suddenly, without any effort on the part of its
leaders, it revived and extended itself in the hearts of
the popular masses; instead of a secret society, a great
revolutionary party arose. From Paris it spread itself
over the provinces, and established, wherever it found
itself the strongest, what an eminent historian calls a
Reign of Terror (Thierry).
Henry of Guise saw clearly that the moment had come
for striking heavy blows; and, without hesitation, he
signed (31st Dec. 1584), with Philip II., the treaty of
Joinville, by which the contracting parties bound them-
selves to extirpate sects and heresies; to exclude from
the throne of France heretic princes, and to assure the
Valois succession to Charles, the old Cardinal of Bourbon.
The cardinal was put forward to conceal the pretensions
of Guise until they could be openly revealed. The ap-
pearance of the manifesto of the League (31st March
1585) set all France on fire. This war has been called
the War of the three Henrys: that is, Henry III., the
King of Navarre, and the Duke of Guise.
The position of Henry III. had become very difficult.
He found himself between two enemies whom he had
long hoped to destroy by opposing one to the other:
Guise and Bourbon, the Catholics and the Huguenots.
He was inclined to declare himself against the Guises
whom he detested; but he required that Henry of
Navarre should turn Catholic, promising to thereupon
recognise him as his heir. Henry refused.
The King of Navarre now prepared himself to face
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
217
every danger. He possessed the most brilliant courage,
and the chief who is ever ready to risk his life at the
sword's point is sure to win his soldiers' hearts. Brought
up amongst the Pyrennean mountaineers, he equalled
them in agility and hardihood. The vicissitudes through
which he had passed had rendered his religion uncertain.
Charles IX. had given him the option of "Death or the
Mass!" He accepted the mass; but later he abjured it,
and that abjuration was not destined to be the last. His
forced residence at the court of the Valois had proved
fatal to his morals. During several years he forgot the
path of duty and fortune. After the Duke of Anjou's
death, Mornay, the Huguenot pope, wrote to him:
"Amusement is no longer seasonable. It is time that
you courted France." Henry felt the truth of this: he
forsook pleasure, and buckled on his cuirass.
Hostilities were without importance in 1586, but in
1587 the King of Navarre gained a signal victory over
the League at Coutras; but this victory he failed to
improve as he ought.
Henry III. returned to Paris from this last campaign
doubly conquered, both by the League and the Huguenots.
Jealous of the League, which daily treated him with
increased insolence and tyranny, the Valois king knew
not, and had not firmness to determine consistently
which way to turn himself. Too weak to cope either
with the King of Navarre or the Duke of Guise, he
acted an insincere part towards both, sometimes treating
openly with the one at the very moment that he was
treating secretly with the other. At length Henry
became the object of an extreme and general distrust and
contempt. The Parisians, more especially, could not help
making disparaging comparisons between him and the
Duke of Guise, whom they idolised. Guise, by means of
his agents, fomented the public disaffection, and several
plots were formed to dethrone Henry, and confine him
in a monastery.
These designs against the king becoming daily more
formidable, Henry III. could no longer mistake the
218
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
position in which he stood. In abject terror, he forbade
Guise to enter Paris, and surrounded himself with 4000
Swiss and several companies of guards. But Guise came
in defiance of him, and was received with joyful acclam-
ation by the populace, who accompanied him to the
Louvre. The king received him pale with rage: "I sent
you warning not to come hither," said he; and in spite
of the duke's excuses, he would perhaps have had him
assassinated at that first interwiew, if the queen-mother
and his council had not dissuaded him, through fear of
all Paris rising in arms. The king and the chief of the
League fortified themselves, the one in the Louvre, the
other in the Hotel de Guise, and began to negotiate.
After two days had thus passed, the king caused a body
of soldiers to be brought into the city, with orders to
post themselves in the squares and principal places.
When the Swiss troops were seen in the streets, it was
thought that Henry III. meditated a St. Bartholomew
of the Catholics. In two hours all Paris was in arms,
and all the streets rendered impracticable by barricades.
The Count de Brissac had placed himself at the head
of the people. The Swiss, assailed on all sides by a hail
of balls and projectiles, were routed in disorder, and, little
used to such warfare, cried out for quarter. Guise then
issued forth with a wand in his hand, saved the Swiss
who were on the point of being massacred, sent them
back to the king with insulting contempt, and appeased
all as though by enchantment. The king, during the
night, found means to escape from the gardens at the
back of the palace, and mounting a horse, took the road
to Chartres, leaving Guise almost entire master of the
capital.
There was now a King of Paris and a King of France.
Negotiations still went on, and Henry III. was seen
with astonishment to accord that which, two months
previously, he refused in face of the barricades. He
consented to disgrace his favourite Epernon, swore not
to lay down arms until after the destruction of the
heretics, declared every prince not Catholic to have
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
219
forfeited his rights to the throne, appointed Guise
lieutenant-general, and convoked the States at Blois.
It seemed, therefore, that all he had gained by his flight
from Paris, was that the States should not be held there.
But for that he had his reasons. It was the object of
Guise to procure from this assembly a ratification of the
king's other concessions, and he spared no pains to secure
its members to his own interests.
The Invincible Armada had just been destroyed, and
it was thought that the ally of Philip II. might be next
attacked. Some advised that Guise should be set at
defiance; others that he should be legally imprisoned
after a formal trial. "To throw the Guisard into
prison,” replied the king, "were to put into a net a wild
boar stronger than our cords could hold." Henry,
prompted by the evil counsel of his prime favourite
d'Epernon, resolved to rid himself of his ambitious
subject by resorting to the detestable design of assassin-
ation. He determined, if no one else could be found to
strike the duke, to deal the blow himself. On the 22nd
December, Guise was advised to leave Blois.
"Who
quits the game loses it," said the Archbishop of Lyons,
and Guise added: "My affairs are at such a point, that
were I to see death enter at the window, I would not go
out by the door to avoid it." The king had apprised
him that, proposing to pass the Christmas holidays at
Notre Dame de Clery, a privy council would be held at
six o'clock next morning. Henry III. made a strong
appeal to his body-guard, the disbanding of which Guise
had recently demanded. The members of this band,
being chiefly the royal minions, eagerly declaring their
devotion, the king himself distributed daggers, and
posted them in his cabinet, his bed-chamber, and upon
the staircase. At the same time, with that devotion,
so peculiarly Italian, which mingles crime and prayer so
easily together, he commanded a mass to be said by one
of his chaplains, "in order that God might give him
grace to be able to carry out his enterprise.
""
The duke arrived later than was expected.
On his
*},
t; *
1
!
T
220
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
""
way, he received another note warning him of his fate.
"It is the ninth," said he. Having entered the council-
chamber, he sat down by the fire. "I feel cold," he
remarked to his brother, the cardinal, "and I have a
pain at the heart.' A few moments afterwards, a
secretary of state summoned the duke to attend the
king. When he approached the door of the royal apart-
ment, and was in the act of raising the arras, one of the
forty-five seized him by the arm, and plunged his dagger
into his breast, exclaiming: "Die, traitor!" Every
weapon was then raised to strike him.
"Ah! my
friends, my friends!" cried the duke, and although he
was stabbed on all sides, he dragged his murderers from
one end of the chamber to the other with extended arms,
as far as the foot of the king's bed, where he fell covered
with wounds. Henry went from the scene of death to
his mother's chamber, and said exultingly: "Congratulate
me, Madam, I am once more King of France, for I have
just put to death the King of Paris!" The queen-
mother, in great agony, for she was then on her death-
bed, raised herself in a sitting posture, saying: “Do you
indeed know what you have done, my son?
Heaven
grant you may find that you have done well!" Dating
from that hour, Henry was no longer King of France.
The deed of blood was, in the significant words of Fouché,
worse than a crime, it was a blunder." Thus Catherine,
on the brink of eternity, saw with despair in her soul
the futility of all her worldly schemes, and the ruin and
misery they had brought upon her race.
(C
No sooner was the death of Guise known in Paris than
the grief and indignation of the people knew no bounds.
Processions traversed the capital night and day. In one
of them, a thousand persons carrying tapers suddenly
extinguished them, exclaiming, "May God extinguish
thus the race of Valois!" The Nemesis quickly followed
by the knife of the Monk Clement.
Henry had done nothing yet whereby to profit by the
murder. Ere she expired, his mother had told him "that
he must now act with promptitude and resolution.”
He
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
221
Icon
thought that there was still time to negotiate. He had
not then saved himself by the ambush of Blois; and,
instead of "finding himself a king," saw himself on the
point of losing his crown. He had, however, advanced the
fortunes of the King of Navarre, into whose arms he was
reduced to throw himself. The whole country was in a
state of alarm and commotion. Entire provinces, and
nearly all the chief cities, revolted. Utterly incapable of
effecting anything for himself, he besought the Béarnais
to come to him, and to have compassion on his distressed
condition. It was not without some hesitation and mis-
giving, arising partly from his abhorrence of the king's
crimes, and partly from suspicion of his sincerity, that the
prince could bring himself to pay attention to his en-
treaties. Commending himself to heaven, however, the
Béarnais crossed the Loire, and was received by Henry
III. in the park of Plessis-les-Tours, and a reconciliation
took place which seems to have inspired the king with
some degree of courage and energy.
The junction of the Protestant and royal armies under
the same standard completely changed the nature of the
war. It was no longer feudal Protestantism, but the
democratic League that menaced royalty. Monarchy
was entering upon a struggle with the Catholic masses
revolted against it. With their united forces of 38,000
men, the two kings appeared before Paris in the end of
July 1589.
The great city was terrified. It had not expected, and
was totally unprepared for a siege. The Parisians had
lost heart and energy. The Duke of Mayenne, the sur-
viving brother of Guise, newly appointed head of the
League, came to the relief of the capital with the few
troops he could muster. The fate of Paris was trembling
in the balance, when a fanatical hand became the instru
ment which averted the impending destruction, and
caused an entire revolution in the affairs of the kingdom.
The assault was to have been given on the 2nd August.
On the morning previous, a young monk, Jacques Cle-
ment, obtained entrance to the king's chamber whilst he
222
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
"
7.
was dressing, under pretence of handing him a letter, and
of communicating in secret something of importance. The
guards withdrew, and as Henry approached him, the
assassin drew a knife from his sleeve and plunged it into the
king's bowels. "The wicked monk has killed me!" exclaimed
Henry, as he wrenched the knife from the wound, and
struck the assassin with it in the face. The guards rushed
in at the noise, and at once despatched the monk on the
spot. It was at first thought that the wound would not
prove mortal, but soon a violent fever set in and an-
nounced that Henry had not long to live. He sent for
the King of Navarre, embraced him, declared him his
successor, and conjured him to renounce the reformed
religion. "My brother," said the king, "you see how
your enemies and mine treat me; be certain that you
will never be king unless you become a Catholic." Then
tnrning towards those who surrounded him: "I pray
you," said he to them, "as my friends, and command you,
as your king, to recognise after my death my brother who
stands there; for my satisfaction and your own duty, I
conjure you to swear allegiance to him in my presence.'
All present swore. He expired during the night, at the
age of thirty-eight, and had reigned fifteen years. He
left no children by his queen, Louisa of Vaudemont, and
in him the race of Valois became extinct.
""
Such was the tragic and miserable end of the royal
dynasty of Valois, which had given thirteen sovereigns to
France, and had filled the throne during a period of two
hundred and sixty-one years.
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
225
recognising the right of the Bourbon family, Mayenne
showed that the legitimate king was Henry IV. How-
ever, the declaration of the 4th August did not satisfy
everybody in the royal army. D'Epernon and several
Catholic lords withdrew with a large portion of the troops,
and Henry, finding his diminished forces too weak to con-
tinue the siege of Paris, broke up his camp and retired
into Normandy. Mayenne followed him with 33,000
men, and was defeated by Henry at Arques, and after-
wards at Ivry. On the latter occasion, as the battle was
about to begin, one of his officers pointed out to Henry
a way of securing his retreat in case of a reverse :—“ No
other retreat,” replied he, "than the field of battle." And
he added: "Comrades! close up your ranks, and, if you
love your banners, this white plume which you see
in my helmet will show you the way to honour and glory!”
In two hours the whole army of the League was put to
flight. The victory won, the Béarnais remembered that
he was king: "Quarter for the French," he exclaimed;
"but strike home at the foreigners!" Five cannons,
eighty infantry flags, and twenty cavalry standards were
the trophies of the conquerors. The way to Paris was
open to them; and thither Henry led them.
In the capital no preparations of any kind had been
made, and as soon as it was invested by Henry's army,
and the supplies cut off, it was found that there was not
sufficient provisions or munitions to enable the defenders
to stand a siege. But the Parisians supplied everything
by their religious exaltation. Thirty thousand citizens
enrolled themselves, the church bells were melted, and
every family contributed its copper culinary vessels where-
with to make cannon. Mayenne's half-brother, the young
Duke of Nemours, directed the defence with zeal and
activity, and 1300 monks, priests, and friars took their
turn in defending the ramparts. Henry IV. did not
flatter himself with the hope of carrying by assault a
city thus defended; but he reckoned upon famine, and
intercepted all the convoys, trusting by that means to
subdue the Parisians. But they endured famine as well
P
226
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
as they supported war. The death of the old Cardinal of
Bourbon, the puppet king, simplified the question (May
1590), but rendered the hatred of the leaguers more
furious. On the 24th July, the king ordered an assault;
at the end of two hours the faubourgs were carried.
The distress was then at its height; after having dimin-
ished daily the ration of bread distributed amongst the
people, the municipality gave no more; each had to pro-
vide for himself. The horses, asses, and mules still left
were slaughtered. All that had life, even unclean animals,
were hunted after and devoured. The Duchess of Mont-
pensier refused to give up a little favourite dog, saying
that "it was the last resource for her own life." Some
pounded the bones of the dead wherewith to make a sort
of paste, and died from swallowing such a hideous aliment;
and, horrible to relate, armed men began to chase little
children, and one mother ate her own offspring!
""
In spite of all this suffering, however, Henry could
have easily taken the city by assault, could he have pre-
vailed with himself to resort to extremities. "I am,'
said he, "the true father of my people. I would much
rather never have Paris, than obtain it by the death and
ruin of so many persons." At length, after four month's
siege, shouts were heard in the streets of "Bread or
Peace!" Two days more, says a contemporary, and the
people of Paris would have been obliged to open the gates
to Henry IV., and even entreat him to enter therein,
when the Duke of Parma, the best general of Philip II.,
arrived at the head of a considerable Spanish army, and
compelled Henry to raise the siege.
The Duke of Parma, the most skilful tactitian of his
age, skirmished with the royal troops, but Henry in vain
endeavoured to bring him to an engagement. The king,
therefore, was obliged to retreat and disband his forces.
In the following year he laid siege to Rouen. Parma
again came to the assistance of the League, and obliged
him to raise the siege. The duke entered the town, but
received a wound therein which his infirm health rendered
mortal shortly afterwards. Twice had that great soldier
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
227
torn the victory from the king's hands, and retarded the
end of the crisis. Happily the League was itself working
for Henry IV.
At length it became evident to all that the war would
bring about no solution. France might ruin herself
therein; but one party would not destroy the other.
Philip II., to the arguments derived from religion, added
one of another sort. He had said that it would be easier
to buy France than to conquer it, and to that end spared
no money. If the historians of Spain have reckoned
correctly, his views with regard to France cost him thirty
millions of ducats. The Béarnais himself had only
expended heroism; as much, it is true, as would have been
necessary, under other circumstances, to win a kingdom.
But the worship that he professed formed an invincible
obstacle. The chief of the Protestants could not be king
of the Catholics. For a long while Henry had felt this;
and as he had never been bound by very strong links to
Calvinism, he thought of breaking them, to terminate at
length an atrocious, and without that, a perpetual war.
But an event now occurred which compelled him to decide
at once. In 1593, the States-general were assembled, and
proceeded so far as to offer the crown to the Spanish
Infanta, on the condition that she should marry a French
Catholic prince. The young Duke of Guise was fixed on
as her future husband.
Although it was not without a pang that the son of
Jane d'Albret, and the pupil of Coligny could resolve to
break with the Huguenots "who had carried him on
their shoulders across the Loire," he followed the wisest
advice, and on the 23rd July, after a debate of some
hours with the Catholic doctors assembled at Mantes, he
declared himself convinced, and made a public abjuration
of Protestantism. The Duke of Mayenne, and some of
the stanchest adherents of the League, contended that,
until Henry had received absolution, he could not be
considered as their legitimate sovereign. But the greater
number of the nobles regarded this conversion as the
pledge of a patriotic reconciliation, and flocked to tender
*
228
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
him their submission. As Rheims was in the hands of
the League, Henry was therefore crowned at Chartres
(Feb. 27, 1594). He was received in Paris with ringing
of bells and shouts of "Vive la paix! Vive le roi!” ~ In
the year following, the pope having formally pronounced
the absolution, Mayenne was left without a plea for with-
holding the submission due to his sovereign. Henry
concluded a treaty with him early in 1596, and received
and treated him with so much nobleness and generosity
that the duke was ever after one of his most faithful
servants. The rest of the League followed the example
of their leader, and thus France at last saw the end of
those troubles with which she had been distracted for a
period of thirty-seven years. Henry IV. again found
and resumed, without fresh efforts, the absolute authority
of Francis I.
But the time for reforms had not yet come, since that
of trials was not yet passed. In 1596, the Spaniards
had taken Calais, and that blow was felt sorrowfully at
the heart of France; the year following they entered
Amiens, the inhabitants having refused to receive a royal
garrison. Henry was engaged in banquets and festivities.
in his capital, when he learned that the Spaniards were
in Amiens, some thirty leagues from Paris. "We have
played King of France enough," said he, "it is now time
to play King of Navarre!" and he put on his cuirass. He
marched in hot haste with Biron and his fine artillery,
all the nobles of the north, and more than 20,000 men.
Though an army advanced from the Low Countries to
interrupt the siege, it retreated without doing anything,
and Amiens was retaken. The rapidity of that opera-
tion raised still higher the king's name in the mind of the
foreigner, and proved the strength of France.
Since Henry's conversion the Calvinists had sulked.
Several of the Huguenot nobility had followed the king's
example, but the mass resisted, and the ministers who
had placed themselves at the head of the party, in the
place of the men of war, showed themselves less tractable.
Henry was therefore urged to terminate the religious
出​たり
​THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
troubles by the pacification in favour of the Huguenots,
called the Edict of Nantes. By this edict the exercise of
their religion was, with some slight restrictions, permitted,
and it rendered them admissible to all places of honour
and dignity in the state. These concessions did not,
however, satisfy the Huguenots, who distrusted the king
ever after his change of religion; but the French in gene-
ral were delighted with their king, and began to feel the
happiness of a well-organised government; thanks to the
wise administration of his able minister Sully. Nineteen
days after granting the edict, the king's deputies signed,
at Vervins, a peace with Spain (May 2, 1598). Philip
II., conquered by England, by the united provinces of
Holland, and by him whom he called the Prince of Béarn,
saw, after so many efforts, his ambitious projects fall to
the ground, and his monarchy, like himself exhausted,
expiring. The gloomy despotism of Philip II. had pre-
cipitated Spain into a decadence whence two centuries
have not been able to rescue her. By this treaty, the
Spaniards agreed to give up Calais, and, with slight ex-
ception, all their other conquests in France. In the
following September, Philip II. died, and was succeeded
by his only son, Philip III.
JE
:
329
1
H
ELEVENTH PERIOD.
RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF INTERNAL ORDER BY ROYALTY AND
SECOND STRUGGLE OF FRANCE AGAINST THE HOUSE
OF AUSTRIA (1598-1610). ·
Reorganization of France by Henry IV.-In 1598,
Henry IV. had driven out the foreigner, brought Catholics
and Protestants together, and at length established peace
within the realm and on the frontiers. It was now
necessary to cure France of the many wounds she had
received. A contemporary estimated that from the year
1580, 800,000 persons had already perished by war and
massacres, that 9 cities had been razed to the ground,
250 villages burned, and 128,000 houses destroyed. And
since that epoch which preceded the League, how much
other ruin was effected! Commerce interrupted, work-
shops emptied, agriculture neglected, brigandage every-
where—such was the condition from which Henry IV.
had to rescue France. Henry had already found the man
who was destined to aid him in that great work, a more
difficult one than that of the field of battle; a man of
firm good sense, of intrepid heart yet prudent mind, the
Protestant Maximilian de Bethune, afterwards created
Duke of Sully. Pushing his own fortune by every honest
means, he had brought his own estates into order, and
afterwards did the same for the public finances. But.
devoted to his prince and the state, the good economist
cut down his own woods at Rosny to hand the proceeds
of them to Henry, at the end of his resources; and the
zealous Protestant counselled the king to end the war by
making himself a Catholic. Sully was not quite a Colbert
any more than he was a Bayard; he had, however, some
RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF INTERNAL ORDER. 231
of the qualities of both. After the peace of Vervins he
was appointed superintendent of finance (1599), and then
grand-master of the artillery (1600).
Henry, in 1599, had obtained a divorce from Margaret
of Valois, and the same year married Mary de' Medici,
niece to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. This Florentine
princess was a woman of weak mind and violent temper,
and being entirely governed by her Italian favourites,
her perpetual quarrels with the king made the court a
continued scene of dissension.
"The Wolf's-cub of Savoy," as Cardinal d'Ossat called
the duke, had profited by the troubles of France in 1588,
to seize upon the marquisate of Saluces. Henry reclaimed
it, and the duke refusing to restore it, war broke out in
1600; it was, however, terminated early in the following
year by a treaty greatly to the honour and advantage of
Henry. During several years which followed, and which
have been called the golden age of France, few public
events of any moment occurred. Throughout the three
years of unwonted peace which preceded his murder, the
active mind of Henry was earnestly engaged in a grand
project for the humiliation of the house of Austria in
both its branches, and a rearrangement of the group of
European states. With this end in view, he strove to
put his army into the most efficient condition, and in
amassing a very considerable treasure. In the spring of
1610, he prepared to set his forces in motion, on pretext
of some disputes with the Emperor Rodolph.
Before Henry left Paris to join the army, the queen
was appointed regent; and at the suggestion of her Italian
favourite Concini, insisted on being crowned. The cere-
mony of Mary de' Medici's coronation, which was con-
sented to with great unwillingness by the king, as it
compelled him to alter the arrangements for his depar-
ture, took place on the 13th May. Henry seems to have
been impressed with a gloomy presentiment of some im-
pending catastrophe, and repeatedly expressed his con-
viction that his days would be cut short before the time
appointed for quitting the capital.
On the following day (14th), the king went in his
?
232
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
coach, attended by six noblemen to visit Sully, who was
ill in bed. On the way the carriage was stopped in a
narrow street by two carts. A fanatical Jesuit, named
Ravaillac, had followed it on foot from the Louvre, and
who, taking advantage of the obstruction, leaped upon a
post and plunged a knife into the breast of the king, who
was reading a letter. "I am wounded!" he exclaimed,
throwing up his arm. That movement uncovered his
left side, and the assassin struck a second blow which
pierced the heart. Henry expired instantly without
uttering another word. Ravaillac did not attempt to
escape, and it was with great difficulty the people were
kept from tearing him in pieces. He was brought to
trial, condemned, and sentenced to a death of frightful
torture. The judges did not find, or dared not find, that
he had any accomplices. Mary de' Medici evinced neither
grief nor surprise, and shared with the Jesuits the sus-
picion of having been implicated in the deed. A tradition
states that, at the moment the blow was struck, Concini
opened the door of the queen's cabinet, and, without cross-
ing the threshold, uttered the words, “He is murdered!”
"We should not," says Michelet, "have recalled this
tradition, had not the queen herself repeated the expres-
sion in remorseful accents when Concini was in his turn
assassinated."
Louis XIII. (1610-1643)-Regency of Mary de' Medici.
-Sully was expecting Henry IV. at the arsenal, when a
gentleman of his suite ran to him exclaiming, "The king
is dangerously wounded!" "Mon Dieu!" cried Sully,
"have compassion for him, for us, and for the state.
Should he die, France will fall into strange hands." He
shut himself up immediately in the Bastille, and wrote
to his relative, the Duke of Rohun, to return in all haste
from Champagne, with the 6000 Swiss under his command.
There is great significance in those words of Sully; the
mystery of Henry's murder has never been unravelled.
It will probably remain one of the unsolved problems of
modern history. The young king who succeeded his
father was not yet nine years old. Custom gave the
ܵܐܵܗܼܵ
ཞེན་རྟོ་;
RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF INTERNAL ORDER. 233
regency to the king's mother, but Mary de' Medici being
a foreigner, and as bigoted to Rome as was Catherine de'
Medici, and feeling herself to be little loved, thought it
necessary to obtain the legal sanction of the Parliament.
The members, threatened by the Duke d'Epernon, who
went to the sitting at the head of a band of soldiers,
dared not withhold their sanction. At first, nothing
appeared changed in the political system of France.
Mary de' Medici retained the ministers of the last reign.
She even welcomed Sully with deference when he visited
the Louvre to salute his young king: "My son," said she,
"this is the Duke de Sully; you ought to love him well,
for he was one of the best and most useful servants of
your father, and beg of him to serve you in like manner.'
And Sully held the boy long in his arms, and wept over
the son of his late master and friend. The projects of
Henry IV. seemed to be continued with his minister: a
royal declaration confirmed the edict of Nantes; and an
army of 10,000 men, commanded by Marshal de la Châtre,
was placed at the disposition of the Protestant princes who
were then the allies of France.
"1
But it happened, as it almost always does when queens
are regnant, that things became subordinated to persons,
which is the opposite of true policy. Very shortly nothing
but weakness was perceived in the government, the irre-
solution and caprices of a woman. With its king a minor,
an incapable regent, a court divided, and turbulent princes,
the exterior action of France was about to be neutralised
for a long time. Peace becoming a necessity, one of the
first objects of the regent was to unite France as closely
as possible with Spain. She therefore resumed a project
which Henry IV. had rejected; she opened negotiations.
for the double marriage of her son with an Infanta, and
of the prince of Spain with her daughter, and she pro-
mised to no longer trouble the Austrian princes in the
affairs of Germany. It was difficult for Sully to adopt
this new policy, so the regent dismissed him, allowing
only the grand-mastership of the artillery to remain in
his hands (Jan. 1611). The good minister lived for thirty
La P
m
234
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
years longer, only dying at the end of 1641, at his
château of Villebon.
The queen had for a long time given her confidence to
the Florentine, Concini, who governed her through his
wife, Leonora Galigaï. This woman, the daughter of a
joiner, was foster-sister of the regent. Brought up with
Mary de' Medici, she had acquired an extraordinary
influence over her mind, and had accompanied her to
the Court of France. "Poor butterfly," said Richelieu,
"who knew not that the fire that would consume her was
inseparably united to the brilliancy of that fierce light
which she followed, enchanted with ease and contentment."
The authority of the regent found itself disarmed, when
a foreigner, odious already on that score, and moreover
incapable, had assumed, as adviser, the place of the able
man who for twenty years had been associated in the
good and evil fortune of the Bourbons. The Prince of
Condé, the Count of Soissons, his uncle, the Duke of
Bouillon, the Duke of Guise, and a crowd of others had
all rushed to claim pensions, which quickly exhausted
the savings amassed by Henry IV. at the Bastille. How
could the queen refuse their exigence, when her favourite
gave the foremost example of the most scandalous greedi-
ness? Concini drained the treasury with both hands;
he purchased, in a few months, for 330,000 livres, the
Marquisate of Ancre (near Amiens), for 200,000 the
appointment of first gentleman of the chamber; and,
moreover, for large sums, he procured the lieutenant-
generalships of Peronne, Amiens, Dieppe, Pont-de-l'Arche,
Quillebœuf, etc., and he crowned this insolent fortune
by taking the title of Marshal of France, without ever
having seen a field of battle. Leonora, on her part,
worked for their joint prosperity by selling graces and
absolutions. The court of assistants having prosecuted
certain prevaricating officers of finance, she bound herself
by public contract to have them acquitted, for 300,000
livres.
The pretensions of the nobles increased with the weak-
ness of the government. "The presents of the queen,"
RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF INTERNAL ORDER. 235
KLA
says Richelieu, "took off the edge of the first ravenous
hunger of their avarice and ambition; but it was not for
all that extinct; the savings in the coffers of the Bastille
being exhausted, they next aspired to things so great that
the royal authority could not permit of their receiving
the increase of power which they demanded." What
they desired, in fact, were governments for themselves
and families, strongholds, and the dismemberment of
France. Like d'Epernon at Metz, many other nobles,
on the news of Henry's assassination, had also thrown
themselves into fortified places within their reach, some
refusing to give them up, and defying the royal authority.
"The days of kings have passed away," they said, "and
those of the nobles have come." The first refusal of the
regent brought about a civil war. Condé (Henry II.)
took up arms and published a manifesto in which he
accused the Court of having abased the nobility, dila-
pidated the finances, and wronged the lower orders:
reproaches somewhat singular in the mouth of a prince
who, with his friends, had received the greater part of
the poor people's money. Brought up in the Catholic
religion, but a member of a Protestant family, Condé
hoped to rally to his cause the one and the other party.
The discontented nobles had demanded the convocation
of the States-general to give colour to their revolt. When
they had exhausted the money extorted by their first
rising up in arms, they began a second, under pretext
that justice was not done to the requirements of the
states. This time Condé enlisted the Protestants. The
Duke of Rohan stirred up the people of the Cevennes,
and all the party took up arms in support of a factious
nobility. The Court was then occupied with preparations
for a journey to Bordeaux, where the king was to receive
his affianced bride, the Infanta Anne of Austria, and to
conduct thither his sister, who was at the same time to
espouse the Prince of Spain. The departure could not
be delayed, for the Spaniards were already on the march
(Oct. 1615). An army was needed to escort the young
king and his sister to the frontier, and bring back the

236
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Infanta to Paris. During the whole of this journey, which
but little resembled that of a sovereign, the Court had been
pursued and often harrassed by the soldiers of Condé and
de Rohan. These marriages took place by proxy, the one
at Burgos, in Spain, and the other at Bordeaux, on the
same day, Oct. 18, 1615, and the two princesses were
exchanged in the Isle of Pheasants, in the river Bidassoa,
in the November following.
The Infanta was then con-
ducted to Bordeaux, and the king meeting her on the
way, they made together a solemn entry into that city.
The Court purchased a new peace at Loudun (May
1616), when Louis XIII. acknowledged Condé and his
friends as good and loyal subjects, declaring that they
had done "nothing which was otherwise than very agree-
able to him,” and he paid the troops which had been
raised against him Condé alone received 1,500,000
livres. Each revolt brought him more money. This
one had cost the state more than 20 millions.
The prince returned to Paris, and all the Court so
flocked around him that he appeared, for an instant,
to be the real king of France. The queen, who still
governed in her son's name, driven to her wit's end by
a fresh insurrection headed by the Duke of Longueville,
showed, at length, more firmness. She reconstructed the
ministry; and the Bishop of Luçon (Richelieu), whom
the States of 1614 had brought into notice, had become
grand almoner of her household, then member of the
council, in which he made himself powerfully heard.
Concini found that the young prelate "knew more than
all the grey-beards." He had him appointed to one of
the four offices of the household and crown of France,
"with the charge of foreign affairs." Immediately there-
upon rigorous measures were adopted. On the 1st Sept.
1616, the Prince of Condé was arrested even in the hall of
the Louvre, and thrown into the Bastille. In a sort of
manifesto, Richelieu showed that Condé had extorted three
and a half millions in six years, Mayenne 2 millions,
Nevers 1,600,000 livres, Longueville 1,200,000, Vendôme
and Bouillon nearly a million each, and each "seeking to
RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF INTERNAL ORDER. 237
establish a particular tyranny in each province." The
princes and their adherents were declared guilty of high
treason, and their dignities forfeited; and three armies
were sent into Picardy, Champagne, and Berry, to stifle
the revolt. The royal cause would have triumphed on
this occasion, if the king himself had not joined the mal-
contents in order to overthrow the ministers and escape
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Concini had only a vulgar ambition. He loved wealth,
but power terrified him, because he did not feel himself
strong enough to support it. Without devotion or grati-
tude to the queen, he would have quitted France if his
wife had consented to "that baseness and ingratitude."
He reckoned that with his eight millions he could pur-
chase the duchy of Ferrara from the pope, and that
238
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
having left Florence penniless, he could re-enter it a
prince, without any longer having to fear the clamours
of an entire people against the foreigner. He knew
himself to be hated, threatened; the populace had already
once pillaged his mansion at Paris; but it was from a
quarter whence he suspected nothing that the peril came.
Louis XIII. was then sixteen years old. That prince,
of morose and gloomy temperament, lived in isolation,
estranged from state affairs by his mother and Concini,
surrounded only by a few pages to whom he attached
himself, because he had need of some one's affection.
He had formed a friendship for a provincial cadet, who
taught him to train merlins and magpies, Albert Luynes,
the son of an officer of fortune. The king's favourite
conceived the hope of replacing the queen's favourite. A
plot was concerted between Louis XIII. and his falconer.
The captain of the guards, Vitry, received an order to
arrest Concini and kill him if he resisted. On the 24th
April, the sieur Vitry, accompanied by some twenty
gentlemen, who followed him with apparent negligence,
accosted the Marshal d'Ancre as the latter entered the
Louvre and was still upon the drawbridge. He told
him that he took him prisoner on the part of the king.
And, at the same moment, the other having only time to
exclaim: Moi prisonnier! they fired three pistol-shots at
him, from which he fell stark dead. One of his followers
was about to draw his sword, but being told that it was
the king's order, he desisted. At the same instant the
king appeared at a window, and all the Louvre resounded
with the cry of "Long live the king."
Leonora Galigaï met with a more terrible fate. She
was accused of malversations, of plotting against the
state, and especially of sorcery. Being asked, during
her trial, by what sorcery she had acquired her great
ascendancy over the mind of the queen: "I have used
none,” she replied, "except that ascendancy which strong
minds have over the weak." She was beheaded and her
body burnt. Mary de' Medici was exiled to Blois, and
Richelieu ordered to repair to his diocese (1617).
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RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF INTERNAL ORDER. 239
The great nobles had rejoiced at Concini's fall, by
which they hoped to profit. But when they saw De
Luynes appropriate to himself the spoils of the marshal,
become, in less than fifteen months, duke, peer, and
governor of Picardy, and make one of his brothers Duke
of Chaulnes, and a second Duke of Piney-Luxembourg,
they again revolted, and, changing their flag, they rose
in arms in favour of the queen-mother, recently their
enemy. The duke d'Epernon, at the head of 300 gentle-
men, released her from imprisonment at Blois, and with
her endeavoured to raise the south. De Luynes was not
more skilful to resist them than Marshal d'Ancre, and
the peace of Angoulême, brought about by Richelieu,
accorded to Mary de' Medici the government of Anjou
and three strongholds (1619). Angers soon became a
focus of fresh intrigues, and the refuge of all the malcon-
tents. The queen-mother was eager to seize again upon
power. But the king had formed a liking for war, and
when his armies took the field, he felt, amongst the
soldiers, somewhat of the warlike ardour of his father.
He marched upon Angers, decided upon pursuing his
mother into Poitou, even as far as Guyenne, if she took
refuge there. He did not go so far; the partisans of the
queen-mother were defeated in a sanguinary skirmish
near the Bridges of Cé; and her road to the south being
cut off, she was glad to procure, through Richelieu, a
confirmation of the first treaty (1620).
De Luynes exercised, for a time, as complete a dominion
over the young king as the Concinis had over the queen.
He was a man of a haughty and grasping temper, but
wholly unequal to restrain the ambition of the princes of
the blood and other nobles, who committed all sorts of
disorders with impunity, and even sometimes waged war
against the crown. De Luynes died of a fever caught
during the siege of a small town on the Garonne, held by
the Protestant Duke de Rohan, in Dec. 1621. Louis
XIII. continued the war alone; but the duke profited by
a moment of lassitude, during the siege of Montpellier,
to obtain a peace which renewed the edict of Nantes, but
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240
HISTORY OF FRANCE
interdicted political assemblies, and left to the reformers
only the strongholds of Montauban and La Rochelle.
De Luynes left the kingdom in a state of feebleness
and disorder which recalls the worst days of French
history: royal authority humiliated by continual revolts,
the nobility dictating laws to the sovereign and mastering
provinces by the governments which they controlled; the
Calvinists ready to separate themselves from the rest of
the nation; the realm without alliances and without con-
sideration; finally, the house of Austria inaugurating the
Thirty Years' War by a succession of victories, and ap
pearing to prelude, by the ruin of Protestant Germany,
the subjection of Europe. It was time for Richelieu to
appear on the stage of affairs.
Mary de' Medici had been reconciled with her son
after the death of De Luynes; and she had obtained the
cardinal's hat for her habitual adviser, the Bishop of
Luçon (Richelieu). At the beginning of 1624, she had
made him a member of her privy council. At the end of
a few months, Richelieu had dominated or re-organised
the ministry, expelled a new favourite, subjugated Louis
XIII. by the ascendancy of a superior genius, and indi-
cated the policy which should render illustrious a reign
so sorrowfully begun.
Richelieu was desirous at first of pursuing three objects
at once. Scarcely had he entered the council, when he
concluded, cardinal as he was, the marriage of a sister of
Louis XIII., Henrietta Maria, with Charles, Prince of
Wales; he signed a new alliance with the Dutch, and
secretly furnished money to Mansfeld, who then alone
was making head in Germany against the House of
Austria, and despatched 10,000 men to drive the pope's
soldiers out of the Valteline, to restore it to the Grisons.
All these alliances were with Protestants. Whilst the
Duke of Rohan rallied those of Languedoc and the
Cevennes, his brother Soubise, had armed the Rochellers.
La Rochelle was then actually a republic, the centre, and
as it were, the capital of Calvinism; its fleet was superior
to that of France, Richelieu, surprised by this revolt,
RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF INTERNAL ORDER. 241
which he was not prepared to combat (1625), was com-
pelled to ask for ships from two Protestant states, England
and Holland, and he had the address to obtain them, by
promising on his side the support of France against the
House of Austria. His admiral, Montmorency, had some
success on the shores of Poitou; and Soubise sought refuge
in England with the remains of his fleet. Richelieu then
offered peace to the rebels, to prepare at his leisure the
means of crushing them later on, and allowed the courtiers
to denounce him to Catholic France as "the pope of the
Huguenots, and the patriarch of the atheists."
However, he brought about some order in the finances;
he organised the army; he constructed or bought ships,
and signed a treaty with Spain which left him the free
disposal of all his forces. When everything was ready,
he conducted the king and the nobility to the siege of
Rochelle (Aug. 1627). The enterprise, though very
popular in France, seemed difficult, for Charles I. of
England sent to the French Calvinists a fleet of 90 sail,
commanded by the handsome, but incapable, Buckingham.
But Richelieu was equal to the occasion, constituting
himself at once general, engineer, and admiral. He drove
the English out of the Isle of Ré, wherein they had lodged
themselves, and to hinder them from revictualling La
Rochelle, closed the approaches to the port by an immense
mole, a mile in extent. The English tried in vain to force
this gigantic outwork; two fresh fleets despatched from
England were repulsed: Rochelle was isolated from the
ocean. On the land side, a circumvallation of three
leagues, protected by 13 forts, flanked by redoubts, and
mounted with cannon, enveloped the city in a circle of
fire. It held out, however, sustained by the undaunted
courage of the Duchess of Rohan, who had shut herself
up therein, and by the energy of its mayor, Guiton, for
fifteen months, when every kind of food being exhausted
it consented to surrender almost at discretion. Of 15,000
persons who were in the city when the siege began, only
4000 survived the fatal effects of famine, fatigue, and the
sword. For upwards of a year, La Rochelle had held in
Q
242
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
check the fortunes of Richelieu, at a cost of 40 millions,
which was not too much, since at that price he had pur-
chased the political unity of France.
La Rochelle was treated as a conquered city, its for-
tifications destroyed, and its privileges .abolished; but
Richelieu, satisfied with having broken the power of the
Huguenots, and having wrested from them their strongest
asylum, still permitted them the free exercise of their reli-
gion. The peace of Alais, or Edict of Grace (June 1629),
terminated the last religious war. The Calvinists ceased to
be a political party, and to form a state within the state.
One of the consequences of the war was the acquisition
of Arcadia and Cape Breton, which the English, allies of
the French Protestants, ceded to France by the treaty of
St. Germain (1632).
Richelieu was desirous of seeing royalty within the
realm a supreme magistracy of public order, having, as he
said on his deathbed, neither affection nor hatred for any-
one, but justice for all. The struggle against the nobility,
commenced from the very first days of his ministry, con-
tinued until his death. Intrigues, conspiracies, and revolts
unceasingly imperilled his life, his authority, those of the
king, and the repose of France. He repressed them with
relentless severity. But if the cardinal had the right of
punishing the guilty, it is to be regretted that he used it
with so much rigour, especially as he sometimes, like
Louis XI., gave to justice the appearance of vengeance,
and made the scaffold a means of government.
The arduous task Richelieu now set himself, the execu-
tion of which lasted for the rest of his life, was to repress,
in Germany, Spain, and Italy, the power of France's great
rival, the House of Austria. Direct hostilities began in
1635, but it is impossible to give a distinct summary of
the complicated transactions of this war with Spain. It
must suffice to say that Richelieu, at his death (1st Dec.
1642), left France victorious on all sides; the House of
Austria humbled, the kingdom aggrandised by four pro-
vinces: Lorraine, Alsace, Artois, and Roussillon; Catalonia
and Portugal in arms against Spain, the Swedes and



SECOND STRUGGLE AGAINST AUSTRÍA.
243
French almost at the gates of Vienna. He had therefore
kept the promise he made to Louis XIII. in entering
upon his ministry: he had raised, abroad, the king's
name to the point at which he thought it ought to stand
amongst foreign nations; he had, at home, made all and
everything bend to his iron will. But here from one
peril the nation had fallen into another; from aristocratic
licence into the arbitrariness of royal despotism, which
sometimes set itself above all justice, and disposed at
will of the fortunes, liberties, and lives of the citizens.
Not only were there seen confiscations and arbitrary im-
prisonments, but capital sentences pronounced by letters
patent addressed to the Parliament. In his last moments,
when the curate of St. Eustache brought the viaticum
to Richelieu, the priest asked: "Do you forgive your
enemies?" "I never had any but those of the state," was
the answer of the dying cardinal.
Louis XIII. changed nothing in the policy of his
minister, and summoned to the council-board him who
could continue it, Jules Mazarin, the pupil and depositary
of the great statesman's ideas. Louis survived Richelieu
only six months (14th May 1643), as though both in-
separable in life, so also were they to be in history.
Louis XIV. (1643-1715)--Regency of Anne of Austria.
-The eldest son of Louis XIII. was a boy under five
years of age. His father, who mistrusted the queen,
mixed up in all the intrigues of the aristocracy, under
Richelieu, had bequeathed her the regency, but controlled
by a council which was to decide all matters by a majority
of votes. Four days, however, after the king's death, the
queen procured a formal decree of the Parliament which
gave her the choice of the council, thereby annulling the
king's will, and investing her with all authority. To the
astonishment of the Court, the first adviser whom she
chose was the friend and successor of Richelieu, the Car-
dinal Mazarin,
Mazarin, born in 1602, belonged to a Sicilian family
settled in Rome. Sent as nuncio to France in 1634, his
political address attracted the favourable notice of Riche-


244
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
lieu, who attached him to his fortunes, and obtained for
him the Roman purple. The queen confided herself to
this depositary of the great cardinal's designs, to this
foreigner, who could have no other interest in France
save that of the king, and she allowed him to exercise
over her mind, even over her heart, an absolute empire.
He pursued abroad the policy of his predecessor, and the
Spanish war was continued. The death of Richelieu had
emboldened the Spaniards; they had resumed the offen
sive and besieged Rocroy, hoping after its fall to reach
Paris without obstacle, as they had before them only an
army inferior in numbers, and a general of one-and-twenty,
Louis of Bourbon, then Duke of Enghien, but later known
as "the Great Condé."

With the news of the late king's death, the young
general had received orders not to risk a battle against
the superior strength of the Spaniards; but he ventured
to disobey these orders, and on the 19th of May fought
the battle of Rocroy and gained a decisive victory. The
Duke d'Enghien followed up his success with that impetu-
osity and happy audacity which were the characteristics
of that modern Alexander. Each year was marked by a
victory. After driving the Spaniards out of France, and
capturing Thionville, he turned his arms against Austria
and its German allies. The war with the emperor was
terminated, 24th October 1648, by the treaty of West-
phalia, which formed the basis of all the diplomatic con-
ventions from the middle of the seventeenth century down
to the French Revolution, putting an end to the supre-
macy of the house of Austria, and saving the independ-
ence of the small states. If the Bourbons had not inherited
the ambition of the Hapsbourgs, and raised against them
the same coalitions, the peace of Westphalia would have
secured the greatness of France and the political liberty
of Europe.
Whilst Mazarin was continuing gloriously the policy
of Richelieu, his power was shaken in France by factions.
The last reign had bequeathed immense financial embar-
rassments to the cardinal, which had been much increased
SECOND STRUGGLE AGAINST AUSTRIA.
245
by the long war, and had driven that minister to attempt
to procure money by many unjust and impolitic methods.
The Parliament refused to register the edicts issued for
raising supplies. In consequence of this refusal, one of
its members was arrested. On this the populace of Paris
flew to arms, shut up the shops, and barricaded the streets.
This "Day of the 200 Barricades" was the 26th of Aug.
1648. The civil war called the Fronde arose out of this
financial crisis.

On the very outbreak of these disturbances, the nobles
hastened to throw themselves into them.
The great
nobles, in fact, finding once more, as at the death of
Henry II. and of Henry IV., a child king and a foreign
queen, essayed a last struggle against royalty. But
Richelieu had so thoroughly broken up that indisciplin-
able nobility, that it had need, in order to be in a con-
dition to agitate the people, to support itself by the
Parliament, that is to say, by the great instrument of
which the kings had availed themselves to batter in the
breach of feudality. The Parliament of Paris assumed to
represent the nation in the interval of the States-general;
and as all law, before being rendered executive, was
required to be inscribed on its registers, it had drawn
from that circumstance the right of addressing remon-
strances. Under the strong kings it was dumb; under
the feeble kings the remonstrances were frequent; and if
they bore upon measures of finance, they might give to
Parliament a popularity which could force for an instant
royalty to reckon with it. This is what happened in 1648.
To fill up the void in the public coffers, new imposts
were required which the Parliament refused to register.
Mazarin had three of the most obstinate members arrested
and imprisoned, but an insurrection of the citizens com-
pelled the Court to release them, and a decree of Parlia-
ment ordered Mazarin to quit the kingdom within eight
days. A grandson of Henry IV., the Duke of Beaufort,
surnamed the King of the Markets, on account of his
popular eloquence; the dukes of Longueville, d'Elbeuf,
de Bouillon, de Chevreuse, and especially the coadjuteur

1
F
P
246
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
1
of Paris, Paul de Gondy, afterwards Cardinal de Retz, a
man of an ambitious and giddy character, became the
chiefs of this faction.
they ha
faul
This ridiculous parody of the League, which was aptly
called after the name of a childish game, the word fronde
meaning a sling, had no other object than that of replac-
ing a faithful minister of the crown by titled intriguers,
who no longer proposed to themselves the dismemberment
of the royal authority, but the pillage of the treasury.
It is not with such principles that revolutions are made,
therefore the Fronde remained merely a revolt. Turenne,
and afterwards the great Condé, placed for a short time
their military genius at its service. But Turenne soon
quitted it; and Condé compromised his glory by entering
it out of spite to Mazarin, and especially in treating with
Spain. Philip IV., too happy to place at the head of his
armies him who had so many times defeated them, named
him generalissimo. But Condé seemed to have lost his
good fortune in quitting France. Turenne also, for a
moment allied with the Spaniards, had been beaten with
them at Rethel (1650). The two illustrious rivals found
themselves in presence of each other at Bléneau, where
Turenne saved the royal army, and also at the combat at
the Porte-St.-Antoine (1652), in which Condé would have
been crushed had Paris not opened its gates. But he
was soon compelled to quit it, and Turenne defied him
still with the Spaniards, his allies, before Arras (1654),
and afterwards near Dunkirk (1658).
The Fronde fell of itself by the force of ridicule. The
parliamentarians returned to their functions, the citizens
to their business. Mazarin who had not ceased from direct-
ing everything from the depth of his exile through his
ascendancy over the queen-mother, returned in triumph.
The Duke of Orleans, who in this last contest had taken
part with the Prince of Condé, was banished to Blois,
where he passed the rest of his life. Cardinal de Retz
was arrested in the Louvre, and conveyed from prison to
prison; while the Prince of Condé himself, pressed by
Turenne, and feebly supported by the Spaniards, was
SECOND STRUGGLE AGAINST AUSTRIA,
247
reduced to wage on the frontiers of Champagne a petty
and unsuccessful war.
For some time, since there was no longer any question
of the Fronde, when the treaty of the Pyrenees (7th Nov.
1659) reopened France to the Prince of Condé, the coun-
try was no longer distracted by faction.
The arrogance
of the unruly nobles was again reduced within those limits
which the policy of Richelieu had dictated. By the treaty
with Spain, it was agreed that the King of France should
marry the Infanta, the only daughter of Philip IV. by
his first marriage with Elizabeth, sister of Louis XIII.,
and accordingly the ceremony took place on the 9th June
1660 at St. Jean de Luz, on the Spanish frontier. The
Duke of Orleans, the king's uncle, died at Blois, 2nd
February 1660. As he died without sons, the dukedom
was given to Philip, the king's younger brother, who
married Henrietta, sister of Charles II. of England.
Cardinal Mazarin died at Vincennes, 9th March 1661,
aged fifty-nine. From that day Louis XIV., though not
yet twenty-three years old, took the administration of
affairs into his own hands, and during thirty years he
worked regularly eight hours a day. No one would have
thought that a young prince, devoted hitherto to the
amusements of his age, could have dared to govern by
himself. Mazarin alone had divined it. He said on one
occasion to Marshals Villeroi and De Grammont-"You
do not know him; he will put himself in the way a little
later: there is stuff enough in him wherewith to make
four kings and one honest man.” When the ministers
came, after Mazarin's death, to ask the king to whom they
should address themselves henceforth: "To me," was his
answer. That resolution, however, was only the accom-
plishment of counsels twenty times given by Mazarin, and
if there is any cause for wonder, it is not that Louis took
it, but that he kept it. He later in life recommended to
his son, in truly eloquent words, never to forget "that it
is by labour that a king should reign." Though Mazarin
had much neglected to have the king generally well instruc-
ted, he by no means overlooked his political education.
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TWELFTH PERIOD.
TRIUMPH OF ABSOLUTE ROYALTY (1661-1715).
THE brilliant period of this reign extends from 1661 to
1683, from the death of Mazarin to the decease of Colbert,
and it is rendered illustrious by the strong generation
which arose during the years preceding. For the ad-
ministration of the interior, there was Colbert; for war,
Turenne, Condé, Duquesne, and Louvois; for letters,
Molière, La Fontaine, Boilleau, Racine, Bossuet, Bourda-
lone, and Madame de Sevigné; for the arts, Lebrun,
Claude Lorraine, Puget, Mansart, and Perrault. Every-
thing then smiled around him, everything was successful,
durable conquests were achieved, great works accom-
plished, splendid monuments erected.
Mazarin, on his deathbed, had recommended Colbert
to Louis XIV. This great man, of rude manners but
austere morals, indefatigable in work, and who never
separated the greatness of the king from the greatness of
the country, reorganised as comptroller-general the finances
which had fallen into the same disorder as that in which
Sully had found them. Richelieu had too much to do to
think about finance. Mazarin had only busied himself
with it to amass a fortune of more than 200 millions.
Fouquet, the predecessor of Colbert, pillaged to such an
extent as to be able to expend 18 millions on his château
at Vaux, and to not care about the cost of 120,000 livres
for a magnificent fête given to Louis XIV. and his court.
Following the example of their chief, all the inferior
agents plundered. In 1661, of 84 millions of taxes
which France paid, a third only entered the treasury, and
the revenue of two years was consumed in advance,
1
t
TRIUMPH OF ABSOLUTE ROYALTY.
249
E

Colbert compelled the tax-contractors to disgorge, who
refunded more than 110 millions, and he secured to the
crown in a few years, notwithstanding a beneficent
diminution of taxes, a net revenue of 89 millions, in lieu
of 32 which the treasury received before him.
From 1665, Colbert and Luvois, ministers of war, had
given Louis XIV. a well-filled treasury, which allowed
of Dunkirk being redeemed from the English; an army
well equipped, and a fleet already respectable, which
purged the Mediterranean of pirates, so that, when Philip
IV. of Spain died in 1665, Louis was in a position to
enforce the claims which he pretended to derive in right
of his wife, Marie Theresa of Austria (daughter of Philip
IV.), as a portion of her inheritance. This occasioned
the first war of Louis' reign. Flanders and Franche-
Comté were conquered in two months almost without
striking a blow. But Holland, terrified at this rapid
progress, interposed. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle left
Flanders to France (1668).
Th ugh Louis was greatly indignant at this intervention
of the Amsterdam republicans, another motive decided
him u on declaring war against them. Of the 25,000
ships of which the mercantile marine of the whole world
was con posed, Holland possessed 16,000 France 600.
Nearly al the exportation of the kingdom was in the hands
of the Dutch. Colbert, in order to strip them of that carry-
ing trade c.' Europe, and let the national marine profit by
it, declared Dunkirk and Marseilles free ports. He had
founded in 1664 the company of the East and West
Indies; in 1669 he founded that of the North, and an
edict declared that maritime commerce did not detract
from nobility.
Thanks to that powerful impulse, French commerce
developed itself. The establishment of new tariffs in
1667 increased the jealousy of the Dutch, and they re-
plied thereto by a considerable surtax levied upon French
products. This war of tariffs was the principal cause of
the hostilities which broke out in 1672. The Prince of
Orange had the address to make a European war out of
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250
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
it, and dragged into alliance with Holland Spain, the
Elector of Brandenbourg, and the Emperor of Germany.
This coalition was overcome. Louis XIV. crossed the
Rhine. The French penetrated very nearly to Amster
dam, which the Dutch saved by cutting their dykes.
Condé beat the Prince of Orange (afterwards William III.
of England) at Sénef (1674); Turenne, the Imperialists,
who had penetrated into Alsace, in every instance where
he could engage them: at Ensisheim, Mulhausen, Turk-
heim, etc.; Schonberg, the Spaniards in the Roussillon.
Duquesne tore from the Dutch by two naval victories the
empire of the sea. Crequy and Luxembourg, on land;
D'Estrées and Chateau-Renaud, by sea, obtained well-
merited distinction amongst the other great warriors.
By the mediation of the king of England, who, in 1677,
had given his niece Mary to the Prince of Orange in
marriage, the peace of Niméguen was concluded in 1679.
This peace gave Louis Franche-Comté and an accession of
territory in Flanders.

The treaty of Niméguen marks the culmination of the
reign of the Great Monarch, as the Paris magistrates
entitled him at this period of it, when they erected two
triumphal arches, the gates of St. Martin and St. Denis,
to commemorate the close of the war (1680). All glori
ous as it had been, that war was, however, the origin of
manifold misfortunes towards the end of the reign, for
it had accustomed Europe to league itself against France,
and had shown her the man whom she ought to take as
the chief of her counsels, and the country in which she
must place the fulcrum of her resistance. The war of
Holland prepared the fortunes of William III. of England.
Nevertheless, it was the most brilliant epoch of the
"Great Monarch's" reign. "Victorious," says Voltaire,
"from the very beginning of his reign, having besieged no
place which he did not take, the terror of Europe during
six continuous years, at length its arbitrator and its
pacificator, the vain-glorious king imagined that every-
thing was possible for him, and he made of the peace a
period of conquest." He acquired Strasbourg, which
·
TRIUMPH OF ABSOLUTE ROYALTY.
251
finished the conquest of Alsace, bombarded Algiers and
Tripoli, humiliated Genoa "the superb," and by his
"chambers of re-union," alarmed all the princes of Europe
bordering on France. But 110 ships of the line were
in the ports of Toulon, Rochefort, Brest, Havre, and
Dunkirk. One hundred fortresses constructed or repaired
by the illustrious Vauban covered his frontiers, which a
formidable army of 140,000 men still better defended, in
whose ranks Luxembourg, Catinat, Vendôme, and Villars
were ready to worthily replace Turenne, killed by a spent
cannon-ball in 1675, and Condé, whom serious infirmities
compelled to retire far from camps and the head of armies.
That great soldier died, in 1686, a victim to his devotion
to the Duchess of Bourbon, his grand-daughter, when
attacked with small-pox.
Charles V. said that fortune did not favour old men.
The greatest king of the Bourbon race experienced the
truth of that saying equally with the founder of the house
of Austria. Long reigns, in fact, often present two con-
trary spectacles-a period of glitter and prosperity, and a
time of decadence and misery, because very few princes
are sufficiently masters of themselves to be able to modify
their ideas proportionately as the needs of their subjects
are modified.
Those conquests just named, made during a time of
peace, those violences, that overweening of pride, awak-
ened the fears of Europe. France was accused of having
overthrown the Austrian domination only to put her
own in its place. From 1681, the empire, the Emperor
Leopold, Spain, Holland, even Sweden, concluded, by the
solicitude of William of Orange, a secret alliance to
maintain the peace of Niméguen. What was, at this
critical juncture, the situation of France? A sense of
weariness began to make itself felt in that society still
so brilliant in appearance and so prosperous. The exces-
sive expenditure of the late war, the costly maintenance
of an army of 150,000 men in a time of peace, the stately
constructions, such as those of Versailles, of Trianon,
Marly, the Louvre, and the Tuileries; or those of utility,
.
A
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252
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
as ports, strongholds, the Invalides, etc., had destroyed the
equilibrium of the finances, compelled an increased taxa-
tion, and struck a first blow at agriculture and commerce.
The frightful misery of 1662 reappeared. In the year
following that of the peace, Colbert told the king that all
the letters from the provinces spoke of the very great
sufferings of the people. But Louis clung obstinately to
the theory of his practice, and delighted to erect his
customary habits into principles of government. To put
his conscience at rest, on the subject of his monstrous
prodigalities, he answered Madame de Maintenon when she
asked him for money in the name of the poor: “A king
gives alms in expending largely." A preciously terrible
maxim, observes Say, which shows how ruin may be
reduced to a principle.
When Colbert therefore preached economy he was very
badly welcomed. The minister exhausted his ingenuity
to find resources to fill up the gulf of the deficit. He
groaned to see, after the concession made to Holland at
the peace of Niméguen, the foreign concurrence crush
afresh the maritime commerce and national industry.
He succumbed under the anxiety. He died in 1683, at
the age of 64, worn out by excessive toil, and killed,
perhaps, by the unjust reproaches of the king.
Two years after Colbert's death, Louis XIV. committed
the greatest error of his reign, the revocation of the Edict
of Nantes. The evil advisers of this imprudent and
culpable measure were the implacable Luvois and the new
and last royal favourite, Madame de Maintenon. This
revocation had been preceded by the "booted missions"
of Louvois, who sent dragoons and other troops amongst
the Protestants to obtain conversions by force. As the
dragoons were distinguished by the cruel license and
excess which they practised, this prosecution was termed
the dragonnades. It was followed by a war, that of the
Camisards in the Cevennes, which was directed by three
marshals, one of whom was Villars. 300,000 Protestants
devoted to commerce and industry, excluded from all
public offices, exiled themselves from France. They
TRIUMPH OF ABSOLUTE ROYALTY.
I
253
carried abroad with them, to the profit of the foreigner
in England, Holland, and Germany, their handicraft and
their hatred to Louis XIV. Nearly 40,000 took refuge
in England, where they were received with open arms.
The answer of the Protestant powers to the revocation
of the edict of Nantes was the revolution in England,
which, in 1688, drove from the throne the Catholic James
II., and placed upon it the Calvinist, William III. A
ruler often himself creates the perils into which he falls,
and the enemies who precipitate him therein. Twice
Louis XIV. made the fortune of his most formidable
adversary: in 1672, when by an unjust war he rendered
William of Orange necessary to Holland; in 1688, when
by his strict alliance with a king (James II.) odious to
his subjects, he made popular in England that ungracious
prince who spoke English with difficulty, and thought far
more about the Continent than of British affairs. The
revolution which gave him the throne of James II. went
further than a change of royal persons. It substituted
in England elective royalty for royalty by divine right,
and founded constitutional or parliamentary government.
The Prince of Orange, ever the unwearied enemy of
Louis XIV., had succeeded in effecting a new coalition,
called the League of Augsburg. His succession under
the name of William III. changed the face of affairs and
substituted in the struggle against Louis, in the place of
enfeebled Holland, England, whose forces had been hus-
banded by a long peace, united with Spain and Germany.
Luxembourg was fain to conquer at Fleurus (1690), at
Steinkirk (1692), at Nerwinden (1693); Catinat at Staf-
farde (1690), and at Marseilles (1693). Louis was con-
strained, by the treaty of Ryswick, to recognise William
III. as king of England, and to renounce some of his
acquisitions in the empire. By sea the advantage was
on the side of England and Holland. On the 29th May
1692, Tourville, the French admiral, was completely de-
feated off Cape La Hogue, and the remnant of his fleet
afterwards nearly destroyed by the enemy. All parties
were at length wearied of the war and inclined sincerely
.:
!
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254
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
!
to peace. Thus Louis consented at the end of a success-
ful war to terms which could hardly have been expected,
even in defeat.
t
Louis had signed the peace in order to hold himself
prepared for a great event which was then imminent-
the opening of the question of the Spanish Succession.
Charles II., the last heir of Philip II., was dying and had
no heir. The great powers were partitioning beforehand
his inheritance. The treaty of London (May, 1700)
secured only Lorraine to France, an acquisition of slight
importance, because that province could be occupied at
the first cannon-shot, and the kingdom of Naples was a
possession more onerous than useful. Thus, when Louis
knew that the will of Charles II. had named as his
successor the Duke of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin,
he proclaimed him king and sent him to the Spaniards,
saying, "The Pyrenees exist no longer."
Then, as at the present day, France had two great
interests. The first, that Spain should be her friend, and
the accession of a Bourbon to the throne of Charles V.
seemed bound to realise that hope, that is to say, to
assure peace to France on her southern frontier. The
second, that the northern frontier should reach further
from Paris, and that the Low Countries should be either
in the hands of France, or in alliance with her. That
advantage Louis tried to guarantee by joining French
troops with the Spanish garrisons in the Low Countries.
But neither England nor Holland were willing to see the
French at the mouths of the Scheldt, and a third coalition
was formed (1701-1709).
France responded thereto at first by successes. Bouf-
flers beat the Dutch at Eckeren (1703); Villars, the
Imperialists at Friedlingen (1702), and at Hochstadt
(1703); Tallard, at Spires in Germany; Vendôme, at
Cassano in Italy (1705). But Tallard and Marsin lost
the disastrous battle of Blenheim (1704); Villeroi that
of Ramilies (1707); Vendôme, that of Oudenarde (1708).
Villars himself was defeated at Malplaquet (1709), upon
the frontiers of Holland. France, wasted by a rigorous
TRIUMPH OF ABSOLUTE ROYALTY.
مینه
255
winter and famine, at the end of her resources, but not
of her courage, sued for peace. It was intimated that
Louis XIV. should himself drive his grandson out of
Spain. "Since war must be waged," said he, "I pre-
fer to wage it with my enemies rather than with my
progeny," and he sent Villars to fight a last battle.
"If
he is beaten," said he, "I will convoke all the nobility of
my kingdom to lead them before the enemy, in spite of
my seventy-four years, and perish at their head or save
the state.
"
These noble sentiments had their reward. The victory
of Villars at Denain saved the monarchy (1712), and the
treaties of Utrecht and Rastadt regulated for a century
the territorial distribution of the European states. To
France remained Flanders and Alsace with Landau;
to Philip V., Spain and its colonies; to Austria, the Low
Countries, the Milanese, and Naples; to the Duke of
Savoy, Nice and Sicily; to England, Mahon, Minorca and
Gibraltar, Hudson's Bay, Newfoundland, and Acadia;
to the new King of Prussia, Upper Gueldre; and lastly,
Holland obtained the right of garrisoning seven towns
of the Low Countries to serve her as a barrier against
France.
To the acquisitions of Richelieu and Mazarin, Louis
XIV. had therefore in reality only added Strasbourg,
Landau, Franche-Comté, Dunkirk, Flanders; and to the
colonies the Antilles, Cayenne, Bourbon, and Senegal.
This peace, inglorious as it was, put an end, however,
to the frightful sufferings of the latter years. During
the terrible winter of 1709, the king's valets were seen to
beg in Versailles, and Madame de Maintenon to eat black
bread. The king survived the peace little more than two
years; he died on the 1st September 1715, aged 77, having
reigned 72 years.
The acquisition of two provinces and a few towns was
not a compensation for all the hideous misery caused by
the wars; and bearing in mind the state of Europe in
1661, it may be thought that Louis XIV. did not
rive from the situation all the advantages it offered to
}
3
256
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
:
France. But sons forget very quickly the sufferings of
their fathers; the generations following have not cared
to recall so many victories, Europe braved, France during
20 years preponderant; finally, the incomparable glitter of
that court of Versailles, and those marvels of letters and
arts, which caused the 17th century to be called "the age
of Louis XIV." It is the task of history to point out
the price which France paid for the impossible project of
its monarch:-abroad to dominate Europe, which created
hatreds, coalitions, and in the end the disasters of the
latter years; at home, to enslave the wills and consciences
of his subjects, which provoked the terrible reaction of
the succeeding age.

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THE weight of the authority of Louis XIV. had been
unbearable during the latter years. When the nation
became conscious of its removal it breathed again. Both
court and city manifested a disrespectful delight, and
even the bier of the great monarch was insulted. “I
saw," says Voltaire, "little tents erected on the way to
St. Denis, in which drinking, singing, and laughing went
on. The Jesuit Le Tellier was the principal cause of that
universal joy. I heard several spectators say that the
houses of the Jesuits ought to be set on fire by the torches
which lighted the funeral pomp." Thus opened the 18th
century, by a protest against absolute monarchy and the
religious direction of the latter days.
The heir of Louis XIV. was his great grandson, a child
of only five years of age. By his will, Louis had regu-
lated the administration of the state during the minority
of his successor, but the Parliament annuled that instru-
ment, and decreed all the rights of the regency to the
first prince of the blood, the Duke of Orleans. That
prince dishonoured power by his irreligion and licentious-
ness, and the infamy of his principal agent, Dubois, who
was created a cardinal, and became the pensioner of
England. The policy of Louis XIV. was abandoned.
The King of Spain sought to obtain the regency of France
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HISTORY OF FRANCE.
for himself, and tried to seize upon it by the conspiracy
of Cellamare in 1718. The Duke of Orleans defended
himself by seeking the alliance of England, and, as the
price of her friendship, sacrificed the French navy.
Louis XIV. had left a debt of nearly two milliards
and a half and an annual deficit of 78 millions. A
recoinage of money was ordered which produced 70
millions; the revision of unjust claims by the tax-contrac-
tors which the state, during the evil days, had subjected
to the usury laws and compelled the restitution of 220
millions, of which the courtiers or roués, as the regent's
friends were called, allowed only 15 millions to reach
the treasury. All these measures were only temporary
expedients, and, as it will be seen, but little productive
to the state.
John Law, a Scotsman, the son of a goldsmith, early
initiated in banking operations, an adept at gambling
combinations, by which he had made his fortune, and
endowed with a powerful mind and ready eloquence,
pretended to have discovered a new source of wealth.
He founded, in 1716, a joint-stock bank in shares, which
discounted merchants' bills at a low rate, facilitated
commerce by that means, and itself made excellent profits.
Its shares, therefore, were eagerly sought after.
But to his bank, become in 1718 "the Royal Bank,"
Law added a Company, to which he attributed the
exclusive privilege of trading with Louisiana and the
Mississippi. His first success caused a second to be
believed in. Wonders were promised from the Louisiana
enterprise, and such were the foolish hopes placed in it
that shares of 500 livres were bought at ten, twenty, and
forty times their price. Such an extravagant venture
was sure to lead to a catastrophe. Law, seeing the
public infatuation, thought he could make with impunity
such enormous issues of those shares (one milliard, six
hundred and seventy-five millions) that confidence was lost.
Speedily, the hoped-for profits not arriving, the whole
thing crumbled to pieces. In order to save the company,
Law reunited it to his bank. That proved the downfall of
THE ABUSES OF ABSOLUTE MONARCHY.
259
both. The holders of scrip all wished to be immediately
reimbursed, the bank failed, and there was not a fortune
throughout the kingdom that was not shaken or destroyed.
Mendicants became millionaires, princes were ruined.
That which was more serious was the demoralization
produced by those sudden changes and the taste for an
insensate luxury, a result of those illegitimate gains. Law
died in Venice in great poverty. Modern banking has
adopted the sounder features of his system.
The regent died in 1723. The Duke of Bourbon, his
successor, as first minister, only signalised his entrance
into power by many private irregularities and an alliance
which eventually brought about a war. He made the
king marry the daughter of Stanislaus Leczinsky, the
dethroned king of Poland.
Cardinal de Fleury, a former preceptor of the king,
replaced, in 1726, the Duke of Bourbon. During seven-
teen years he applied all his efforts towards keeping
France in peace, in order to repair her disordered finances.
But all the springs of government became relaxed under
the hands of that octogenarian minister, who, by a false
economy, ended by allowing the naval resources of France
to fall into decay.
This disastrous reign had one unimportant war, and
two others of a more serious character. The first, for
the re-establishment of Leczinski on the throne of Poland,
was marked by the victories of Parma and Guastalla
(1734); the peace of Vienna ceded Lorraine to the father-
in-law of Louis XV., on condition that that province
should return to France after his decease.
The second war (1740-1748) was undertaken in order
to despoil Maria Theresa of Austria, but proved profitable
only to the King of Prussia, Frederick II., notwithstand-
ing the taking of Prague by the French in 1741, and the
victories of Fontenoy (1745), of Raucoux (1746), and of
Lawfeld (1747), won by Marshal Saxe. Louis XV.,
master of the Low Countries, thanks to these successes,
knew not how to keep them. "He would not make,'
he said, "peace in a merchant fashion, but like a king."
""
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260
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
:
He restored his conquests, and France gained not an inch
of ground for seven years of fighting. Fleury did not
live to see the end of that war, having died in 1743, at
the age of eighty-nine.
The activity of the nation, however, displayed itself
abroad. Commerce revived, the colonies were flourishing,
and an officer of the company of the Indies, Dupleix,
seemed on the point of giving Hindostan to France.
England aroused herself. Without a declaration of war
she captured 300 French ships. France ought to have
concentrated all her strength in naval struggles, but she
allowed herself to be dragged into a continental war.
Allied with Prussia in the preceding war, she became
her enemy, because the Empress Maria Theresa humbled
her pride so far as to flatter a favourite, the Marchioness
de Pompadour. That error had disastrous consequences.
War was not carried on vigorously either by sea or land.
Frederick II. gained the battle of Rosbach. Thirty-seven
ships of the line and fifty frigates were captured or
destroyed, the colonies lost, and French commerce ruined.
Some slight success on the part of Marshal de Broglie,
and the dashing conquest of Minorca by the Duke de
Richelieu were not a compensation for the national pride.
The results of that war were the greatness of Prussia,
which Frederick II. raised to rank amongst the first
powers of Europe; and that of England, to which Louis
XV., by the treaty of Paris (1763), ceded Canada with
all its dependencies, a part of the West Indies, Senegal,
and almost all the French possessions in India. The
cession of Louisiana to Spain, in 1769, was a consequence
of that for France-deplorable treaty.
These reverses were due to the want of skill of the
generals whom their birth, as in the instance of the
Comte de Clermont, or favour, as in that of the prince
de Soubise, and not their merit, had called to the head
of armies. Regiments were purchased and officered by
nobles alone. It was with difficulty, even by dint of
bravery, that a few plebeians could obtain the rank of
officer. Two provinces were, however, under this reign,
;
THE ABUSES OF ABSOLUTE MONARCHT.
261
added to the kingdom: Lorraine, regained in 1766, after
the death of the old King of Poland, Leczinski, to whom
Austria had ceded it in 1737, and Corsica, which was
abandoned by Genoa to France in 1768. Napoleon was
born there in the year following, quite opportunely
enabling him to call himself a Frenchman. But those
acquisitions ingloriously acquired did not efface the shame
of the treaty of Paris.
Louis XV. had, however, if not a great, at least a
patriotic minister, the Duke de Choiseul, who signed
against England, in 1761, the Family Pact between the
Bourbons of France, Spain, and Naples. Choiseul re-
organised the army, caused what remained of the colonies
to flourish, and created a new navy.
He could have
wished to control at once the two most ambitious and
menacing powers of Europe: Russia, in opposing herself
to the partition of Poland; England, by exciting discon-
tent amongst the English colonies in America. Finally,
at home, he formed projects of reform. He allowed the
Parliament to condemn, in 1762, the Jesuits, and dissolve
their order. The convents appeared to him too numer-
ous, and he regarded the immunity from taxation accorded
to the church for its possessions as a privilege, the sup-
pression of which would help to re-establish the impaired.
finances of the state. Louis XV., whom so many projects
frightened from his repose, sacrificed his minister through
the hatred of his favourite mistress, the Countess du
Barry (1770).
The Abbé Terray, one of Choiseul's enemies, was next
charged with the finances. This man, who looked upon
“the people as a sponge which must be squeezed,” found
no other remedy for reducing the national debt than that
of bankruptcy. This bankruptcy, happening in the midst
of a scarcity artificially produced by the Pact of Famine,"
raised to a height the contempt and hatred for a govern-
*
A society was so called which monopolised the grain, produced
famine in the midst of abundance, and thus gained enormous
Louis XV. held shares in this company to the amount of
ten millions.
sums.
h
262
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
ment so culpable. To the clamours which arose on all
sides, Terray coldly replied: "The king is the master;
necessity justifies everything." He did not the less leave
a deficit subsisting of twenty-five millions. If the taxes,
doubled since 1715, excited murmurs, the Lettres de
Cachet, which were daily multiplied in an alarming
manner, gave birth to wide-spread anger, for they deliv-
ered up the liberty of the citizens to the rich and power-
ful, who had a passion to satisfy or a vengeance to glut.
About this time, the king also broke up the parliaments,
useful instruments, even with their resistances (1771).
Henceforward there was no longer room in the state for
the slightest opposition, however respectfully and timidly
it might legally show itself. Richelieu and Louis XIV.
had destroyed the great body of the magistracy. What
was there about to remain to support the ancient edifice
and cover the monarch?
*
And how did Louis XV. use this power, the most
absolute ever seen? He allowed, in 1772, the great
political crime of that century to be accomplished, the
dismemberment of Poland, of which Austria, Prussia, and
Russia shared the bleeding members.
Stanislaus' daughter, the virtuous and amiable consort
of Louis XV., died in 1768, lamented for a few brief
hours by her dissolute husband, who quickly abandoned
himself again to the most shameless profligacy, from
which he never afterwards attempted to emancipate
himself. He died of small-pox, 10th May 1774, aged
65, having reigned 59 years.
Louis XVI. (1774-1793).-One hope remained. The
new king, grandson of Louis XV., was only twenty
years of age. He had married, 16th May 1770, Marie
Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, one of the daughters
of Maria Theresa. He brought to the throne many
* These lettres de cachet, were orders of imprisonment, in
which sometimes the name of the person to be imprisoned was
left in blank, in order that the individual who had bought or
received as a gift the lettre de cachet might fill it in at pleasure.
One minister of Louis XV., Saint-Florentin, was reputed to have
granted fifty thousand.
jaa Ajay T
THE ABUSES OF ABSOLUTÉ MONARCHY.
263
private virtues, great purity of morals, an amiable dis-
position, and a desire to do good; but unhappily he was
too weak and irresolute to know how to impose his will
on those around him. Whilst he was still Dauphin, he
remarked one day to the courtiers who were reproaching
him for his serious mood, in the midst of the giddy court
of his grandfather: "I wish to be called Louis the Severe."
History in seeking an appropriate surname for him could
only apply that given to Charlemagne's successor-Louis
the Good-natured.
In order to satisfy public opinion, one of his first acts
was to re-establish the Parliament, which had been sup-
pressed in the latter part of his predecessor's reign. He
abolished slavery throughout his dominions, and the
torture, and reduced the taxes. The great question was
the reorganization of the finances. The king summoned
to the ministry the enlightened M. Turgot, whose probity
was only equalled by his science, a worthy citizen who
was desirous of saving the monarchy by rigid reforms.
He proclaimed free trade in grain, and freedom of labour,
and finally the establishment of a territorial tax with equal
incidence upon all. The clergy and nobility possessed
two-thirds of the property in the kingdom. To subject
them to the tax was the only remedy; but they raised a
violent clamour, and overthrew the minister who had
striven to prevent the revolution by making one himself.
"I and M. Turgot only care for the people," said Louis
XVI., on signing the dismissal of his minister.
After a few days of reaction, under Maurepas (1777-
1781), a frivolous old man of eighty, it became necessary
to have recourse to more serious ministers. The Genevese
banker, Necker, a man of talent and probity, was named
controller-general. Necker made an appeal to credit and
opened loans; but that was simply wronging the future
for the profit of the present; and when he attempted to
return to the system of Turgot and his reforms, the same
opposition overthrew him.
A gleam of glory gave truce for a brief space to
anxieties. The English colonies in North America had
264
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
revolted against the mother country. France supported
them. An army sent to America under the command
of Rochambeau, and whom the Marquis de la Fayette
had preceded, assisted to found the independence of the
United States. The first action of any importance was
fought off Ushant (27th July 1778). This action was inde-
cisive. Not a single ship was taken or sunk on either side.
The treaty of Versailles (1783) was the last triumph
of the old monarchy. It restored to France, Senegal,
Tobago, St. Lucia, St. Pierre, and Miquelon; and to
Spain, her ally, Minorca and the Floridas. It did
much more: in forcing the English to recognise the
independence of the American colonies, it constituted a
new England in face of old England. The masters of
the sea were about to have rivals who have already
helped to recognise the freedom of the ocean.
It was a costly triumph for France-more than 1400
millions. And the expenditure for a long time had
exceeded the revenue! To increase the deficit, which
had risen to more than 100 millions, the publicists, the
citizens, and the Parliament demanded political reforms.
The success of the American War had brought ideas of
liberty into fashion even amongst the great nobles. But
the Court turned a deaf ear to them. Louis XVI. yielded
to the influence of the queen, Marie Antoinette, who, on
the throne of France, remembered too much of Austria.
Calonne, the minister favoured by the Court, rejected the
reforms as useless, and he was soon reduced to own
before the notables (1787), an annual deficit of 140
millions, and an accrued debt in a few years of one
milliard six hundred and forty-six millions. Then he
himself became an innovator, a greater than Turgot,
even than Necker. The fatal words therefore returned
perpetually, the abuses, the privileges, and always to be
scouted! The successor of Calonne, Brienne, Archbishop
of Toulouse, attempted to establish new taxes. The
Parliament refused to register them, and demanded the
States-general. It was the voice of France; the king con-
voked them to meet at Versailles on the 1st May (1789).
FOURTEENTH PERIOD.
ABASEMENT OF FRANCE PROGRESS OF PUBLIC OPINION
(1715-1789)-CONSTITUTIONAL FRANCE (FROM 1789)
THE REVOLUTION (1789-1795).
The National Assembly (1789-1791). The reunion of
the states became the sole hope of France. In what form
should they be reunited? Should the commons (tiers-état)
occupy the same rank as in 1614, when it was so humi-
liated, or, on the contrary, should it be rendered dominant
therein? During two centuries things had progressed
rapidly. The commons had become a considerable order,
by its wealth, its intelligence, its activity, and the high
functions which its chiefs filled in the government and
administration of the country. It was the commons who
bore the whole weight of the taxation. Since its purse was
the common treasury, it was inevitable that the more the
monarchy should become spendthrift, the more it would
place itself in a state of dependance, and that a moment
would arrive when, weary of paying, it would demand
accounts. That day may be called the Revolution of 1789.
In a celebrated pamphlet, the Abbé Siéyès answered
questions which every one was then asking. "What is
the third estate?" "The nation." "What is that?"
"Nothing." "What ought it to be?" "Everything."
Thus, to the phrase of Louis XIV.: "The State, that is
myself," Siéyès replied: "The State, that is ourselves.'
He estimated, in fact, the number of nobles, of all ages
and ranks at less than 110,000: a feeble minority lost in
the mass of 26,000,000 of men.
""
The Court, especially the queen, the Count d'Artois, the
Prince of Condé, had desired that the States-general
i
I
i
i
!
266
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
should occupy themselves solely with matters of finance,
and that, the deficit filled up, the debts paid, the deputies
might be dismissed to their homes. But political reforms
were the best precaution to take against the return of the
deficit. The nation understood it and willed it.
It was especially necessary that unanimity should exist
amongst the two privileged orders, for the maintenance of
the privileges. In the church, as in the army, the func-
tions were often on one side, the revenues on the other.
There were colonels in the cradle, abbés of twenty, and
bishops of twenty-five. Old majors badly looked after
and badly paid, commanded for the one class a regiment;
a claustral prior or a vicar administered for the other.
The clergy and the nobility had therefore each their de-
mocracy: the curés and the officiating ministers of the
village; the other the cadets of families and poor gentle-
men reduced to become officers of fortune.
There was,
however, this difference, that the curés at the outset
accepted the Revolution, whilst the provincial nobility,
especially in the west, very soon showed themselves
opposed to the movement. That opposition did not
appear at the first moment of the Revolution. The rush
was at first general. The entire nation, nobles, priests,
and plebeians, with the exception of some few of the
privileged who then kept silence, was agreed to regenerate
itself.
•
The States-general met on the 5th May at Versailles.
The first question which presented itself was the follow-
ing: "Shall the vote be taken by a show of hands or by
order?" If the vote were taken by order, the majority
was secured to the clergy and nobility; if by show of
hands it was certain to fall to the deputies of the third
estate, more numerous than those of the two other orders
united. The deputies of the third, masters of the com-
mon hall, summoned to join them the dissidents of the
clergy and nobility; and on the 17th June 1789, they
declared themselves, on the motion of Siéyès, The Con-
stituent National Assembly.
The Court, terrified, closed the hall of the sittings; but
BASEMENT OF FRANCE.
267
the deputies reassembled on the 20th June, in the tennis
court, and there took the solemn oath not to separate
before having given a constitution to France. Hence-
forward events were precipitately hurried on.
On the 22nd, one hundred and forty-eight members of
the clergy came to sit amongst the deputies of the third
estate. On the 23rd, the king annulled, in a royal sitting,
all the decisions of the third estate, and forbade the
members of the three orders to unite. The master of the
ceremonies ordered the common hall to be evacuated.
The Revolution answered him by the voice of Mira-
beau: "Go, tell your master that we are here by the will
of the people, and will only quit at the point of the
bayonet." And the assembly declared itself inviolable.
On the 25th, forty-seven members of the nobility joined
the third estate. On the 27th, the king himself invited
the dissidents to finish the fusion of the orders.
But the Court secretly collected all the troops it
could muster, and dismissed Necker, the popular minister.
Paris replied to these provocations by an insurrection.
Camille Desmoulins excited the people to revolt at the
Palais Royal; the royal guards passed to their side, and
the German regiments, encamped in the Champs Elysées,
fell back upon Versailles. The citizens armed and incor-
porated themselves under the appellation of the "National
Guard." But the populace did not pause.
On the 14th
July it attacked the Bastille, in spite of its lofty towers,
mounted with cannon, in spite of the army which sur-
rounded Paris, and took it.
"It is a revolt, then!" exclaimed Louis XVI. on learn-
ing the news. "No, sire," replied the Duke de la
Rochefoucauld Liancourt, "it is a revolution." On the
previous day they had sent back his soldiers beaten, on
the next they had demolished his fortress. The grandson
of Louis XIV. went to the Assembly, and thence to Paris,
declaring that he was at one with the nation; that he
would recall Necker, that he would send away the troops,
that he sanctioned the establishment of the National
Guard. That guard mounted the blue and red cockade
1
•
268
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
of Paris, in the centre of which La Fayette placed the
white cockade of royalty, saying: "There is a cockade
which will make the tour of the world!”
At the tidings of these events which had happened in
Paris, the agitation spread rapidly all over France. In
many places, the peasants burned the convents and
châteaux in order to destroy the ancient titles and feudal
charters. It became urgent to prevent a jacquerie by a
revolution.
On the 4th August, the clergy and nobility renounced
their feudal rights, and on the 20th a declaration of rights
was agreed on to serve as a basis of the new constitution.
On the 20th September, it received the royal sanction.
Though under this new constitution the crown was not
abolished, yet its whole real power was taken away.
Up to the month of October, the Assembly occupied
itself with the constitution. But around the king had
sprung up a hope of still arresting everything. The
Court again talked about an appeal to force. These
muttered threats against the Assembly brought about
the days of the 5th and 6th of October. The popu
lace of Paris, driven to despair by the famine, rushed
to Versailles, and forced their way into the royal abode.
They seized two of the body-guard, dragged them from
their posts, and murdered them in the most cruel manner.
A party rushed into the queen's apartments with loud
outcries, execrations, and threats. The sentinel, after
bravely resisting for a few minutes, finding himself
entirely overpowered, opened the queen's door, and called
out with a loud voice, "Save the queen: her life is aimed
at: I stand alone against two thousand tigers!" He soon
after sank down covered with wounds, and was left for
dead; but coming again to the use of his senses, he had
the good fortune to creep away unobserved through the
crowd. In this imminent danger, the Marquis de la
Fayette interposed. He commanded the national guard,
and had come to Versailles the preceding evening. He
had but little influence over his troops, and less over the
raging mob; but, on the king promising to set out
ABASEMENT OF FRANCE.
269
4
instantly for Paris, he succeeded in checking the imme-
diate progress of violence. The king was brought back
to Paris. "Henry IV. conquered his people," remarked
Bailly to Louis XVI.; the people have just conquered
their king." With Louis XVI. at Paris, the populace
thought that by the same blow they had driven away
famine! "We bring back the baker," they said. The
Assembly followed the king, and, like him, found them-
selves in the hands of the people of that great city, and
soon the citizens and their representatives, La Fayette
and Bailly, two honest and moderate men, could no
longer restrain them.
Already deplorable excesses had been committed. The
rabble, excited by want, danger, and suspicion, had be-
come accustomed to strike those whom it looked upon as
guilty, and, in its reckless executions, had already acquired
a taste for blood. After the fall of the Bastille, of de
Launay, its governor, and of Flesselle, the provost, the
minister Foulon, and the intendant Berthier had been
massacred. At Versailles several gardes-du-corps had
been slain whilst defending the queen. In the provinces,
the peasants did not always content themselves with
tearing up feudal titles, demolishing towers and draw-
bridges, they struck down sometimes the lord likewise.
Terror seized alike upon Court and château. The most
imprudent advisers of the king, the Count d'Artois, his
brother, the Prince of Condé, the Polignacs, etc., took
to flight, leaving him alone amongst the people, whose
terrible wrath they were about to excite by directing
against their country the hand of the foreigner.
The National Assembly, however, pursued the course
of its memorable labours. In the name of liberty, it
freed from every shackle dissident creeds, the press, and
industry; in the name of justice, it suppressed birthright;
in the name of equality, it abolished nobility and titles,
declared all Frenchmen admissable to public functions,
whatsoever might be their religion, and replaced the old
provincial demarcations by their division into 83 depart-
ments,
270
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Money left the kingdom with the emigrants, and was,
moreover, hidden through fear of insurrection. The
Assembly ordered the emission of 400 millions of assign-
ats hypothecated upon the possessions of the clergy, the
sale of which it directed. At the same time monastic
vows ceased to be recognised by the law, the cloisters
were thrown open, and the parliaments replaced by elec-
tive tribunals.
The sovereignty of the nation being proclaimed, it was
concluded that all power must flow from the people.
Election was therefore everywhere introduced. A de-
liberative council was placed in the departments, the
districts, and communes, beside the executive council, as
the legislative body was placed beside the king. And
already some found that, in this system, an hereditary
king was an inconsequence.
The Court, however, did not, and could not, accept the
constitution. Overcome at Paris on the 14th July, and
at Versailles on the 6th October, the nobles fled to
Coblentz, and thence conspired openly against France.
Those who had remained near the king conspired secretly.
The king, who never had a will of his own, let things take
their course. He accepted publicly the decrees of the As-
sembly, and, in secret, he protested against the violence
done to his rights--a double game, which has ever
brought misfortune.
At the fête of the Federation held in the Champ de
Mars, 14th July 1790, the king swore solemnly, in pre-
sence of one hundred thousand representatives, fidelity
to the constitution. The spirit of concord and of fraternal
devotion which had filled every heart during that fête,
made it one of the magnificent days of the Revolution,
but one which had no morrow. Underhand hostilities
recommenced immediately between the Court and the
Assembly. The cause was the Civil Constitution of the
Clergy, which, applying to the church the reform intro-
duced into the state, submitted to election even the curés
and bishops, and troubled all the ecclesiastical hierarchy
then existent. The pope condemned this new organiza-
K
CONSTITUTIONAL FRANCE.
271
tion, and forbade it being obeyed. The king opposed his
veto thereto. He withdrew it after an insurrection. But
the great majority of the clergy refused to take the oath
to the constitution. Schism entered thereupon into the
Church of France. In its train were speedily to follow
persecutions and a frightful civil war.
The king, outraged in his conscience by this decree, as
he was in his inclinations by the measures which the
Assembly forced him to take against emigration, felt
himself no longer free. That liberty which he had not
at the Tuileries, he thought to regain by taking refuge in
the camp of Bouillé, whence he could summon Austria and
Prussia to his aid. Arrested in his flight at Varennes
(21st June 1791), he was suspended from his functions
by the Assembly, and the populace demanding, the 17th
July, in the Champ de Mars, his abdication, Bailly ordered
the red flag to be displayed and to fire upon the troops.
Two men had signally distinguished themselves in the
Constituent Assemby: Mirabeau by his impetuous elo-
quence, Siéyès by his imperturable logic. It was Mira-
beau who enunciated the formula of the new era which
was opening for the people: "Right is the sovereign of
the world." On the 30th September, this first National
Assembly, which is often called the Constituent Assembly,
dissolved itself, after having, by a kind of self-denying
ordinance, excluded all its members from being eligible
to seats in the next Assembly. This was an imprudent
disinterestedness at a moment at which, more than ever,
liberty had need that the veterans of the Revolution
should hold its flag aloft, and firmly, above the heads of
the ferocious dreamers.
The Legislative Assembly (1st Oct. 1791 to 21st
Sept. 1792) opened on the 1st October, and soon gave
proof of a most lamentable unfitness for the important
functions devolved on it. Its leaders, the Girondins,
laboured to overthrow royalty, but in leaving to extreme
parties the initiative of the republic which they made
sanguinary, they were themselves hindered, probably,
from taking a more moderate course. The first decrees
272
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Seka!
were launched against the emigrants who had just signed
the declaration of Pilnitz with Prussia and Austria, and
the unsworn priests who, by their refusal to take the civic
oath, became the cause of troubles in the provinces,
especially in La Vendée and Brittany. The king refused
at first to sanction these decrees. The declaration of war
which he made against Austria (20th April 1792) could
not dissipate the fear of secret negotiations of the Court
with the enemy; and the defeat of the French troops at
the rencontre of Quievrain, raised a cry of treason.
On the 20th June 1792, an attack was made on the
Tuileries by a republican party which was now gaining
ascendancy. The king and royal family took refuge in
the Legislative Assembly. The Swiss, deserted perfidi-
ously by the national guard, were at length overpowered
and gave way. All of them, and not the guards only,
but the servants of the palace also, were massacred,
and even those who escaped to the Assembly were with
'difficulty saved from the popular fury. Four thousand
persons had perished. On the 14th August the royal
family were sent prisoners to the old fortress of the
Temple.
The constitution was torn up, and a Convention was
convoked to draw up a new constitution. Meanwhile,
the combined armies had entered France with the full
expectation of a speedy victory. The operations of the
Duke of Brunswick were, in the first instance, successful.
He took Longwy and Verdun, and it was expected that
he would advance immediately on Paris.
All France was in a state of the greatest disorder.
Before the Convention could assemble, and when the
legislative body had already lost all authority by the
approach of its end, a great crime terrified France. The
prisons of Paris were forced on the 2nd and 5th of
September, and 966 prisoners massacred. Danton had
uttered these sinister words: "We must strike fear into
the royalists; audacity, audacity, and still more audacity.”
A small number of assassins, kept in pay by the Paris
commune, had answered this appeal. The populace re-
THE REIGN OF TERROR.
273
pudiated all complicity in the crime. The Bicêtre, said
to contain above 4000 persons, was next besieged by the
same sanguinary band; and after a resistance of eight
days it was taken, and every soul within the walls put
to death. Other massacres were perpetrated at Orleans,
Rheims, Lyons, and Meaux.
The Convention (Sept. 21 1792-Oct. 27). Abolition
of Royalty. At its first sitting, the Convention abolished
royalty and proclaimed the Republic. On the 3rd Decem-
ber, it decided that Louis XVI. should be tried by it,
contrary to the constitution, which declared the king
inviolable, and pronounced no other sentence against
him than that of forfeiture. But Louis, overthrown,
was condemned beforehand. The venerable Malesherbes
demanded and obtained the honour of defending his old
master. A young advocate named Desèze, associated
with the latter in the defence, had the boldness to say:
"I look for judges in you, but see only accusers.” He
spoke the truth. The situation was critical; England
was threatening, the Austrians were about to make
greater efforts, and a coalition of the whole of Europe
was imminent. "Let us throw a king's head in defiance
at them," exclaimed Danton. Louis ascended the scaffold
on the 21st January 1793.
First Coalition (1793-1797).—At the news of the
death of Louis XVI., the European powers, who were
still hesitating, declared war against France, and all the
frontiers were menaced, at the same moment when in
Brittany and La Vendée civil war was kindled. The
Convention energetically made head everywhere against
its enemies. Fourteen armies were raised to intimidate
foreign enemies; for the interior a revolutionary tribunal
was created, which sentenced without appeal, and pun-
ished with death for a word-for a regret--for the name
only which a man bore (10th March 1793).
The Reign of Terror.-The defection of Dumouriez,
who abandoned his army to pass over to the Austrian
camp (4th April 1793), increased the fears and caused
the revolutionary measures to be multiplied. In order
ន
}
}
274
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
that nô traitor might escape, the Convention renounced
the inviolability of its members; and, abdicating of itself
a part of its powers, it created within itself a Committee
of Public Safety, which was, as it were, invested with
executive power. Suspicion, in fact, everywhere pre-
vailed. Robespierre firmly believed that the Girondins.
desired to dismember France, and lay it open to the
foreigner; the Girondins, that Marat, Robespierre, and
Danton wished to make the Duke of Orleans king,
assassinate him immediately afterwards, and then estab-
lish a triumvirate, from which Danton would hurl his
two colleagues to reign alone. Each gave his adversaries
credit for the most absurd plans. Hence suspicion, fear—
that terrible counsellor-and the axe suspended over every
man's head. This system had but one name- The Terror;
terror alike amongst the executioners as amongst the
victims, and so much the more pitiless.
Proscription of the Girondins.-The first decree was
soon put into execution. The Mountain, which had
for its chiefs Marat, Danton, and Robespierre, framed
an accusation against thirty-one Girondins (2nd June),
several of whom, having escaped from the search after
them, endeavoured to raise the departments. There-
upon Caen, Bordeaux, Lyons, Marseilles, and the greater
number of the southern towns declared against the Con-
vention; Toulon was surrendered to the English with all
the Mediterranean fleet; Condé and Valenciennes fell into
the enemy's hands. Mayence, occupied by French troops,
capitulated; on the north and south the enemy crossed
the frontiers. At the same time the Vendeans were
everywhere victorious, and another enemy, a frightful
scarcity, provoked the internal disorganization.
The cause of the Revolution, defended by less than
thirty departments, seemed lost; the Convention saved
it by displaying a savage energy. Merlin drew up the
law touching the suspected (loi des suspects), which threw
more than three hundred thousand individuals into prison;
and Barriere, said in the name of the committee of public
safety "The Republic is nothing more than a great city
THE REVOLUTION.
275
in a state of siege, therefore France must be nothing
more than a vast camp." In answer to this appeal,
1,200,000 men were enrolled. Bordeaux and Lyons
re-entered the Republic. Bonaparte, then captain of
artillery, retook Toulon. The Vendeans were driven
from the gates of Nantes, and Jourdan, at the head of
the principal army, kept the coalition in check.

DATA
A
LYONS.
WET
Such extraordinary efforts were not accomplished with-
out terrible internal convulsions. The nobles and priests,
proscribed under the name of suspects, perished in crowds
upon scaffolds erected in all the cities. Carrier, Fréron,
Collot d' Herbois, Couthon, Fouché, Barras, showed them-
selves pitiless. The assassination of Marat by Charlotte
Corday, who, by killing him, thought to kill the Terror
(13th July), rendered it more implacable.
The queen,
Marie Antoinette, her sister, Madame Elizabeth, Bailly,
the Girondin chiefs, the Duke of Orleans, General Custine,
Madame Roland, Lavoisier, Malesherbes, and a thousand
other illustrious heads fell by the guillotine. Then the
men of the mountain were torn by dissensions. Robe-
spierre and St. Just, supported by the powerful society of
the Jacobins, proscribed at first the hideous anarchists of
276
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
the party of d'Hébert; after the latter, Camille Desmoulins
and Danton, who talked of indulgence.
End of the Terror.-Some few of the men who, in
turn, had overthrown Robespierre, were the self-same
who had pushed the Terror to its utmost limits. But
such was the force of public opinion that they were
constrained to appear to have only conquered for the
sake of moderation. The fall of Robespierre became
thus the signal of a reaction which, in spite of frightful
excesses, allowed, however, France to breathe again.
The guillotine ceased to be the great means of govern-
ment; and if the parties continued for a long time yet
to proscribe each other, at least the people were not
called upon to witness that hideous spectacle of thirty
or forty heads falling daily under the knife. During
the 420 days of the Reign of Terror, 2669 condemnations
had been pronounced by the revolutionary tribunal and
executed. From the 10th to 27th July, 1400 persons had
perished at Paris. But who could reckon the number
of victims of Couthon and Collot d' Herbois at Lyons,
of Lebon at Arras, of Carrier at Nantes, of Fréron at
Toulouse and Marseilles, of Tallien at Bordeaux?
The reign of Terror had given an intense vigour to the
war carrying on against the foreign enemies. Immense
resources were placed in the power of the state by the
confiscation of the property of the wretched victims of its
tyranny; and these were employed with the greatest
activity by the intrepid officers who rose to command in
the army, at a time when no man could be ambitious
or commanding who was not of the hardest and most
decisive character. A brilliant campaign came fortun-
ately to console France in mourning. Pichegru beat
the Duke of York and the Austrian general, Clairfait
Hoche drove beyond the Rhine Brunswick and Wurmser;
Jourdan beat the Duke of Coburg at Fleurus; Dugommier
and Moncey the Spaniards, who had lost Fontarabia and
St. Sebastian. Even a winter of uncommon severity did
not stop the tide of success. Crossing the Waal on the
ice, the French troops advanced rapidly into the very
;
THE REVOLUTION.
277
heart of the Dutch territories, without encountering any
effectual opposition. Pichegru having thus conquered
Holland, he constituted out of it a Batavian republic
absolutely dependant upon France, and Hoche pacified
La Vendée. Two monarchial powers, Spain and Prussia,
terrified at their defeats, made peace with the republic.
England, Austria, Sardinia, and Germany, still remained
in arms.
On the 1st of June 1794, Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse
engaged, with twenty-six sail of the line, the English fleet.
commanded by Lord Howe, who captured seven sail of
the line, and two were sunk. One of them, Le Vengeur,
rather than haul down her flag, went to the bottom, her
crew singing the Marseillaise. Scarcely any attempt was
made after this defeat to contest with England the empire
of the sea.
All the French West India Islands were
captured by England, as well as Corsica, from which the
French were expelled.
The Convention, however, having emerged victorious
from the strife which followed the 9th Thermidor,
abolished the democratic constitution of 1793, which
had not yet been put into execution, but its disgraceful
career terminated 27th Oct. 1795. A new constitution
succeeded, by which the legislature was divided into two
assemblies; one called the Council of the Ancients, and
consisted of 250 members, all of whom were, at least, 40
years old, and the other called the Council of the 500.
The Council of the 500 alone could propose any laws.
The Council of the Ancients might either reject or accept,
but could not alter, any decrees which might pass the
500. The executive power was placed in the hands of a
Directory, consisting of five members, of whom it was
appointed that one member should go out every year.
:
*
* The Convention had replaced the Gregorian calendar by the
Republican calendar. The new era began on the 22nd September
1792, and ended on the 9th September 1805. The twelve months
were: Vendémiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire, for Autumn; Nivose,
Pluviose, Ventose, for Winter; Germinal, Floréal, Prairial, for
Spring; Messidor, Thermidor, Fructidor, for Summer.
14 Thermidor, year X., stood for 2nd August 1802, etc.
Thus
278
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
It was hoped thereby to escape from a dictatorship, and
constitute a moderate republic; the result was only a
feeble and anarchial republic.
The primary assemblies accepted the constitutional act;
but troubles broke out in Paris. Several sections of the
national guard, hurried away by the royalists, marched
in arms upon the Convention. Barras, whom the assembly
had named general-in-chief, charged Bonaparte with its
defence. The day of the 13th Vendémiaire secured his
triumph, and the fortune of the young officer, whose skil-
ful dispositions had rendered the superiority of numbers
useless. On the 4th Brumaire following, the Convention
declared its mission terminated (26th Oct. 1795).
The Directory and the Consulate-The Directory
(29th Oct. 1795-18th June 1799).—Before dissolving
itself, the Convention had taken care to decree that two-
thirds of the members of the Council of the Ancients and
of that of the 500 should be taken from amongst the
Conventionists. The latter, therefore, had the majority
in the councils; they elected for directors five regicides.
These five members of the new government took up their
abode in the Luxembourg Palace. The situation was a
difficult one. The treasury was empty, and the assignats
had fallen into the most complete discredit. Commerce
and industry no longer existed; the armies were wanting
in provisions, clothing, and even munitions. But three
years of such a war had formed the soldiers and generals.
Moreau commanded the army of the Rhine; Jourdan,
that of the Sambre and Meuse; Hoche watched the sea-
shores to defend them against the English, and pacify
Brittany and La Vendée. Finally, he who was destined
to eclipse all the others, Bonaparte, a native of Corsica,
and godson of Paoli, then aged twenty-seven, had just
received on the 13th Vendemiaire, the command of the
army of the interior, which he soon exchanged for that
of the army of Italy.
The Campaigns of Bonaparte in Italy (1796-1797).-
The campaigns in Italy raised at once this extraordinary
man to great distinction. On placing himself at the
279
head of the army of Italy, he found it cantoned among
the Alps, where it was struggling painfully against the
Sardinian troops, whilst the Austrians were threatening
Genoa, and marching upon the Var. With the glance
of genius, Bonaparte chose his field of battle. Instead
of exhausting his forces amongst those sterile rocks, where
great blows could not be struck, he turned the Alps, the
passage of which he was unable to force, and placed him-
self by that skilful manœuvre between the Piedmontese
and the Austrians, cut them off from each other, beat
them successively, drove back the former upon the Apen-
nines, the others into their capital, and followed up closely
the Sardinian army until it laid down its arms. Delivered
from one enemy, he turned upon the other. In vain
Beaulieu, terrified at the victories of Montenotte (11th
April), of Millesimo (14th), of Dego (15th), and of Mon-
dovi (22nd), fell back in all haste; Bonaparte followed,
overtook, and crushed him. At the bridge of Lodi, the
Austrians tried to stop him by the fire of a formidable
artillery: they were overthrown (10th May). To
Beaulieu succeeded Wurmser, the best general of
Austria; to the first army, a second, more numerous
and inured to war: it disappeared like the other (by
the victories of Lonato and Castiglione, 3rd and 5th
August, and of Bassano, 8th Sept). Alvinzi replaced
Wurmser; he was crushed at Arcola (Nov. 1796) and
Rivoli (Jan. 1797). The Archduke Charles was not
more fortunate. All the armies, all the generals of
Austria came only to fail against less than 40,000 men,
led by a general of twenty-eight.
During those marvellous campaigns in Italy, Jourdan
was repulsed by the Archduke Charles at Wurtzbourg,
who then menaced Moreau, to whom Bonaparte, detained
by the siege of Mantua, and by the attempts of the
Austrians to recover their interests in that quarter, was
wholly unable to send assistance. Moreau, however,
extricated himself, and effected a retreat into France
which has been greatly celebrated for its masterly con-
duct. The treaty of Campo-Formio, signed by Bonaparte
CAMPAIGNS OF BONAPARTE IN ITALY.
9.
280
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
•
17th Oct. 1797, gave back the Rhine as a frontier to
France. Beyond the Alps, France had acquired a
devoted ally in the new cis-Alpine republic founded by
Bonaparte, including Milan, Modena, and Bologna.
Expedition to Egypt (1798-1799). Austria had
sheathed the sword; but England, unassailable in her
island, would not consent to let France retain so many
conquests. The war continued, therefore, with her. In
order to strike her to the heart by destroying her com-
merce, the Directory undertook the expedition to Egypt,
which Bonaparte conducted. From the banks of the
Nile, he hoped to reach England in India, and destroy
her empire there. At the battles of the Pyramids
(21st July 1798), and of Mount Thabor (16th April
1799), he scattered before him the Mameluks and Turks.
But the destruction of the French fleet by Nelson, at
Aboukir (12th Aug. 1798), in depriving him of siege
artillery, caused him to fail before St. Jean d'Acre
(20th May 1799), valiantly defended by Sir Sydney
Smith. From that moment, shut up in Egypt, he could
do nothing of moment. After having again exterminated
a Turkish army at Aboukir (25th July 1799), he aban-
doned his conquest, and carried back to France his
sword and his genius.
Reverses in Europe.-During his absence, the weak-
ness of the Directory had allowed all the fruits of the
peace of Campo-Formio to be lost; the war had recom-
menced with Austria; and Italy, into which the French
forces had penetrated as far as Naples, was lost. The
victory of Massena at Zurich (25th Sept. 1799), and that
of Brune at Bergen (19th Sept.), helped to save France
from an invasion.
In the interior, the struggle of parties recommenced
with greater animation, but happily less murderously.
After many obscure and intricate transactions, the two
legislative bodies were adjourned to St. Cloud, which is
at a distance of about six miles from Paris.
The Consulate (10th Nov. 1799-16th May 1804)-
The Three Consuls.-On the 10th of November 1799,
THE CONSULATE.
281
Bonaparte, accompanied by some twenty officers and
grenadiers, entered the hall of the council of 500. After
a great tumult, a body of troops made their appearance,
and the members of the council were ordered to disperse.
The final result of this new change in the Constitution
was to abolish the Directory, and to vest the executive
power in one chief Consul, with two other consuls assist-
ing him. The three consuls primarily nominated were
Bonaparte, Siéyès, and Roger-Ducos. From the first
day, Siéyès recognised that he had found his master.
Bonaparte rejected his plans, and caused a Constitution
to be adopted (called "of the year VIII."), which placed
in his hands, under the title of First Consul (29th Dec.
1799), the most important prerogatives of authority.
His two colleagues, Lebrun and Cambacérès, had only a
consultative voice.
Hitherto, Bonaparte had been known only as a great
general; he now showed himself greater as an adminis-
trator. His first care was the re-establishment of order.
Proclaiming of himself oblivion of the past, and the
reconciliation of parties, he declared the former nobles
admissible to offices, recalled the proscribed of the 18th
Fructidor, reopened the churches, and closed the list of
emigrants. The rural districts were cleared of the bandits
by which they were infested, and, in order to found an
administration at once strong and intelligent, he consti-
tuted each department after the image of the State itself.
Meanwhile, the royalists, deceived in their hopes, had
raised in the west the banner of insurrection; Bonaparte
stifled by energetic measures that new civil war. On
the frontiers, especially on the side of Italy, serious dan-
gers threatened the Republic. The situation seemed the
same as that of 1796. France was about to be invaded.
Instead of repeating his manœuvre of turning the Alps
as on the first occasion, Bonaparte audaciously crossed
over them by the St. Bernard, and fell upon the rear of
Mélas. In a single battle, at Marengo, he reconquered
Italy (14th June 1800). This transcendant success, and
the victory of Moreau at Hohenlinden, forced Austria to
H
282
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
sign the peace of Lunéville (8th Jan. 1801), shortly
followed by the peace of Amiens, which England accepted
(25th March 1802).
Bonaparte had reached the summit of glory. For the
second time he had given peace to France. Egypt was
lost, and an expedition to make the negroes of St.
Domingo, who had emancipated themselves and set up
a republic of their own, recognise the authority of the
metropolis, was on the eve of failure. But those distant
disasters scarcely awakened an echo in France. They
were forgotten whilst beholding the virulence of party
spirit calm down under the firm and skilful hand of
the First Consul, and order everywhere renewed. For
industry, he revived the powerful impulse given it by
Colbert. Commerce was encouraged, the finances re-
organised, roads and ports repaired, and arsenals replen-
ished. Between France and Italy he constructed the
magnificent route of the Simplon, and founded hospices
upon the summit of the Alps. The Civil Code was dis-
cussed in his presence, and he was already elaborating a
project for a powerful organization of national education.
A marvellous activity, an unheard of power of work,
made him see, comprehend, and do everything.
and letters received at his hands precious encouragement.
A stranger to the rancours of the last ten years, he wel-
comed back the emigrants, recalled the priests, and signed
with Pius VII. the Concordat, that is to say, the religious
peace. He endeavoured to efface former hatreds, and
constitute only one great party, that of France. Finally,
whilst chaining the revolution to his car, he preserved its
principles in his Civil Code, that is to say, he rendered it
imperishable.
Arts
But he could not disarm all his enemies. Every day
fresh conspiracies were formed against his life. He had
very nearly perished by the infernal machine of the Rue
St. Nicaise. To hurl back again, as he himself said, the
terror upon his enemies, he caused Georges Cadoudal to
be executed, who had come to Paris to assassinate him;
he exiled Moreau, imprisoned Pichegru, who strangled
THE EMPIRE
283
himself in his dungeon, and causing, against the law of
nations, the Duke d'Enghien to be brought from the
Castle of Ettenheim, near Baden, he delivered him up
to a military commission, which sentenced him to death
and had him shot, that same night, on the moat of Vin-
cennes (20th March 1804).
Attempts of this kind have the effect of strengthening
that which they seek to overthrow. The brilliant soldier
of Arcole and Rivoli, become first general of the Republic,
had aspired to govern France, which the Directory did
not govern, or governed badly. Named First Consul
for ten years, he had won, by transcendant services, the
gratitude of the nation, and when factions directed against
him an infernal machine or the dagger of the assassin,
France protested against those criminal attempts by pro-
longing his decennial functions for life. And when the
attempt of Cadoudal had once again struck it with terror,
it replied to the royalist plots by offering him the empire.
The tribunal, almost unanimously, agreed in voting that
Bonaparte should be named hereditary Emperor: the
Senate proclaimed him under the name of Napoleon I.,
and the people ratified by 3,572,329 suffrages against
2569, the establishment of a new dynasty, which, born of
the Revolution, should preserve the principles of it (18th
May 1804). But the powerful master of France did not
know how to become master of himself and to restrain
his ambition.
The Empire (18th May 1804-11th April 1814).-
More than three millions and a half of suffrages had
accepted the empire. Pope Pius VII. came himself to
Paris to crown the new Charlemagne ( 2nd Dec. 1804).
In order to invest the newly set-up throne with the
glitter of the old monarchies, Napoleon created a new
nobility: counts, dukes, and princes. He made eighteen
marshals, and gave them titles and lands. The ancient
court offices were revived, grand dignitaries, chamberlains,
and pages. He hoped to reunite, under the same titles,
the men of the revolution and those of the ancient regime;
he displeased the one and the other.
I
234
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
The Italian Republic, constituted in the image of the
French Republic, followed to the end the vicissitudes of
the latter. Napoleon was already president of the Italian
Republic. Created Emperor in France, he became king
in Italy (18th March 1805). That beautiful country
might be regenerated in his hands. "You have only
local laws," said he to the deputies of the cis-Alpine
republic; "you need general laws."
He meant to say,
"You are only envious municipalities, enemies of each
other; you must become a state.” That unity which
Napoleon I. desired to give the Italians by at first
making them French, Napoleon III. secured to them by
leaving them Italians.
On the 21st October 1805, the news of a great naval
reverse gave profound anxiety to the emperor. The same
day on which the Austrian general, Mack, evacuated
Ulm, Admiral Villeneuve was defeated by Nelson in the
sanguinary battle of Trafalgar, which cost the combined
fleet of France and Spain eighteen ships of the line and
7000 men. The English had 3000 killed, amongst whom
Nelson alone was as much to be regretted by them as
the loss of an army.
This defeat was the irrevocable
condemnation of the imperial navy. Napoleon reckoned
upon it no longer; and despairing of being able to grapple
hand to hand with England, he was urged still further
on by the idea, which already possessed his mind, of
ruining his inexpugnable enemy, by shutting him out of
the Continent. But the coalition, supported by England,
could not resign itself to tamely witness the triumph of
the novel ideas and insolent power of Napoleon. The
English aristocracy especially, directed by Pitt, would
have risked its last soldier, and its last crown-piece,
rather than accept France with all its strength and all
its triumphs. By the treaty of Amiens, she had engaged
to evacuate Malta, the key of the Mediterranean, but
Napoleon complained that she did not do so quickly
enough. He therefore sent troops into Holland, and
threatened the British Isles with a descent. English
energy averted that peril. The emperor was at the camp
THE EMPIRE.
285
of Boulogne when he learned that 220,000 Austrians
were advancing upon the Rhine and the Adige. It was
necessary to put off the projected descent. Napoleon
avenged himself by a series of victories which brought
him within the walls of Vienna, and which he crowned
by the great battle of Austerlitz, won on the 2nd Dec.
1805, over the allied armies of Austria and Russia; and
Austria was necessarily compelled to submit to whatever
terms the conqueror thought fit to dictate.
Thus the triumphs of France by land amply compen-
sated for her losses by sea. But England, encouraged by
her naval victory of Trafalgar, continued the struggle,
and decided Prussia to descend in turn into the arena.
Napoleon replied to the provocation of the Berlin cabinet
by a thunderbolt. The war was decided in a single cam-
paign; the Prussians were irretrievably ruined at the
battle of Jena (1806). Behind Prussia, Napoleon found
yet once more Russia. After a longer and harder contest,
in which he gave the Russian troops the first check at
Eylau (8th Feb. 1807), he crushed them at Friedland
(14th June), and Alexander signed the peace of Tilsit
(7th July). By the terms of this peace the King of
Prussia was stripped of almost half his dominions. These
spoils of Prussia were given to Saxony and Westphalia,
two new kingdoms now created by Napoleon. In the
Electorate of Saxony, the elector was made king, and
Prussian Poland was added to his dominions. Jerome
Bonaparte was made king of Westphalia.
After Austerlitz and Jena, Napoleon had resumed, on
a larger scale, the plan of what was called the League of
the Rhine, planned in the 17th century by Mazarin and
Louis XIV. He had created the Confederation of the
Rhine (12th July 1806), to establish in the west of
Germany a body of states capable of establishing an
equilibrium against the powers of the east, Prussia and
Austria; and fourteen princes also of the south and west
of Germany placed themselves under the protection of
Napoleon. Thus terminated, after having lasted so many
ages, the existence of what is properly called the Germanic
286
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Empire. Francis II. renounced by proclamation the title
of Emperor of Germany, and assumed that of Emperor of
Austria in its stead.
At the same time, Napoleon organised new kingdoms
for his brothers: for Louis, that of Holland; for Joseph,
that of Naples; and later, that of Spain; for Murat, his
brother-in-law, the grand-duchy of Berg, which Murat
exchanged for the crown of Naples. By so doing, he
sought to form around his empire a belt of states, placed
under the influence of French ideas, that is to say, under
that of the principles of the Revolution, and which should
aid him in his struggle against the feudal and absolutist
regime of Prussia, Austria, and Russia.
Every power of the continent that had dared to resist
the arms of France, was at this time humbled by repeated
defeats. England alone remained inaccessible. The hope
of disputing the command of the seas with her seemed so
remote as to baffle all expectation. To attack the com-
merce of that proud island with the Continent seemed to
be the only method left of weakening its power. On the
21st Nov. 1806, the emperor had declared, at Berlin, the
British Isles in a state of blockade, and consequently
interdicted all commerce with them. Russia and Den-
mark took part with him in this policy, which required
them to break off all communication with England; and
at length those powers joined France openly in the war.
Portugal refusing to associate herself with this new
policy, Napoleon formed a corps d'armée under Junot,
to drive the English out of that kingdom. During these
operations, the Court of Madrid presented to the world a
most sorrowful spectacle. The hereditary prince was
conspiring against his father, influenced by an unworthy
favourite; and the king invoked the aid of the French
emperor. Napoleon met the king and prince at Bayonne,
and decided the old monarch to abdicate in his favour
(9th May 1808). Ferdinand was relegated to the château
of Valençay; and Charles retired to that of Compiègne.
Napoleon was desirous of resuming the policy of Louis
XIV., and secure to himself Southern Spain, to have free
THE EMPIRE.
287
liberty of action in the North. The plan was good, but
its execution bad. This attempt to lay his hand upon
Spain was Napoleon's greatest fault, and one of the causes
of the fall of the empire.
The French troops, already in Spain, made themselves
masters of Madrid; but the courage of the soldiers, and
the skill of their chiefs, were powerless against the
religious and patriotic fanaticism of the Spaniards. His
brother, Joseph Bonaparte, whom he imposed upon them
as king, had doubtless rendered great services to Spain,
but a people will not accept even liberty when it is a
foreigner who brings it. Napoleon had fain win victories,
and conduct his brother to Madrid: in that mountainous
country, the insurrection, crushed at one point, reappeared
at another; and then England furnished arms, money,
soldiers, and generals.
Notwithstanding all the assurances which Napoleon
received from all the continental powers at the interview
of Erfurth, the English knew how to organise a fifth
coalition, which compelled the emperor to leave unfinished
his Spanish enterprise, to rush once more into Germany.
On the 12th May 1809, he entered Vienna for the
second time, and on the 6th of July following, gained the
bloody battle of Wagram, followed by the Peace of Vienna.
This was the moment of Napoleon's greatest ascend-
ancy. His empire, which extended from the mouths of
the Elbe to those of the Tiber, included one hundred and
thirty departments. His marriage with the Archduchess
Maria Louisa had just connected him with the old royal
houses of Europe. The birth of a son (20th March 1811),
who was proclaimed King of Rome in his cradle, and who
died Duke of Reichstadt, swelled to the utmost the tide
of his prosperity.
Already, however, his arms were no longer invincible.
In Spain, Junot Massena himself, had not been able to
conquer Portugal, and general Dupont had signed, in
1808, the disgraceful capitulation of Baylen. The hopes
of his enemies brightened, and England once more suc-
ceeded in detaching Russia from his alliance.
288
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
The Russian Campaign.-To constrain that power to
re-enter the system of the continental blockade, Napoleon
undertook the rashest of expeditions; he crossed the
Niemen on the 24th June 1812, at the head of 450,000
men. The expedition appeared at first to succeed. The
Russians were everywhere beaten at Witepsk, at
Smolensk, at Valoutina, and the sanguinary victory of
Moskowa delivered up to him Moscow, the second capital
of the empire, which city the Russian governor caused to
be set on fire on quitting it.
Unfortunately, Napoleon thought to secure peace; he
waited for it, and lost precious time.
When he per-
ceived that it would be necessary, in order to enforce it,
to undertake a second expedition against St. Petersburg, it
was too late; the impossibility of wintering in the midst
of a devastated country decided him to beat a retreat.
It would have been successful, had it not been for an
early winter and want of provisions. A great part of the
army, all the horses, all the baggage, perished, or were
abandoned, either amidst the snow, or in the disastrous
passage of the Beresina. However, those of the soldiers
who still remained in arms resisted every attempt to dis-
perse them, and Napoleon, on reaching Paris, made
immense preparations towards repairing his losses.
But it was all over with the prestige of his invincible
power. All his allies turned one after another against
him. Prussia, Sweden, then directed by a former French
general, Bernadotte, gave the example; they united their
arms with those of Russia, becoming victors without
fighting. Germany entire, fermented by secret societies,
held itself in readiness to rise. The liberal, but deceitful
promises of the kings, hurried on the people. The
brilliant victories of Lutzen, Bautzen, and Wurschen,
won by Napoleon, with conscripts in the campaign of
1813, arrested for a while the defection of Austria; but
that power forgot in the end her obligations, and the
emperor, Francis, claimed the right of helping to dethrone
his daughter and his grandson.
At Leipsic, 300,000 men appeared in arms against the
THE FIRST RESTORATION.
289
130,000 soldiers of Napoleon. After a gigantic struggle
of three days, aided by the treason of the Saxons, who,
in the middle of the action, went over to the allies, the
latter forced the French to quit the field, and to fall back
as far as the Rhine.
Campaign of 1814.-In the following year commenced
that startling campaign for France, in which the military
genius of the emperor performed wonders. But whilst
he struggled heroically with a few thousands of bravo
men against allied Europe, the royalists raised their
heads, and the liberals made an untimely opposition to
his measures. To many, the invading enemy seemed a
liberator. Vainly did Napoleon conquer at Champaubert,
at Montmiral, and Montereau; still the allies advanced,
favoured by numerous defections, especially in the south,
whence arrived the Duke of Wellington and the English,
whom Marshal Soult stopped for a moment by the battle
of Toulouse. A bold movement against the rear of the
enemy's armies might perhaps have saved France. Had
Paris held out for a few days, the allies might have been
cut off from their communications. But Paris, defended
during twelve hours only, capitulated (30th March), and
the Senate proclaimed the throne of Napoleon I. forfeited.
He himself signed his abdication at Fontainebleau (11th
April).
The First Restoration-The Hundred Days-Waterloo
(1814-1815).—The French princes of the House of Bour-
bon had followed the hostile armies. The Czar, the King
of Prussia, and the Emperor of Austria, embarassed by
the choice of the government which they should impose
upon France, were decided by Talleyrand and the royal-
ists, to recognise Louis XVIII., who dated his reign from
the death of his nephew. The white banner replaced the
flag of Austerlitz, and France re-entered within the limits
which she had had before the Revolution. In compensation
for so many sacrifices, Louis XVIII. granted a Constitu-
tional Charter, which created two chambers in which the
great interests of the country should be discussed. The
emigrants, returned with the princes, were irritated at
T
290
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
these concessions made to the new ideas. The avidity
of some, the superannuated pretensions of others, and the
excesses of all, excited a discontent which was re-echoed
as far as the Isle of Elba, to which Napoleon had been
relegated. He thought that he could profit by it to repair
his late disasters, and on the 1st March 1815 he landed
with 800 men on the shores of Provence. All the troops
sent against him passed over to his side; and, without
having burnt a single cartridge, he re-entered Paris,
whence the Bourbons had fled for the second time. But
the coalesced princes had not yet disbanded their troops.
They had met together at the congress of Vienna, and
were occupied with regulating the affairs of Europe.
They launched afresh 800,000 men against France, and
placed Bonaparte under the ban of the nations.
The emperor, however, had tried to rally round him
the liberals, by proclaiming the additional act to the
constitutions of the empire, which consecrated the greater
part of the principles of the charter. As soon as he had
restored order in the interior, he hastened to intercept
Wellington and Blucher, beat the Prussians at Ligny
(16th June 1815), and, during half a day, Marshal Ney
had a severe struggle with the English, in which neither
side gained a clear superiority. In this action at Quatre
Bras, the Duke of Brunswick was killed-the son of that
duke who had commanded the Prussian army at the
commencement of the Revolution. On the 18th, the
disaster of Waterloo terminated for ever Napoleon's
splendid career. He had issued his orders, and viewed
the battle from a convenient distance; and an officer who
stood near him affirmed that "his astonishment at the
resistance of the British was extreme; his agitation
became violent; he took snuff by handfuls at the repulse
of each charge." At last, he took the officer by the arm,
saying, "The affair is over-we have lost the day—let us
be off!" In this heartless manner, and thinking only of
himself, Napoleon abandoned an army which was wholly
devoted to him. He fled to Paris, where he arrived on
the 20th, and abdicated again in favour of his son (22nd).

ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE DE BERRI.
291
On the 29th, he set out for Rochefort, in hope of escaping
to America; but finding that it was impossible to baffle
the vigilance of the English cruisers, he surrendered
himself to Captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon. When
the allies were informed of this event, they decided that
he should be sent as a prisoner to the island of St. Helena,
in the Southern Atlantic. In this little island, the illus-
trious exile died on the 5th of May 1821.
The Second Restoration-(22nd June 1815-26th July
1830).-Louis XVIII. was restored to his throne without
opposition; abandoning to the allies an indemnity of 800
millions (francs), and some territory on the frontiers of
the Netherlands, of Germany, and of Savoy. It was
also provided that an allied army of 150,000 men should
occupy, for the space of three or five years, a line of
fortresses from Cambray to Alsace; the possession of
which would enable them, in case of need, to march
upon Paris without opposition. This army was to be
maintained wholly at the expense of France. A few of
Napoleon's most zealous partisans, of whom the chief
were Marshal Ney and Colonel Labedoyere, suffered the
penalties of treason; but the greater part of the delin-
quents escaped with impunity. Marshal Brune, however,
and Generals Ramel and Lagarde were assassinated, and
a sanguinary reaction assailed throughout the south the
men devoted to the imperial regime, and even royalists
who were thought to be not sufficiently ardent. A law
of the 4th Dec. 1815, instituted for three years provost-
marshal courts, which soon acquired a sinister renown.
The restored monarchy had its massacres, its terror, which
was called the White Terror.
The year 1818 saw at length the occupation of French
territory by armed foreigners cease. The Holy Alliance
was willing to withdraw its soldiers before the time fixed
by the treaties.
Assassination of the Duke de Berri.-Up to 1819
the progress of the liberals was slow but sure, and they
were on the point of securing the majority, when the
king, thinking that he had gone too far in that direction,
I
292
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
drew towards the opposite party. That system of see-saw,
as it was termed, could satisfy no one. The assassination
of the Duke de Berri destroyed the equilibrium to the
profit of the royalists. On the 13th Feb. 1820, the duke
was at the opera; about ten o'clock at night, as he was
conducting the duchess to her carriage, and at the moment
he bade her adieu, a wretch, named Louvel, stabbed him
mortally. Even on the scaffold the assassin persisted
in declaring that he had no accomplices. But liberal
ideas were made responsible for this crime, and the new
ministry which was then formed launched the govern-
ment upon the fatal course which led to its wreck in 1830.
Alliance of the Altar and the Throne.-Individual
liberty was suspended, censorship of the press established,
and the double vote instituted, by which political influence
passed into the hands of the great proprietors, who voted
twice in the election for the arrondissement as well as that
of the department. The birth of the Duke of Bordeaux,
the posthumous son of the Duke de Berri (29th Sept.
1820), and the death of Napoleon (5th May 1821), in-
creased the joy and hopes of the ultra-royalists. The
re-establishment of the royal authority in its ancient
prerogatives was then loudly talked of, as well as the
restoring to the clergy its political influence. The
Jesuits returned to France, and other religious societies
undertook to convert the country to those ideas of a
bygone regime.
Secret Societies.-The liberals protested, as oppressed
persons are wont to do, by conspiracies. At the Congre-
gation formed by the ultra-royalists, and which numbered
50,000 affiliated members, they opposed the Charbonnerie,
which was recruited more especially in the schools, the
bar, and the army. Carbonarism extended its ramifica-
tions throughout France, in Germany, Italy, and Spain.
It essayed several insurrections with the armed hand.
In 1820, Captain Nantil, later on General Berton, Colonel
Caron, Captain Vallé, and four sub-officers of La Rochelle
were condemned and executed, except Nantil, who escaped
by flight,
CHARLES X.
293
The Spanish Expedition.-After having terrified the
liberals at home by laws and punishments, the ministry
despatched an army into Spain, whose mission there was
to stifle the liberal and revolutionary spirit, as the Holy
Alliance had just stifled it in Germany, Naples, and
Piedmont. That expedition, commanded by the Duke
of Angoulême, aimed also at restoring to Ferdinand VII.
absolute authority over his subjects, who desired to con-
strain him to give them a constitution. The French army,
acting in the name of the Holy Alliance, met in congress
at Verona (1822), and entered Spain on the 7th April 1823.
It had few occasions for fighting, and only met with
serious resistance at Cadiz, to which it laid siege. On the
31st August the French took, after a brilliant assault,
the strong position of the Trocadero, and that success
determined the surrender of the city. Re-established
by French arms, Ferdinand VII. turned a deaf ear to
sound advice, and made the yoke weigh only the heavier
on his subjects.
Charles X.-The death of Louis XVIII. (16th Sept.
1824), a king chiefly remarkable for his prudence and
moderation, his sound and good understanding, appeared
to assure the triumph of the ultra-royalists by causing
the crown to pass to his brother, Charles X., who, as the
Count d'Artois, in 1789, had given the signal for emigra-
tion. The new king fancied himself called upon to revive
in France the ancient monarchy. In the very outset of
his reign, he made a demand from the chambers by M. de
Villèle of an indemnity of a milliard for the emigrants,
the re-establishment of the convents for women, that of
birthright, and a more severe law against offences com-
mitted in churches. The deputies granted everything;
the only resistance was in the chamber of the Peers, who
by that opposition gained a few days popularity.
The conduct of the ministry had irritated the population
of all the large cities. Paris especially was hostile to it.
At a review of the national guard by the king in the month
of April 1827, the cry of "Down with the ministers!"
was raised in the ranks. That same evening the national
294
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
guard was disbanded. It was an error, for royalty, by
thoroughly alienating the middle classes, found itself with
its sole force in face of an impending revolution. The
Villèle ministry survived eight months longer; but the
general elections, which it imprudently provoked, sent to
the chamber a liberal majority before which it fell.
Battle of Navarino.-All parties manifested their
sympathy for a people who heroically defended their
independence, like the Greeks. That nation, so cele-
brated in antiquity, had just cast off the Turkish yoke,
but it was on the point of succumbing, when England,
France, and Russia united to save it (5th July 1827).
The three allied fleets destroyed at Navarino the Turkish
navy (20th Sept. 1827). France further sent into the
Morea a corps d'armée, under General Maison, who retook
in a short time all the towns occupied by the Turks.
Greece was delivered.
On the 4th January 1828, a new cabinet was formed,
it bore the name of the most influential minister, M. de
Martignac, and existed for six months, until 8th Aug.
1829. Its intentions were honest and liberal, and its
acts generally approved. Unfortunately, Charles X.,
always swayed by the fatal counsels of the Congregation,
supported his minister without liking him, and only
accepted the decrees submitted for his signature unwill-
ingly. He thought himself strong enough to cast a
defiance in the face of France, and, dismissing his liberal
ministry, he appointed a new one, which had for its head
Prince Jules de Polignac, a man whose very name was
obnoxious to the people, from the recollections which it
recalled of the influence supposed to have been exercised
by his family over the mind of the unfortunate Marie
Antoinette. This choice was a declaration of war on the
part of royalty against the country; and a crisis became
inevitable. During ten months, the opposition press
repeatedly told the government that it would end by
forcing on a coup d'etat, and the deputies declared in
their answer to the king's speech, that the ministry did
not possess the confidence of the country. The chamber
KING LOUIS PHILIPPE.
295
was dissolved, but the 221 signataries of the address were
re-elected, and royalty vanquished in the elections deter-
mined on itself making a revolution.
The Taking of Algiers.-The conquest of Algiers, under-
taken to avenge an affront given to the French Consul,
appeared to furnish a favourable occasion. An army of
37,000 men, commanded by the Count de Bourmont,
embarked at Toulon and landed, the 14th June 1830,
on the African coast. The Algerines were beaten and
dispersed amongst the mountains. On the 14th July, the
French captured the fort called the Château de l'Empereur,
which dominates Algiers, and the fall of which brought
about that of the city. The treasure amassed by the
Deys payed the cost of the expedition, which planted the
French flag upon the soil of Africa, where it has ever
since waved.
The Revolution of 1830.-On the 26th of the same
month appeared the famous ordinances which suppressed-
liberty of the press and created a new system of election.
Paris responded to that provocation by the three memor-
able days of the 27th, 28th, and 29th of July 1830.
Notwithstanding the bravery of the royal guard, Charles
X. was overcome and compelled to quit the kingdom
(29th July-16th Aug. 1830). Six thousand victims had
fallen dead or wounded. At the beginning of August
the Chamber of Deputies, without mandate from the
country, but with its assent, raised to the throne the
head of the younger branch of the Bourbons, the Duke
of Orleans, who took the name of Louis Philippe I.
France hailed with unanimous acclamation that separa-
tion from the men and the affront of 1815. In resuming
the tricolour, she seemed to retake also possession of her-
self, with all her glories and all her liberties.
THE GOVERNMENT OF JULY-Aug. 9, 1830-Feb. 24, 1848.
King Louis Philippe.-La Fayette had said on pre-
senting the Duke of Orleans to the people, at the Hotel-
de-ville. “Here is the best of republics." Many had
296
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
4
thought like La Fayette. The private virtues of the
prince, his fine family, his liberal antecedents, the recol-
lections carefully revived of Jemmapes, and of Valmy,
his citizen-like habits, the popular education given to
his sons in the public schools, all encouraged sanguine
hopes.
The Duke of Orleans, head of the younger branch of
the Bourbons, was proclaimed king on the 9th August,
after having sworn to observe the revised charter. The
alterations were of slight importance. Political rights
remained conferred on wealth rather than on intelligence,
and the mass of the nation was excluded from them.
But, in 1814, Louis XVIII. had given a charter granted
by his good pleasure; in 1830, Louis Philippe accepted
one which was imposed by the Chamber of Deputies.
In that fact was all the revolution.
A marked characteristic of this reign consists in the
almost perpetual changes of ministry during its first ten
years. To mention only a few: M. Lafitte, the banker,
was made President of the Council, or prime minister,
3rd Nov. 1830; M. Casimir Périer was appointed in
1831, but died in 1832, and was succeeded by Marshal
Soult; Count Molé was placed at the head of a new
ministry in 1836; M. Thiers became first minister, 1st
March 1840, but resigned in October; and a new cabinet
was then formed under Marshal Soult and M. Guizot.
At the noise of the downfall of the throne, which
crumbled to pieces in Paris on the 29th July 1830, some
other thrones were shaken, and all unpopular powers
compromised. In Switzerland, the aristocratic govern-
ments fell; in Germany, liberal innovations were intro-
duced. Italy was simmering; Spain was preparing a
revolution; Belgium separated from Holland; England
herself, stirred by a deep and widely-spread agitation,
tore from the Tories the Reform Bill. Peace had proved
more profitable than war to liberty.
But ought France to constitute herself the champion
of every European insurrection, at the risk of provoking
« general war and a terrible effusion of blood? The new
INSURRECTION AT LYONS.
297
king was not of that opinion. Belgium, having separated
from Holland, offered herself to France; she was rejected
in order not to excite the jealousy of England. The
Spanish refugees desired to attempt a revolution in their
native country; they were arrested on the frontier to
avoid the violation of an international law, even in face
of a prince somewhat unfriendly. Italy, in the chains of
Austria, was struggling to break her fetters. M. Lafitte
was anxious to aid her. The king refused to follow him
so far, and summoned Casimir Périer to the presidency
of the Council.
Ministry of Casimir Périer-(1831-1832).-The new
ministry invested his policy of the juste milieu with some
grandeur, by the energy and boldness which he brought
to the service of moderate measures. He declared plainly
two things; that he desired lawful order, and consequently
that he would combat to the uttermost republicans and
legitimists alike; that he would not involve France in a
universal war, and consequently he would make for the
world's peace every sacrifice compatible with the country's
honour. This language seemed lofty, but his acts sus-
tained it.
Occupation of Ancona.-Don Miguel, in Portugal, had
outrageously treated two Frenchmen. A fleet forced the
passage of the Tagus, reputed impassable, and anchored
close to the quays of Lisbon. The Portuguese ministers
humbled themselves, and a legitimate reparation was
accorded. The Dutch had invaded Belgium; 50,000
French were marched thither promptly, and the flag of
the Netherlands was struck. The Austrians, having
once quitted the Papal States, had re-entered them;
Casimir Périer, determined to make the principle of non-
intervention respected, sent a flotilla into the Adriatic,
and the French troops seized upon Ancona. The appear-
ance of the tricolour in the centre of Italy was almost a
declaration of war against Austria. The latter did not
pick up the glove, but withdrew her troops.
Insurrection at Lyons.-At home, the President of
the Council followed with the same energy the line which
298
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
he had marked out for himself. The legitimists were
agitating the departments of the west; flying columns
stifled the revolt there. The Lyons' workmen, excited
by insufferable misery, and also by legitimist and repub-
lican leaders, had risen, inscribing on their banner the
sad and sinister motto: "To live by working or die by
fighting." After a fearful struggle in the city itself,
they were disarmed, and order seemed established on
the surface. Grenoble, in its turn, was stained with
blood. At Paris also conspiracies were formed, known as
the Towers of Notre Dame and the Rue des Prouvaires.
Such was the ministry of Casimir Périer: an energetic
struggle, in which his strong will did not recoil, for the
cause of order, before any obstacle. Such a life had
exhausted his strength, when the cholera carried him off
on the 16th May 1832.
The Cholera (1832). In the month of March this
terrible scourge, which had made its appearance in
England in the preceding autumn, visited Paris, and, as
it is said, without having shown itself previously in
any of the frontier towns. The deaths in Paris by
this disease, between 26th March and 30th September,
were reported to amount to from twenty to twenty-five
thousand.
Insurrection of the 5th and 6th June-Ministry of
Guizot, Thiers, and de Broglie.-Society was stirred to
its lowest depths by the partisans of St. Simon and
Fourier, who advocated another social order. These
men did not play the part only of peaceful apostles, but
the Lyonnese insurrection had shown in the prolétaires
an army quite ready to apply their doctrines. The
national guard energetically defended royalty, when, on
the occasion of the funeral of General Lamarque, the
republican party gave battle on the 5th and 6th June,
behind the barricades of St. Mery. That check crushed
for some time the republicans. A month afterwards
(22nd July 1832), the death of the son of Napoleon, the
Duke of Reichstadt, disembarrassed the Orleans dynasty
of a formidable pretender, which, at the same epoch,
!
299
seemed to gain a support by the marriage of the Princess
Louise with the King of the Belgians.
Arrest of the Duchess de Berri.-Another pretender
also lost her cause. The Duchess de Berri, landing
secretly on the shore of Provence, with the title of
regent, had come to kindle civil war in the west in the
name of her son Henry V. But there were no more
Vendéans or Chouans there. New ideas had penetrated
there as elsewhere, more than elsewhere even. A few
refractory gentlemen, a few peasants, responded to the
appeal. The country, swarming with troops, was promptly
pacified, and the duchess, after having long wandered
from farm to farm, entered Nantes disguised as a peasant-
woman. This foolish prank showed the weakness of the
legitimist party. To achieve its ruin, M. Thiers, then
minister, caused an active search for the duchess to be
made. On being discovered she was sent prisoner to
Blaye, where she gave birth to a daughter, and was
obliged to confess that she had been secretly married in
Italy to a Count Palli, which rendered for the future any
attempt of the same kind impossible.
Successes Abroad. -The capture of the citadel of
Antwerp, which the Dutch refused to give up to the
Belgians, terminated a critical situation, from which, at
any moment, a general war might have broken out. The
occupation of Arzew, of Mostaganem, and of Bougie,
strengthened the establishment of the French in Algiers
and those expeditions on the banks of the Scheldt, and
on the Mediterranean shores, threw some lustre on French
SUCCESSES ABROAD.
arms.
In Portugal, Don Pedro succeeded in overthrowing Don
Miguel, and giving, in the name of his daughter, Donna
Maria, a constitutional charter. In Spain, Ferdinand VII.
died, excluding from the throne, by the abolition of the
Salique law, his brother Don Carlos; so that the Iberian
Peninsula entirely escaped at the same time from the
absolutist regime.
The year 1835 saw the ruin of the republican party
as a militant faction. The insurrections of April at
300
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Lyons and Paris, which occasioned the massacres of the
Faubourg de Vaise and the Rue Transnonain, and the
dramatic incidents of the trial of the republicans before
the Court of Peers, led to the imprisonment or flight
of almost all the chiefs.
During the whole course of these events, the position,
both personal and political, of the king himself became
more and more anxious every day. The many jealousies
of which he was the subject, and the rooted animosity of
the republicans, do not appear to have ever slept during
his whole reign, and seven, if not more, direct attempts
were made to assassinate him. At the review on the
28th July 1835, one Fieschi, a Corsican, a discharged
convict and forger, directed an infernal machine against
the king, the discharge from which struck down dead
around Louis Philippe, Marshal Mortier, one of the
heroes of the empire and formerly president of the
council, a general, two colonels, an aged man, a woman,
a young girl, several national guards, and forty others
wounded. This terrible attempt frightened society, still
excited by the recent civil war and the painful incidents
of the April trials. The minister profited by the universal
indignation to present the famous laws of September
affecting the courts of assize, the jury, and the press.
They were calculated to render criminal justice more
severe and prompt; they interdicted all discussion upon
the principle of government, and raised the caution-money
of the journals from 48,000 francs to 100,000.
Foreign Policy.-Up to this moment, the cause of
order had been energetically maintained at home; now
that it was triumphant, M. Thiers, president of the council
since 22nd Feb. 1836, was desirous of resuming abroad
the policy of Casimir Périer. The king, whom every great
movement terrified, consented willingly to the expedition
against Constantine, because the cannon-shots fired in
Africa, he said, were not heard in Europe; but he refused
consent to any intervention in Spain; so that M. Thiers,
rather than give way, quitted the ministry, and M. Molé
replaced him, 6th Sept. 1836, as president of the council.
!
MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF ORLEANS.
301
-
}
Struggle between the Court and the Parliament.-
The commencement of the ministry of M. Molé was
marked by unfortunate events. Marshal Clausel, left
without sufficient means, failed in the expedition against
Constantine. Prince Louis Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon,
attempted to excite the garrison of Strasburg to revolt.
Arrested, he was conducted beyond the frontier; his
accomplices appeared before a jury, who absolved them,
because the guilty leader was withdrawn from its juris-
diction. This verdict dissatisfied the Court, and the
minister presented the famous law of disjunction, a blow
aimed at the inviolable principle of equality in justice.
The Chamber rejected it. It rejected also the demand of
a dotation for the Duke de Nemours. But one act of
the ministry was welcomed by unanimous applause-the
amnesty promulgated the on 8th May 1837, for political
offences.
Marriage of the Duke of Orleans-Taking of Con-
stantine.-A few days after the amnesty, the union
of the Duke of Orleans with the Princess Helena of
Mecklenburg, a young woman of elevated mind, and who,
in misfortune, displayed austere and touching virtues.
The treaty of Tafna had just pacified the province of
Oran, when at the other extremity of their Algerine
possessions the French had at length planted their flag on
the formidable walls of Constantine (1837). The nation
was proud of this success, and the king, associating him-
self with that reawakened patriotism, displayed pictorially
in the deserted galleries of Versailles all the military
glories of France.
The year 1838 continued this prosperity. A long
quarrel with Mexico necessitated the despatch of a
squadron which bombarded the fort of Vera Cruz, St.
Jean d'Ulloa, and forced it to capitulate. And lastly,
the Duchess of Orleans gave birth to a son, heir-presump-
tive to the crown, to whom the king gave the name of
the Count of Paris, an event which seemed to mark the
culmination of the national prosperity.
Already, however, violent attacks upon the coalition
i
302
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
ministry of Guizot, Thiers, and Odilon Barrot, were
preparing. The ministry, sharply pressed, wished (22nd
Jan. 1839) to resign. The king refused to accept their
resignations, and made an appeal to the country. He
pronounced the dissolution of the Chamber. The ministry
threw itself energetically into the electoral battle; but
it was conquered and fell. Inextricable difficulties in the
formation of a new ministry kept Paris during upwards
of a month in suspense. The occasion seemed favourable
for a coup de main to several republicans, who believed
much more in the virtue of musket-shots than in the
propagation of ideas. Their chiefs, the rash and gloomy
Blanqui, a born conspirator, and Barbès, attempted a
revolution. They failed even to make an insurrection
(12th May).
This awakening of violent passions precipitated the
ministerial crisis. On the same day a cabinet was con-
stituted under the presidency of Marshal Soult. Not one
of the heads of the coalition took part in it. Thus it
could only be a kind of interim ministry. It did not
last ten months (12th May 1839 to 1st March 1840).
When Marshal Soult and his colleagues had been over-
thrown by a vote which they had provoked upon a new
project of princely dotation, another ministry was formed
under the presidency of M. Thiers.
Ten years of peace and of material well-being had
developed new wants. As at the end of the restoration,
the country was prosperous; but, as at that epoch also,
it fermented. France was stifling in the circle traced
around her by diplomacy.
The Treaty of London.-Grave events were preparing
in the east. In 1839, a war had almost arisen out of a
difference respecting the conduct to be pursued in the
contest going on between Turkey and Egypt. Europe,
and especially England, resolved to break that accord
which, placing under the same hand Toulon, Algiers,
Alexandria, Beyrout, and the fleets of France, Egypt,
and Turkey, assured to France the preponderance in the
Mediterranean, On the 15th July, England, Russia, and

DEATH OF THE DUKE OF ORLEANS.
303
the two powers which followed in their wake, signed,
without the participation of France, the treaty of London,
which was to deprive the Pacha of Egypt of Syria.
Thus, therefore, France was again placed under the ban
of Europe; the coalition was renewed against her. All
the sacrifices accorded to the peace of the world, all the
advances made to absolute monarchies had been useless.
At these tidings, a shudder of anger agitated the whole
country; the Court appeared to associate itself with this
explosion of national feeling, and France laid hand on
the hilt of her sword-but she did not draw it. The
Levant fleet, which might have crushed that of England,
returned to Toulon, and the bombardment of Beyrout
coupled with the fall of the Egyptian power in Syria,
found mournful echoes in the hearts of Frenchmen.
Declining to make war under the disadvantageous
conditions under which it presented itself, the minister
desired at least to give to France a firm and dignified
attitude. He caused the fortifications of Paris to be
commenced, which should place a shield round the heart
of France; he armed the strongholds and increased the
army. This situation had its perils. The king became
alarmed at it. He had at first followed his ministry
he abandoned it. M. Thiers gave place to M. Guizot
(29th Oct. 1840).
M. Guizot, not caring much for the current of public
opinion nor for the national feeling, hastened to extend
his hand to England and the powers which had just
wounded France to the quick. On the 13th July 1841,
he signed a treaty which caused France to re-enter what
was called the European concert, that is to say, which
admitted her into that pentarchy of the five great powers
which the treaties of 1815 had constituted under the
name of the Holy Alliance. That event was equivalent
to a treaty of peace.
Death of the Duke of Orleans.-On the 13th July
1842, a shocking accident saddened the whole country,
without distinction of parties. The Duke of Orleans, an
amiable prince most deservedly beloved, was thrown from
304
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
:
his carriage and killed. His death caused his rights to
pass to his son, the Count of Paris; and a child of four
years old found himself heir to the heaviest crown any
head could wear. From that day, amongst the legitimists,
hope sprung up; and the liberals and republicans expected
everything, for the triumph of their ideas, from the inevit-
able weakness of a regency.
The Regency. The chambers were convoked immedi-
ately. A law was presented to them which named before-
hand the Duke de Nemours regent of his nephew. This
prince had neither the brilliant reputation of the Duke of
Orleans, nor the popularity possessed by the Prince de
Joinville for his services before St. Jean d' Ulloa, Mogador,
and Tangier, nor the rising renown which the capture of
the smala of Abd-el-Kader gave to the Duke d' Aumale.
The law passed, but without obtaining the public assent.
Marriage of the Duke de Montpensier.-In Morocco,
as at Taïti, the French had found the English against
them. Thus the English alliance, anxiously sought after,
had only caused them embarrassment. But it secured, it
was said, the peace of the world. A marriage, however,
was very nearly breaking it, that of the Duke de Mont-
pensier with the sister of the Queen of Spain. If there
were only, in the rapid conclusion of that marriage, an
idea of dynastic interest, it was an imprudence; if there
existed no other means of getting rid of an English can-
didate, a prince of Coburg, the ministry was in the right;
for France had need of having Spain for a friend. Un-
fortunately, the ministry grew alarmed at the isolation
in which France was about to find herself. Repulsed by
England, she drew near to Austria, and in order to gain
her sacrificed Italy and Switzerland.
The Political Banquets. The elections of 1846 gave
to the ministry a majority. The opposition, directed by
Thiers and Odilon Barrot, caused the ministry to demur
in the fulfilment of its promises. It demanded the re-
adjustment of certain taxes, electoral and parliamentary
reform. The ministry refused everything, and rallied
the opposition upon its useless efforts to arouse the
THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.
305
country from its political torpor. To this defiance, the
opposition replied by sixty banquets given in the most
important towns. At them the wrongs of the country
were exposed: abroad, the abasement of France, which
no longer had its necessary influence in Europe; at home,
the refusal of the most legitimate reforms, and the equi-
vocal methods of government, corruption.
The opposition was popular; Paris entirely belonged
to it. Almost all the press was with the opposition.
A journal founded by the conservatives could not exist.
In the bosom even of that party disaffection had shown
itself. Several influential members of the majority passed
over to the opposition. The Prince de Joinville evinced
a marked disapprobation, and exiled himself to Algiers.
Even in the ministry itself, some members repudiated
that ultra-conservative policy. But the leading minister
began the strife by making the king pronounce, at the
opening of the session of 1848, a speech in which he
declared that one hundred deputies were enemies of the
throne.
Iritating debates kept during six weeks public opinion
in emotion. Exterior events, the victory of liberal
Switzerland, the movements of Italy, which strove to
escape from the grasp of Austria, reacted upon France.
The opposition tried a final manifestation, the banquet
of the 12th arrondissment. The hopes of the long-
discouraged republicans revived; they let matters take
their course, but held themselves ready. "If the minis-
try," said one of their chiefs on the 20th February,
"authorises the banquet, it will fall; if it forbids it,
there will be a revolution."
Revolution of the 23th and 24th February 1848.-
The ministry prohibited the banquet, but immense crowds
assembled; and here and there a few conflicts took place.
The national guard, tardily called out, remained inactive.
The army, not finding the national guard willing to
co-operate with it, thought that it was 1830 begun again;
it would not fire, and allowed the reform to go on.
revolution followed.
The
U
306
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
On the evening of the 23d February the opposition
had gained its cause; M. Guizot resigned, and a liberal
ministry, with M. Thiers at its head, was named. But
those who had so well begun the movement were unpre-
pared to arrest it just at the point at which the bulk of
the community expected. Men of attack rather than of
resistance, of criticism rather than of action, they saw in
a few hours the course of the insurrection escape them
and pass over to a party weak in numbers, but who had
at that moment the great advantage over the opposition
of reckoning in its service men full of audacity, emerited
conspirators or veterans of the barricades.
The fighting men of the party mixed with the crowd
which blocked up the boulevards, already all illuminated
and rejoicing. A pistol shot having been fired at the post
which was on guard at the Foreign Office, the soldiers
replied sharply by a murderous discharge. Fifty victims
amongst the inoffensive bystanders fell. At the sight of
their bodies carried in procession through the principal
streets in open waggons lighted by torches, the anger of
the populace burst forth: "Our brothers are assassinated,
vengeance!" The people of the faubourgs rushed to arms.
In the night Paris bristled with barricades, whilst the
resistance remained uncertain, paralysed. Next day, the
insurrection became master of almost all the mairies, the
five barracks, and then advanced to the Tuileries. At
noon, the king abdicated whilst fighting was still going
on at the Palais Royal, and, protected by a few regiments,
escaped without being pursued or molested. There
remained with the Duke de Nemours, an unpopular
prince, and the Duke de Montpensier, too young yet to
be known, a woman and a child, the Duchess of Orleans
and the Count of Paris. The duchess was respected for
her virtues and elevation of mind; but a foreigner and
isolated, she was powerless. Whilst the insurgents were
attacking the Tuileries, the duchess with her sons went
to the chamber, in full persuasion that the count would
be proclaimed king, and that she herself would be regent,
but an armed and infuriate mob rushed suddenly in and
THE REPUBLIC OF 1848.
307
proclaimed a provisional government, composed of M. M.
Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, Lamartine, Crémieux, Ledru
Rollin, and Garnier Pagès.

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THE REPUBLIC OF 1848.
On the evening of the 24th Feb., the provisional govern
ment proclaimed the Republic. On the 26th it was
proclaimed from the steps of the Hotel de Ville. The
27th was kept as a high festival, and the Republic was
again solemnly proclaimed at the foot of the column of
the Bastille, to commemorate the revolution of July 1830.
On the 4th March, a national assembly was summoned,
to be elected by universal suffrage throughout France.
An immense crowd collected before the Hotel de Ville,
and demanded that the red flag should become the symbol
of the new power. It was a sinister presage. Lamartine
energetically repulsed "that flag, which had only made.
the round of the Champ-de-Mars, trailed in blood, whilst
the tricolour had made the tour of the world, bearing
everywhere the name and glory of the country." The
308
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
Assembly opened on the 4th May, but did nothing to
restore tranquillity to the disquieted metropolis. On the
15th, an immense concourse of Clubbists forced its way
into the Assembly, and afterwards proclaimed another
provisional government from the Hotel de Ville. The
chiefs of this party were arrested and sent to Vincennes.
On the 12th June, Prince Louis Napoleon, son of the
ex-King of Holland, was elected into the Assembly as
representative of the department of the Seine. On the
notification of his election, M. Lamartine moved a decree
for his banishment; but, after some debate, he was
admitted by a great majority to take his seat. On the
22nd and three following days, barricades were suddenly
raised with an astonishing rapidity in the faubourgs, and
soon occupied one-half of Paris. General Cavaignac,
minister of war since the 18th May, concentrated his
forces between the National Assembly and the Hotel de
Ville. The combat began, and lasted four days with
great carnage, costing the lives of 5000 on both sides.
The Archbishop of Paris was killed whilst imploring
peace from the multitude. Cavaignac was made dictator,
and the city placed under martial law. The victory
remained with the National Assembly and General
Cavaignac; 12,000 prisoners made during the insurrec-
tion, or arrested after the combat, were transported
to Africa.
The Republic came out of this dreadful struggle
singularly weakened. There were two candidates for
its presidency, General Cavaignac and Prince Louis
Bonaparte, who, twice following, had been elected repre-
sentative by three, then by five departments. General
Cavaignac received 1,448,107 votes against 5,434,226
given to the prince (10th Dec.): Lamartine and Ledru-
Rollin were also candidates.
Presidency of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte.-Charles
Louis Napoleon, born at the Tuileries, 20th Aug. 1808,
third son of Hortense Beauharnais and Louis Bonaparte,
king of Holland, had taken part in Italy, so early as 1831,
in the insurrectional movement of the Romagna against
THE SECOND EMPIRE.
309
the pope. On two occasions, in 1836 and in 1840, he
had tried unsuccessfully at Strasburg and at Boulogne, to
reawaken sympathy for the name of Napoleon and the
glory of the Empire. After the last attempt, he was con-
demned by the Court of Peers, and imprisoned in the
Castle of Ham, whence he escaped in 1846. The revolu-
tion of February revived his hopes. An active propa-
ganda obtained him numerous suffrages; the faults of the
republicans and the powerful magic of his name did the
rest. His conduct after his election as president of the
Republic was able and intrepid, but arbitrary. Order was
restored, and labour regained its activity. Therefore the
president was well received in a progress through the
provinces of the East and South. He left Strasburg
amid shouts of Vive la President! and entered Bordeaux
amid those of Vive l'Empereur! which on the 16th Oct.
Paris itself repeated. Hurried along by the movement
which had seized it, since the first vote in favour of
Napoleon in 1848, the majority of the nation believed it
could only find repose and order in the bosom of an
hereditary monarchy, and the satisfaction of its pride in
the face of the foreigner only in the Napoleon dynasty.
The re-establishment of the Empire closely followed.
THE SECOND EMPIRE (1852-1870).
Re-establishment of the Empire-(1852).—A senatus-
consulte, deliberated in the first assembly of the state,
proposed to the nation the re-establishment of the
imperial dignity in the person of Louis Napoleon Bona-
parte, with inheritance to his direct descendants, legitimate
or adoptive; and the popular comitia adopted that pro-
position on the 21st and 22nd November, by 8,157,752
affirmative votes against 254,501 negative. The Empire
was therefore solemnly proclaimed on the 2nd Dec. 1852.
The New emperor took the name of Napoleon III.
Of his marriage with Mdlle. Eugénie de Montigo, Countess
de Teba, whom he chose irrespective of all political cal-
culations to raise to the throne, was born an imperial
prince (16th March 1856). The empire, established on the
W
310
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
wide base of universal suffrage, had an immense popularity.
The emperor did not propose to enjoy a sluggish royalty.
He proposed to himself two objects: at home, to give
satisfaction to the general wants of the country, as well as
to popular interests; abroad, to raise the political position
of France, which still felt the blows of the great reverses
of 1815.

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GRAND STAIRCASE OF THE LOUVRE.
The government gave to the public works an activity
which, in ten years, almost renewed the largest cities,
but also over-stimulated speculation so far as to bring
about lamentable disasters. Paris was, as it were, rebuilt
upon a new and grandiose plan by the prefect of the
Seine, M. Haussmann; Lyons and Marseilles followed
that example, which decided the municipalities of the
smaller towns to let into their old quarters air, light,
and health. At Paris, the Louvre, the restoration of
which had for so long been suspended, was finished;
new boulevards were pierced, whole quarters subjected
to sanitary improvements, others created, schools, mairies
and churches built in each arrondissment; in the centre,
the Halles (markets), reconstructed in an original style;
THE CRIMEAN WAR.
311
gardens bloomed everywhere, promenades planted with
rare trees or precious flowers, and the magnificence of
the woods of Boulogne and Vincennes increased. At
Marseilles a mountain was cut through in order to make
a new town, and two ports constructed wherein to harbour
the innumerable vessels which commerce brings to the
queen of the Mediterranean.
Foreign Policy-Wars.-Napoleon III., before being
crowned, had said, “L'Empire, c'est la paix;" a happy
phrase if it had proved applicable; but there were under
this reign wars which the nation accepted as necessities
of its old traditions of national policy and military honour.
There were some, unfortunately, also of which it disap-
proved, and the second empire has fallen through having
undertaken one which was inevitable, but which was
neither prepared for, nor undertaken at a propitious
moment.
The Crimean War-Treaty of Paris (1854-1856).-
Since the treaties of 1815, Russia exercised a threatening
preponderance over Europe. The Czar Nicholas had
become the personification of a formidable system of
repression and conquest. He had never pardoned the
royalty of July for having emerged from an insurrection;
in Germany, he had supported the sovereigns in their
resistance to the wishes of the people. He had done
everything to denationalise Poland, of which the treaties
of 1815 recognised his possession, on the condition that
he should secure to it a constitutional government. Aston-
ished for an instant by the revolution of 1848, the Czar
had speedily resumed his ambition. After having saved
Austria by crushing the Hungarians revolted against her,
he had thought that the presence of a Napoleon on the
throne of France guaranteed to Russia the alliance of the
English, and he had considered the moment arrived for
seizing the eternal object of Muscovite covetousness—
Constantinople. On every occasion he affected a haughty
protectorate over the Christian subjects of the Turkish
empire; he ended by trying to establish a secret under-
standing with England for the partition of the spoils
·
*
"
Teatro mesatarit ett v
312
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
·
of the sick man (the Sultan). In 1853, he caused the
Danubian Principalities to be occupied, and equipped
at Sebastopol a fleet which seemed formidable. The
Emperor Napoleon gave the first signal of resistance by
boldly sending the French fleet from the Mediterranean
to Salamis, to keep it within reach of Constantinople and
the Black Sea. He dragged England, at first hesitating,
into his alliance, and secured the neutrality of Austria
and Prussia. The somewhat unchivalrous attack and
destruction by the Russians of a Turkish fleet at Sinope
was the beginning of hostilities. The Anglo-French fleet
entered the Black Sea, whilst an allied army despatched
from the ports of Great Britain and those of France was
collected under the walls of Constantinople. On the 14th
Sept. 1854, the allied army, 70,000 strong, landed on the
shores of the Crimea, and the victory of the Alma, gained
by Marshal St. Arnaud and Lord Raglan, was the prelude
to the commencement of the siege of Sebastopol, a for-
midable fortress, which it was necessary to annihilate
to preserve Constantinople from the risk of a coup de
main.
This siege, one of the most terrible in the annals of
modern history, lasted nearly a year. At length, on the
8th Sept. 1855, after constant and wonderful efforts,
French rush and English solidity had their reward; the
Malakoff redoubt was carried and the town taken. A
few months before, the Emperor Nicholas died, having
foreseen the ruin of his vast designs.
The Czar Alexander II., successor to Nicholas, demand-
ing peace, it was concluded at Paris (30th March 1856).
That peace neutralised the Black Sea, interdicted conse
quently Russia from having a war fleet there, took from
her some portions of Bessarabia, and rendered free, as far
as its mouth, the navigation of the Danube. Thus Russia
fell back, the rights of nations made a step in advance,
France recovered the plenitude of her international action
and all the moral influence she has the right of exercising
in the affairs of Europe. The visits of the Queen of
England, the King of Portugal, of King Victor Emmanuel,
THE WAR IN ITALY.
313
and other sovereigns to Napoleon III., were a significant
evidence of the greatness which France had just regained.
The War in Italy--Peace of Villafranca and Treaty
of Zurich (1858-1859).-After Russia, it was Austria
that had been the most opposed to modern ideas. As the
former weighed upon Turkey, the latter weighed upon
Italy. Austria had played during the Crimean war an
equivocal part, whilst the kingdom of Sardinia, the sole
independent and constitutional state in Italy, did not
fear to join its young army to the Anglo-French forces.
That circumstance had made France the national protector
of Piedmont, and consequently of Italy, of which this
little kingdom was, as it were, the last citadel. The
marriage of Prince Napoleon, cousin of the Emperor,
with the Princess Clotilde, daughter of King Victor
Emmanuel, drew them closer together. Thus, hen the
Emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph, in spite of the
efforts of European diplomacy, crossed the Ticino, as the
Emperor Nicholas had passed the Pruth, France found
herself face to face with the new aggressor and on the side
of the oppressed.
The Emperor Napoleon resumed by that war the
secular policy of France, which consists in not suffering
the prepotency of Austria or of Germany in Italy, that
is to say, on the south-east frontier of France. If he
had, as President of the Republic, contributed to the
return of the pope to Rome, it was not to perpetuate
in the Peninsula the Austrian oppression and the general
slavery. The appearance of a French army, divided into
five corps commanded by distinguished generals, upon
that soil on which French arms, during three centuries,
had left so many glorious traces, announced a new era
in European policy. Italy, seeing that the moment had
come for claiming her independence, arose at the call of
France. Europe attentive and stirred, England bene-
volent, Russia and Prussia astonished, were observant.
Austria and France remained alone in presence of each
other. The war lasted scarcely two months.
After the brilliant affair of Montebello, which baffled
314
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
F
a surprise attempted by the Austrians, the Franco-Pied-
montese army concentrated itself round Alexandria
then, by a bold and skilful movement, turned the right
of the Austrians, which had already crossed the Ticino,
and compelled them to repass that river. Taken between
the divisions of General MacMahon and the guard at
Magenta, the Austrians lost 7000 killed or wounded,
and 8000 prisoners (4th June). Two days after, the
French entered Milan.
The enemy, astonished at a shock so rude, abandoned
his first line of defence, in which he had however accu-
mulated, long beforehand, powerful means of action and
resistance. He retired upon the Adda, after having
vainly made a momentary stand at a spot already famous
—Marignan, and upon the Mincio, behind the celebrated
plains of Castiglione, between the two fortresses of Pes-
chiera and Mantua. Then he rested against, as at
an inexpugnable position, the great quadrilateral of
Verona. There the Emperor of Austria, with a new
general and considerable reinforcements, had come to
await the French. The Austrians had for a long time
studied this field of battle; they were 160,000 strong
upon the heights, leaning on the village and tower of
Solferino, ready to sweep down upon the plain. Napoleon
III. had scarcely 140,000 men in hand, and was obliged
to fight upon a line of five leagues in extent. Whilst
the right wing struggled against the enemy in the plain,
to avoid being turned, and King Victor Emmanuel with
his Piedmontese resisted bravely on the left, the centre
made a vigorous attack, and after a heroic struggle,
carried successively Mont Fenile, Mont des Cyprès, and
lastly the village of Solferino. The enemy's line was
broken and his reserves reached, before they could
engage, by the balls of the new rifled cannon. There-
upon ensued a frightful pell-mell; but a dreadful storm,
accompanied by hail and a torrent-like rain, stopped the
victors and enabled the Austrians to recross the Mincio,
leaving 25,000 behind them. The Emperor Napoleon
took up his quarters that evening in the same chamber
THE WAR AGAINST PRUSSIA.
315
which had been occupied in the morning by Francis
Joseph (24th June).
For a long time, France, England, and Spain, had
injuries to avenge and claims to urge against the anar-
chial government of Mexico. At the commencement of
1862, the three powers had an understanding to act in
common, as France had acted in China with the English,
and in Cochin China with the Spaniards. The expedition
was already in course of execution, when the cabinets of
London and Madrid, in consequence of misunderstandings,
renounced the enterprise. France, left alone, persisted in
avenging the common injuries. A check having engaged
the honour of the flag, the error was committed of declar-
ing that France would not treat with the President Juarez,
which committed it to import into that country a foreign
government, or to conquer those immense solitudes. It was
necessary to send, instead of 6000 men at first despatched,
as many as 35,000 soldiers. Puebla made a heroic
resistance; but the key of Mexico was there, and the
army took it (18th May 1863). A few days after (10th
June), it entered Mexico, and the populace proclaimed
emperor, upon the indications of France, an Austrian
prince, the Archduke Maximilian. After the departure
of the troops in 1867, the unfortunate prince was taken
and shot by the republicans. That imprudent and badly
conceived expedition proved a serious check to French
policy and French finances.
In these days a dictatorship can only be temporary.
Napoleon III. knew it well, and, at the same moment
that he took possession of the throne, he had promised
that liberty should one day crown the new political
edifice. After Solferino, he meditated bringing it back
to French institutions, to which it was recalled by the
increasing confidence and prosperity of the country.
In the midst of this prosperity and these hopes, a storm
suddenly arose under which the Empire foundered, and
France was precipitated into an abyss of grief and misery.
The War against Prussia (July 1870-Feb. 1871).-
Prussia, which since Frederick the Great had dreamed of
316
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
i
reconstituting the German Empire, knew well that she
could not realise that object, so threatening to Europe,
until after the military humiliation of France, and she
prepared the means for it with an untiring perseverance.
She stimulated through the means of history, poetry, and
science, German ⚫patriotism against those whom she
called in her newspapers "the hereditary enemy." She
armed all her male population from twenty to sixty; she
required from her officers the most complete instruction,
from her troops the most severe discipline; and by an
organization which left no portion of the national forces
inactive, by a foresight which utilised all the resources of
industry and science, she constituted, in the centre of
Europe, the most formidable machinery of war that the
world has yet seen-1,500,000 men trained and armed.
And that dreadful machinery she confided to be put in
action, to men whom few scruples of legality, justice, or
honour, could stop, since they said openly:
"Force over-
comes right" (La force prime le droit).
France saw nothing or desired to see nothing in those
immense preparations which were being completed even
on her own territory, by the minute and secret study of
every means of action or of resistance. Ideas of peace
and economy predominated in the legislative body; a
blind confidence in France's military superiority, an
equal distrust against the armament of the whole coun-
try, prevented the proportioning of the forces of France
to the greatness of the struggle which was approaching;
and, by the incapacity of officials, and by the insufficiency
of the administrations, those which existed were badly
handled.
As a finishing stroke of dexterity, Prussia had the art
of bringing about a declaration of war which she ardently
desired, and for which she had been preparing for some
fifteen years.
To 700,000 soldiers moved up in fifteen days to the
frontier, and concentrated in a small space, from Treves
to Landau, the French opposed 240,000 men scattered
over a line of one hundred leagues. They were over-
THE WAR AGAINST PRUSSIA.
317
Eft
whelmed at Wissembourg, at Reichsoffen, and at Forbach,
by an enemy three or four times superior in numbers,
fighting at a distance, under cover of the woods, and
covered by an innumerable artillery, the range of which
was greater than that of the French guns (4th and 6th
August). The emperor capitulated at Sedan (2nd Sep.),
and Marshal Bazaine at Metz (26th Oct.). Strasburg,

STRASBURG.
where nothing was in readiness for a siege, succumbed
after a bombardment which burned the library, the
museum, and threatened to demolish the cathedral. At
Paris, on the 4th September, an insurrection had invaded
the Chamber, dispersed the deputies, constituted a
government called the National Defence, and fifteen
days after, the invested capital fought its first battle,
that of Chatillon. In detaining before its walls, during
more than four months (18th Sept.-27th Jan.), the prin-
cipal Prussian forces, it gave to France time to raise
herself up.
All the regular army, save four African
318
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
regiments, was prisoner in Germany; it was necessary
to improvise soldiers, cannons, rifles, and intendance.
Wonders were achieved. But war has become too
scientific for youths just drawn from their villages to
make head, in spite of their courage, against disciplined
and victorious soldiers. The provincial armies were
crushed; and when after 131 days of siege, after a
month's bombardment, famine forced Paris to lower the
drawbridges of her forts, nothing more remained but to
submit to the law of the conqueror.
For the first time during four centuries, France retro-
graded. In 1815, she had at least very nearly preserved
the frontiers which her old monarchy had given her; by
the treaty of the 1st March 1871, a wound was inflicted
upon her which will ever bleed, by tearing away the two
provinces, Alsace and a portion of Lorraine, which had
never been connected to the German Empire save by the
most feeble ties. Strasburg had voluntarily given itself
to Louis XIV. in 1681, and Metz to Henry II. in 1552.
After having treated a population of 1,600,000 souls
like a flock of sheep to be disposed of, it was hoped to
exhaust France for a long period by demanding an
indemnity of five milliards.
It appeared as though so many disasters must have
exhausted the vials of wrath poured out upon France.
It only remained to add to those the disgrace of Civil
War; to exhibit to all the world the national glories
overthrown by French hands, worthy citizens assassinated,
the palaces in flames, Paris in its entirety threatened
with destruction under the eyes of the Prussians, masters
still of nineteen departments, and who, from the summits
of the forts on the right bank of the Seine, joyously
watched the conflagration. This was the work of the
Commune and the Internationale, the one concealing the
other. A hideous mixture of ignorance and perver-
sity, of covetousness and hatred, of brutal passions
and over-excited desires, whence neither a new idea
nor a generous sentiment came forth, and which broke
out into a formidable insurrection, into the heart of
THE WAR AGAINST PRUSSIA.
319
which rushed, like wolves to their prey, the outcasts of
every country.
Meanwhile, the National Assembly reunited at Bor-
deaux, and afterwards at Versailles, had refused to decree
a new constitution, or to make an appeal to the people,
before the liberation of the territory. Continuing the
government de facto which it had found established, the
Assembly had, on the 18th February 1871, indicated as
head of the executive power, M. Thiers, who later
(31st Aug.), received the title of President of the Re-
public.
The French army, reconstituted at Versailles, was
forced to make a second siege of Paris (2nd April-21st
May), storm the ramparts, and sustain a murderous com-
bat in the streets for seven days. As they retreated, the
communards set fire, by means of petroleum, to public
edifices and private houses; to the Tuilleries, the Hôtel de
Ville, the palace of the Legion of Honour, of the Council
of State, the library of the Louvre and its 80,000 volumes,
and the Ministry of Finance, wherein they thought to
destroy the titles of the national wealth. Twenty other
edifices and 200 houses perished in the flames.
It is as unneccessary as it would be unprofitable to
follow the recent contentions of Legitimists, Orleanists,
Imperialists, and Republicans, in their hitherto abortive
attempts to establish a definite form of government,
according to their several ideas of what is best adapted
for France. At the present moment the maintenance of
law and order has been confided by the Assembly to the
hands of Marshal MacMahon, duke of Magenta, for a
period of seven years (Septennate), as president of the
executive ministry. But, unfortunately, this is not a
clearly defined and firmly organised government.
The Septennate has, in fact, made government much
more difficult than before. It has divided the Assembly,
and reduced it to impotence. As the Marshal-President
is also commander-in-chief of the army, his power during
the Septennate is to all intents and purposes that of a
military dictatorship.
320
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
It has been already narrated how two nearly mortal
wounds were inflicted upon France, from which flowed
profusely her blood and treasure. As for the gold, that
can be recovered by industry; but how is the spirit of
the country to be recovered? By the ever-present
thought of her humiliation and her grief, and also by
the firm resolution of forming men and citizens by man-
fully restoring things to their proper places: duty above
everything; responsibility in proportion to liberty and
discipline on all hands, in the family, the city, and the
State. Let that be done, and Frenchmen may re-echo
the last words lately uttered by an illustrious German on
his deathbed, in pointing to France vanquished and
despoiled: "The future is still there.”
6
ABOLITION of Royalty, 273.
Aboukir, Battle of, 280.
Acre, Siege of, 66.
Adalhgis, 26.
Adelbert, Count of Perigord, 47.
Adrian I. (Pope), 25.
Agincourt, Battle of, 133.
Agnadel, Battle of, 173.
Aix-la-Chapelle, 249.
INDEX.
Alain, Duke, 51.
Albigenses, Crusade against the, 69.
Albret, Constable d', 133.
Albret, Jane d', 205, 206.
Alençon, Duke of Anjou, 215.
Alençon, Count d', 100, 102.
Alexander II., Czar of Russia, 312.
Alexander VI. (Pope), 165.
Alexis, Prince (Greek pirate), 68
Algiers, The taking of, 295.
Alliance of the altar and the throne, 292.
Alma, Battle of, 312.
Alva, Duke of, 204.
Alvinzi, General, 279.
Amboise, Conspiracy of, 199.
America, War with, 264.
Amiens, Peace of, 282.
Ancona, Occupation of, 297.
André, Marshal St., 190, 201, 203.
Angoulême, Duke of, 293.
Anjou, Duke of, 124, 125.
Anne of Austria, Regency of, 243.
Anne of France or Beaujeu, 161.
Anne of Muscovy, 50.
Ausegise, 17.
Anthony of Bourbon, 199.
Antioch, Siege of, 56.
Aquitain, 13.
Arc, Joan of, 140.
Arcola, Battle of, 279.
Arles, Battle of, 14.
Armada, The invincible, 219.
Armagnac, Couut of, 134.
Armagnacs, 132.
Armorica, 13.
Arnoulf, Saint, 17, 22.
Arnulf, 39.
Arques, Battle of, 225.
Arras, Battle of, 246.
Arras, Treaty of, 141.
Arteveld, 97, 98.
Arteveld, Philippe, 125.
Arthur of Brittany, 67.
Artois, Robert d', 82, 96, 98.
Asnar, Count of Jacca, 34.
Aubin, Battle of St., 163.
Aucenis, Treaty of, 150.
Audenham, d', 107.
Augsburg, League of, 253.
Aulnay, Gaultier d', 88.
Aulnay, Philip d', 88.
Aumale, Duked' (Francis of Guise), 190.
Auray, Battle of, 119.
Aurelius, Marcus, 31.
Austerlitz, Battle of, 285.
Avignon, Siege of, 72.
BABYLON, The captivity of (sojourn of
the Popes at Avignon), S6; end of, 121.
Baldwin, Count of Flanders, 69.
Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, 52.
Bailly, 269, 271.
Barbarossa, 62, 66.

Barbes, 302.
Barras, 278.
Bartholomew, Massacre of St., 208.
Basques, 33.
Bassano, Battle of, 279.
Bastille, Peace of the, 237.
Bayard, 175, 179, 184.
Baylen, Dupont signs the capitulation
of, 287.
Bazaine, Marshal, 317.
Beaufort, Duke of, 245.
Beaujeu, Pierre de, 161.
Beaulieu, 279.
Becket, Thomas à, 63.
Bedford, Duke of, 138.
Belgians, 9.
Benedict XI., 85.
Bernadotte, 288.
Bernard, 34.
Berri, Arrest of the Duchess de, 299.
Berri, Assassination of the Duke de,291.
Berry, Duke of, 124, 153.
Bertha (Wife of Robert the Pious), 49.
Bertrade (Wife of the Duke of Anjou),
53.
Besme, 209.
Bière, Isle of, 35.
Biron, 228.
Black Death, The, 103.
Black Prince, The (Prince of Wales),
X
...
322
INDEX.
101, 105; gains the Battle of Poitiers,
108; joins Pedro the Cruel against
Henry of Transtamare, 120; expedi-
tion against Limoges and death, 122.
Blanche of Castile, Regency of, 72.
Blanqui, 302.
Blenheim, Battle of, 254.
Blucher, 290.
Bohemia, King of, 101.
Bonaparte, Jerome, 285.
Bonaparte, Joseph, 287.
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 278; his Cam-
paign in Italy, 278; his Expedition
to Egypt, 280; created First Consul,
281; proclaimed Emperor under the
name of Napoleon I., 283; attempts
to conquer Spain, 287; his Marriage,
287; the Russian Campaign of 1814,
289; signs his abdication at Fontaine-
bleau, 289; goes to the Isle of Elba,
290; loses the battle of Waterloo,
290; banished to the island of St.
Helena, 291; death, 291.
Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon, 301; Pre-
sidency of, 308; imprisoned in the
Castle of Hain, 309; made Emperor
under the title of Napoleon III.,
309; his Marriage, 309; capitulated
at Sedan, 317.
Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, 69.
Boniface VIII. (Pope), 81, 84, 85.
Bonnivet, 183, 185.
Boucicault, 118.
Rouillon, Godfrey de, 56.
Bourbon, Constable de, 183, 185, 187.
Bourbon, Duke of, 259.
Bouvines, Battle of, 70.
Bozon, Count of Provence, 36.
Braine, Count de, 111.
Brenneville, Battle of, 58.
Bretagne, 20.
Bretigny, Treaty of, 116.
Bretons, 20.
Brissac, Count de, 218.
Broglie, Marshal de, 260.
Broglie, Ministry of de, 298.
Bruges, Battle of, 125.
Brunehaut, 16.
Bruno, St., 44.
Buch, Captal de, 118.
Burgundian War, 15.
Burgundians, 132, 135.
Burgundy, Duke of, 125, 130, 136.
CADOUDAL, Georges, 282.
Cæsar, Julius, 10.
Cæur, Jacques, 143.
Caillet, 113.
Calais, Siege of, 102; taken from the
English, 196; taken by the Spaniards,
228: given back to France, 229.
Calonne, 264.
Cambray, League of, 173.
Camisards (The), 252.
Campo-Formio, Treaty of, 279.
Canute the Great, King of England, 51.
Capeluche, 136.
Capet, Hugh, 44, 46, 48.
Capetian House of Burgundy, Founda-
tion of the First, 50.
Carbonarism, 292.
Carloman, 19, 23, 36.
Carlovingian Empire, End of, 38.
Carlovingians, Origin of the, 22; end
of the, 45.
Carthage, 77.
Casalecchio, Battle of, 173.
Cassano, Battle of, 254.
Castiglione, Battle of, 279.
Cavaignac, General, 308.
Cellamare, Conspiracy of, 258.
Chalus, Siege of, 67.
Chandos, John, 119.
Charibert I., 16.
Charibert II., 17.
Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus), 24;
Extension of his Empire, 26; War
with the Saxons, 26; created Em-
peror of the West, 27; his death, 28.
Charles the Bald, 33, 36.
Charles the Fat, 37.
Charles the Simple, 40.
Charles the Bad, 113.
Charles, King of Navarre, 105.
Charles IV. (the Fair), 92.
Charles V. (the Wise), 117-123.
Charles VI., 124-137.
Charles VII. (the Victorious), 138-145.
Charles VIII., 161-169.
Charles IX., 201-210.
Charles X., 293-295.
Charles V., of Germany, 181, 186, 194.
Charles of Anjou, 77, 79.
Charles of Blois, 97.
Charles of Lorraine, 47.
Charles of Valois, 79.
Charles the Bold (Duke of Burgundy),
151, 154, 157.
Charolois, Count of, 148.
Chatillon, Battle of, 317.
Chatillon, Jacques de, 82.
Childebert I., 15.
Childebert II., 17.
Childeric III., 23.
Chilperic, 16.
Chlodomir, 15.
Choiseul, Duke de, 261.
Civil War, 202.
Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 270.
Clodowald, 16.
Clement V. (Pope), 86.
Clement VII. (Pope), 187.
Clement Jacques, 221, 224.
Clermont, Council of, 55.
!!
INDEX.
323
Clermont, Jean de, 107.
Clisson, Olivier de, 98, 118, 127.
Cliton, William, 58.
Clothaire I., 15.
Clothaire II., 17.
Clotilda, 13.
Clovis (Founder of the French Empire), Dubois, 257.
12, 14.
Coalition, First, 273.
Cocherel, Battle of, 118.
Colbert, 248, 252.
Coligny, 196, 200, 203, 206, 209.
Colonna, Prosper, 179.
Colonna, Sciarra, 85.
Comines, Philip de (Historian), 167.
Communes, Formation of, 59.
Comnenus, Alexis (Emperor of Greece),
55.
Concini, 231, 234, 238.
Condé, Louis, Prince of, 199, 203, 205.
Condé (Henry II.), 235,
Condé, The Great (Duke of Enghien),
244, 246, 250, 251.
Conflans, Peace of, 149.
Conrad I., 49.
Conrad II., 62.
Constance of Provence, 49.
Constantine, Taking of, 301.
Constantinople, Taking of, 68.
Convention, The, 273.
Corday, Charlotte, 275.
Council of the Ancients, 277.
Council of the 500, 277.
Courtray, Battle of, 83.
Coutras, Battle of, 217.
Craon, Pierre de, 128.
Crato, Antonio de, 215.
Crecy, Battle of, 99.
Crespy, Peace of, 190.
Crevant, Battle of, 138.
Crimean War, 311.
Crusade, The first, 54: second, 62;
third, 66; fourth, 67; sixth, 73;
eighth, 76.
Dagobert I., 17.
Dagobert III., 18.
Damascus, Siege of, 63.
Danton, 272.
Dauphin, Origin of the title, 103.
Day of the 200 Barricades, 245.
Dego, Battle of, 279.
Denain, Battle of, 255.
Denis, St. (Abbey), 17.
Denis, Battle of St., 204.
Desèze, 273.
Desmoulins, Camille, 267.
Diana of Poitiers (Duchess of Valen-
tinois), 190.
Didier, 25.
Dijon, Treaty of, 175.
Directory, The, 278.
Dol, Siege of, 52.
Dormans, Battle of, 213.
Dragonnades, The, 252.
Dreux, Battle of, 203.
Droissy, Battle of, 17.
Druids, The, 10.
Dubois, Pierre, 125.
Duchatel, Tanneguy, 137.
Dugast, 214.
Dumouriez, 273.
Dunkirk, Battle of, 246.
Dunois, Count, 139.
Dupleix, 260.
Dupont, 287.
Duprat, 178.
Duquesne, 250.
Dazazzo, Charles, 125.
ECKEREN, Battle of, 254.
Edward, Prince (of England), 77.
Edward I. of England, 81.
Edward II. of England, 93.
Edward III. of England, 95, 102, 123.
Edward IV. of England, 155.
Eleanore of Guyenne, 60, 63.
Elgiva, 42.
Elizabeth of England, 197.
Eloi, Saint, 18.
Emmanuel, King Victor, 314.
Enghien, Duke d', 244, 283.
England, Expedition agaiust. 70.
Epernon, d', 214, 218, 225, 233.
Erasmus, 190.
Etampes, Duchess d', 189,
Eudes, Count, 37, 39.
FALSTAFF, Sir John, 139.
Family Pact, The, 261.
Fayette, Marquis de la, 264, 265.
Ferdinand the Catholic (King of Spain),
166, 180.
Ferdinand VII., 293, 299.
Feudal System, The, 53.
"Field of the Cloth of Gold," 182.
Fieschi, 300.
Fleurus, Battle of, 276.
Fleury, Cardinal de, 259.
Flodden, Battle of, 175.
Foix, Count of, 78.
Foix, Gaston de, 173.
Fontanet, Battle of, 31.
Fontenoy, Battle of, 259.
Fornova, Battle of, 168.
Foulques, 68.
Fouquet, 248.
France, Feudal, 29, 38.
France, Merovingian, 12.
France begins, True History of, 33.
Francis I., 177-190.
Francis II., 198-201.
François II., 154,
-
!
i
7
324
INDEX.
Franks, 11.
Fredegonde, 16.
Frederick II., 74.
French, Flemish Massacre of, 82.
Friedland, Battle of, 285.
Friedlingen, Battle of, 254.
Fronde, The, 245.
Furnes, Battle of, 81.
GABELLE (Tax), 103.
Galeazzo, 166.
Galigaï, Leonora, 234, 238.
Gallo-Romans, The, 53.
Gauls, 9; their religion, 10.
Gaza, Battle of, 74.
Germanic Empire, Termination of the,
285.
Girondins, The, 271, 274.
Giselle, 41.
Gisors, Battle of, 67.
Gloucester, Duke of, 138.
Godfrey, 27.
God's Truce (League), 52.
Gondemar, King of Burgundy, 15.
Gonthram, 16.
Gonzalvo, 171.
Grace, Edict of, 212.
Greek Pirates, 34.
Grenada, Treaty of, 171.
Grim bald, 22.
Guastalla, Battle of, 259.
Guernsey, 67.
Guesclin, Bertrand Du, 118, 123.
Guinegate, Battle of, 174.
Guiscard, Robert, 54.
Guise, Duke of (D'Aumale), 193, 196,
199, 203.
Guiton, 241.
Guizot, Ministry of, 298.
HAGANON, 42.
Harcourt, Geoffrey d', 99, 106.
Harfleur, Surrender of, 132.
Hastings (Pirate), 36.
Hauteville, Tancred de, 54.
Henry (brother of William the Con-
queror), 51.
Henry I., 50.
Henry II., 190-197.
Henry III., 210-222.
Henry IV. (Henry of Navarre), 216;
reigned 224-232.
Henry I. of England, 58.
Henry II. of England (Plantagenet), 63.
Henry V. of England, 132.
Henry VII. of England, 166.
Henry VIII. of England, 174.
Henry, Duke of Guise (Balafré), 213,
217, 220.
Henrys, The War of the Three, 216.
Herbert, Count de Vermandois, 42.
Ilerispoë, 35.
Heristal, Papin d', 17, 19, 22.
Hermongarde, 25.
Herrings, Battle of, 139.
Hesus, 10.
Hoche, 278.
Hochstadt, Battle of, 254.
Hohenlinden, Battle of, 281.
Holy League, The, 213.
Hôpital, Chancellor l', 200.
Hospitalers, Order of, 88.
Hugh the Fair, 42, 44.
Hugonet, 158.
Huguenots, 200, 202, 214.
Humbercourt, 151, 158.
Humbert, II., the Dauphin of Vienne,
103.
Hundred Days, The, 289.'
Hundred Years' War with the Eng-
lish; begun, 95; ended 144.
IBERIANS, 9.
Ile-en-Jourdain, Baron L', 93.
Innocent III. (Pope), 68, 70.
Innocent IV. (Pope), 75.
Isaac, Emperor of Constantinople, 68.
Isabella of Aragon, 78.
Isabella of Bavaria, 130, 140.
Italy, War in, 313.
Ivry, Battle of, 225.
JACQUERIE, The, 112.
Jarnac, Battle of, 205.
Jena, Battle of, 285.
Jersey, 67.
Jerusalem, Siege of, 56.
Jews, Massacre of, 73.
Joan of Arc, 140.
Joanna, Queen of Naples, 116, 125.
John Lackland, King of England,66, 70.
John the Fearless, 131, 131.
John the Good, 104-117.
John III., Duke, 97.
John of Procida, 79.
Joinville, Prince de, 305.
Joinville, Treaty of, 216.
Jourdan, 278.
Joyeuse, 214.
Julius II. (Pope), 172, 174.
Junot, 286.
Just, St., 275.
KINGDOM of the two Sicilies, 54.
LA HOGUE, Battle off Cape, 253.
Labedoyere, Colonel, 291.
Lacerda, Constable de. 105.
Ladies' Peace, The, 188.
Lamarque, General, 298.
Landais, 163.
Landen, Pepin de, 17, 22.
Landriano, Battle of, 188.
Latilly, Pierre de, 90.
INDEX.
325
Lautrec, 182, 187.
Law, John, 258.
Lawfeld, Battle of, 259.
Leczinsky, Stanislaus, 259.
Legislative Assembly, The, 271.
Leo IX. (Pope), 54.
Leo X. (Pope), 174.
Lettres de Cachet, 262.
Leyva, De, 185.
Liege, Insurrection at, 151.
Lincoln, Battle of, 71.
Lisle-Adam, de, 135.
Liutbart, 38.
Marengo, Battle of, 281.
Margaret, Queen of Navarre, 189.
Margaret of Anjou, 144.
Margaret of Burgundy, SS.
Marie Antoinette, 262, 275.
Marie Theresa of Austria, 249
Marignan, Battle of, 179.
Marigny, Enguerrand de, 90.
Marmosets, The, 127.
Marseilles, Siege of, 184.
Martel, Charles, 19.
Martignac, M. de, 294.
Mary, Queen of Scots, 191, 198.
Mary of Burgundy, 158.
Massena, General, 280.
Lodi, Battle of, 279.
Lonato, Battle of, 279.
London, first Treaty of, 175; second, Matilda (wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet),
302.
58.
Longjumean, Peace of, 264.
Longueville, Duke, de, 175.
Lorraine, Duke of, 157.
Lothaire I., 30-35.
Lothaire, II., 43, 45.
Louis I., 30.
Louis II., 36.
Louis III., 36.
Louis IV., 42.
marriage, 301; death, 303.
Louisa of Savoy, 178.
Louvre, The, 310.
Luneville, Peace of, 282.
Luvois, 249, 252.
Luynes, Albert, 233.
Lyons, 275; Insurrection at, 207.
MACK, General, 284.
MacMahon, General, 314, 313.
Mæander, Battle of, 62.
Magenta, Battle of, 314.
Magna Charta, 70.
Maillart, 114.
Louis V., 45.
Louis VI., 57-59.
Louis VII., 60.64.
Louis VIII., 71, 72,
Louis IX., 72-77.
Louis X., 90, 91.
Louis XI., 146-159.
Louis XII., 169-176.
Louis XIII., 232-243.
Louis XIV., 243-255.
Louis XV., 257-262.
Louis XVI., 262-273.
Mery, Battle of St., 298.
Messina, Siege of, 79.
Metz, 192, 193, 317.
Miguel, Don, 297.
Louis XVIII., 2S9, 291-293.
Louis II. of Naples, 125.
Louis Philippe (Duke of Orleans), 295; Millesimo, Battle of, 279.
Maintenon, Madame de, 252, 255.
Maison, General, 294.
Malesherbes, 273, 275.
Malplaquet, Battle of, 254.
Mansourah, Battle of, 76.
Marat, 274.
Marcel, Etienne, 110, 114.
Mauger (brother of William the Con-
queror), 51.
Maurepas, 263.
Maurevel, 208.
Maurice of Saxe, 192.
Maximilian of Austria, 158.
Maximilian, Archduke, 315.
Mayenne, Duke of, 221, 224, 228.
Mazarin, Jules, 213, 247.
Medici, Catherine de', 188, 198, 201
Medici, Mary de', 231, 232, 238.
Medici, Pietrode, 167.
Megrin, St., 214
Merchants' Truce, The, 156.
Méré, Poltrot de, 203.
Merlin, 274.
Meroveus, 12.
Merovingian dynasty, End of, 19.
Merovingians, 14.
Mirabeau, 267, 271.
Molai, De, 87.
Molé, M., 300.
Moncontour, Battle of, 206.
Mondovi, Battle of, 279.
Mons-en-Puelle, Battle of, 84.
Montaigu, Pierre de, 127, 129.
Montebello, Battle of, 313.
Montenotte, Battle of, 279.
Montesquiou, 206.
Montfort, John de, 97, 119.
Montfort, Simon de, 70.
Montgomery, Count, 197.
Montiel, Battle of, 121.
Montlheri, Battle of, 149.
Montmorency, Constable de, 190, 201
204.
Montpellier, Siege of, 239.
Montpensier, 304.
Montpensier, Gilbert de, 168.
Moreau, 278, 281.
pagmama
*
326
INDEX.
Mortier, Marshal, 300.
Moskowa, Moscow or, Battle of, 288.
Mount Thabor, Battle of, 280.
Mühlberg, Battle of, 190.
Muret, Battle of, 70.
Murtzupple, 68.
the, 252.
Nantil, Captain, 292.
National Assembly, The, 265, 269.
Navarino, Battle of, 294.
Necker, 263, 267.
Nelson, Lord, 280.
Nemours, Duke of, 225.
Nemours, Duke de, 301, 304.
Nesle, Massacre at, 153.
Nesle, Raoul de, 80, 82.
Nevers, Louis de, 97.
Ney, Marshal, 290, 291.
Nicholas, Czar of Russia, 311.
Nimeguen, Peace of, 250.
Nogaret, William de, 85, 90.
Nomenoë, 34.
Normandy, The Dukes of, 50.
Normans, The, 34.
Notre Dame, 64.
Noureddin, 61.
Noyon, Treaty of, 181.
NAJARA, Battle of, 120.
Nantes, Edict of, 229; revocation of Pharamond, 12.
OGMIUS, 10.
Orange, Prince of, 163.
Orange, Prince of (afterwards William
III. of England), 250, 253.
Orleans, Duke of (afterwards Louis
XII.), 162.
Orleans, Duke of, 246.
Orleans, Duke of, 257, 259.
Orleans, first siege of, 139; second siege
of, 203.
Otho, Emperor of Germany, 43.
Otho, II., 44.
Otho, IV., 68.
Oudenarde, Battle of, 254.
Oyssel, Isle of, 35.
Pepin, 19.
Pepin (the Short), 22.
Pepin II., 35.
Périer, Casimir (Minister), 297.
Peronne, Castle of, 42.
Peronne, Treaty of, 154.
Perpetual Peace, The, 180.
Peter the Hermit, 55.
PALICE, La, 173, 185.
Pardon, Field of, 106.
Paris (Lutetia), 14, 35; famine in, 226;
first siege of, 318; second siege of, 319.
Paris, Count of, 301.
Parma, Battle of, 259.
Parma, Duke of, 226.
Passau, Treaty of, 192.
Paul IV. (Pope), 194.
Paule, Francis de, 159.
Pavia, Battle of, 185.
Pecquigny, Treaty of, 156.
Pedro III. of Aragon, 79.
Pedro the Cruel, 120.
Pepin, The Family of, 15.
Philibert-Emanuel, 195.
Philip I., 52-57.
Philip II. (Augustus), 65-71.
Philip III., 78-80.
Philip IV., 80-89.
Philip V., 91, 92.
Philip VI., 95-104.
Philip (son of Louis VI.), 59.
Philip the Bold, 108.
Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy,
146.
Philip II. of Spain, 194, 215.
Pichegru, 282.
Poitiers, Battle of, 106.
Poitiers, Count of, 47.
Polignac, Prince Jules de, 294.
Presle, Raoul de, 90.
Primitive Populations, 9.
Prussia, War against, 315.
Public Good, League of the, 147.
Pyramids, Battles of the, 280.
QUATRE Bras, Battle of, 290.
Quentin, Battle of St., 195.
RAMILIES, Battle of, 254.
Raoul, Duke of Burgundy, 42.
Rastadt, Treaty of, 255.
Raucoux, Battle of, 259.
Ravaillac, 232.
Ravenna, Battle of, 173.
Regency of the Duke of Orleans, 257-
259.
Reichstadt, Duke of, 287, 298.
Reign of Terror, The, 273-276.
Religious Wars, The, 198.
Rennes, Siege of, 164.
Reorganization of France by Henry
IV., 230.
Republic, The, 273.
Republic of 1848, The, 307.
Restoration, The First, 289; Second,
291.
Rethel, Battle of, 246.
Retz, Cardinal de, 246.
Revolution of 1830, 295.
Revolution of 1848, 305.
Rhine, The, 11.
Rhine, The League of the, 285.
Richard III., 50.
Richard Coeur de Lion, 66.
Richelien, Bishop of Lugon, 236, 210,
242.
INDEX.
327
Rienzi, 125.
Revoli, Battle of, 279.
Robert, Duke of France, 42.
Robert (le Diable), 50.
Robert the Pious, 48, 49.
Robert the Strong, 39.
Robespierre, 274.
Rochambeau, 264.
Rochefoucauld Liancourt, Duke de la,
267.
Rochelle, first siege of, 210; second
siege of, 241.
Rocroy, Battle of, 244.
Roger-Ducos, 281.
Rohan, Duke of, 235.
Roland, Madame, 275.
Rollo, 37, 40.
Rome, 10; Sack of, 187.
Rosbach, Battle of, 260.
Rosebec, Battle of, 126.
Rouen, fire at, 34; siege of, 226.
Ryswick, Treaty of, 253.
SAINT-POL, 155.
Saintes, Battle of, 74.
Saladin, 66.
Salic Law, The, 20.
Salisbury, Earl of, 139
Sancerre, Siege of, 210.
Saracens, 19, 34, 54.
Savoisy, 124.
Savonarola (a Dominican monk), 169.
Saxons, 25.
Sebastopol, Siege of, 312.
Secret Societies, 292.
Sedan, Capitulation of, 317.
Sedecias, 36.
Sénef, Battle of, 250.
Septennate, The, 319.
Sforza, Ludovico, 166, 170, 171.
Sforza, Maximilian, 174, 180.
Sicilian Vespers (Massacre), 79.
Siéyès Abbé, 265, 271, 281.
Sigebert, 16.
Sigismund, King of Burgundy, 15.
Sluys, Battle of, 97.
Smith, Sir Sydney, 280,
Soliman, 188.
Soult, Larshal, 289, 302.
Spanish Expedition, The, 293.
Spanish Succession, The, 254.
Spires, Battle of, 254.
Spurs, Battle of the, 175,
States-general, The, 89.
Stephen IV., 30.
Strasbourg Oath, The, 32.
Strasburg, 317.
Struggle between the Court and the
Parliament, 301.
Suffolk, Earl of, 139.
Suger, Abbé, 60.
Sully, Duke of, 229, 230, 233.
Sylvester (Pope), 55.
TAILLEBOURG, Battle of, 74.
Talbot, Lord, 139, 144.
Talleyrand, 289.
Tavannes, 205, 209.
Tellier, Le, 257.
Templars, The, 87.
Terray, The Abbé, 261.
Teutates, 10.
Theodebert II., 17. ·
Theodoric the Great, 14.
Thibaud, Count of Champagne, 60, 72,
74, 78.
Thierry I., 15.
Thierry II., 17.
Thierry III., 21.
Thierry IV., 18, 22.
Thiers, Ministry of, 298; made Presi-
dent of the Republic, 319.
Three Bishopricks, The, 192.
Tiberias, Battle of, 66.
Tilsit, Peace of, 285.
Tolbiac, Battle of, 13.
Toulouse, Battle of, 289.
Tourvill, 253.
Trafalgar, Battle of, 284.
Trajan, 31.
Tremoille, La, 163, 171, 174, 185.
Treves, 11.
Triumph of Absolute Royalty, 248,
Tuchins, 125.
Turenne, 246, 251,
Turgot, M., 263.
URBAIN II. (Pope), 55.
Urbino, Duke d', 187.
Ushant, Battle off, 264.
Utrecht, Treaty of, 255.
VAL des Dunes, Battle of, 51.
Valentina of Milan, 131.
Varnachaire, 18.
Vassy Massacre, The, 202,
Vauban, 251.
Vaudemont, René de, 157.
Vengeur, Le, 277.
Verdun, Treaty of, 32.
Vergue, 205.
Verneuil, Battle of, 138.
Versailles, Treaty of, 264.
Vervins, Sire de, 191.
Vienna, Peace of, 287.
Vienne, John de, 102,
Villafranca, Peace of, 313.
Villaret-Joyeuse, 277.
Villars, 252.
Villeneuve, Admiral, 284.
Villequier, 214.
Vinci, Leonardo da, 190,
Visigoths, 13,
Vitry, 238.
328
INDEX.
ཞ་
•
WAGRAM, Battle of, 287
Walchernen, Isle of, 34.
Walter the Pennyless, 55.
Waterloo, Battle of, 290.
Wellington, Duke of, 289.
White Hoods, 125.
White Ship, Catastrophe of the, 58.
White Terror, The, 291.
William (Longue Epée), 41.
William the Conqueror, 51-53.
William Rufus, King of England, 53,
William of Poitiers, 56.
Wolsey, Cardinal, 182.
Wurmser, 279.
YOLANDE of Sicily, 138.
ZIRICKZEE, Battle of, 84.
Zurich, Treaty of, 313,
Zwentibold, 39.
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